JogBlog running blog

Zalando’s logo says it’s ‘the online shoe shop’. It isn’t, it sells loads of stuff. As well as shoes, it sells women’s clothes and men’s clothes and children’s clothes and bags and jewellery and – what I was after – running gear.

The site is easy to navigate down to your chosen department. As I need some new running gear to see me through the winter, especially with my London Marathon training and Janathon coming up, I looked for a long-sleeved top and some long running tights.

Most of the clothes on the site are in the upper price bracket (with most of the more affordable ones being out of stock in my size) but I did find a pair of tights and a long-sleeved top that I liked and weren’t either XS or XL that together came to £55. I went through the process of ordering (PayPal is an option which is a bonus to me – no need to look for my credit card details) but the website didn’t like my address and kept deleting the house name (I live in one of those stupid countryside houses that don’t have numbers).

Fortunately, Zalando had given me the opportunity of reviewing these products, so I emailed the owner of the site and told her the problem with the site accepting my address (if I had been ordering with my own money, I’d have gone somewhere else).

She got in contact with their customer services who said it was probably because my house has a name and not a number (this reminds me of my first job that was at a courier company called ‘On Yer Bike’ and they used to advertise for riders with the slogan ‘be a name not a number’ and then they’d all be given a number anyway, then they’d give themselves nicknames like ‘Cage’, ‘Digger’ and ‘Major Tom’ [sorry, where was I? Oh yes, running stuff]) and that she’d ask them to change it manually.

I went back to the site and my basket was empty and so I went back to find what I had previously ordered but neither the top nor the tights were there anymore so I looked for alternatives that were within my price range. I couldn’t find any tights that I liked the look of (they were all completely black) and the price of but settled on a pair of Reebok running tights with green trim for £37 (much more than I’d normally pay for a pair of running tights)

and a red long-sleeved Nike top for £22 (the same top in pink was £30 – huh?).

So, a total of £59 for both items. Far more than I’d usually pay for two items (since venturing bravely into Sports Direct in the High Street, I am now a fan – massive bargains to be had in there if you can bear the hordes of chavs and the shop’s illogical and almost impenetrable layout) but there is the bonus of free delivery. A downside to the free delivery is that the website states your order will be with you between 5-7 working days and if I’m ordering from a website, I expect my stuff to be with me quickly, i.e. within the next three days but ideally within 48 hours. It’s also delivered by courier and not Royal Mail, so if you’re not in, you’ll have to rearrange delivery (although they will attempt to deliver three times before taking it back to the depot).

My address had been changed to show the house name but now the road name was above the house name. Worried that the delivery driver wouldn’t be able to find the house (as even with the most specific directions, a lot of delivery people can’t find it even if you draw them a map with arrows pointing to it (but the pizza delivery dudes can always find it and that’s the main thing), I edited it so the address was showing the name and road in the right order but this messed it up again and deleted the house name.

I emailed them again to tell them this had happened and was told it was something about them being in Germany and they’d sort it for me. I went back to the site, re-ordered my gear, saw my address was looking normal and paid for my order.

I was in Paris when my order arrived but the driver had left a note saying it was in the woodshed, which is fine with me. The tights and running top were comfortable and fitted perfectly and I took them for a run on Christmas Day. Well, I say ‘run’, what I really mean is a bit of a shuffle for 1.5 miles. Now that Christmas is over, I suppose I’d better stop over-drinking and over-cheese-eating and get myself back on the road and back into the gym.

Oh, and don’t forget to sign up for Janathon. Slacking isn’t an option.

Late as usual (had planned to get the website set up in August, hmm…), didn’t get the t-shirts done as usual, but the entries for Janathon 2012 are now open!

Alcohol-free Friday: yep

Good night’s sleep: yep-ish

Up early: yep-ish

Nagged by Cassie on Twitter to go for a run: hell yeah!

The above are the basic requirements for me to go for a run. Having a marathon to train for is also a pretty basic requirement for getting me to go for a run. And although my marathon training schedule doesn’t officially start until 19 December (or ‘flapjack day’ as I’m calling it, due to Cassie refusing to send me any of her gorgeous flapjacks until I officially start training), my training schedule starts off with a 3 mile run, a 5 mile run and a long run of 8 miles and seeing as I haven’t run for over two weeks and even then that was only a pitiful 1.67 miles and the only running I did before that was a half marathon two weeks earlier which I strolled round in a ridiculously slow time.

That’s a bit of a ramble, but what I’m trying to say is that I’ve got a lot of catching up to do to be marathon-training fit.

