Author: jogblog

Bananas, bowls and belligerence

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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

Carb-loading in the countryside

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Travelling Hopefully (Cassie) and Rich are currently on their yearly camping holiday to somewhere near Dymchurch (my first words on meeting Rich were ‘Ooh, you’re taller than I expected!’. Why can’t I just say ‘Hello, nice to meet you’, like a normal person would?) and so as Shaun and I are only a few miles away, we arranged to meet up at the Blue Anchor in Ruckinge for dinner (Helen was also supposed to be there but had to pull out, unfortunately).

All the meals in the Blue Anchor come with salad or vegetables and a choice of potato. We all chose chips. In our defence, we did also all choose salad too. Cassie and Rich had been warned about the stupidly big portions the pub serves, but they still weren’t prepared for the mountain of food that the waitress placed in front of them (especially Rich’s inch thick piece of ham). The waitress forgot Cassie’s chips, but that was just as well as between us, we left enough chips to feed the population of Ashford for a few days.

At the end of the evening, Shaun gave Cassie and Rich a lift back to their campsite and just after dropping them off, a hare scampered across the road. I’ve never seen a hare before and gave a sharp intake of breath and exclaimed ‘What was that?’ I didn’t know hares were the size of foxes, I thought they were the same as rabbits but with longer ears. Yes, I am stupid.

A couple of miles on down the road more sharp intakes of breath could be heard as suicidal rabbits ran out in the road in front of the car, although Shaun reckoned it was the same rabbit taking shortcuts through the fields just to run out in front of us again. I’m not sure he is to be believed though as what was a ten minute journey on the way to the pub, turned into a half hour journey on the way back due to Shaun ignoring my ‘Why don’t you just go back the way we came?’ remark and going on a detour down to Dymchurch where I didn’t even get to see the sea but had to endure more twisty and turny narrow country lanes at a speed faster than I’m happy with, despite my pleas of ‘please slow down’.

Still, we eventually got back safe and sound and with all the carbs from the pasta, chips and lager, I didn’t think I had much choice but to stick to my schedule this morning and go out for 4.5 miles.

It was boiling when I went out and so I put on a vest top instead of one of my usual t-shirts and laughed inwardly at a) the runner running in long baggy trousers; b) the scruffy man looking at the horses by the vets wearing jeans and a jacket; and c) the man in a suit and tie cycling down the dual carriageway and I wondered if I was hallucinating the sunshine and if they were all laughing at me for being underdressed but after about three miles, the rain started to wash off the sun lotion I had applied (although how effective it will be, being about ten years old, I’m not sure) and as just as I got back inside the front door, the promised storm arrived so maybe they were dressed appropriately after all.

Stats
Distance: 4.19 miles
Time: slow
Pace: slow
Calories: 390
Chips: billions 
Sunshines: 1
Storms: 1

Hey, it’s the sun!

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And it makes me smile.

Before I went out on my ‘run’ today, I had the urge to listen to this

first which also further delayed my run as I knew it wasn’t on my iPod and so I had to find the CD and I found it eventually and whacked it up loud and then went for a run in the sun.

Stats
Distance: 0.73 miles
Time: 7:17
Pace: 9:58
Calories: 77
Suns: 1

Not the Staplehurst 10k

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I had planned to do the Staplehurst 10k this morning but after a pretty rubbish night’s sleep, I decided that my current mileage and pace wasn’t really up to a 10k and Shaun didn’t really fancy it either and so I slacked off the 10k and went out to do the 5k that was on my schedule instead.

Seeing how slow my 5k was, it was just as well I slacked off the 10k, as shortly after I got back, the 10k results were posted and as the last runner took 1:12 and only a few took over an hour, I’d have been last for sure.

Stats
Distance: 3.1 miles
Time: a long time
Pace: slow
Calories: 353
10ks done: 0
Really slow 5ks done: 1

ilikesocks

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I was out seeing Knifeworld last night and knew today’s Juneathon effort would be a bit poor, due to not getting in ‘til after 1am. I wasn’t so drunk I can’t remember a) wobbling home on my bike (although I had gone about a mile before thinking ‘hmm, maybe I should put my lights on); and b) shutting the cat’s tail in the door when I got in but I was pissed enough to not bother getting dressed ‘til 3:30 this afternoon when I eventually put on my running gear to…

…run round the garden.

