Category: Challenge within a challenge

As today is the last day for my Salomon XT Wings Challenge, I have to make up the shortfall of the 100 miles which is about ten miles. Eek. I had promised Monica I would go up to Alexandra Palace but that would work out more like 15 miles and I’m feeling lazy and Monica is currently in Italy and therefore will never ever find out so I decide to go round Victoria Park and I get out the door and hurrah, there’s two new clean and shiny recycling bins on the wall and I’m wondering which ones they are that I ordered as I ordered two twice online and two on the phone as they were taking about sixteen million years to deliver them so maybe I’m going to get four more and they’ll think I’m greedy but my one disappeared one day and so I stole my next door neighbour’s recycling bin as she hasn’t lived there for about two years and her latest tenants had moved out but then the day after I stole her recycling bin I saw her and she said she was moving back in and I’m thinking you haven’t lived here for two years and now you move back in the day after I steal your recycling bin? and I’m feeling guilty for stealing her recycling bin but the next time the recycling bins get emptied I don’t get my stolen one back and now it doesn’t matter as I have my own bins now that aren’t stolen and I’m thinking guilt free recycling bins are the best ones to have and I get to the marshes and I’m wondering whether to miss out Springfield Park and I think if I skip it then I’ll miss out on my new favourite view and so I go into the park and there’s some kids there doing some running thing and then about 20 million more kids come down the hill and I’m thinking there must be some kind of sports day going on and then another 20 million kids come down the hill and I’m thinking this is a bad day to be in the park and I get up the hill and there’s a man on the bench where the God Women were the other day and I wonder if he’s a God Person but he doesn’t appear to have any magazines with him and I get past him without being offered any magazines and I see my new favourite view which isn’t as good as usual and I’m thinking the novelty must have wore off and I’ll have to wait until August when I go up some mountains and as I’m going past where the cows used to live and will hopefully live again come July there’s a man with no shirt on walking up the path towards the bridge and I’m wondering if I should follow the man with no shirt on over the bridge or should I go over the road and I decide to go over the road in case the man with no shirt on is dodgy which he might well be seeing as he’s over the marshes with no shirt on and without a dog to make him look less dodgy and as I get to the sex change pub I see a sign for a hypnotist

and it reminds me of my dream last night when I dreamt that I was in the pub smoking and Paul McKenna came over and said he could stop me smoking and I said to him I don’t actually smoke, I haven’t smoked for two and a half years and I don’t know why I’m smoking this and after I’ve finished this packet, I’ll stop again and also in my dream was a photo of me and Tracey looks at the photo and says were you half the weight you are now and I say yes and also half the age and when I wake up I’m thinking I must be feeling old and fat but at least the fat bit is my fault.

After I’ve finished being reminded of dreams about hypnotists and old photos I go through to the Middlesex Filter Beds which apparently were used to clean the water for the residents of North London until 1969 which is the year I was born so they obviously didn’t think I was worthy of clean water and thought I should just drink sewage or something and then I stop to take a photo of which I assume is a pump from the olden days when they used to clean the water and not try to kill me with sewage.

And another one.

And then there’s the plaque about the magic fish.

But you can’t see the magic fish, all you can see is weeds.

And I’m thinking Hackney Council need to get their gardeners on the case as I couldn’t see the deer the other day because of the weeds and now I can’t see the magic fish although I have seen the magic fish and they’re a bit crap really but it’s typical that the one day I want to take a photo of the magic fish I can’t.

I get to the end of the marshes and decide I don’t want to go to Victoria Park and I carry on going round and there’s a man on a bicycle and he stops to look at the helicopter that’s flying overhead.

And it’s just hovering in the sky and I’m thinking it must be looking for an escaped convict or something and I don’t want to be in the marshes with an escaped convict and so I think I’d better get out of there and then a man comes towards me and I’m wondering if he’s an escaped convict and I decide he’s not as he’s got two dogs with him and then when I get to the end of the foresty bit there’s another man coming towards me and I decide he does look like an escaped convict but not one that’s likely to murder me, maybe he just didn’t pay his TV licence or something and I must be looking at him like I think he’s an escaped TV licence payment dodging convict as he waves and says hello and I give him a sort of half smile and I carry on and get over the bridge back to Walthamstow and leave Hackney the home of the escaped convict and I decide to go up past the river and as I’m going over the boardwalk and I can see the helicopter still there hovering in the sky and then it turns towards me and I’m wondering if it’s a guardian helicopter and it’s come to look after me while I’m in the marshes but then it turns in the opposite direction and I decide it hasn’t come to look after me after all and I’m hoping the cows come back soon as they’re due back in July and then I get onto the path and decide to run again and then something wiggles across the path and I jump over it and then I’m thinking IT’S A SNAKE! How cool, I’ve never seen a snake over the marshes before and I get my camera out but it’s too quick and wiggles into the grass and I go to have a look but I can’t see it any more and I think bollocks, I wanted a picture of a snake but the snake is gone and the rest of the journey is pretty uneventful and there’s no more hypnotists, men without shirts, helicopters, escaped convicts or snakes, just this broken tree

and I’m wondering how the tree got broken and I get to the park and I’m not sure if I’ve done my 100 miles yet so I decide to do another half a mile and I’m skipping through my iPod to find an uplifting song and Is This The Life by Cardiacs comes on and I think how perfect it is that my favourite band in the whole world ever ever ever are going to be the soundtrack to the finish of my 100 mile challenge.

