Category: Running

Mince pie flavour ice cream

9 comments

I had to get up early, i.e. when it was still the a.m. bit but I did it and got the train down to Brighton to meet up with Kay to talk about her new book and website and stuff and on the train in the aisle opposite was an annoyingly noisy French girl rabbiting away in French on her mobile but she eventually shut up and I managed to make my fingers work the keyboard on my netbook and got six pages of my assignment done (I thought I’d got ten pages done, but on getting home and checking it, turned out four of them were blank. Bah.)

Upon arriving in Brighton, Kay and I dropped our gear off and got changed at the New Writing South offices and went out for a run. As much as I hate running without my Garmin going, I also hate standing around waiting for my ancient 301 to get a signal (the 405 that the lucky Janathon winner will receive gets a signal in a few seconds. I can’t win Janathon. Bah.) so we started to run Garminless until the satellite locked after about half a mile. We ran another half a mile or so along the seafront (I’ve never run along a seafront before, yay) and then did a walking bit back up to reclaim our gear and get changed before going for a very nice lunch where a very evil old lady stole the sample of Kay’s book that she had given me. Bad old lady.

Then because we hadn’t eaten enough, we went off to get some weird ice cream. I tried some mince pie flavour ice cream and some custard cream biscuit ice cream and I was absolutely gobsmacked that ice cream could actually taste of mince pie or custard cream biscuits! I ended up with half a scoop of mince pie ice cream and half a scoop of chilli chocolate ice cream and unlike the Lindt chilli chocolate and the Whittards chilli hot chocolate, I could actually taste heat from the chilli.

Another walk took me back up to Brighton station where I got on the train with three seconds to spare and ended up once again sitting in the aisle opposite the annoyingly noisy French girl rabbiting away in French on her mobile.

Bah.

Stats (running)
Distance: 1.39 miles
Time: 20:30
Pace: 14:47
Calories burnt: 112
Evil thieving old ladies: 1
Weird ice creams: lots
Annoyingly noisy French girls: 1 x 2

A stunningly brilliant new interval session

7 comments

I didn’t get to sleep ‘til 3.30am but this was due to me sitting up late drinking wine and watching Sex and the City and so when I get up at lunchtime this morning Shaun tells me off for staying up so late and I say I’M AN ADULT AND THERE ARE 24 HOURS IN A DAY AND I CAN CHOOSE WHICH ONES TO BE AWAKE IN and although it’s lunchtime a bit later than when I usually run, I am hardcore and put on my running gear and go outside and run up the hill then past the sheep field then around the cycle path and then down the other cycle path which leads back to the sheep field and I realise I’ve been doing a lot of walking and then Polyphonic Spree’s ‘Running Away’ comes on

and I think I have to run to this as I used to run to it all the time over the marshes and I didn’t used to slack off so much then but then I’m walking again but then I think intervals are about going faster, then slower, aren’t they? and so I decide I am not a slacker but have just devised a stunningly brilliant new interval session.

Stats
Distance: 2 miles
Time: 25:08
Pace: 12:18
Calories: 201
Hours in a day: 24
Hours in a day I’m old enough to choose which ones to stay awake in: 24
Sheep fields: 1
Stunningly brilliant new interval sessions: 1
Music
Ben Folds Five
Polyphonic Spree
Hole
Audiofuel

Heaven 17

7 comments

Grim was postponed! Yay! I didn’t have to do it last Saturday! Yay!The bad news, though, is that it was only postponed and not cancelled, so I still have to do it. On 15 January 2011. But that’s quite cool, as it will mean a hardcore Janathon effort and the most hardcore Janathoners win, so hurrah for me. Oh, I can’t win my own competition? Bollocks.

