Category: Half marathon training

Speeding along at 27mph

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Up bright and early today as I’ve got a busy day ahead, first going down to Maidstone Library to have a chat about being a volunteer computer buddy, then off to London (hurrah) to see a man about a website, then I’m meeting a friend for drinks and dinner and because I promised I was sticking to my schedule this time, I don’t wimp out of my scheduled two mile run and weights session, especially as when I get on the scales I want to throw them out of the window, because surely they can’t be right?  Can anyone recommend some decent bathroom scales?  I’ve got my eye on these ones, although if I get on them and they show the weight they’re showing on the picture, they’ll be following the cheapy ones out of the window.

I look out of the window and there’s some men in hi-vis jackets by the bus stop and I don’t want to run past them and I wonder if they’re waiting for a bus but I haven’t got all day to hang around here and so I’m brave and go outside and one of them’s sitting down on a chair so I don’t think they’re waiting for a bus and as I pass them they say morning and I’m confused as workmen usually say awright darlin’ or something and I say morning back even though I am confused and I start to run and I feel lighter despite what my bathroom scales say and I wonder if it’s because I’ve had about six inches cut off my hair and I decide my scales are lying as I haven’t been drinking that much or eating any crisps or chocolate except for the few white chocolate buttons that came in my free graze box (if you want one go to www.graze.com and enter the code HQTGF3G) and I get to the new cows on the corner and a fly flies into my eye and a cow runs along the field next to me and I’ve never seen a cow run before and I get to the tree and come back as I’m only doing two miles today and as I get back to the road there’s a sign saying they’re doing speed tests or something and that’ll be why the men are there and they’re still there at the bus stop and there’s a sign that tells me I’m doing 27mph and I think their sign is about as accurate as my bathroom scales.

Stats:
Distance: 2.12 miles
Time: 22:52
Pace: 10:47 m/m
Calories: 188
Lying bathroom scales: 1
Inches off hair: 6
Free boxes of food: 1
Flies in my eye: 1
Cows running: 1
Signs saying I was doing 27mph: 1

Start of a new schedule (and this time I mean it)

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I didn’t do very well with my new training schedule so I’ve started it again, and have stuck diligently to it so far.  All two days of it.  I have also started a new healthier eating regime which means fewer mince pies and crisps and less chocolate, wine and beer.  Eek.

So after doing my weights yesterday and not having any mince pies, today I get up early to go for a two mile run. 

After I get up, I look out of the window and there’s a hot air balloon going past and I wonder who gets a hot air balloon at 7:15am and maybe that’s how countryside people commute and I don’t waste too much time on Facebook and I’m out by 8:20 and before I get to the tree my Garmin says I’ve gone a mile but I can’t have gone a mile as the tree’s a mile away from home and I’m not at the tree yet and I get to the tree and there’s a lot of cars around and I wonder why there’s so many cars and then I think ah, it must be the school run, there’s a school just round the corner and I go round the tree and back the way I came and there’s a van with Accident Exchange on it and I wonder what an accident exchange it, do you swap accidents with people? like I’ll swap you my broken leg for your gouged out eyeball? and as I get to the end of the road there’s a man and a woman with three dogs taking up all the room and I think pull your dog over to the side so I can get past you ignorant twat, I’m not running around you and he doesn’t look like he’s going to pull his dog over but I carry on on the side I’m running on and he does pull his dog over and they’re busy chattering away to each other in that way that old people do and I had told myself I was going to walk when I got to the road but I carry on and I think I’ll stop and walk when my Garmin says I’ve done two miles but if it was out before then maybe it won’t register the two miles properly and so I carry on until I get home.

Stats:
Distance: 2.14 miles
Time: 23:46
Pace: 11:06 m/m
Calories: 176
Hot air balloons: 1
Accident Exchange vans: 1
Old people with dogs in my way: 2
Schedules stuck to for two days: 1

Technorati Tags: hot air balloon,weights,strength training,mince pies,crisps,chocolate,wine,beer,Facebook,Garmin,dogs,old people,Accident Exchange

Dirty colour changing sheep

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I slacked at the weekend, although it would seem I’m not the only one as since the end of Juneathon, there’s hardly been any blogging going on, and therefore I would assume no running either.  Tsk.