Stats
Distance: 10.06 miles
Time: 2:17:37
Pace: 13:41
Calories: 837
Hypnotists: 1
Filterbeds not working since 1969: 1
Magic fish: 0
Helicopters: 1
Escaped TV licence payment dodging convicts: 1
Cows: 0
Snakes: 1
Broken trees: 1
Salomon XT Wings Challenges successfully completed: 1
Juneathons completed: 20/24
Music
Stereo Total
Rolling Stones
Beatles
Graham Coxon
The Smiths
Levellers
The Mission
Cardiacs
THE 100 MILE CHALLENGE
Miles completed
100.42 out of 100 / end of challenge

I dream Canary Wharf is burning down and I escape by boat and the boat’s heading in the direction of an iceberg and I wake up and try to get back to sleep as I want to see the iceberg as I don’t think you get many icebergs in the Docklands but I can’t get back to sleep so I get up and look out of the spare room window to see if Canary Wharf is still there but there’s a tree in the way so I think I’ll check on it when I go through the marshes and I get dressed in my new running kit which comprises a pink Nike t-shirt

three-quarter length Nike trousers

and some running socks

and all for the princely sum of about £20 and I think I’m getting good at being poor although I don’t have to be poor any more since I got my old job back and I get to the marshes and I can see the Gherkin but I can’t see Canary Wharf and I think ohhhhhhhhhhhh, maybe it really did burn down overnight but then I see it and I think hurrah, Canary Wharf hasn’t burnt down after all and I go round Springfield Park and there aren’t any God People in there today trying to give me magazines and I get to the bridge and there’s a piece of graffiti

although as it’s only one piece of graffiti, that would actually make it a graffito and I wonder what it means and it’s a question not a statement and I wonder if I’m running for my life and I decide I’m not and on the other side of a bridge is a ramp

and I think bloody hell, the amount of times I’ve crossed this bridge and I never noticed there was a ramp before and I get home and decide to go out shopping this afternoon to veganise my fridge in preparation for 1 July.

Today’s route

Splits

Stats
Distance: 3.88 miles
Time: 43:01
Pace: 11:05 m/m
Calories: 356
New running t-shirts: 1
New running trousers: 1
New pairs of running socks: 2
Canary Wharfs not burnt down: 1
Graffitos: 1
Ramps: 1
Veganised fridges: 1
Juneathons completed: 17/20
Music
Manic Street Preachers
Soft Cell
Jeff Buckley
P J Harvey
Basement Jaxx
Ting Tings
THE 100 MILE CHALLENGE
Miles completed so far
83.01 out of 100 / 4 days left

I get up this morning and decide to go to Victoria Park to visit the deer, also taking in Springfield Park which I’ve always been too scared to go in to, due to it looking like a park that kept appearing in a recurring dream I used to have, but Adele said it’s a lovely park and I should go in there and on the way there’s a dummy hanging off the bridge

and I wonder if it belongs to the screaming brat that was in Sainsbury’s yesterday as that could have done with a dummy to shut the thing up and then I get to Springfield Park

and it looks a bit hilly for my liking and so I walk up the hill and at the top of the hill are two women sitting on a bench and one of them says hello so I say hello back and she gets up and comes towards me and shows me a magazine called Awake! and on the front of it it says “How well do you know your children?” and I say I don’t have any children and she says I’ll show you this one instead and she goes to give me a magazine and I say I’m sorry, I can’t carry anything, I’m just out for a run and she says oh, ok, and I carry on walking and then I’m thinking I’d better start running as I just told the God Woman I was out for a run and if she sees me walking she’ll think I’m a liar and I’m not sure what happens if you lie to God People and I think they throw lightening at you or something so I start to run and then I get to a pond and it has a pond dipping platform

and I haven’t a clue what a pond dipping platform is and as far as I’m concerned it’s a photo based emergency platform and I go onto the photo based emergency platform and take a photo

and I get round the corner and I feel like I’m on top of a mountain and there’s a great view

and Springfield Park certainly is lovely and shall feature in future runs and then I’m running alongside the river and I see some swans sleeping

and I get to the Princess of Wales pub which I found out recently used to be called the Prince of Wales until Diana mania set in and now boaters call it the sex change pub.