I did want to wear my new Adidas Solution running shoes

but because it was raining heavily and I want to keep them for the gym and I don’t want to wear muddy trainers to the gym, I wore my usual Asics, which was a good idea because when I got to the trail that finishes at a ditch, the ditch was full of water and I had to do a mini-Grim to get to the other side (when I say a mini-Grim, I mean I had to splash through a small puddle).

After completing my mini-Grim, I ran the last mile down the track where I usually see a couple of dog-walkers and runners. Today’s dog-walker was a miserable old boot of a woman who gave me a dirty look, or at least, she looked like a miserable old boot of a woman, she may well have plenty to be miserable about for all I know, or maybe she was just miserable because she had a stupid small dog with her and not a proper size dog like an Irish Wolfhound or a Dalmation.

Next to pass me was the man I see quite often out running who never smiles or says hello. He’s usually wearing normal running gear but today he was wearing long camouflage combat trousers and a thick sweatshirt and I wondered if maybe he was training for some hardcore race or something or maybe he’s just a wuss and then I saw a girl running towards me wearing shoes and a skirt and carrying a handbag and then she got nearer and I saw that she wasn’t wearing shoes, she was wearing running shoes and then I saw that she wasn’t wearing a skirt, she was wearing shorts and then I saw that she wasn’t carrying a handbag, she was carrying two Tesco carrier bags and then I saw that it wasn’t a she after all, but a man with long hair and he must be fitting in a run with doing his shopping and I thought that maybe I should wear my glasses when I’m out running.

Stats
Distance: 3.01 miles
Time: 33:47
Pace: 11:15 m/m
Calories: 316
Basic requirements for me to go for a run: 4
Basic requirements achieved today: 4
Flapjack days: not yet, meh
Pairs of new running shoes: 1
Pairs of new running shoes worn today: 0
Mini-Grims: 1
Miserable old boots with stupid size dogs: 1
Runners wearing camouflage combats and sweatshirts: 1
Girls turning into boys: 1
Pairs of glasses worn while out running: 0
Music
Philip Glass
Mansun

I was on Twitter many months ago and someone (can’t remember who) mentioned that each month Women’s Running Magazine feature a reader who had written in with a ‘Your Story’ article.

I thought I’d have a go and I sent off my article in April about how I went from smelly smoker to (ahem) superfit athlete, and a few weeks ago the editor emailed me to say they’d be running it in their December issue.

Whoop whoop!

It was out last Thursday, 27 October, so go and get your copy now (or just sneak a peek at page 22, poke the person next to you, point to my photo and say ‘I know her’).

And while I’m plugging myself, I’d like to give a plug to Which Protein, as a) it has a very personal touch for a protein supplement website; and b) then the bloke who owns it might do Janathon.

Stats
JogBlogs in glossy magazines: 1
Plugs for protein websites: 1

Although it doesn’t take much for me to reach for the central heating controls, I don’t usually reach for the long running tights, long sleeve tops and gloves until it’s proper cold. Like minus-something cold. But, if it had been minus-something cold today and I wanted to wear some gloves, I would have worn these eGlove Running Gloves.

These gloves aren’t just gloves, they’re gadgety gloves. And they’re not just gadgety gloves, they’re gadgety gloves for a gadget.

They’ve got stuff (yes, that’s a technical term) on the fingers so you can use your iPod or iPhone or iPad or iTouch (or any touch screen device) while you’re out on a run or out cycling without taking your gloves off (although, why you’d take an iPad out with you on a run, I don’t know).

I’ve tried them indoors on my touch-screen Shuffle and they work brilliantly.

Like I said, I didn’t wear my eGloves today but I did go out for a run. I don’t know if I don’t go past many trees on the way into town, or maybe they’re the wrong type of trees, but my running route today was mostly on a carpet of gold and amber and I’d forgotten that the only bearable thing about the end of summer is the colour of autumn.

Stats
Distance: 1.67 miles
Time: 17:39
Pace: 10:33
Calories: 176
Pairs of super-cool gadgety gloves for a gadget: 1
Bearable things about the end of summer: 1

The sun was up, the sky was blue, it was beautiful and so was I, and when I stopped paraphrasing Siouxsie and the Banshees (not a Beatles fan, sorry), I decided to go running over the fields.

