Author: jogblog

The JogBlog guide to keeping warm in winter

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Obviously, the best way to keep warm is to stay in bed, but if you’re hardcore like me, and do venture out into the early morning frost, then you’re going to need something more than a skimpy pair of Speedos.

Today, I put on my new Canterbury base layer.

canterbury-running-top

It’s thick, warm and comfy as well as having that technical stuff that wicks the sweat away. It’s also skin-tight and therefore prone to riding up (as I found out when I sat down to put my socks on) but, hurrah for the Hippsy!

What’s a Hippsy? A Hippsy is an elasticated piece of cotton, similar to a boob-tube in appearance but you wear it round your waist to protect you from the cold when your top rides up, exposing bits you don’t want to expose. 

hippsy-red

It’s ideal if you need an extra layer of warmth but don’t want to bulk up with too many clothes.

hippsyMy Canterbury base layer, long tights, Hippsy and touchscreen gloves were all I needed in this morning’s minus-whatever weather to keep me warm. 

Janathon 2013 – go on, you know you want to!

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Yee ha, entries for Janathon 2013 are now open!

For those of you who haven’t a clue what a Janathon is, it’s a yearly challenge held in – unsurprisingly – January. Taking part is simple – all you have to do is run and blog every day. If you don’t want to run every day, you can do some other form of exercise, it’s up to you (although if you want to be among the truly hardcore, you’ll need to run every day).

It’s a great way to get fit, make new friends, get new readers to your blog and gain more Twitter followers (if you’re fussed about that kind of thing), so go and sign up now at the Janathon website.

Oh, and there’s a post-Janathon party at the end in London, too, where we eat pasta and pizza and drink lots of beer. Why else do you think I continue with this madness?

Sanity saved with Sennheiser

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As you know, I recently went back to my old gym as I wasn’t making enough use of the gym in the town centre. One of the reasons I left my old gym was because customers had control over the music and could whack it up as loud as they wanted, which drowned out my own music on my iPod.

Now the stereo’s been moved into the office, customers can’t control the sound level themselves. But they can ask a member of staff to turn it up – and they do. The other day I almost gave up my workout early as the merging of my and their music was driving me mad.

I’m too shy to complain. I can moan, but I can’t make a complaint face to face. I used to have a friend that would complain about everything – she’d complain about the noise of the air conditioning in a hotel room, she’d complain about the table she was given in a restaurant. I wanted to die with embarrassment when I was with her when she was complaining, although secretly I admired her assertiveness.

So, when I got home, I emailed the gym and asked if they could keep the music at a reasonable level (I know, how pathetic of me). I also got on Twitter and asked for recommendation for headphones that totally cancelled outside noise out. A friend recommended these Sennheiser earphones,

sennheiser-earphones

so I bought them and they’re great. The sound is a lot deeper and richer than my previous earphones so I hear a lot more of the sound I want to hear, rather than outside sound that I don’t want to hear.

You already know I’m a massive fan of Sennheiser’s Thru the Gears Audiofuel collaboration, and now I’ve got some of their earphones to listen to it through. Sennheiser impress me. Well done, Sennheiser.

The good and the bad of the Great South Run

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Slightly late with my Great South Run report and I can’t remember the specifics now, so here’s a bit of a list of what I liked and what pissed me off.

like-image The Portsmouth Marriott Hotel

The hotel was fab. It had a big squidgy bed and whenever I go to bed now, I feel like I’m sleeping rough. 16 pillows were a bit OTT though.

Pizza Express

Brilliant service in the Pizza Express, unlike the ignorant sloths they employ in their Ashford branch.

pizza-express-pizza

The VIP tent

Best thing ever. I am INSISTING on being a VIP at all future races. It was warm and comfy and there were free drinks and free food and clean, flushable toilets with no queues and we got to hang out with Iwan Thomas, Kelly Holmes and Sally Gunnell (standing a few feet away = hang out with, ok?) My blue fleece was still in there after I’d finished running, too (except someone had taken the 50p that was in it).

Lo-fiving children

Yeah, I know I’m not a fan of squawking, screaming, badly behaved brat things but children wanting to lo-five me was cute.