I eventually get to Victoria Park

and I look for the deer pen and I find what I think is the deer pen but I can’t see any deer, all I can see are weeds

and I think bloody hell, I’ve come all this way to see deer and all I get to see is weeds and then I come across a garden

and a squirrel who stays still long enough for me to take its photo

and then I head back home and do half a lap of the park to take me up to ten miles and then I get home and because I am very stupid, I put the wrong postage on the envelope for my original entry form for this Sunday’s Hampstead 10k and because my cheque didn’t get cashed, I assumed it was languishing in a Post Office somewhere in North London so I re-entered online and got my race number last week and then today the postman has brought me my postal entry number so I have two numbers now. Any takers?

Today’s route

Splits

Stats
Distance: 10.23 miles
Time: 2:24:05
Pace: 14:05 m/m
Calories: 826
Dummies: 1
Parks: 3
God Women: 2
Sleeping swans: 5
Sex change pubs: 1
Deer: 0
Squirrels staying still: 1
Numbers for the same race: 2
Juneathons completed: 15/18
Music
Primal Scream
Jesus & Mary Chain
Manic Street Preachers
Modest Mouse
Cardiacs
Soft Cell
Ash
Polyphonic Spree
Bee Gees
Blondie
Bobby Conn
Chumbawamba
Duran Duran
Foo Fighters
Beatles
Hard-Fi
Hole
Jamiroquai
Jeff Buckley
Levellers
P J Harvey
Suede
THE 100 MILE CHALLENGE
Miles completed so far
78.13 out of 100 / 6 days left

I am woken by scratching and scrabbling noises in the attic and I wonder what it is and Amanda emails me and says it’s squirrels and they’re going to eat my entire house and I think I don’t really want my entire house to be eaten by squirrels and I do some investigating on the internet and it says to play loud music and I wonder if there’s any music in particular squirrels don’t like but later on they’ve shut up and I decide to do my three mile route round the marshes as I haven’t got long to complete my Salomon Challenge and also I haven’t forgotten it’s Juneathon and I’m already down three days on that and I’m not going to win Joggerblogger’s cat and I get my personal alarm and my wireless headphones as my normal headphones have broken and as I’m waiting for my Garmin to get a signal I see Bad Cat’s Friend and before I get to the footbridge there’s a work’s vehicle on the pavement so I jump over the wall and go through the carpark but there’s a digger thing there and I think how am I supposed to get through? and the man stops the digger thing to let me go past and I go over the footbridge and past the stables and onto the path and through the bridge and back down the boring bit and there’s a squirrel and I think why don’t the squirrels stay over the marshes instead of coming to live in my attic and then I’m home and as usual I haven’t managed to do my three mile route in 30 minutes.

Splits

Stats
Distance: 3.03 miles
Time: 32:31
Pace: 10:45 m/m
Calories: 285
Noises in attic: lots
Bad Cat’s Friends: 1
Squirrels in marshes: 1
Juneathons completed: 13/16
Music
Black Kids
THE 100 MILE CHALLENGE
Miles completed so far
67.45 out of 100 / 8 days left

I’m not a man and I’m only quarter English, so I must be a mad dog and I go out in the midday sun and get the train to the forest to practice looking at trees to acclimatise myself for my upcoming trip to Cornwall, as the frequent postings of photographs of verdant ruralness on Emily’s blog are making me a tad nervous, even if she did post a photo of a pavement for me to try and reassure me that there is a bit of concrete around.

I decide to be a sad cow and let my Garmin track me on the train and 4.31 miles and 14:02 minutes later I’m in the forest looking at trees.

And then there’s an uphill bit and I walk up it because I am a weed.

But what goes up must come down.

And it really is a beautiful sunny day and I had planned to run in the forest next week but instead I accidentally went and de-unemployed pikied myself and have to go and sit in an office all week instead instead of running around in the sunshine and practising being a country bumpkin.

And then I see a road and I think eek, I didn’t want to see a road yet, I’m still practising looking at trees but it’s a road without a pavement so it’s like those stupid roads in the countryside with no pavements.

Because I am not brave enough to go on roads without pavements, I stay in the forest but the path has disappeared and now there’s only mud.

And I get nice and muddy and I pass a man with a husky dog and come to a gate which appears to be locked and I’m wondering how to go over the gate and then I SEE A BUNNY!!

There is a bunny in that photo, honest. And then husky dog man just pulls the gate open as it is only pretending to be locked and I’m glad the bunny distracted me long enough so I didn’t try and climb over the gate that was pretending to be locked and look like a muppet.

