Category: Gym

Juneathon Day #26

12 comments

With it being Tuesday, that means it’s a half-marathon training schedule day and as I would never ever ever ever ever not stick to my schedule, I went off to the gym at lunchtime for an interval session as I had been ordered encouraged to do 22 minutes at 9/11kph.  Ouch.

I get to the gym and it’s busy but I find an unused treadmill hiding behind a pillar and get on it and notice the man on the bike in front of me has no neck and I wonder why he hasn’t got a neck and after a few seconds some of my hair has come out of its band and is flapping in my face and won’t stay behind my ear and it’s really bugging me and so after 5 minutes I have to stop to do some girly hair-adjusting type stuff and I carry on and my hair has come loose again and I think fuck it, I’ll be sweating like a pig glowing in a ladylike fashion in a minute and I can just plaster it onto my head and I’m thinking I don’t think I can do all 22 minutes today, maybe it’s too much the day after body pump and only five hours sleep but I carry on and it eventually gets to 18 minutes and I think can I do the final four minutes that I was ordered encouraged to do? and I think well I’ll have a go but I think I’m going to faint or puke or an extremely unladylike combination of both and I eventually get to the end without dying.  Result. 

Someone tell me again why I’m doing this please?

Stats
Treadmill: 22 minutes
Distance: 3.58k
Speed: 9/11kph

Juneathon Day #25

3 comments

Some people take Juneathon seriously and some people sit in the pub all day, having sunk 5 pints by 2:30 in the afternoon.  I, of course, being a finely tuned athlete, fall into the former category so off I diligently went after work to the gym to go to body pump.  I had loads of time to spare before the class started so I jumped on a treadmill but the ones near the telly that shows Neighbours were all taken so I had to make do with some cartoon sheep and the spin class that was going on in front of me for entertainment and I stayed on the treadmill for 30 minutes then went to body pump where I proceeded to show just how weedy I am by having lighter weights than everybody else and still not managing to do the whole class without stopping a few times.

Stats:
Treadmill: 30 minutes
Distance: 4.45k
Speed: 9kph
Class: Body pump

Juneathon Day #22

11 comments

More Juneathoning down the gym at lunchtime today. I spend the afternoon wanting to kill my boss and anyone else really and I’m thinking that although I wasn’t going to drink tonight and even left my wallet at home so I couldn’t go to the offy on the way home I’m thinking I might have to rescue my wallet and go out to the shop and I’m thinking this week has been such a pain in the arse and I don’t appreciate being spoken to by my boss like a 5 year old with a less than average intelligence even if he does always apologise and when I get home there’s an answerphone message from someone in B&Q’s legal team who says that they’ve decided to settle my claim in full and pay my court fees. YAY GO ME FUCKING RESULT OR WHAT? And then I’m happy again 🙂

Stats:
Treadmill: 15 minutes
Distance: 2.3k
Speed: 9.5kph
Rowing machine: 15 minutes
B&Qs successfully sued: 1

Juneathon Day #21

6 comments

I read back the rules of Juneathon and re-read them and re-read them but I still couldn’t see where it says you’re excused from Juneathon if the night before you had consumed vast quantities of popadums, curry, nan bread, ice cream (in a cow cup), beer and wine and it didn’t say I was excused on my half-marathon training schedule either so off I duly went to the gym at lunchtime for another interval session (ooh get me, learning the lingo and everything).  I managed 18 minutes on the treadmill before it was looking likely that the vast quantities of aforementioned foodstuffs and drinkstuffs was going to make a reappearance so I wimped out of the last four minutes and went back to work.

I really did have ice cream out of a cow cup, look:

Stats
Treadmill: 18 minutes
Distance: 2.95k
Speed: 9/11kph

Juneathon Day #20

4 comments

Despite still being partly crippled from Monday’s body pump class, I am not as crippled as Joggerblogger who apparently is now sporting a rather fetching wrist strap (photographic evidence to be produced shortly) and what with him being a show off hardcore still managed to go out for 8 miles before 6:30 this morning, I ignored my rumbling stomach which was telling me to forget Juneathon and do Lunchathon instead and went to the gym.  I jumped on my new best friend the treadmill and did a v. slow 10 minutes, then turned up it up for another 5, then up again for another 4 then up again for the last minute then got on the rowing machine for 15 minutes but stayed on for 20 and left the gym feeling energised and returned to the office to stuff my face.