But the unticked box on my schedule was bugging me so even though I woke up knackered due to not sleeping well and having weird dreams about ex-bosses being in Tehran (is there even such a place?) and ringing me every five minutes, I got up and told myself I was doing the four miles my schedule said I should have done at the weekend.

I look out of the window and THE SHEEP HAVE CHANGED COLOUR

and they’re no longer white and fluffy although the sheep at the back of the garden aren’t usually white and fluffy anyway, they’re usually more of a manky cream colour but they’re never actually brown.   Dirty sheep.

And so after the shock of seeing the dirty changing colour sheep I set up Cedric to pace me 11 minute miles to see if going reeeeeeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaaallllllllllllllly slowly will help me to actually cover 4 miles today and my route covers the Bad Road and I hope there won’t be any falling down rabbit hole incidents today and I’ll have to be brave and ignore the cars and I go down the road and see white fluffy sheep, not dirty brown ones, and  I get to the Bad Road and I go round the bend without falling over and after the bend are cows, hurrah, and I go round the second bad bend without getting run over and there should be more cows but they’re not there and I think I only risked my life on the Bad Road so I could see cows and I only saw half the cows I should have done, bah, and I carry on going and I’m still ahead of Cedric and I’ve got two miles to go and I get round the corner and there’s a man trimming the grass on the side of the road and I’m looking a right state as it’s been raining and I’ve run two miles and I’m soaking wet and bright red and I hope he doesn’t notice me and he looks up as I pass and smiles and says morning and I think DAMN YOU, FRIENDLY VILLAGE PEOPLE and I get to the end of the road and I think if I turn left I can be home in five minutes but I’ve got a mile and a half to go and so I carry on straight and a girl on the pavement stops to let me go past and I say thanks and then I get round the corner where Costcutter is which reminds me of London as it’s run by Asians and everything and is my new favourite shop and there’s a girl on the pavement smoking and she doesn’t move out of my way and then I’ve run out of pavement anyway and I’m getting tired and I want to stop and I can hear something big behind me and I stop and let a petrol tanker or something go past and then two more cars come up behind me and then they all stop to let a truck carrying a JCB come through and I think you get some big trucks and lorries and stuff down these small country lanes and then I’m doing a mix of run/walk and Cedric’s overtaken me and I haven’t got far to go but I’m not going to catch him up and then there’s a Range Rover or something right behind me and makes me jump and I think oops, I should concentrate more, that came up slowly and then I’m back on the main road as Soft Cell start singing Sex Dwarf and I think hurrah and turn it up and then I’ve only got a few hundred feet to go and then it’s in minus numbers and I think does that mean I’ve gone over four miles now? and so I stop my Garmin and it says Cedric beat me.  Bah.

Splits

Stats:
Distance: 4.05 miles
Time: 46:18
Pace: 11:25 m/m
Calories: 351
Dirty brown colour changing sheep: some
Fluffy white sheep: some more
Friendly village people: 1
Girls on pavement stopping to let me past: 1
Girls on pavement not stopping to let me past: 1
Petrol tankers: 1
Trucks carrying JCBs: 1
Range Rovers nearly running me over: 1
Cedrics beating me: 1
Music:
Modest Mouse
Muse
Charlatans
Soft Cell

