A light-hearted look at running, cycling and general fitness
Thought I’d have a change for today’s Juneathon and use my My PC Fitness DVD and do a core workout, as I usually avoid those.
I told it I had hand weights, a stability ball and a bench but a lot of it was floor work, which I hate, so in those bits I did my washing and got some soup out of the freezer for lunch and opened the door to the greenhouse and other stuff less boring than planking.
There seems to be a bit of a chalky theme to this year’s Juneathon. First, we walked up the hill in Folkestone with the chalk horse on it, then we cycled over to Wye to see the crown, then yesterday we went to Lenham to see the cross.
I walked around it but my Garmin didn’t track it successfully, as you can see.
Then I saw a sign for ducks and thought yay ducks, but the sign was lying, as I didn’t see any ducks.
I think we’ve run out of local chalky things on hills now, so hopefully next weekend I can see some nice concretey stuff instead of all this greenery.
Today for Juneathon, I completed two levels of Candy Crush.
I must have walked up the stairs, ooh, at least a dozen times yesterday. Not to mention the number of times I walked to the fridge to get more wine.
If I say it counts, it counts. So there.
Ner.
I’m currently writing an article about leaving your desk and getting outside so, as I’m not one to be a hypocrite (ha!), I thought I’d better leave my desk and get outside myself and not just the outside bit that covers the quarter of a mile between my house and the gym.
Sometimes, my Garmin gets a signal while I’m still in the house. That day was not today though. I got goosebumps waiting for it to get a satellite, so I thought sod ya then, I’m going without you and I set off Garminless but it soon caught me up and I did about 1.5 miles in the cold and the drizzle.
I’ll be cycling later when I go to see my university’s production of Witches of Eastwick.
Stats
Running: 1.5 miles
Cycling later: 6 miles
Goosebumps: lots
You know it’s Juneathon when your laundry increases and most of it appears to be gym wear. That and scraping the bottom of the kit drawer for something to wear. Which, in this morning’s case was a lime green Royal Parks Half t-shirt that’s now unflatteringly small and a pair of cheapy tights from Sports Direct that I won’t wear out in public as they’re so thin and, unlike Madonna when she’s poncing around in skin-tight leotards, I like to spare the public from any camel toe there may be.
So, keeping this sartorial dilemma in mind, today’s activity was body pump in the privacy of my own conservatory. (Actually, that’s what I had planned to do anyway, I just wanted to type ‘sartorial dilemma’. Even if there wasn’t actually a dilemma.)
Stats
Body pump: 45 minutes
Loads of laundry washed yesterday: 2
Percentage of it being gym kit: about 75
Unflatteringly small lime green Royal Parks Half t-shirts: 1
Pairs of thin cheapy tights from Sports Direct: 1
Despite not particularly enjoying the Great South Run last year, I’ve signed up again. I’ll be careful who I allow to take off my chip at the end though and if I see that sour-faced old moo who stood on my blistered foot to get extra leverage to take off my chip last year, I’m going to stamp all over her feet and see how she likes it.
I had to give mine and iliketocount’s details to the man at Bupa who wanted to know, amongst other things, a) our estimated finishing times; and b) our t-shirt sizes. My t-shirt was bigger than iliketocount’s and my estimated finishing time was about an hour slower than his. Not embarrassing at all. Honest.
Still, hopefully (and I know I say this EVERY time I sign up for a race), it’ll give me the motivation to start running again. It motivated me enough to go to the gym after lunch, anyway, and I did 15 minutes on the treadmill. It’s a start.
Stats
Rowing machine: 20 minutes
Cross-trainer: 20 minutes
Treadmill: 15 minutes
GSRs signed up for: 1
T-shirts bigger than iliketocount’s: 1
Estimated racing times 1 hour slower than iliketocount’s: 1
I wanted to count walking across the road to the post box as today’s Juneathon, then @jendevaney2 offered me one of her workouts.
So I said, thanks, I’ll take the swim. Then iliketocount came home and asked if I’d Juneathoned and I said I’d been to the post box and he muttered something about not taking it seriously and so I thought I should probably go for a walk and then I decided if I went for a walk I could have a Cornetto (or Tesco’s 4 for £1 version of them, anyway) when I got back.
So that’s what I did. (Except I haven’t had the Cornetto yet.)
Stats
Post boxes walked to: 1
Juneathon swims donated: 1
Walking: 1.15 miles
Tesco Cornettos: 1
Yesterday’s bike ride wore me out so much, I fell asleep last night before I could get drunk. So today’s hangover, on a scale of 0-10 of Sunday hangovers, was only about 2, so I went to the gym this morning.
Then iliketocount and I went for a bike ride to explore the next bit of the Greensand Way that we hadn’t seen yet (well, I say ‘we’, I mean ‘me’, as he’d gone and explored it without me a few weeks ago).
I saw a cat up a tree
and a cow with a big spiky metal thing in its nose (anyone know what it’s for?)
and a baby cow
and some cows roaming free on the footpath that I was too scared of to go anywhere near.
And then we went to the pub for a pint and cycled back.
That’s enough greenery for one weekend, I’m going to go and look at a picture of Canary Wharf or something.
Stats
Rowing machine: 20 minutes
Cross-trainer: 20 minutes
Cycling: 6 miles
Walking: 1.5 miles
Cats in trees: 1
Cows with bit metal spiky things in its nose: 1
Baby cows: lots
Pints: 1
No, it’s not the name of a pub.
Today, I:
got up at 6:30am and did 45 minutes of body pump;
cycled 10 miles into the wind to Wye;
stopped at the cafe to have roasted vegetable and mozzarella panini and chips, and hot chocolate;
walked up the Wye Crown; then
cycled back 10 miles, with the wind behind us and Willesborough Windmill in the distance.
Now I am tired.
Yawn.