As soon as I started lumbering running, my tooth started to hurt and it reminded me of the time I was at work and a girl there said ‘there’s nothing worse than toothache’ and when I replied with ‘people with cancer might disagree with you’ was met with a blank look as she swiftly turned round and carried on the usual bunch-of-women-in-an-office conversation about husbands, kids, food shopping and X-Factor and then I went through the first field and over the stile and in the next field standing by the gate were a load of sheep and most of them gaily skipped through the gate except for this one sheep who just stood there and so I stopped and he took a step forward and I thought he was going to go through the gate and I could follow him and so I took a step forward but then he stopped to let me go first and so I stopped to let him go first instead and it ended up in a ‘no, you go first’, ‘no YOU go first’ typically British situation and I didn’t really want to end up in a side-to-side dance on the pavement thing with a sheep and so I went through the gate first and he followed me through and I got to the next field and oh fuck, like this time last year, the farmer had furrowed his field again and I thought to myself, if there’s a sign that says ‘footpath’ the least it could do is have a fucking path on the other side of it and not twenty acres of mud and so I trudged through the mud in the general direction I thought the next stile was but I couldn’t see it and when I got over the next little bridge the next field was also all mud and I wasn’t happy and I turned round and I didn’t want to do a Plan B run as I was pissed off by then and just wanted to go back but I didn’t go back the way I came, but did a little detour along the road and as I went down the nice downhill open stretch bit there was a learner driver stopped in the road and the cars couldn’t get around it and I rubbernecked while I went past to see what was up with the driver and briefly pondered if I should stop and pretend to do my laces up so I could get a proper look but there didn’t seem to be anything up with her and she was just sitting there and not thumping her fists frustratedly on the steering wheel like I would have been if I had forgotten where the go-forward-and-stop-holding-up-the-traffic-behind-you-pedal was and I carried on running down the hill and I got home severely pissed off that my training run was scuppered by the field full of mud.

I’m not going to start this blog by saying I have been running, honest.

Oh, I just did. Oops.

Anyway, I can never think of how to start a blog post; thinking of a title’s hard enough [so hard that sometimes I just revert to lyrics from obscure songs [for ‘obscure’ read ‘unpopular’] that no one ever gets the reference to] so that will just have to do.

A while ago, I lost one of the little rubbery bits on my headphones that go in your ear. I put the larger ones on but they keep falling out as I obviously have little titchy tiny girly ears. It’s either that or I just have really sweaty ears that keep pushing the larger ones out. We’ll go for the former, eh? I was fed up with them falling out all the time, so looked around for some new ones and thought about getting some Sennheisers but the ones within what I wanted to spend didn’t look like they were in-ear ones, and I NEED in-ear ones to cut out the noise from people on the train annoying me by talking to each other (I mean, really? How dare they have a conversation) or on their mobiles (see previous comment). Although I’d never had any before, I quite fancied some of those over-the-ear ones, as I’d heard they do actually stay on. These Panasonic ones seemed to fit the bill as they’re in-ear and over-ear, and also really cheap.

And they’re brill.

They don’t move at all when they’re on and they’re so comfy, you don’t even notice they’re there (I really want to put a ‘their’ in there somewhere but don’t know where). As far as I can tell, the sound’s quality’s good but I wouldn’t exactly call myself an audiophile, so don’t sue me if you buy these and then tell me you "can hear a coloration that in my experience has shown to indicate a treble peak” [I obviously nicked that from somewhere. If you want more lovely words I don’t understand pretentiousness, you’ll find it here].

With my lovely new headphones in place, I set out the door for my run. Although, from inside the house, the world outside looked dull and grey, once outside, the sun was out and I wondered if I should go over the fields for a change but then I thought no, I only did intervals the other day and I need to get the miles in and not the really really really slow miles I will do if I go over fields and so I set off down the road then down the cycle path then past the vets and to the traffic lights and there was a woman at the traffic lights with her little girl in a buggy and we were waiting for the lights to change and while we were waiting there was a big gap in the traffic, big enough for me to run across without the risk of getting squished but I didn’t want to set a bad example to the little girl as then her mum would have to explain that I was naughty crossing the road before waiting for the green man and then if I ever saw them again the little girl would point and say LOOK MUMMY, THERE’S THAT NAUGHTY WOMAN WHO CROSSED THE ROAD WITHOUT WAITING FOR THE GREEN MAN and everyone in the immediate vicinity would turn and look and point and give me the evils and I’d be forever known as the Girl Who Didn’t Wait For the Green Man and so I stand there thanking Garmin for the autopause feature and the lights change and we all cross, safe and sound with reputations and integrity intact, and I get to the narrow, lonely and deserted trail and there’s a man.

Without a dog.