Stats
Treadmill: 20 minutes
Distance: 3.1k
Speed: 9/9.5/10/11kph

Juneathon Day #18

5 comments

For the first time this year I’ve managed to get on the body pump class, now that all the new year people have buggered off. So after a day of me wanting to kill my unreasonable tosser of a boss and hoping he hasn’t heard me mutter fucking prick under my breath for 99% of the day I try and remember where the gym where the class is held is and I eventually take the right turning and get there and I have half an hour before the class starts so I get on the treadmill and I’m thinking about my dream last night where someone broke into my house to attack me and I asked him if he could come back another day instead and he said ok and when I woke up I thought that’s pretty handy, I’ll have to remember that and it reminded me of my conversation with Gary when he said that it was really hard to strangle people and I said yes because you could just tickle them, and after 10 minutes on the treadmill I turn the speed up to 10 and then up to 11 for the last minute and then I get off and go on the bike for 12 minutes then go to the body pump class which I haven’t been to for over six months and the music’s better now and I think I’ll stick to the lightest weights as I remember not being able to move my arms or legs for about three days after the first time I went last year and so just about get through the class and stagger out of the gym and my arms and shoulders are stiff and I think oops, I don’t think I’ll be able to do the running commute I had tentatively planned for tomorrow. Ho hum.

Stats:
Treadmill: 15 minutes
Speed: 9/10/11kph
Distance: 2.3k
Bike: 12 minutes
Class: Body Pump
Arms working properly: 0

Juneathon Day #14

7 comments

One of the things I like most about Juneathon is the fact I don’t have to think of titles for my posts and as I have plans for -athons lined up for July and August, it means I don’t have to think of titles for posts for ages. Hurrah.

In case anyone read on my blog yesterday that I was going to do a running commute today, I lied. Yikes, I lied on my blog, I’m never going to get into heaven now. Ho hum. I had planned to do a running commute and took into work my running gear but then I decided that a) I was absolutely f**king knackered; b) it was raining; and c) I wouldn’t have enough time to get home and have a shower and un-ming myself before Gary came round to drink beer and eat pizza get thrashed at Scrabble.

But I didn’t completely wimp out as I went to the gym after work instead and when I got to the gym there was a big sign saying that from Thursday 14 June 2007 (i.e. today) all members MUST have a valid membership card with them and I thought bugger, typical that the only time I’ve ever come without a card, they change their system and they must really mean it if they’re writing their signs with capital letters, so I went up to the girl on reception and say I haven’t got my card, can I still come in and she says yes, the new system doesn’t really come in for another week and she asks me my surname and I say white like the colour and spell it for her and then think that maybe she thinks that maybe I think that she can’t spell the word white and I ponder very briefly if I should explain that everyone gets confused by my name and asks me to spell it and I think no I should just shut up and she gives me a temporary card and I say thank you, it’s typical that the only time I’ve come without my card you’ve changed your system and she says really? and I decide not to tell her that the only reason I haven’t got my card is because I was going to run home and not come to the gym but then I decided not to run home but had to do something because of Juneathon because unless she is an avid reader of runners’ blogs and not even all runners’ blogs but just a small collection of runners, she won’t have a clue what Juneathon is. And she probably wouldn’t care anyway.

And I think to myself I will do 15 minutes on the treadmill and there’s a man on the rowing machine in front of me just sitting there with his legs open like a teenager on the tube and I think why is he just sitting there and then he starts doing sit ups on the rowing machine and I’m thinking why the fuck is he doing sit ups on the rowing machine, aren’t there mats and things to do that on? and he keeps doing sit ups and it’s really annoying me and then I’m thinking that must be really uncomfortable and I’m thinking how much longer can I stay on this treadmill with him directly in my view irritating me and he eventually stops doing sit ups and I think I will do 5k on the treadmill as that’s half a running commute but the timer is ticking away so slowly and I’m thinking I’m sure the time ticks quicker when it’s on miles on my Garmin and I’m thinking would the numbers tick away faster in miles but I can’t think because numbers do my head in but my brain is trying to work it out despite my best efforts to tell my brain that I don’t do numbers and then I think if I put the speed up it’ll go faster anyway and then I can go home so I put it up to 9kph and then a bit later I put it up to 9.6kph which bugs me as I didn’t want to go over 9.5kph and I can’t be arsed to turn it down and then when it gets to 4.5k I put it up to 10 and yay at last I get to 5k and I do the 5 minute cool down thing and go and get changed and go home.