My Nike Vapor Windrunner Jacket

We parked two miles away from the race and I would have frozen if I hadn’t had my new Nike Vapor Windrunner Jacket. It kept me warm and dry and folded up small enough to put in my bag.

The flatness

It was flat.  There were no hills. This was good.

The water stations

A bit strange, as there wasn’t any water until about five miles, so I hung on to mine in case that was it, but then there was water station after water station after water station… (One was a Powerade station – blimey, that Powerade gave me a much needed boost, that’s for sure.)

Audiofuel

I played Audiofuel’s marathon long run training sessions which are 2 x 1 hour each. So… two hours of Audiofuel and I finished in 2 hours, when I was expecting it to be nearer 3. Coincidence? I don’t think so – Audiofuel is magic.

The race bling

Bling is good.

great-south-run-2012-medal

Post-race beer and food

Burger, chips and beer. My favourite post-race food. (To be fair, any food after a race is my favourite, as long as it’s accompanied by beer.)

post-race-food 

dislike-imagePortsmouth

Sorry, Portsmouth, but the bits I saw in the evening were just not pretty. We visited two areas to check out the restaurants but they were both a low-rent Canary Wharf and I flipping hate Canary Wharf. Cold and characterless.

The route

The most boring, unattractive route ever. A pretty first mile with some ships and stuff then 9 miles of run down residential areas. At least there weren’t any hills.

The bands

I’ve got my own music, thank you.

Charity runners

Because I’m slow, I get stuck at the back with all the charity divs who start walking after half a mile. I also don’t appreciate being surrounded by people who support vivisection (i.e. people wearing Cancer Research UK or British Heart Foundation vests). And while I’m moaning about charity runners, Harvey Army – if you read this, you were fucking annoying when you started chanting for ten minutes at the 10k mark.

The last two miles

Bloody windy.

The baggage drop

The baggage drop was a room where you left your bag. No check-in, no security, just dump it on the ground and hope it’s still there when you come back.

The finish

I just want to finish and fuck off not walk for three miles back to the bag drop.

The chip removal woman

The chip removal woman was a sour-faced old moo who stood on my foot to give herself more leverage to remove my chip. I HAD BLISTERS AND YOU STANDING ON MY FOOT FUCKING HURT AND I HOPE YOU NEVER EVER EVER VOLUNTEER AGAIN YOU SOUR-FACED OLD MOO.

So, would I run the Great South Run again? Doubtful. The organisation was great, it all went smoothly, it started on time, so there’s no criticism there, it’s just put me off big charity runs. Virgin London Marathon is now looking unlikely.

Nike Vapor Windrunner Women’s Running Jacket

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I never thought I’d see the day when I’d be wearing pastel. Nike said they were sending me their Nike Element Shield Max Jacket which comes in silver, so it was a bit of a surprise to open the package and find a mint green jacket (which was the Nike Vapor Windrunner Women’s Running Jacket that they’d sent by mistake). I’m really not a pastel person. But no one was looking, so I put it on and oh, actually, it looked great. It fits perfectly and is light and comfortable. It kept me warm and dry before the Great South Run, it keeps me warm and dry when I walk to the gym, it keeps me warm and dry when I cycle to and back from the station and the hood even stayed up on my pea-head when I cycled back one evening through the rain. Oh yes, I’m a fan of this jacket.

It’s definitely mint green though

nike-vapor-windrunner-front

nike-vapor-windrunner-backand not yellow like it looks on their website (the website says it’s yellow, so either they do have a yellow one or they get yellow and green mixed up).

Nike-Vapor-Windrunner-Womens-Running-Jacket

Nike-Vapor-Windrunner-Womens-Running-Jacket-back

What you can’t see from the photos on the Nike website is the hand warmers in the sleeves.

nike-vapor-windrunner-sleeve  

The only thing missing is an inside pocket. I do like an inside pocket. It does have two zipped side pockets though, one of them includes another pocket for your MP3 player and a little hole to thread your headphones through.

If you need a running jacket, I’d definitely put this on your list for Santa.

Where did you get that hat (and gloves)?

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Of course, I had to go and Google for the lyrics to that song and found out that for nearly forty-three years, I’ve been singing the wrong words (not that I sing it often, honest). I always thought it went something like:

Where did you get that hat

Where did you get that hat?