And I think waa, there’s a man without a dog, where do you think you’re going? you’re not allowed down the narrow, lonely and deserted trail without a dog and then I think it’s quite sad that if women (and I know it’s not just me, I’ve seen this mentioned on other women’s blogs) see a man without a dog in a wooded/grassy area without a dog we think RAPIST but then if we see a man in a wooded/grassy area with a dog we think AW, NICE MAN WITH NICE DOGGY and it reminded me of a few weeks ago when just after the looters (I refuse to call them rioters. Rioters are protesting about something. This lot weren’t protesting about anything, they were just twats [violent, thuggish twats, but twats nonetheless]) and I was out for a run and I saw a couple of young lads on bikes and I looked at them with pure suspicion although we didn’t have any looting anywhere near us and then that reminded me of the London bombings when anyone with a rucksack was regarded very suspiciously and if you looked a bit foreign then a) you were probably a Muslim; and b) about to blow the whole of London up (and possibly a few unlucky home counties along with it).

I continue on my run without suspecting any more men of being rapists, young lads on bikes of being looters or people who look a bit foreign of being terrorists and get to the sheep field and there’s a load of acorns on the ground and I think of that saying about from little acorns, great oaks are grown (or something like that) and I think from run/walk beginner’s schedules, marathons are run and I think that’s pretty deep for me and I try to think of a simile or metaphor for acorns but I can only think of big, shiny, round bogies and I think oh, maybe I’m not so deep after all.

Stats
Distance: 4.01 miles
Time: 47:08
Pace: 11:45 m/m
Calories: 421
Titchy tiny little girly ears: 2
New headphones: 1
Little girls set a good example to: 1
Girls Who Didn’t Wait For The Green Man: 0
Men who probably aren’t rapists: 1
Young lads who probably aren’t looters: some
People who look a bit foreign who probably aren’t terrorists: a few
Deep meaningful similes to describe acorns: 0

I didn’t slack on Saturday. While thereisasixpackunderhere and Travelling Hopefully were out doing their very first ever parkruns, I was out running in the pouring rain. My kit got so wet, it was still wet two days later and came out of the washing machine drier than it went in.

So, that was 6 miles on Saturday, and on Monday, I went to the gym and did Audiofuel’s Thru the Gears on the treadmill.

A few weeks ago, iliketocount and I went down to investigate the nearest part of the Royal Military Canal to see if it was a suitable place to run. It runs for 28 miles from Seabrook in Kent to Cliff End in East Sussex and I had hoped it would all be towpath, but the bit near us only has a bit over two miles of track and the rest is grass. Ho hum.

Still, as it was such a nice day outside yesterday, I decided to cycle five miles down to the canal and do my scheduled five mile run there.

After the decision came the dilemmas. I really wanted to take my camera to get some pics of the canal and any cows I saw but didn’t want to run with my camera, so I decided to take my iPhone with me in my Belkin armband.

As I was going to be cycling 11 miles and running 5 miles, I thought I’d better take some water but as I  was going on my mountain bike due to it having more gears and I didn’t fancy struggling up the hills like I do on my lady of the manor bike, I didn’t have anywhere to put a water bottle (ahem, iliketocount… can you put a water bottle holder on my mountain bike please?) so I decided to wear my new outdoors/cycling jacket which has deep pockets and carry it in that and then I’d take a carrier bag and put my jacket and water bottle in that and leave it with my bike and hope it doesn’t get stolen while I’m running. House keys would go in my Karrimor wrist wallet. I hoped that with an armband, wristband and trion:z bracelet on one arm, and a Garmin on the other, I’d a) still manage to run with all that extra weight; and b) not get laughed at for looking like a complete twat.

Swallowing my pride, I cycled down to the canal, locked my bike up, shoved the carrier bag containing my jacket and water bottle behind my bike and started off on my run.

All was well until I got to the field of shit. iliketocount and I had passed this field the other week and all the shit was in one big pile quite far away and although we could smell it, it wasn’t overpowering. Since then, the farmer had spread the shit all over the field and IT FUCKING STANK. Think of the stinkiest festival toilet you’ve ever smelt and multiply that by one thousand and you still won’t be close. I didn’t stop to take a picture due to fear of my iPhone getting contaminated.

Once I got past the field of shit, things were a bit more pleasant and I was happily running along until I got to a bridge

and on the other side of the bridge, the track had run out and so I had to run on grass, not my favourite thing to run on.