Stats:
Treadmill
Time: 34:32
Distance: 5k
Speed: 8.5/9.0/9.6/10kph

Juneathon Day #13

8 comments

A trip to the gym at lunchtime to jump up and down on the treadmill whilst pondering life’s complexities such as why do women get called heifers when a heifer is a male calf or is it heffa, as in heffalump?

Also on my list of things to ponder while on the treadmill was what challenge to lay myself for July once the Juneathon’s over and I came to the decision that July will be a Lose the Lardathon which ordinarily would mean cutting down the beer but with us coming into the official beer drinking season (i.e. Summer) that’s a really crap idea so it’s going to have to be a Eat Less Crap But Still Drink A Bitathon and then I had a flash of inspiration and thought I will only drink on beer drinking weather days and no drinking if it’s raining.  Yah, good plan.  Although if it starts raining while I’m drinking I can carry on drinking which is an even better plan.

Tomorrow I’m going to do a running commute.  B*llocks, I’ve blogged it now, I’ll have to do it 🙂

Stats:
Treadmill: 15 minutes
Speed: 9kph
Distance: 2.2 kilometres
Rowing machine: 15 minutes
Crosstrainer: 18 minutes

Crisis Square Mile Run race report

17 comments

I really wasn’t looking forward to last night’s race due to me not being fully recovered from Tuesday night’s excesses and having a stomach ache all afternoon and hoped the walk up to St Paul’s would wake me up. I got to St Paul’s station and met up with my fellow racers Gary and Kate, and Bernard the official bag lookerafterer.

We checked in, got our red t-shirts and me and Kate went to the pub to get changed and bumped into Al at the bar who was supposed to be meeting Kate outside in the square but who had obviously got his priorities right by getting himself a beer first.

After what seemed like about two million years the race eventually started. After crossing the start line at about what also seemed like about two million years later, I got about ten yards down the road when I saw Ben standing at the railings so I stopped and went over and said what are you doing here, why didn’t you come to find us outside Corney & Barrow and he said he’d just finished work. I said oh, are you going to be at the finish line, Bernard and Al will be there, they’re outside the pub at the mo and Ben said maybe, where’s Gary and Kate? I said they’re running. Ben said well you’d better get a move on then and stop standing here, you can’t let them beat you so off I went hoping to overtake and leave for dust catch up with Gary and Kate and for the next half mile it was practically at a standstill with thousands of runners and narrow roads and steps to go up and down and it was at a standstill at London Bridge with everyone trying to crowd into the steps there.

And I’m running and running and running but I still can’t see Gary or Kate and I’m thinking they’re going to beat me but I have an excuse in that I stopped to talk to Ben and then I get to the Millennium Bridge which is just before the finish line and I’m running up to the finish line but I can’t see Gary, Kate, Bernard or Al and I think where is everybody? I finish in 33:08, yay, but there’s no-one here and I’m thinking how will I find them, Bernard’s got my bag with my phone in it so I can’t ring anyone so I walk down to watch the runners come over the bridge and I see Kate coming and so I clap and say yay, go Kate but she doesn’t see me so I wander up to meet her and bump into Al and say oh, there you are, where have you been and he says I didn’t expect any of you to finish for about another 20 minutes and we go and find Kate and I say well done and a couple of minutes later Gary comes along too and then Bernard turns up and says oops, I’m in the doghouse now, sorry I wasn’t there at the finish line but we didn’t think you’d be back yet and I say we are finely tuned athletes and we’ve been here for ages while you couldn’t be bothered to leave the pub to come and cheer us over the finish line.

We wander back up to the square to get our goody bags and have a goody bag inspection and the general consensus is that they’re pretty shit really and Kate says that she was expecting more for all that effort and inside the goody bag is a pink transparent raincoat kind of thing which is an exceptionally sexy little number and I will post a photo of it later. I’m going to wear it all the time because it will undoubtedly make me more attractive to members of the opposite sex. Yeah right.