Countdown to Reading Half Marathon

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My Reading Half Marathon race pack came yesterday, the first four digits of my number being the phone number of the house I  was born in, grew up in and lived in until I was 19 when I escaped the confines of parental control and aggressive alcoholics and gained my independence by living in a 6′ x 10′ room in Walthamstow.  Phone numbers aside, my race number confuses me as it has no colour on it  to signify my starting place and I’m sure Shaun said his was blue and he rings me and I say I’m confused, my number has no colour, unless there’s a white start? and he looks at the race info and says yes, there’s a white start, it’s 2:25+ and I say what? I wouldn’t have put my time down as that slow, have they been reading my blog and put me in the appropriate place with all the other slackers? and this morning I wake up to the aroma of freshly baked Sainsbury’s Cheese & Onion packet bread mix and the sun is out and I want to get out early as I have an urge to make some jewellery and I think I’d better have some jelly beans to power me and I have Hawaiian punch flavour and peachy pie flavour and I’m out of the house by 9 and as I get to the marina there’s a boy wearing a purple jumper that looks like a school jumper and then I think maybe it’s navy blue and I decide it’s indigo and I wonder why there’s a schoolboy over the marshes on a Saturday morning and I go over the bridge that’s not shut anymore and is now a not very nice shade of green and yellow and it’s quite windy but not as windy as when I did my 18 mile jelly baby duty cycle ride and  when I get to three miles I think I could turn round and go back the way I came as I haven’t done that before and it’ll be a change and I only want to do six miles today anyway and maybe it will energise me a bit as I’m struggling a bit on this run and feel quite heavy and I turn round but it’s windy so I turn back to carry on going and I think how am I supposed to do another ten miles on top of this next Sunday and I think bollocks and all the training has (not) been done now and whatever I do next week isn’t going to make any difference and I can’t do any running commutes next week anyway as my running commute days of Tuesday and Thursday have been reserved for pizza eating, drinking and seeing bands instead and the days after have been reserved for recovering so it looks like Shaun was right when in his supportive boyfriend way he told the journalist from the Reading Evening Post that I’m going to hate it as I haven’t done any training.

 

Stats:
Distance: 6:35 miles
Time: 1:08:24
Pace: 10:46 m/m
Calories: 549
Race packs: 1
Sainsburys cheese & onion packet bread mixes: 1
Jelly beans: 3
Journalists told that I’m crap at training: 1
Music:
Associates
Nirvana
Joy Division
B52s
Blur
Arctic Monkeys
Power Station
The Killers

Magic beans, angel dust and Ninja Turtles

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I get up at 6am – two and a half hours before I need to leave for work – and have a productive morning, then get to work to be unproductive and, because my boss isn’t in today, I spend the day doing a bit of work, a lot of browsing the internet and no being sworn at.

And because it’s a lovely sunny day, in order to not get too lethargic in the afternoon thus thwarting my plans for a running commute, at lunchtime I go for a walk along the river, a walk cut short when it’s looking very likely that I’m going to get trampled on by the 22,000,030 runners along the Embankment, so I cut my walk short, cross the road and go back to the office to carry on my boss-isn’t-here-so-I’m-going-to-have-a-long-lunch-break thing.

2:45 comes and I’m eyeing up the energy bar on my desk.  Shall I eat it now or wait a bit?  I ponder this for about three seconds and five seconds later the energy bar is no longer on my desk but somewhere inside my digestive tract.  Or on its way there.  Biology was never my thing.

Also in preparation for my run, I’d bought some Gourmet Beans from The Jelly Bean Factory that I’d been eyeing up in WHSmith over the last few weeks, as they proudly state “gelatine free” which means they’re not made of bones and hooves.  Oh no, they only contain shellac which apparently is insect secretion and The Vegetarian Society says to treat it like honey (i.e. leave it up to your conscience whether you want to eat it or not) so if The Vegetarian Society says it’s ok to eat insect wee, then it’s ok with me.  Yum.