Isn’t it a lovely one

I’d like one like that

only to find out that it’s actually:

Where did you get that hat

Where did you get that tile?

Isn’t it a nobby one

And just the proper style

Which, although having impeccable rhyme and metre, doesn’t make much sense – to me, at least. If someone called my hat ‘nobby’, I’d think they were either saying I looked a bit of a dick (which, admittedly, isn’t beyond the realms of feasibility) or that my hat was in need of a JML de-bobbler.

Anyway, back to my hat. My hat is an iHat and it has speakers in it and a cable to plug into your phone or MP3 player. I took it for a trial run on a run this morning.

ihat(Yes, I know I look like I’ve been caught on CCTV robbing the local offy.)

All was ok with my iHat at first. It was warm and comfy and I could hear the music over the noise of the traffic on the busy road I live on but it didn’t take long until the iHat started slipping down over my eyes and so I tried rolling the front up and that was okay for a bit but then it started slipping down again so I tried rolling it up again but it kept slipping down and so it’d be great for people who like wearing hats when they’re running (it did a great job at keeping my hair out of my eyes) but only if they haven’t got little pea-heads like mine.

The iHat is only £9.99 (at the time of writing) and has been updated since I received my one, as it now comes with handsfree capability with an integrated in-line microphone, volume control and selection button.

The iHat looks better on the girl in this video. Hard to believe, I know.

Onto my new gloves. I used to have some touchscreen gloves (I say ‘used to’ as the last time I saw them, they were languishing in a bin in a toilet in Plymouth two miles into the Great South Run. I was happy to dump them because they weren’t responsive and they weren’t warm enough when it got really cold. These new touchscreen gloves are incredibly responsive and they’re woolly and warm and also have the added bonus of looking like normal gloves.

touch-screen-gloves

These touchscreen gloves are only £3.99 at the moment and also come in pink (they didn’t have pink when I got mine, bah).

Paramount  Zone don’t only sell hats and gloves though, oh no. They have tons of funky stuff on there, including loads of ideas for Christmas presents.

Why I left my gym and why I’m a wimpface

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It was only a few weeks ago I wrote about how much I love my gym. And now I’ve left it. I still love my gym but I only started going there for the classes and now I rarely go to the classes – I book them, but usually end up cancelling them. So I decided to downgrade my membership and go back to the gym just a few minutes’ walk away from the house which although isn’t as nice a gym, it suits my needs and there’s the added bonus of not having to cycle two miles down a dreary dual-carriageway to get to it. Today, however, I did cycle into town for my booked body pump class and I had planned to downgrade my membership after the class.

I checked in as usual and the girl on reception asked if I knew that there was a different instructor today and it would be vibe pump instead of body pump. I must have looked scared as then she said it’s ok, it’s exactly the same, it’s still weights, just more choreographed. CHOREOGRAPHED? MORE CHOREOGRAPHED? Isn’t choreographed like dancing and moving my arms and stuff?

fml.

At that point, I must have looked like I was going to cry, as she said oh no, it’s not more choreographed, it’s less choreographed, there’s just more reps. I said it’s ok, I’ll just cancel please and she said oh no, I’ve put you off now, haven’t I? and I said yes, but it’s ok, I just like sticking to what I know and she said it’s really not scary and I said there’s no aerobic type moving about waving arms dancing type stuff? and she said no and I said ok then and she you look like you’re going to do a runner and I said yeah, I might just stay hiding on the rowing machine and she said I’ll send the instructor out to get you and I think oh shit, I can’t downgrade my membership now as she’ll think it’s because I didn’t want to do the vibe class and I go into the changing room to get changed and I’ve got over an hour until the vibe class starts and I go on the rowing machine for twenty minutes and I can’t decide whether to go to the vibe class or  not and I don’t want to not go as I will look like the nervous, shy, timid, unconfident, unassertive, self-conscious wimpface I really am and if I go I’ll feel like YEAH, I AM FEARLESS, GO ME! and then I go on the cross-trainer for twenty minutes but after three minutes I’m bored and I don’t want to carry on and I don’t want to do the vibe class and if I go home now I can be back at 10:30 instead of 12 and I think yeah, that’s what I’ll do and I go to get changed and hope the girl on reception has gone for a tea break or something and doesn’t see me leave and oh fuck, she’s facing towards the door of the changing room and I think turn back, turn back, and she stands up and goes back to face the way she usually faces and I think thank fuck for that and I don’t know why I’m being such a wuss as it’s not like they can force me to stay there and I leave without saying bye and hope she didn’t see me leave and then I think I’ll have to email and see if I can downgrade my membership but then I have the stunning idea of popping into the gym near me and see if I can do it from there and so I go in there and they say yes, that’s fine, you can change your membership from here and so I’ve left my lovely big gym in town and have gone back to my little gym up the road.

