JogBlog running blog

We have riveting conversations in this house. Like, who gets to eat the last banana? I said it should be me because I was going to the gym and needed a banana smoothie beforehand and Shaun thought it should be him because he eats the exact same food items every single day, except for his evening meal, where he usually gets something different every single day, as I do most of the cooking.

But then I remembered my new animal bowls and so I thought ‘aha, I can have cereal and use one of my new bowls, hooray’ and so I relented and let Shaun have the last banana.

So, this morning, after I’d had my tea, I merrily skipped off to the kitchen to choose which animal bowl I was going to use.

Aarrgghh, dilemma! Because there’s been a huge demand for pig and cat bowls, Shaun couldn’t get me a full set, and so I didn’t have the corresponding pig bowl to go with the pig mug I had already used for my tea

but as I have all my animal mugs lined up in a row on the kitchen windowsill, I looked to see what tomorrow’s mug will be (they get used in the order they are on the windowsill, with no deviation allowed; accidental deviation occurred a few weeks ago and we couldn’t come to an agreement on how to reset the system; I wanted to start again from the beginning,  Shaun said I should, the following week, skip the one I had used twice. [A photo has been taken  now of the order they’re in and no more deviation can take place]) and tomorrow’s mug is the dog mug

and hurrah, one of the two new bowls was the dog bowl (it has just occurred to me that tomorrow I will be eating out of a dog bowl, hmm)

and so although today was quite stressful what with having to eat my cereal out of a horse bowl

when I’d drunk my tea out of a pig mug, at least equilibrium will be restored tomorrow.

Phew.

Luckily there were no more dilemmas to tax my brain on the way to the gym (although my jaw dropped a bit as I overtook a woman yelling at her daughter that she was a ‘thickhead’) and I got there early and went on the rowing machine and a fake-tanned peroxide-headed girl came in wearing sunglasses. Not normal glasses that react and might have gone dark in the bright light but proper big oversized chavvy ones. Still wearing her oversized sunglasses, she plonked her oversized handbag on the floor, laid down on the exercise mat, did about three sit-ups, got up, picked up her bag and wandered off.

I did my spin class with a surprising amount of energy (must be true what they say then about needing fuel to exercise), then got on the treadmill to do Thru the Gears and managed to go faster and faster right ‘til the very end (ok, the very end is only about 13 minutes away from the beginning but I usually slack off and walk for a bit before speeding up again).

After I’d finished on the treadmill, I went back into the changing rooms where there were two young boys about five years old sitting on the bench. I was cycling back in my gym gear so it wasn’t much of a problem, although I wasn’t completely happy about there being young boys in there. But if I had wanted to get changed, I’d have had to go into a cubicle as I wouldn’t have wanted to strip in front of them. When I got home, I asked on Twitter if people thought it was ok to have boys in the changing room and 99% said yes (unsurprisingly, they were all female parents) and although the majority were against me, the more I thought about it, the more I thought no, they shouldn’t have been there. My gym has brilliant facilities and there is a crèche for them to use and as children don’t go in the gym, if they’d been in the swimming pool, then they should have used the swimming pool changing rooms which are communal and no nudity is allowed outside the cubicles. So, if these parents think it’s ok for young boys to be in a room where there are women changing, it must be ok for their young daughters to also be in a room where there are men changing? I’m pretty sure most blokes wouldn’t want to strip off in front of a five year old girl.

Weird.

Stats (cycling)
Distance: 5 miles
Time: 30 minutes
Speed: 10mph

Rowing machine
20 minutes

Spin
Time: 45 minutes

Treadmill
Distance: 1.22 miles
Time: 14:31

My getting up early thing yesterday must have been a fluke, as today I didn’t get up ‘til 9, and that was only because I had a spin class at 10:30 and it takes me over an hour to leave the house and so I got up and looked out the window and sitting in the driveway, instead of the car that Shaun had been driving to replace his normal one was his usual car, covered in bird-poo and although I hadn’t asked Shaun where his car was, it didn’t occur to me that he’d sent it off to get covered in shit and be returned in the early hours of the morning.

