Author: jogblog

The Ultimate Guide to Marathon Running Magazine

2 comments

OFCV3.inddThe Ultimate Guide to Marathon Running is a 164 page magazine book type thing with a foreword by Liz Yelling aimed at beginners, intermediate and advanced.

It has training advice, nutrition tips, essential gear and schedules for all abilities.

There are eight parts to it:

Part one: Advice on how to set your marathon goals

Part two: Essential kit guide

Part three: Starting training

Part four: Preparing for a run

Part five: Nutrition

Part six: Check the technique

Part seven: Training

Part eight: Injury prevention

Then at the back are race tips, tactics, fuelling and recovery for the big day, along with schedules ranging from 4 hours+ to sub-2 hours 55 minutes.

Plenty of photos and step-by-step guides, written in an easy to understand language. It’s like a big glossy magazine for us hardcore finely tuned athlete types.

At £7.99, I’d say it was well worth the money.

For more information visit magbooks.com

GlucoTabs and GlucoJuice

One comment

I got sent some GlucoTabs and GlucoJuice to try out. According to the blurb, they “deliver a pure fast acting carb boost in the form of glucose just when you need it most whether warming up, training, competing or warming down”.glucojuiceI haven’t done much in the way of training recently. Exercise, yes. Training, no. Still, before departing on a recent run, I decided to see if the GlucoJuice would give me a boost, as the blurb says the 60ml compact shot will deliver 15g of fast acting carbohydrate in the form of glucose. I was a bit hesitant in trying it, as “15g of glucose” sounds gloopy, sticky and sweet. But it wasn’t. It was fresh and light, kind of like that expensive water you can buy in bottles with a hint of fruit taste and wasn’t sickly at all.Nice.Couldn’t tell you whether it gave me a boost or not and I haven’t tried the GlucoTabs yet, but I’m giving a pack of them to Helsbels to give a go with her marathon training and I’m sure she’ll let you know what they’re like.And for those of you who, like me, don’t like to drink anything calorific that doesn’t contain alcohol, they only contain 16 calories.

Pedophilia

6 comments

As much as I love my little pink iPod Shuffle, when the new iPod Nano came out with its screen, my first reaction was I WANT ONE. My second reaction, on seeing the price, was BAH.

Still, a few months later, after my fellow Janathon participants had a whip round for me and presented me with (amongst other things) an amazon gift voucher so big it made me cry with joy and gratitude*, I was able to buy the much coveted iPod Nano.

nano

Yay.

It arrived yesterday and while playing with it, found it had a pedometer on it. As much as I hate numbers, I love statistics and spent the afternoon seeing how many steps I made going downstairs and making hot chocolate (48) or going to the conservatory to get a packet of crisps (59). Great fun. It was a bit worrying by the end of the day though, when my grand total of movement was only 744 steps. The government recommendation is 10,000.

Oops.

I made up for that today though by running 4.8 miles and by 3:30pm, I had racked up 10,004 steps and decided that meant I didn’t have to move for the rest of the day.

Result.

*I am aware I haven’t blogged about the post-Janathon 5k and lunch yet. Sorry. I will do it. Soon. Honest.

Stats
Distance: 4.82 miles
Time: 1:02:28
Pace: 12:58 m/m
Calories: 445
New iPod Nanos: 1
Pedometers: 1
Steps recorded so far today: 10,004

Janathon winners announced!

26 comments

This was by far the most nerve-wracking part of the whole thing for me. I really didn’t see how all the blogs could be checked and verified and counted and everything else and I was sooooooo scared I’d give the prizes to the wrong people.

But, with the help of my wonderful volunteer blog-checkers, between us and the Running Free Online website, I can now reveal for definite the winners of this year’s Janathon.

All prizes (you can see them here on the Janathon website) have been donated by Audiofuel, Talk Talk and Polaroid Sunglasses.

In first place:

Local Adventures

Gary wins a Garmin 405, which I hope has a coffee maker attached to it, as I’m sure after running an immense 450 miles throughout January, he probably needs some caffeine to keep him awake.

In second place:

…musing…

I’m sure we all had great fun in the early days watching Gary and Kevin battling it out for the top spot on the leaderboard. I could smell the testosterone from here.

Kevin ran 313 miles in January and wins £100 worth of Wiggle vouchers.

In third place:

2011 Miles

Well, one half of them, anyway. I’m not sure how Jules found the time to run with the amount of time he spent on Twitter and keeping tabs on what everyone else was up to but he managed to fit in 254 miles of running and has won a pair of Polaroid Sunglasses.