Why children’s car seats should be fitted with straitjackets

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It was a misty, gloomy morning and I fancied a trail run. Because it was a misty, gloomy morning, I thought I’d better wear a hi-vis t-shirt, as I needed to run down a pavement-less road for the first quarter of a mile and it was early and I would be there the same time as school-run-mums, although it did occur to me that hi-vis is no protection against school-run-mums as, in my experience, they are usually putting on their make-up or taking off last night’s make-up or painting their nails or brushing their hair or reading a book or writing a book or making a phone call or taking a phone call or playing on their iPhone or playing on their iPad or fiddling with the radio or fiddling with their hair or lighting a fag or smoking a fag or doing the washing or doing the ironing or doing ANYTHING except look at the road they’re driving Little Tommy and Little Lucy along to get them safely to school and you might have noticed that I missed off ‘turning round to stop the kids from killing each other in the back seat’ from my list, as that only ever happens on the television when the woman (it’s always a woman) turns round to stop Little Tommy from mutilating Little Lucy and while her eyes are off the road for that split second, she drives the car into an oncoming articulated lorry and then she’s WRACKED with grief and guilt and blames herself for the death of her beautiful (they’re always beautiful) children and her husband (who usually has enough hair to run his fingers through in agitated anxiety) does his best to reassure her and says it’s not her fault and it could happen to anyone and they’ll get through this together but then a few months later, wifey’s turned into an alcoholic and hubby’s had enough of wifey’s constant drinking and weeping and wracked-with-guiltness and buggers off with someone soberer, younger, blonder and less neurotic and if children’s car seats were fitted with straitjackets we would all be saved from such televisual clichés.

Dear Bupa Great South Run…

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Dear Bupa Great South Run

Thank you for the race pack containing a lovely blue technical t-shirt, my race number, a VIP wristband and, um, a rain poncho.

Today I ran for six miles and, while I’m no mathematician, I believe 10-6 = 4 and so, on Sunday, if you can set my start line up at the six mile mark, I’ll do the remaining 4 miles from there. Ta.

Also, I see on your Bupa Running Facebook Page you’re having a Q&A between 1-3pm next Friday (26 Oct) with a Bupa sports physio for any runners taking part in the Great South Run to ask any questions about niggles before race day or any final preparation they need, which is all well and good, but will they be addressing the more important issues such as whether there’s a bar in the VIP area?

Yours sincerely

 

JogBlog

Once again, I am a slacker

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Once again, I have slacked in my training. This never used to happen when I lived in London. In London, I had a routine of running home (6 miles) from work once a week and then a long run on a Saturday morning that I rarely missed (we’ll forget that training shouldn’t really consist of fewer than three runs a week). Since moving, I haven’t trained properly for a single race. Today’s excuse is that it was after 8 when I got up and it would have been too late to run after having breakfast as I feel guilty if I go for a run when I should be studying or working.

I even had some pretty purple Brooks Pure Flow running shoes to try out.

brooks-pureflow

Oh well, they’ll have to wait for another time. I’m definitely going for a run on Saturday morning, no matter how late I get up (feel free to swear at me if you see me on Twitter saying ‘got up too late to run, bah’), so maybe I’ll wear them to the gym tomorrow (I’ve also slacked off going to the gym since being back at university, no wonder I’m sleeping so badly at the mo).

I did force myself out for a short bike ride yesterday after lunch. Maybe I’ll go for a run at lunchtime…

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