At 4:00 I’m bored so I decide to play “guess the jelly bean flavour” (which isn’t just an excuse for gluttony.  As if) and sample some beans and I can’t guess the flavour (I’m also crap at guessing smells; someone was eating Kentucky Fried Chicken in the office the other day and I thought it was fish) but mmmm, they’re very nice and I manage not to eat all of them and at 5:00 I do my boss-isn’t-here-so-I’m-going-to-leave-early thing and then I’m trying to cross the road but a cyclist goes through the red light and I try again and another cyclist goes through the red light and I think OI CYCLISTS, STOP GOING THROUGH THE RED LIGHT AND LET ME CROSS THE ROAD YOU WANKERS and I get to Angel and I get dust in my eye again and I think why do I keep getting dust in my eye when I get to the Angel? and I think ah, it must be angel dust and maybe it’s lucky dust and I go past Foxtons and have a better look through the window at their fridges and I can only see Coke and water and I think maybe I won’t go in there and pretend I can afford a house in Islington then if I’m not going to get any free wine or beer and then I see a trampy bloke pick up half a cigarette off the pavement and I think aah, poor trampy bloke and I go to get a cigarette out of my rucksack to give him then remember I don’t smoke anymore and I run past Hackney Downs station without wimping out and getting on a train and then I’m waiting to cross the road and I see the steep bit and I think I need a jelly bean to help me up the steep bit and I don’t know what flavour it is but it’s very nice indeed and I get up the steep bit and through Murder Mile and I think, do I deserve a jelly bean for getting through Murder Mile without getting murdered? and I decide I do and I recognise it as coconut and think this one’s not so nice and I’m wondering if it’s light enough for me to cut through the marshes and I decide it is and I go to cross the road and the lights are taking ages to change and I think hurry up lights, or it will get dark and I eat more jelly beans while I’m waiting for the lights to change and I go through the marshes and I can see a man on a bench up ahead and he seems to be doing some sort of push up thing and I think why’s he doing that there? and I wonder if I should go back onto the road but I decide to be brave and I go past the stables and I think the horses will save me if anyone tries to murder me, perhaps even Champion the Wonder Horse himself, although he’s probably been dead for about 50 years and I think oh shit, I’ve got to go through the bread factories now, I didn’t think of that and I get to the factories and there’s people working there and I think hooray, maybe I won’t get murdered after all, the bread people can save me, perhaps even Mr Hovis himself if there was ever a Mr Hovis but even if there was, he’s probably been dead longer than Champion the Wonder Horse and I’m wondering who the modern day heroes are and maybe a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle will come and save me but wouldn’t it be a bit embarrassing being saved by a turtle, especially a mutant one? and I decide to save any embarrassment, I just won’t get murdered.

Running stats:
Distance: 5:00 miles
Time: 59:21
Pace: 11:52 m/m
Calories: 435
Productive early part of mornings: 1
Productive later part of mornings: 0
Bosses swearing at me: 0
Energy bars: 1
Cyclists going through red lights: 2
Trampy blokes picking up cigarettes: 1
Jelly bean flavours recognised: 1
Music:
Rollins Band
Jeff Buckley
Foo Fighters
Nirvana

9+18=

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A lot of miles!

No, I didn’t run them all.  I ran – um, I correct myself – I trudged through 9 miles yesterday with my miraculous self-healing knee which was hurting so badly on Friday I was limping all day, but yesterday woke up like I’d dreamt it, not a twinge at all.  What cured it?  The cheese, mushroom and shallots omelette?  The Nutrageous bar?  The Deep Heat and stretchy bandage?  Who knows.  Still, nine miles sort of done.  Hooray.

Then today, Shaun announces he’s going to do 18 miles for his London Marathon training.  He further announces I’m going to accompany him on jelly baby duty on the mountain bike.  Hmm, ok, I think, how hard can it be, all I’ve got to do is sit there and pedal a bit sometimes.  FUCK ME HOW WINDY WAS IT?  It was proper windy.  Windy enough to necessitate the use of capital letters and the word ‘proper’ anyway.  Even windy enough to necessitate the use of the ‘C’ word by Shaun.  Oops, naughty.  And in front of a lady too.  (Yes, that’s me.  Before you ask.)

God, I was glad to get home.  To a cup of tea and some chocolate Hob Nobs and then a massive lunch.  Cooked by me.  Oh yes, I am a domestic goddess and finely tuned athlete rolled into one.  One what, I don’t know.