A little bit further up, just as I was coming up to 2.5 miles, the point at which I was going to turn around and come back, was some info about the canal

On the way back down, I noticed some black things strung up on poles. Thinking they were bin bags, I was reminded of the time I mistook a Muslim girl who was kneeling on the floor praying, for a bin bag and went over for a closer look. EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEK, THERE WERE SEVEN OR EIGHT DEAD CROWS STRUNG UP ON POLES.

I assumed they must be strung up there to warn other crows not to fuck around with the corn or wheat or whatever yellowy countryside stuff it is that’s being grown there.

I left the field of dead crows and got back to my bike where I was greeted by LOTS OF COWS. Yay. There were cows to my left

and cows to my right

which kind of made up a bit for the dead crows but I’d still like to shoot the farmer who shot the crows and string him up to a pole and see how he likes it.

I cycled back home and managed to cycle up the road I usually walk up (Helsbels can vouch for its steepness) and while I was going down the smallest country lane in the world ever (which also happens to be iliketocount’s favourite lane to run down and one which he says no traffic will ever ever ever go down) a huge tractor thing carrying about twenty thousand bales of hay or straw or whatever yellowy countryside stuff it was looms up behind me and so I stop and go off to the side and it’s so tight, I get off my bike and I don’t want to step backwards too far in case I go down a ditch and I’m holding the bike tight towards me and I’m pulling my arms in and holding my stomach in and even holding my eyeballs in to make me smaller and give him more room to get past and he squeezes past me so close, the straw or hay or whatever it was almost brushes my nose and after the huge tractor thing has gone I carry on and get home slightly knackered but feeling quite hardcore.

Stats
Cycling
Distance: 11.56 miles
Time: 1:19:22
Speed: 8.85mph
Calories: 359

Running
Distance: 5.01miles
Time: long time
Speed: not much speed
Calories: 431

Eight weeks ago I started a 12 week half-marathon training schedule, extending it to 19 weeks, so if I had to skip a run or two, I could repeat that week. I was doing really well up to week 7; I hadn’t skipped a single day but then at the end of week 7, I was supposed to do a 7 mile run. I hadn’t done a 7 mile run since the first time I trained for the Royal Parks Half back in 2008 and so that wasn’t a run to be skipped.

But I skipped it.

Oops.

But I have excuses! Of course I have excuses, don’t I always? My excuse is that I had a 5k the day before and therefore needed to rest the day after, plus before I did the 5k, I did body pump for the first time in three weeks and man, did I ache the next day.

That was a week ago and I haven’t really done any running since, except for a 4.27 mile run last Tuesday that was practically at walking pace. What happened to the 9:48 minute miles I’d done just a few days previously?

Bah.

Last Saturday’s scheduled 8 miles was postponed due to going to Hyde Park to meet up with some of my fellow Juneathoners for our post-Juneathon picnic (four of them were hardcore enough to have a run first. Abradypus was extra hardcore, having already done a Park Run and then running from Liverpool Street to Hyde Park. Me, I sat down, opened a can of Pimms and tucked into the stuffed vine leaves and hummous).

This morning, I didn’t have the energy to catch up on one of my missed long runs. I didn’t even have the energy to do the 5 miles it had on my schedule for today, so I decided to do some intervals, incorporating them into a 3 mile run.

So that’s what I did.

This weekend, I’ll have to catch up on my missed miles and go for a 7 miler. In the meantime, tonight I’m going to Talking Twitter with Grace Dent and tomorrow I’m having one of my short stories read out at Are You Sitting Comfortably, a local event organised by White Rabbit.

See that bit where it says “an evening of short stories written by local writers”? That’s me, that is!

I may be a bit excited.

Stats
Distance: 3.02 miles
Time: 34:43
Pace: 11:30 m/m
Calories: 317
post-Juneathon picnics: 1
Long runs skipped: 2
Mes a bit excited: 1

Yesterday I cycled down to Woodchurch to have a look at the Windmill there. It’s a very nice windmill and I took lots of photos, like this one

which was brazenly stolen from my Facebook page by Fitographer who doctored it in Photoshop and said, hey, look what I did to your photo (or words to that effect) and this is what he did

and I was so impressed with what he did to my photo that I made it into my Facebook profile picture but that was yesterday and today I ran(ish) 4.2 miles.

Stats
Cycling:
Distance: 10.73 miles
Time: 1:08:09
Speed: 9.4 mph
Calories: 326
Windmills: 1
Windmill photos stolen and improved: 1

Running
Distance: 4.27 miles
Time: slow
Pace: slow
Calories: 406