Then as I’m going past some lake thing

“Last Chance on the Stairway” by Duran Duran comes on and starts off with what sounds like a cigarette being lit and someone inhaling and I’m thinking OH MY GOD, MILLIONS OF 11 YEAR OLD GIRLS LISTENED TO THEIR RECORDS AND THEY’RE ENCOURAGING SMOKING and then I’m thinking I started smoking when I was 11 and it would appear that it’s all Simon Le Bon’s fault and how much can I sue him for and I decide probably quite a lot as he’s probably worth a few quid.

And then when I’ve got over the shock of Simon Le Bon being to blame for millions of 11 year old smokers in the early 1980s I realise I’m a bit lost and haven’t a clue where I am and I come to another road and this one has a bit of a pavement on it and I run down it.

And I come to a residential area but I still don’t know where I am and it would appear I’m not even in London anymore as the road signs don’t have postcodes on them and then I see a sign that says I’m in Loughton and I think I could get the Central Line home but I don’t want to get the tube, I want to get back to Chingford and then I think aah, my Nokia N95 has GPS and maps on it, my N95 will get me home safely but it doesn’t want to get a satellite and the maps aren’t much help so I decide to go back the way I came and I see a duck or a goose or something

and there’s a baby one with it and I want to go closer and take its photo but the big duck or goose or whatever it is starts hissing at me and the baby duck or goose or whatever it is gets in the water and they all swim away and I’m still lost in the forest like Robert Smith and I’m wondering if I’m ever going to get home and then I remember my Garmin has a navigation thing on it but I don’t know how to use it and it doesn’t seem to make any sense and the start keeps moving and the arrow just moves around so I give up on that and trust my instincts that I’m going the right way and then eventually I come to a bit which a sign says is Chingford Plain

and I think this must be where I came in but it doesn’t look familiar but I am in the right place and I get the train and it’s still nice and sunny so I decide to get off two stops early and walk home but I don’t know the way so I consult my N95 and head off in what I hope is the right direction then I get to the medieval house

and I think hurrah, I know where I am now and I’m no longer lost and nearly home.

Today’s route

Stats:
Distance: 6.56 miles
Time: 1:36:10 minutes
Pace: 14:40
Calories: 511
Trees: lots
Mud: lots
Roads without pavements: 1
Gates pretending to be locked: 1
Bunnies: 1
Ducks or geese: 3
Medieval houses: 1
Juneathons completed: 8/8
Music
Duran Duran
Ting Tings
Blur
Foo Fighters
The Jam
Rolling Stones
Beatles
Jeff Buckley
THE 100 MILE CHALLENGE
Miles completed so far
44.53 out of 100 / 16 days left

After reading the sound v silence debate on Runner’s World, I am inspired to conduct my own experiment and go for a run without my iPod, although why there even needs to be a debate about it is beyond me as Walkmans were invented for running with, so really it should be compulsory.

Off I go without my iPod and have forgotten I haven’t got it with me before I’ve even got to the gate where I go to switch it on. I haven’t even got to the end of the road before I’ve tried to push in my headphones further into my ears. I start to run and I don’t think I like this running without music thing and I keep thinking someone’s running behind me but it’s just my trouser legs brushing against each other and I get to the traffic lights and there’s a dead mouse or bird or something but I don’t stop to take its photo and I go over the footbridge and it’s all echoey and scary and I need my iPod to protect me and I think why does it feel safer when I can’t hear anything around me, is it like when you’re a kid and you think an axe murderer has broken in to bludgeon you to death, you hide under the covers because that will obviously save you and further down the path is a green chili and I think how did that get there? but I don’t stop to take a photo and then I get to the bridge and I think oh no, I don’t want to go under the bridge without my iPod and as I’m going through the bridge THERE’S A MAN COMING TOWARDS ME AND HE HASN’T GOT A DOG and I think I’m going to have a heart attack but he walks past me without murdering me and then there’s a man with a dog and I’m wondering if maybe I’ve got it wrong about men without dogs and maybe it’s men with dogs you should watch out for but the man with dog is friendly and he says morning and I say morning back and then I see some cherries on the ground and I think there must be a cherry tree here and I look up and sitting in the cherry tree is a bird.

And then there’s a woman yapping away on her mobile and I’m thinking if I had my iPod on I could drown her out and then I’m home and my experiment has come to an end and I have come to the conclusion that I prefer running with music and maybe I should go and start a 16 page thread about it.

Stats:
Distance: 2.96 miles
Time: 34:48 minutes
Pace: 11:45
Calories: 297
iPods: 0
Dead mice or birds or something: 1
Green chilis: 1
Men without dogs: 1
Men with dogs: 1
Cherries: lots
Birds sitting in cherry trees: 1
Women on mobile phones: 1
Juneathons completed: 7/7
Music
None
THE 100 MILE CHALLENGE
Miles completed so far
37.97 out of 100 / 17 days left