Category: Janathon

Janathon 2014 Day 2 – unfit for purpose

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Slightly misleading title; my main purpose in life at the mo is to finish the final year of my degree and as students are known for being idle layabouts, I’m allowed to be as unfit as I jolly well like.

Still, after I looked at SportTracks yesterday and saw I’d only exercised on ONE day in December (Tuesday the 17th, when I did 40 minutes at the gym, if you really want to know), I thought it was probably time I got back down the gym. I don’t usually sweat much at the gym (unless I’m on the treadmill) and thought that was down to me not putting much effort in but today I was a right old Sweaty Betty after just a few minutes on the cross-trainer at minimal effort, so I’m putting that down to unfitness.

do-next-graphic

Anyway, tomorrow, I’m going to let YOU decide what I do. You can choose from:

Run (minimum 3 miles but I haven’t run for weeks so it’ll probably be more of a walk but I promise to get out there even if it’s raining)

Bike (minimum 10 miles but if it’s raining I’ll do it in the gym instead and believe me, I really don’t want to do 10 miles on a stationary bike)

Body Pump DVD at home (I promise to do the full hour and not skip the bits I don’t like; I’ll even do the stretching bit at the end)

Gym (30 minutes rowing machine, 30 minutes cross-trainer)

Okay, over to you! Let me know what you want me to do and I’ll see which has the most votes in the morning.

Janathon 2014–Day 1 with the lurgy

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Well, I wasn’t going to do a dressing gown dash in that weather, was I? In fact, because I’ve still got a cold, despite having the feeling a walk in the fresh air would do me the world of good, I had no intentions of leaving the house today. Especially when I remembered there’s a rowing machine in the conservatory. Janathon Day 1 = sorted.

I’m not sure my pulse monitor and app were being particularly accurate today; it reckoned my heart rate went up to 235bpm with an average of 172bpm and I burnt off 188 calories in 10 minutes. I’d spend all day on the thing if it really did burn that many calories in 10 minutes.

mytrek 009

HelsBels has set a Janathon challenge of planking in your pyjamas and posting photographic evidence. Running From The Zombies has already done this and posted it on Twitter and I’ll do it if I remember later but, in the meantime, get your pyjamas on, get planking and photographic proofing!

Fame! Janathon radio interview

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preston-fm-logo

Millie asked me if I’d like to do a radio interview on Preston FM. Eek, I said, I’m scared. Then I remembered I was an attention-seeking media-whore and said yay, I’d love to, thanks.

Unfortunately, lurgy struck and a sore throat left me barely able to speak; not a good look for radio. So, a deputy was needed and I asked my trusty sidekick, Helen, if she’d stand in for me and she said ‘eek, I’m scared,’ then she remembered that she too is an attention-seeking media-whore and said ‘yay’.

And what a brilliant job she did of it too. A worthy deputy indeed. All the core facts about Janathon were mentioned; dressing gown dash, bar press up, excuses, beer and pizza. She also used the word ‘glamorous’ and ‘Preston’ in the same sentence, which probably doesn’t happen very often (my apologies to people in Preston, I’m just kidding – I’ve never been but I’m sure your town is lovely).

You can listen to the interview here:

There’s still plenty of time to sign up for Janathon, enter here.

Hi ho, hi ho, off to Janathon you go…

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Yeah, okay, I’ve left it to almost the last minute again, but the Janathon website is now updated and ready to take entries for Janathon 2014. If the website had been updated a month ago, it would have been ready for the people who visited after they’d seen it mentioned on The Guardian running blog and Healthista but I didn’t know it was going to be mentioned so ho hum.

janathon-participant-logo

New for 2014 is microblogging, which is a posh way of saying if you can’t be arsed to write a full blog post, you can tweet your ‘athon efforts instead. Although, I am expecting the usual level of hardcore from the regulars, so no slacking now. Not unless you have a good excuse, anyway, such as Painted Runner, who is training for an Ironman. So, no wimping out with rubbish like ‘but I just did a parkrun in 48 minutes and now I’m too knackered to do anything except eat more cakes but I suppose I could probably manage a tweet’.

Okay?

Off you go then. Sign up at the Janathon 2014 website.

Janathon competition winners announced!

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I was secretly hoping that no one had exercised and blogged every day and I could keep the running shoes from SportsShoes.com for myself but alas, no, the entries poured in and I had to choose a winner.