After I’d finished pondering the poo mystery, I got my stuff together and went to the gym. As I’d got up late, I didn’t get much time to do anything else before the class, so just did eight minutes on the rowing machine then went and did the class, then I got back on the rowing machine to make it up to twenty minutes and two men got on the machines either side of me and I turned round and there was a whole row of machines behind me that were empty and I wondered if I should tell them the concept of personal space but I only had three minutes to be annoyed and then I wanted to go and do Thru the Gears on the treadmill but Lightning Blue Eyes by Secret Machines came on my iPod

and I thought ooooooooooooooh, I must listen to this first and so I walked on the treadmill while Secret Machines were playing and then I did Thru the Gears and I must have been putting some effort into it, despite what my pace says, as I was sweating buckets and then I went shopping and bought the most unromantic anniversary present in the world ever.

Ho hum.

Stats
Cycling: 5 miles / 30 minutes
Spin: 45 minutes
Rowing machine: 20 minutes
Treadmill: 1.43 miles / 17 minutes
Cars appearing overnight covered in shit: 1
Unromantic anniversary presents: 1

This morning I went along to the gym for my usual body pump class where I was very hardcore and used heavier weights and hurrah, my arms didn’t crack on the tricep tracks, so the glucosamine that I’ve started taking again must be doing their thing (or it’s the magic bracelet) and then after body pump I went and did twenty minutes on the rowing machine, then I had planned to do just a mile on the treadmill, although running on the treadmill doesn’t really count as running, but then I decided to do Thru the Gears and then usually on a Friday I go and do spin too but as I have a five mile run tomorrow, I didn’t really want to wear myself out even if it is Juneathon and so I wimped out of doing spin and got changed and then I had to go to the library and I decided to leave my bike where it was and walk the half mile to the library as after all, it is Juneathon, and Juneathon is all about making an extra effort and so I walked to the library and as I passed Top Shop, I saw a sign saying 20% off for students this week and so I went in and saw a stripey t-shirt that I had been eyeing the other day and I tried to work out what 20% off would be and then I saw a t-shirt with Mickey Mouse on it and I wondered if I was too old to wear a t-shirt with Mickey Mouse on it and decided I was and left the shop and opposite was Dorothy Perkins with a sign saying 30% off today and so I went in but there was nothing I liked so I went back into Top Shop and thought fuck it, if I want to wear a t-shirt with Mickey Mouse on it I will and so I bought the Mickey Mouse t-shirt and the stripey t-shirt and with my student discount got £8 off and then I went to the library to collect the books that had been reserved for me and then I strolled back through the town looking at all the teenage girls smoking over their babies and got back to my bike and cycled back.

Stats
Body pump: 45 minutes
Rowing machine: 20 minutes
Treadmill: 15 minutes
Walking: 1 mile
Cycling: 5 miles
Calories: about 845
Stripey t-shirts: 1
Mickey Mouse t-shirt: 1
Library books: 2
Teenage girls smoking over their babies: A few

Audiofuel have teamed up with Sennheiser to compose a 15 minute soundtrack called Thru the Gears.

I was a bit hesitant at first to try it, as it’s got some mean looking man on the cover dressed in an Adidas hoodie but as I’ve played to death all the other Audiofuel tracks, I thought it would be a nice change to have something fresh to listen to while I went on the treadmill at the gym.

It’s a coaching track, so you’re told what to do and when and a girl with a nice roboty kind of voice tells you to stretch for a minute, then to walk for a minute, then to increase the speed for three minutes, then another three minutes, then two minutes, then there’s a cool down period where you walk and stretch. I didn’t bother with the stretching bit and just walked during those bits.

This session is amazing. Proper amazing. It really powers up as you get faster and faster and there’s pianos and strings and guitars and bass and everything and it all mounts up to one massive crescendo and you forget how knackered you are as all you can feel is one big fuck off buzz.

After I’d finished, I wanted to do it all over again but as I had a body pump class starting, I nipped into the changing room to get my phone out of my locker and to post on Audiofuel Sean’s Facebook wall to thank him for the big fuck off buzz I’d just had.