Running stats:
Distance: 9:05 miles
Time: 1:45:32
Pace: 11:40 m/m
Calories: 840
Cheese, mushroom and shallots omelettes: 1
Nutrageous bars: 1
Miraculously self-healing knees: 1

Cycling stats:
Distance: 17:42 miles (set off before the Garmin got a satellite)
Time: 2:31:08
Pace: 8:41 m/m
Calories: 612 (someone PLEASE tell me cycling burns off more calories than this?)
Use of capital letters: 1
Use of the ‘C’ word: 1
Cups of tea: 1
Chocolate Hob Nobs: 3
Massive lunches: 1
Domestic goddesses and finely tuned athletes rolled into one: 1

Flood!

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As last week’s run was powered by half a slice of sun-dried tomato and jalapeno bread which seemed to do the trick, this morning, as I’ve told myself I’m doing eight miles today, I thought I’d better eat a whole slice of this morning’s freshly baked sun-dried tomato, jalapeno and pumpkin seed bread although I’m not really hungry and then I procrastinate for an hour and 45 minutes and I’m eventually out the door at 9:30 and the footpath is still closed and I’m wondering if eating bread before running is a good idea and I’m feeling bloated and I think I’ve got a carb belly, unlike Leighsa who gets a carb face (no, I haven’t a clue what she’s on about either) and I pull my tights up to hold my belly in and I’m hoping I don’t get camel toe instead as I’m hardly a picture of sartorial running elegance at the best of times and before I left I was reading Adele’s blog and she mentioned diggers in the river and I was thinking what is she on about? is she running in some parallel marshes universe? but when I get to the river I see there is indeed a digger in the water and as I get round the corner there are two more diggers in the water and I get round the marshes and there’s far more footballers playing than usual and they even have spectators today and I wonder why and as I’m approaching the bridge that brings me back to the stables there’s a lake on the path and I think that’s weird, there’s not usually water here and I wonder how deep it is and there’s no way around it but my feet are hot and I think it will cool them down so I go through the water and it is deep and very cold and it has cooled my feet down but now they’re all squelchy and as I get to the bridge I see it’s flooded and there’s water pouring down into it and so I go up to the road instead and there’s a girl standing in the road and I think don’t stand in the middle of Lea Bridge Road, it’s busy,  you’ll get run over and then I realise there’s no cars and I wonder where all the cars are and I look to my left and the road’s cut off and and so I go over to be nosy investigate and there’s a burst pipe and the road’s flooded and I wonder how Shaun’s going to get to mine and I cross the road and go back into the marshes and go out the way I came in and I think bollocks, I’m going to have to do two laps of the park and I hate doing laps of the park and I get to the park and I carry on down the road and go round the block and then I go into the park for the last half a mile and there’s loads of people with babies and buggies in there and I knew there was a reason why I don’t like going into the park and for some reason it seems to be all men with buggies and I’m wondering if it’s National Single Dad Day today or something and I go past a man with a buggy and he smiles at me and I think don’t be getting any ideas mate, I’m not being a replacement mum for your kid and babies aren’t a stop and talk and gurgle and coo or whatever thing for me, they’re a run very fast in the opposite direction thing and I get home after my eight miles and remember that someone from Nike+ spammed me and didn’t offer me any freebies, bah, but asked me to link to this Facebook page and I’m not really sure what it is, some Men v Women thing, so go and have a look.

Stats:
Distance: 8.18 miles
Time: 1:31:41
Pace: 11:13 m/m
Calories: 717
Loaves of sun-dried tomato, jalapeno and pumpkin seed bread: 1
Diggers: 3
Floods: 1
Men with babies: loads
Links to some Nike+ Men v Women thing: 1
Music:
Cardiacs
Ladyhawke
MGMT
Polyphonic Spree
Maximo Park
Faith No More
Pulp
Hole
Black Wire