We go off to the pub for the obligatory post-race piss-up pint and Gary says apropos of nothing that pandas don’t like to have sex with other pandas and Bernard says who do they like to have sex with then and I say probably not middle-aged men so I wouldn’t get your hopes up if I were you and after our intellectual debate about the sexual preferences of pandas we go off to another pub and argue about who’s getting the drinks in and then we go to get pizza, yay. We then go to the pub which only has the fact that it’s open ’til midnight going for it and stay there until we realise that we’re about to miss the last tube and I want to go to Liverpool Street so we get on what the destination board says is a Circle Line via Liverpool Street train which turns out to be a complete lie as we don’t realise we’re on the wrong train until we get to Whitechapel and so I have to go to Mile End and get on the Central Line to Leyton and get a taxi from Evil Cars but I decide I’m sober enough to walk further to the nice cab office and I eventually get home, yay.

Oh yes and I said to Kate did you enjoy the race and she said yes she really enjoyed it and I said I’m doing a race in Regent’s Park on 21 July, do you want to do it too, it’s only 5k, less than we’ve just run and she says yes. Yay, I’ve got a convert 🙂

I will update later with stats and maps and stuff.

Oh and in case you think I’m wimping out of today’s Juneathon, I’ve brought my gym stuff in with me and shall be making a trip to the gym at lunchtime. I am indeed a finely tuned athlete.

Juneathon day #8 update

I have been to the gym so today’s Juneathon is completed and I can spend the evening vegging out in front of the telly and hope I don’t accidentally watch Big Brother. I have resisted so far.

Gym stats:
Treadmill: 15 minutes between 8.6 & 10kph
Rowing machine: 15 minutes
Cross-trainer: 2 minutes

I had felt energised after being on the treadmill and was fine on the rowing machine, but after 2 minutes on the cross-trainer, realised that I was actually quite knackered so went to get my lunch instead.

Juneathon Day #1

10 comments

It’s day 1 of Joggerblogger’s Run Every Day In June Unless You Have A Race The Next Day But You Have To Do Some Form Of Exercise idea (or Juneathon for short) so I went to the gym to have a bit of a bounce on the treadmill.  It occurred to me that if I want to do a 5k in 30 minutes, I will have to run at 10kph, and so I thought to myself, just 30 minutes on the treadmill at 10kph, how hard can it be?  After 10 minutes I was thinking yay this is easy, all I have to do now is email the race organisers for Sunday and ask them to change the race from the road to the treadmill and I’m sorted, but 16 minutes later I was reading the display where it says if you feel pain, faint, dizziness or nausea stop exercising and I thought yes e) all of the above and put the speed down to 9.3kph and at 17.5 minutes I had to put it even slower at 9kph and at 20 minutes I got off and stumbled my way over to the rowing machine.

I was happily rowing along not going anywhere when a, um, rather large lady sat down on the rowing machine next to me and I’m thinking why is she only wearing a sports bra, she’s forgotten her t-shirt and she must be a mind-reader because I swear I didn’t say it out loud but she went off and came back with a t-shirt but before she put her t-shirt on, she stuffed her iPod down her cleavage.  ACK!!!  There are no words to describe how much I wished I hadn’t seen that and all I could think about was how sweaty that poor iPod’s going to be and I got off the rowing machine after 20 minutes and got on a bike but after 5 minutes I’d had enough and went home with my new purchases that I had bought at lunchtime.

I need a vote now from you lot to tell me which t-shirt to wear on Sunday.  I quite fancy this Nike one

because it will cover more lard and also has a nice orange back.  I like orange.

But I also bought this nice red Helly Hansen number too.

Decisions, decisions.

Tomorrow’s exercise will be walking back the 2.5 miles from the hospital.   I’m even going to take my Garmin to prove it, seeing as joggerblogger’s not letting me get away with any day before a race excuses 🙂

Stats:
Miles: 1.99
Total time: 20:00
Average pace: 10:03
Total calories: 196
Women mistreating iPods by shoving them down their cleavage: 1
Juneathon days completed: 1/30
Other exercise:
Rowing machine: 20 minutes
Bike: 5 minutes
Music:
Jamiroquai – You Are My Love
The Secret Machines – You Are Chains
The Damned – White Rabbit

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