Then I did my body pump class and went home and told Shaun how good it was and then I told everyone on Twitter how good it was and it really was so good that I went back to the gym this morning to do it all over again and I got the same buzz, so it’s obviously not like heroin where you don’t get the same buzz after the first time (so I hear, obviously I’ve never had anything stronger than a Junior Disprin…).

And, amazingly, this track is FREE! Free to everyone! Hurrah!

Click here to be taken to the Audiofuel website for your free Thru the Gears download. 

Stats
Distance: Don’t know as I wasn’t taking much notice
Time: 15 minutes
Free soundtracks: 1
Big fuck off buzzes: 2

Yesterday I woke up hardly able to move after Friday’s epic (for me) cycle/body pump/swim Janathlon and so this morning I didn’t think I was up for a run but asked Twitter anyway if I should run or go to the gym and only two people responded and they both responded that it was too cold to run and I should go to the gym, which means that a) they are obviously not runners; and b) therefore don’t know that runners are hardcore and not put off by the weather being a bit nippy.

But as I was aching so much, I decided to go to the gym and see if some rowing could sort my aches out. When I got to the gym, as it was the weekend, there was someone different on reception and as I went to go inside she said are you going to the gym and so I said yes and she said can you sign in please? and so I gave her my card and said I haven’t signed in once in the year I’ve been coming here and she tutted and sighed and rolled her eyes and shook her head and if she’d been standing up, she probably would have put her hands on her hips and she said you must be sneaking in then, and I think well, if sneaking in means saying hello to whoever’s on reception at the time, then yes, I’ve been sneaking in and she says you must sign in and I say ok then and then I go inside and get changed and go on the rowing machine and there are two girls walking really slowly on treadmills and not only are they walking really slowly on treadmills, they’re walking really slowly on flat treadmills and not only are they walking really slowly on flat treadmills, they’re HOLDING ON TO THE FLIPPING HANDRAILS, like they’re really going to fall off the flat treadmills that they’re walking really slowly on and I do thirty minutes on the rowing machine and then I get on the treadmill and RUN ON IT like you’re supposed to and sitting on the weights machine next to me is a girl talking on her phone and I keep giving her sideways dirty looks but she doesn’t seem to notice and I tut and she doesn’t notice that either and I wonder if I should roll my eyes and shake my head and put my hands on my hips but decide that running on a treadmill with my hands on my hips would make me look even more stupid than I usually do and the girl on the phone eventually fucks off to sit on another machine and do nothing but talk on her phone there instead and I do thirty minutes on the treadmill and then I go home and I’m aching more than I did when I got up.

Stats (rowing machine)
Time: 30 minutes
Distance: 4400 yards (I think)
Calories: 225

Treadmill
Time: 25 minutes (+ 5 minutes cool down)
Distance: 2.3 miles
Pace: 10:52 m/m
Calories: 242

Last week I’d arranged with myself to go to the gym this morning before supermarket shopping but when I woke up, I couldn’t really be bothered and I said to Sir Limpalot I don’t want to go to the gym and he said ok then, you can help me with the gardening and so I got changed into my gym gear and went to the gym.

When I got to the gym there was a sign saying that Ashford Community Church was there and all were welcome and I thought maybe I should go to church instead of the gym but then I wondered how many calories you burn praying and I thought probably not many, unless it’s one of those happy-clappy churches were people do a lot of dancing and singing and not just a normal church where you listen to the vicar saying thou shalt not steal from the collection box and stuff and so I decide not to go and do some praying but to go to the gym as originally planned and I haven’t been to this gym on a Sunday before and it’s quite busy and I get on an elliptical trainer and stay on that for 20 minutes and then I got on the rowing machine and I wanted to do 20 minutes on that and then go on the treadmill but when I got to 20 minutes, the treadmills were still being used by people walking on them so I decide to do 25 minutes on the rowing machine but at 21 minutes and 30 seconds, someone stops walking on a treadmill and gets off and I think oh no, I can’t get off the rowing machine at 21 minutes and 30 seconds, I’ll have to round it up to 25 minutes and so I stay on the rowing machine and hope no one else gets on a treadmill but someone does and I’m looking at the clock and at 24 minutes and a bit there’s still people walking on the treadmills but at 24 minutes and 50 seconds someone gets off a treadmill and I stare at it for 10 seconds before getting off the rowing machine and getting on the treadmill and running on it for 10 minutes.