I know! It’s pathetic and I had planned to do my little .75 route but I couldn’t be bothered and for some reason letting the decorators who are currently stripping the paint from the outside of the pub across the road see me run for all of eight minutes seemed worse than letting my neighbours see me run round the garden, picking up feathers on the way, complete in running kit for about one minute.

Still, it’s a Juneathon effort and I’m in charge and I say it counts, so there.

Oh, the socks. Yes. Here they are.

Aren’t they lovely? I won Millie’s competition to guess her time at the Great Manchester Run and she knitted me these socks. They’ve got a heel and everything and I’m going to wear them tonight when iliketocount and I go out for our anniversary meal.

Thanks Millie!

Stats
Distance: 0.03 miles
Time: 1:07
Feathers: 3
Pairs of socks: 1
Anniversary meals: 1

Jog, log, a bit of a blog

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But just a bit because although I have notes of my run and I was going to post a photo of some lovely socks that came in the post today, I can’t be arsed to blog.

Sorry.

I will post a pic of the socks some other time though, as they are very nice indeed.

Stats
Distance: 4.01 miles
Time: 51:05
Pace: 12:44
Calories: 378
Jogs: 1
Logs: 1
Bits of blogs: 1
Pairs of socks: 1

The mystery of the bird-poo-covered car

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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

I dream of cows

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I woke up from a nice dream about cows just as Shaun was going to work and as I was quite nicely awake, I thought I’d get up and see if I could manage to do a run at a decent hour of the morning and not a time approaching lunchtime.

So I did. At 7:30am I was out the door, thinking I was very hardcore, until I remembered that someone recently had been for their Juneathon run at 4:15am.

I didn’t want to run on the isolated trails at that time of the morning and I definitely didn’t want to risk running into any school run mums with their very dubious driving skills along pavement-less lanes and so I had a look at a previous four mile run and, hurrah! apart from the first quarter of a mile, it was all on cycle paths and footpaths and so I set off being careful for the first quarter of a mile and didn’t get run over by any school run mums putting on their make up or lighting cigarettes or whatever else it is they do instead of LOOKING AT THE FUCKING ROAD and I get safely onto the cycle path and along the road and there’s quite a few people walking their dogs and schoolkids walking to school and I go through the field and there’s a sign on the sheep field with a picture of a sheep that looks like it’s had a chunk bitten out of it and the sign says this is what can happen if you let your dog worry sheep and I think that sheep looks more than worried, it looks pretty pissed off and maybe they shouldn’t put sheep in fields where people are allowed to walk their dogs but I never see any dogs off their leads here anyway as they’re all evil countryside devil dogs and I get back before 8:30 and I’m showered and hair washed and dressed before the postie’s been and he’ll probably have a heart attack if I answer the door to him wearing something other than a) my dressing gown; or b) my running gear.

Stats
Distance: 3.85 miles
Time: 47:45
Pace: 12:23
Calories: 376
Dreams of cows: 1
Up earlies: 1
School run mums: 0
People walking their dogs: some
Pictures of pissed off sheep: 1
Posties with heart attacks: 1

Moo to the Beat

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I get a lot of emails from charities, asking me to promote their event or campaign. I mostly ignore these (unless they’re from Cancer Research UK or other vivisection-funding charities, who get an email telling them why I won’t support them) but last week I got an email from Rebecca Moore from the World Society of the Protection of Animals and included in her email was a picture of a cow

which obviously automatically made her my New Best Friend (unless she’s the Rebecca Moore who was mean to me at school, but she assured me she isn’t).

The WSPA are currently running a campaign called Not in my Cuppa trying to stop the introduction of US style mega dairies into the UK (where cows would spend the majority of their life indoors in very unpleasant conditions).

They’re looking for people to take part in Run to the Beat for them. Unfortunately, I’m doing Folkestone Half that day but if you want to do the race and want a worthy cause to run for, what better than cows?

(Posted also on Planet Veggie)

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