Free Alcohol v Running Commute

3 comments

I originally RSVP’d yes to the monthly London Blogger’s Meet Up, but spurred on by my successful run on Saturday, I decide to try and salvage something in the run up to the Reading Half and do some eleventh hour (ahem) proper training and so when Tracey emails me and says are you coming to the Blogger’s Meet Up to get free alcohol, I say no, I’m going to run home instead and it takes me until I get to the Angel – a mile away from the office – to get a signal on my Garmin (because, like I said before, no Garmin, no running) and I start running down Upper Street and go past Hamburger Union where I went last week before I went to see the Secret Machines and no one should ever eat in there because a) the burgers are crap: b) the chips are crap; and c) the service is crap and I had a nicer Burger King Veggie Whopper Meal in a service station somewhere in between Wales and home (yeah, my geography is shit) last year and after 2.05 miles, my left knee starts to hurt and I’m wondering if maybe I should get on the train at Hackney Downs which I’m nearly at but it starts to ease off and I’m thinking knee, if you’re going to hurt, hurt now so I can get on the train but it stays not hurting and then at 2.90 miles, my right foot starts to hurt and I think I SAID IF YOU WERE GOING TO HURT, THEN HURT BEFORE I’M AT THE STATION because it’s no good being stuck after the station because I’ve no way of getting home as I’ve only got an overground ticket and there’s no money on my Oyster card and I only have my credit card on me and I don’t think buses take credit cards and the buses don’t go to my house anyway but then my foot stops hurting and I get home and because it’s Shrove Tuesday, I make a big Dutch pancake and top it with mushrooms, spinach, tomatoes and cheese and you can see a picture here and it was really really nice and then I do my washing and find out my washing machine’s broken and then I’m really really pissed off and Shaun rings and says how are you? and I say my washing machine’s broken and he says what are you going to do about that and I say you’re going to fix it and he says oh.

Stats:
Distance: 5.51 miles
Time: 1:09:00
Pace: 12:31 m/m
Calories: 450
Free alcohol: 0
Running commute: 1
Hurting left knees: 1
Hurting right feet: 1
Pancakes: 1
Washing machines that work: 0
Music:
Cardiacs
The Killers
Ladyhawke
MGMT
Polyphonic Spree
Libertines
David Bowie
Faith No More

Powered by sun-dried tomato and jalapeno bread

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This morning’s aroma (apart from the cat litter tray) was sun-dried tomato and jalapeno bread and I start to eat it while I’m emptying the dishwasher and making tea and I think stop eating bread, I don’t usually eat before a run and I decide to call it fuelling instead of gluttony and it looks bright and sunny today and I wonder how far I should run and I decide to attempt six miles and think ha ha ha ha ha, yeah, right, I don’t think I’ve run more than four miles in the whole of my “training” and the Reading Half‘s in five weeks and once again I think oops and I go to put my Garmin outside and it says it’s only got 11 hours charge on it and it usually has 13 and I think will I be out running for more than 11 hours? and I think probably not and I tell the cat to go inside and she goes inside and hisses at me and I think why are you hissing at me? you usually save that kind of behaviour for Shaun and Faith No More start singing From Out of Nowhere and I think oh no, I don’t like to leave a song unfinished, but if I wait until the song’s finished, my Garmin will lose its signal and so I cut Faith No More off in their prime and go outside and I get to the marina and there’s a sign that says footpath closed and I wonder if the sign’s lying and it’s really closed and I think anyway, I don’t want the footpath, I want the footbridge and I go up to the bridge and it is shut and I think they need to change their sign and I turn round and go back and then there’s a sign that says footbridge closed and I think that’s a stupid place to put it, after people have already been up to the bridge and found it closed and so I go the other way and a man runs past me with a small dog and he says hello and I get overtaken on the bridge before the Sex Change Pub but I don’t mind being overtaken, after all I’m used to it and then there’s a dog with three legs rolling around and looking very happy  and there’s a man coming down the path with a hoody and gloves and I think HOW SCARY DO YOU LOOK? and on the corner is a man standing by a tree and I wonder why he’s standing by a tree and I decide he’s just waiting for people to play football with and in the car park is a group of people and I wonder why they’re hanging around in the car park and I decide they are also just waiting for people to play football with and I turn right instead of left this time as last time I turned left it was the wrong way and I got lost in the forest like The Cure although I’m not sure if they were singing about Hackney Marshes and then a cyclist starts to slow down and I think please don’t stop and he stops and I think eek but then I see he’s just waiting for his dog and I think phew and two old men walk past me and they say hello and I wonder why I’m not scared of old men or cyclists or runners or people walking dogs  or people walking with other people but if I see any men under the age of 50 on their own over the marshes I have a heart attack and I go past the stables and it smells and it reminds me I’ve got to empty the litter tray and then I get home and somehow I’ve managed to do nearly 6.5 miles.  Yay for me.