Stats (gym)
Elliptical trainer: 20 minutes
Rowing machine: 25 minutes
Calories: 305

Treadmill:
Distance: 0.95 miles
Time: 10 minutes
Pace: 10:32 m/m
Calories: 97
Calories burnt through praying: 0

Yesterday, after being told that no, paddling in the sea for three seconds then complaining my feet were hurting and putting my shoes back on didn’t actually count for Juneathon, and after it turning very very dark, very very quickly, then being very very sunny, very very quickly, I went out for three miles on my bike but while I was out decided to go a bit further and did five and a half miles instead.

Stats (cycling):
Distance: 5.5 miles
Time: 30:37
Speed: 10.8 mph
Calories: 180
Paddlings in sea: 1
Paddlings in sea counting as Juneathons: 0

And today, as I hadn’t been to the gym for two weeks and I don’t like to waste my membership money even though it only costs half what I was paying in London, I walked up the road and reacquainted myself with the gym and there was a girl in the changing rooms and she left her bag and clothes on the hook and I don’t know why people don’t use the lockers in this gym and so I put my bag in the locker and locked it up like the paranoid Londoner I am and in the gym was an old man wearing a long-sleeved fleecey top and I thought he must be boiling like the man we saw out running yesterday in a black t-shirt and long black trousers and after I stopped wondering why the old man was wearing so many clothes, I did twenty minutes on the cross-trainer and then I did twenty minutes on the rowing machine and then I went to do twenty minutes on the treadmill but after two minutes my left boob was hurting and I thought maybe I need a new sports bra and I put the speed down on the treadmill and my left knee was hurting as it’s been hurting since I bashed it when I fell off my bike when I cycled home drunk at one o’clock in the morning a few weeks ago and I think I’m going to get off the treadmill at five minutes but at four and a bit minutes Audiofuel comes on and I think oh no, not Audiofuel, I don’t think you’re allowed to slack when Audiofuel comes on and I keep on going after five minutes as the music has given me a boost and it’s like musical catnip and so I stay on the treadmill for the whole twenty minutes.

Stats (gym):
Cross-trainer: 20 minutes
Rowing machine: 20 minutes
Calories: 260
Treadmill
Distance: 1.8 miles
Time: 20 minutes
Pace: 11.07 m/m
Calories: 180
Men wearing too many clothes: 1
Musical catnips: 1

My plans for an outdoor three miles this morning were scuppered by the stupid bloody poxy snow that made a reappearance yesterday, continuing through the night and leaving me with this view

outside the front door this morning.  Pretty, it may be, but it was snowing pretty heavily and I didn’t fancy my chances of staying upright in it, so I took myself off to the gym instead.

The gym was empty but there was a man walking on the outside treadmill and I didn’t want to go on the other outside one as it’s in kilometres, not miles (although the one he was on was in kilometres the other day too, which it never used to be, so I hope they’re not going to also change the one remaining treadmill that counts in proper money) so I went on the one next to him and told it I wanted to do three miles and off I went, quite slowly as I was tired today, and then a pikey woman started walking on the treadmill next to me and her fat pikey child was on the elliptical trainer next to her and I thought what’s a child doing in here, it’s not a playground and then I wondered if maybe the school was shut due to the stupid bloody poxy snow and it was probably better that she brought her little porker with her to the gym instead of taking it to Starbucks across the road and fed it pastries although that was probably where they were going next and I’m running and running on the treadmill and the pikey woman is walking and walking and I eventually do my three miles and I go on the rowing machine and then I do some weights and the only other person in the gym by then is a man doing weights and he’s left his towel, diary and water bottle on the seat of one of the leg weights machines and I wonder if he thinks it’s a table and I don’t want to ask him to move them and so I only do upper body stuff and then I go home and have broccoli and stilton soup which was voted for over potato and leek by some Twitter friends.