And the lucky winner of a pair of running shoes up to the value of £90 is:

Louise Ayling, who blogs at abradypus. Not only did Louise exercise every day, but she ran every day. And not only did she run every day, sometimes she ran more than once a day. And not only did she sometimes run more than once a day, she also racked up 231 miles during January. So, a worthy winner indeed and probably in need of a new pair of shoes. Well done, Louise!

The winner of the Deep Heat competition is:

Angela White, who blogs at Health Transformation. Although this giveaway was also open to slackers who didn’t exercise every day, Angela did exercise and blog every day, so another worthy winner. Well done, Angela!

Both winners were picked at random, using Random.org.

Thanks to everyone who took part in Janathon and I hope you’ll all be signing up to Juneathon!

The end of Janathon and near death experiences

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Although Highway Kind coined the phrase ‘An annual festival of activity and excuses’, it wasn’t meant to be taken quite as literally as I seemed to have done this year. It wasn’t a totally terrible effort but I have made a lot of apologies for my slacking. BUT, in my defence, I do have a great excuse for my slackness over the last few days – a tree tried to kill me.

This evil bastard tree fell on top of the house on Wednesday night while I was reading in bed (The Safety of Objects by AM Homes, in case you’re interested. Buy it, it’s brilliant, just don’t read it near any trees).

tree-fallen

(My head was a few inches behind the top left window. The one the tree is on.)

At first I thought it was the mice or squirrels or whatever it was that’s been living in the roof. Then I thought, they’re a bit nosier than usual. Then I thought, are there dogs in the roof? Then there was a loud crash and I thought, fuck, something’s coming through the ceiling, I’d better get out of here and on getting to the landing, Shaun came out of the bathroom and went to investigate the source of the sound then came back in and told me there was a tree on top of the house. Oh. Deciding that the bedroom might not be the safest place to sleep, we decamped to the conservatory where I spent a sleepless night listening to the rain and the wind and wondering if the trees in the garden were close enough to kill me if they fell over.

No more trees tried to kill me but the next evening all I wanted to do was sit on the sofa and drink wine and watch old episodes of Waterloo Road. Yes, this is how I celebrated still being alive. Party on.

Anyway, well done everyone who didn’t slack as much as I did.

p.s. We got our revenge on the tree by getting two men with chainsaws round to chop it up into many pieces. Ha.

Mind the gap

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You may have noticed there’s a Monday-the-twenty-eighth-day-of-Janathon shaped gap in my blog. I tried and tried to think of something I did yesterday that was even slightly energetic, but all I could come up with is peeling a satsuma and I’m not sure if that will count?

Today isn’t over yet but I’m still feeling as energetic as a dead slug and so I’m not holding up much hope for any Janathon-based activities unless reading John Betjeman in preparation for tomorrow’s seminar counts. Trouble is, I haven’t been able to stay awake while reading since Friday, and even I wouldn’t be cheeky enough to count sleeping as exercise, although there must be some calories burnt by snoring? (Not that I snore, of course, what with me being so ladylike and that.)

Update – bonus limerick!

I felt slightly bad for having slacked yesterday (there is still half of today left so I’m not going to feel bad about today yet), so here’s a bonus limerick (please don’t show it to my poetry tutor, she’ll think there’s been a terrible mistake and take back the 1st she gave me last year).

There once was a runner in Kent
Whose Januarys were mostly spent
Dreaming up ways
To blag through the days
Only leaving the rules slightly bent

Update
I planked for 30 seconds. I planked while counting to 30, anyway. I count quickly…

Janathon Day 24: Easycore

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Well, at least I didn’t try and wriggle out of Janathon by using the cute factor, a la Ms Fortnight Flo, who thought she could get out of exercising by getting her cat to write her a sick note. Okay, I admit it, I’m just jealous I didn’t think of it first, dammit!

Today I thought I’d have a change and do some core exercises from the PC Fitness DVD. I was a bit scared at first as I thought it might involve balancing, which I’m not very good at.

I needn’t have been scared though, no balancing was required and even I can’t fall over when I’m lying on the floor doing crunches.

I’m going out tonight and therefore may need a sick note for tomorrow. Hmm… where’s my cat? looey…?

Stats
Core exercises: 15 minutes
Balancing required: none
Sick notes possibly needed for tomorrow: 1

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