 

Splits
 Splits 21 February 2009

 

Stats:
Distance: 6.47 miles
Time: 1:11:26
Pace: 11:03 m/m
Calories: 555
Loaves of sun-dried tomato and jalapeno bread: 1
Cats hissing: 1
Runners overtaking me on bridges: 1
Dogs with three legs: 1
Scary looking men with hoody and gloves: 1
Men standing by trees: 1
Groups in the car park: 1
Cyclists stopping to wait for their dog: 1
Smelly stables: 1
Smelly cat litter trays: 1
Music:
Cardiacs
The Killers
Ladyhawke
MGMT
Polyphonic Spree
Libertines

Slipping down the slacker list

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Although not quite into the smartarse list yet.

Still, after waking up and smelling my freshly baked cheddar, sun-dried tomato and olive bread (which you can look at on my new blog, plug plug), I make a cup of tea (Twining’s Echinacea & Raspberry), empty the dishwasher (Smeg, stainless steel), feed the cat (small, black) and write down my dream in my notebook which consists of four pages (the dream, not the notebook, um, I don’t mean the dream was about four pages, oh you know what I mean) and an armache due to me not being very practised in the art of putting pen to paper these days, what with finger to keyboard being the more modern way of doing things and I’m up bright and early and think the sooner I go out, the sooner I can come back and munch on the bread and I think it’s going to be cold and Shaun said it was going to be minus 2 and I think maybe I’ll wear my Helly Hansen top underneath my usual long sleeve top (Nike?  Adidas?) and then I think that’ll be uncomfortable but then I think that’s what base layers are for, for wearing underneath other things and so I put two tops on and it’s not uncomfortable and I go outside and the canal’s higher than I’ve ever seen it and it must be full of melted snow and I wonder if the cows have gone as I didn’t see them from the train the other day although I did see some lumps but wasn’t sure if the lumps were snow covered cows or snow cows or just lumps of snow or what and an old lady on a bicycle cycles past me and nods and smiles and I think old ladies on bicycles I can probably put up with, it’s just the rest of the cycling population I can live without and I go past a building site and I think why is there a building site in the marshes? I don’t want a building site in the marshes, this is a nature reserve and I go through the bridge and then there’s a big iced over puddle and I wonder if I tread on it and the ice breaks will I fall through and drown? and I decide probably not as it’d only be about 2 inches deep and then I think hang on, it’s a well known fact that you can drown in 2 inches of water isn’t it? and so I don’t tread on the iced over puddle in case I drown and I get onto the boring bit and I can’t get right over to the edge and I turn my iPod down so I can hear any cars coming and I think that’s no good, Courtney Love is singing and Courtney needs to be LOUD and I get to where the pavement comes back and turn my iPod back up and a skinny girl who seems to consist of nothing but long limbs runs past and Blur come on with Girls & Boys and it sounds brilliant and spurs me on and I don’t notice the rest of the boring bit and I was supposed to list my top ten running tunes as I was tagged by The Red Bucket but I didn’t think I had any but now I have one.  Is that ok Mr Bucket?

Stats:
Distance: 3.01 miles
Time: 32:17
Pace: 10:44 m/m
Calories: 290
Loaves of cheddar, sun-dried tomato and olive bread: 1
Aching arms due to writing four pages with a pen: 1
Old ladies on bicycles: 1
Ice puddles waiting to drown me: 1
Top running tunes on my list of 10: 1
Music:
Electric Soft Parade
Hole
Duran Duran
Blur
Nirvana

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