Stats:
Distance: 3 miles
Time: 32:42
Pace: 10:54
Calories: 311
Men walking on treadmills: 1
Women walking on treadmills: 1
Kids confusing gyms with playgrounds: 1
Men confusing weight machines with tables: 1
Music:
Detholz
Cardiacs
Blur
Julian Casablancas
White Rabbits

I went to the gym today to do my two miles and I thought it’ll be busy in there as it’s Monday and everyone will be panicking about the half a glass of wine and packet of crisps that they consumed over the weekend and will be cycling furiously trying to burn it off but when I get there, there’s only two people in there and I wonder where all the Monday people are and I also wonder if all the New Year newbies have fucked off now and I think yay, I get the place to myself then, result and I go to the changing room that only I seem to use and I put my stuff in the locker that only I seem to use and go back into the gym and there’s a man walking on a treadmill and so I do the British thing and get on a treadmill further away, leaving a respectable gap between us but the screen’s in kilometres and I don’t want kilometres, I want miles and so I get on the treadmill next to the man and this one’s in miles and I think hurrah and I do my two miles and then I decide to go on the rowing machine and the pacing man is doing his pacing round between weights thing that’s really annoying and I wish he’d just sit down and count to thirty or whatever in between sets instead of walking around the gym and two women come in and they start walking on the treadmill but after about ten minutes lo! they actually start to run on it and I’ve only ever seen one person run on the treadmill in the gym before and the old man who showed me how to use one of the weights machines comes in and sits on his favourite machine, the back machine or whatever it is and I wonder where the old lady who I used to talk to in the New Year is as I haven’t seen her for ages and I used to see her every time I went to the gym and I wonder if she was just a New Year newbie and has lost interest and then I go on the bike even though the bike is very very boring and although I haven’t got my glasses on, I can just about make out that prick Gok Wan or whatever his name is on the telly and I finish on the bike and I go into the changing rooms and someone’s left their stuff on the bench and I wonder why they don’t use the lockers, they are free after all and then I go home and tomorrow I will go back to the gym and then on Thursday, I will run outside for three miles in my new running shoes.

Stats:
Distance: 2 miles
Time: 20:44
Pace: 10:22
Calories: 207
Men walking on treadmills: 1
Women running on treadmills: 3
Men pacing about between weights sets: 1
Old men on their favourite machines: 1
Old ladies who used to go to the gym every day: 0
Pricks called Gok Wan: 1
Pairs of new running shoes: 1
Music:
Detholz
Cardiacs
Silvery
Blur

It has been brought to my attention that there were two notable absences from my slackers and smartarses lists and they are Big Runner, who outed himself on Facebook to thank me for sparing him from my wrath and I thought ooooooooooooooh, no Big Runner, you’re not spared my wrath, I just forgot and yes, you’re quite right, your blog should, under the Trade Descriptions Act, now be called Big Slacker and Fit Artist pointed out that Highway Kind never slacks, ever and although Highway Kind tried to get out of being on the smartarses list by claiming that he does slack because he goes on the treadmill if the weather’s crap (my words obviously, he’d put it far more eloquently what with him not being a foul-mouthed Essex girl like what I is) he can’t get out of being on the smartarses list that easily because going on the treadmill is not slacking; going on the treadmill is hardcore and only for the terminally dedicated which is what I was on Tuesday when I went on the treadmill because the weather was crap and after one minute I thought can I do that another 29 times? and I thought yes of course I can and after five minutes I thought can I do that another 5 times? and I thought no, bollocks to that and so after 15 minutes I stopped being hardcore and terminally dedicated and went home to be softcore and terminally undedicated.

Stats:
Distance: 1.43 miles
Time: 15:00
Pace: 10:30 m/m
Calories: 141
New slackers: 1
New smartarses: 1