In fourth place:

runtezza

Just two miles behind Jules, Terry ran a massive 252 miles for Janathon and wins £50 worth of Audiofuel compilations.

In fifth place:

Painted Runner

I’m glad Lena likes running, as she’s just won a year’s subscription to Runner’s World for running 179 miles.

Each one, of course, blogged every day too. Well done all of you, it’s an amazing achievement.

How to claim your prizes:

Gary, you can claim yours personally at the post-Janathon lunch.

The rest of you, please email me at cathy@janathon.com with your addresses please.

Right, that’s that. Now I don’t want to hear the ‘J’ word ever again.

Lunch, interrupted

9 comments

I went out for a run and meant to do about three miles or so but I took a wrong turning and then I took another wrong turning and I ended up doing eight miles, which is more than a third of my total mileage during Janathon (thanks Fortnight Flo for pointing that out…) and it’s taken ages because I kept stopping to try and work out where I was and when I get back to the house, I’ve done 7.91 miles and so I round it up to 8 miles and when I get back it’s past lunchtime and now my feet hurt.

Stats
Distance: 8.03 miles
Time: 1:39:44
Pace: 12:25 m/m
Calories: 782
Wrong turnings: quite a few

t h e e n d

19 comments

I should have run today. My pathetic Janathon mileage is 22 miles running and so I was going to round it up to 25. But I didn’t. I’m still aching from Friday’s body pump (is it normal to be aching this long?) and will be going to running club tomorrow (possibly. Shaun’s just informed me that he’s not going. Bah.) and I don’t like to run two days in a row (so why have I just organised a daft running challenge that encourages people to run every day for 31 days? Don’t know.) and so I decided to cycle over to the donkeys and take their photo instead.

cycling-002

After I’d seen the donkeys I decided to explore a bit as it was a beautiful and sunny day. It was even warm enough for me to ditch my gloves.

cycling-007

I cycled through Bilsington and saw a pub, then I cycled through Ruckinge and saw another pub and then I came to a steep hill that I walked up.

cycling-009

Up this hill I saw a bunny, then round the corner I saw a load of chickens and TWO COWS. I like cows. Unfortunately the cows were too far away for me to take a photo.

Not much else of interest happened on my bike ride. I didn’t see any more cows or pubs, only sheep.

cycling-011

And now I’m at the part where I have to say thank you for participating in Janathon and that I hope you enjoyed it.

So, thank you for participating in Janathon and I hope you enjoyed it.

Thanks to Joggerblogger for inventing Juneathon in the first place and thanks to Sean at Audiofuel for force-feeding me pizza until I agreed to organise the first ever Janathon and more thanks to Sean for donating the brilliant prize of a Garmin and Audiofuel compilations and even more thanks to Sean for his unending support and enthusiasm, as ever.

Thanks to Phil for his brilliant PR-ing and getting us the sponsorship from Talk Talk.

Thanks to Greg, Cass, Angela, Millie, Kaye, Pete, Jules, Helen, Steve, Ross, Susan, Katie and Kathryn for volunteering to be on blog-checking duty. That was a HUGE weight off my shoulders. I was about to have a nervous breakdown at that point.

More thanks to Jules who has been incredibly helpful throughout the month by helping people work out the Running Free website, putting the Janathon Daily together, putting all the blogs into a bundle for people to read on Google Reader, promoting Janathon in a podcast and tons of other stuff that I’ve forgotten about.

Thanks also to Dee for getting us a mention twice on 6Music.

Thanks to everyone for commenting on each other’s blogs and being so supportive. That’s what Janathon’s about.

Thanks to my new Twitter friends for the chat and banter. If you didn’t join the party on Twitter, you missed out, it was buzzing.

Thanks to Shaun for putting up with me stressing about it all with the worry that it would all turn out to be a disaster and I end up giving the prizes to the wrong people (that could still happen, eek).

I think that’s it for now. I’ll be checking all the stats in a couple of days and will announce the winners by the end of the week.

Stats (cycling)
Distance: 12.54 miles
Time: 1:29:13
Speed: 8.4mph
Calories: 384

Total mileage for Janathon
Running: 22 miles
Cycling: 88 miles
Swimming: 4 lengths
Cross-training: 4 hours
Calories: 6424
Days completed: 24/31

So, a pretty lousy effort really. You’ve all put me to shame!

A fox, some owls and a windmill

4 comments

I said to Shaun that if he ran in daylight then I’d go with him on the bike and so he did run in daylight and I went with him and I saw a fox but Shaun didn’t, even though the fox crossed his path and we went past the owl sanctuary and in the distance we could see the windmill and that was about it really and sorry this blog post is a bit shit but I want to go and watch  Come Dine With Me and you could read the one below instead if you haven’t already as it’s a bit better.

Stats (cycling)
Distance: 6.14 miles
Time: 48:40
Speed: 7.6mph
Calories: 209
Foxes: 1
Owl sanctuaries: 1
Windmills: 1
Come Dine With Mes: 1

Ouch, ache, ow, ache, etc.

5 comments

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

Splishy sploshy splutter

17 comments

I had told myself, as part of Janathon, I would go swimming for the first time in 25 years and as the end of Janathon is nigh, it was about time I did as I was told. So last night, I booked myself onto this morning’s body pump class at the gym in town, with the intention of going swimming after.

I did body pump a few times in London but the system there is that you have to ring and book 24 hours in advance and you also have to ring at 6:30am, as otherwise it’d be fully booked by 7, so I pretty much gave up trying to do the classes there but here you can book online up to a week in advance. Result.

Body pump was great. I haven’t done it for a few years and didn’t do it very often then and so I didn’t know what I was doing but the instructor was very helpful and told me which weights to use for each track and after the 45 minutes were up, my arms were wobbling and shaking like a blancmange that’s been bought a Rabbit for Christmas.

I wasn’t entirely sure if wobbling and shaking was very conducive to a successful swim, taking into consideration I haven’t been swimming for 25 years but I was here and I’d told myself I was going swimming, so went swimming I did.

Well, kind of. I looked at the lanes and the first one said slow lane but it looked very narrow and there were already three people in it and it said to swim clockwise and so I went down to the end and got in the pool and swam. In a splashing around and kicking and trying to propel myself forward kind of way. There was a woman in front of me doing breast stroke and I was attempting a front crawl and I think I kept splashing her and when we got to the end she stopped and I said sorry, I don’t really know what I’m doing and she said she was sorry she was going so slowly and I said I haven’t been swimming for 25 years and don’t know pool etiquette and she said well, this is the slow lane but it’s not really big enough for more than one person and she went into the other lane where there weren’t any people and I carried on in the slow lane where there was a man doing breaststroke and I attempted to do breaststroke but I kept sinking and so I carried on with my splishy splashy front crawl thing and there was another girl doing front crawl but gliding gracefully through the water and I got to the end and wondered if I could do another length and thought I can’t give up after two lengths, it’d hardly be worth getting wet and so I kicked and splashed my way down to the end and back up again but I couldn’t make it all the way to the end and I was in the deep end and kept sinking, so I doggy paddled over to the side and made my way up to the end and got out and got dressed and then went to Caffe Nero and had a hot chocolate and a red pepper and smoked Italian cheese panini.

So, today’s Janathon was a triathlon of cycling, body pump and swimming.

I am hardcore.

Stats (cycling to and from the gym)
Distance: 5 miles
Time: 30 minutes
Speed: 10mph
Calories: 161

Body pump
Time: 45 minutes
Calories: 400

Swimming
Lengths: 4
Calories: 80

Hot chocolate
Calories: 280

Red pepper and smoked Italian cheese panini
Calories: 412

Janathon Day 20

2 comments

Well, I’ve only done 20 days, anyway. Although, in my defence, that is the highest amount of Janathon days I’ve completed ever. So yay.

I had to finish another assignment this morning, so no gym as I didn’t want to do my assignment in my dressing gown and knew once I was dressed, I wouldn’t bother getting changed once more into my gym kit. It has just occurred to me that I could have done my assignment in my gym kit and gone to the gym straight after. Duh.

Still, I didn’t slack and that’s the main thing. Today I got on my bike and chose the purple bike as it has more gears and I was starting off by going up a hill. When I got half way up the hill, the person on a bike in front of me had got off and pushed. Lightweight.

I was going to try a new route but it didn’t go very far away really and it only ended up being a bit under five miles, so that makes me a bit of a lightweight too.

Er, that was about it really. Sorry for the boring post. I’ll try and find something to rant about tomorrow.

Stats
Distance: 4.75 miles
Time: 29:43
Speed: 9.6mph
Calories: 146
Janathons completed so far out of 31: 20
People pushing bikes up hills: 1
Mes pushing bikes up hills: 0
Boring blog posts: 1

1 … 50 51 52 53 54 … 119