Still, with just over five weeks until the new Grim date, I thought I’d better get out there and do some training, now that the snow has just about gone. One of the reasons I was going to pull out of Grim was because I am the world’s most nervous car passenger (I am, really. I scream whenever a car comes towards us on the other side of the road) and couldn’t bear the thought of being in a car for 100 miles or whatever it is in the dark and the cold and the snow and the ice but now that excuse has evaporated along with the white stuff and the excuse of not being fit enough has gone (assuming I do some training), it looks like I’ve run out of excuses.under_armour

So this morning I put on my new Coldgear Under Armour compression top, which apparently is ideal for temperatures under 12 degrees and as my weather widget said it was 1 degree this morning, it seemed an ideal time to try it out. I was a bit dubious as it’s very thick, tight fitting and has a high neck, and I’m more of a thin, loose fitting, nothing round my neck type person but I squeezed into it and put a looser light green short-sleeved top over it, so as not to look too much like a middle-aged, lumpy Catwoman.

I set off for my run and forgot about the high neck immediately and the top was warm and comfortable, and not restrictive at all. It may also have magical powers as I actually managed to run up most of the hill, too, although that may be down to spending a lot of time in the gym last week and nothing to do with magical powers at all.What was even more amazing was that for most of my run, I was going at a smooth, steady pace and that could either be because of the magical powers of my new top or because I’d been on the treadmill a few times recently, which keeps you ticking over as steady as a metronome.

I even managed to run quicker than my recent usual *speed* of 12 minute miles and ran at an average of 11:17 minute miles, which when I got home, realised sounded like Heaven 17 and then tried to think of more paces that sounded like 80s pop bands but couldn’t think of any.

Stats:
Distance: 3.08 miles
Time: 34:46
Pace: 11:17m/m
Calories: 324
Postponed Grims: 1
New compression tops: 1
Paces sounding like 80s pop bands: 1
Music:Audiofuel
Hole

The box of neglected shoes

3 comments

After a week of not sleeping well at all last week which resulted in me not doing any exercise at all, even though I was well aware that doing some exercise would make me feel better and help me sleep, the last couple of nights I’ve been sleeping better and so I returned to the gym yesterday and decided to go out for a run this morning.

In the unlikely event that I do make it to Grim in a couple of weeks, I’m going to need some trail shoes and I don’t want to ruin my nice new Hoka Mafates and so I thought I’d take a look in the box of neglected shoes that hasn’t made it back into the nearly finished porch with the other twenty+ pairs of shoes and be brave and look in the carrier bag which has been home to my muddy Asics trail shoes for nearly a year.

On the way through the box, I came across a pair of orange Converse, a pair of black Converse, a pair of pink Converse, some smart officey interview type boots, my chav boots, a pair of Salomon trail shoes in their box that I only wore once (can’t remember why), a pair of New Balance running shoes in their box that I only wore once due to them giving me a MASSIVE blister and there at the bottom of the box was the bag of doom containing a muddy pair of Asics.

Actually, they weren’t that bad.

asics

I put them on and they feel fine, although I was expecting them to be crisp and crunchy.

I get outside and do my usual run for a bit then walk when it starts going uphill and I see my postman and I think bah, he always sees me when I’m walking and he knows where I live and therefore knows I’ve started walking after 0.14 of a mile and he must think I’m a complete lightweight and then I get to the trail and instead of turning right where the sheep are, the sky looks bluer up ahead and so I carry on going straight and then when I get to the end I turn right instead of straight on and I follow the road round and I think the little park is down here and lo! the little park is indeed down here and I go up the park and down the cycle lane and then I see a Tesco and I think ooh, a new Tesco and I then I think stop being an idiot, it’s the Tesco that you’ve lived five minutes’ walk from for the last year and I don’t want to go back yet and so I turn left and go back down the cycle path and the trail that I went up in the first place and I realise that I haven’t done much trail running today and it’s mostly been on the road and the whole point was to try out my trail shoes and Grim isn’t going to consist of a nice smooth cycle path for eight miles, no, it’s going to consist of a load of mud and water and maybe I should go to Ham Street Woods next time I go out for a run and get a bit muddy and then I get back and my Asics have given me a blister.

Stats:
Distance: 3.06 miles
Time: 36:44
Pace: 12 m/m
Calories: 312
Boxes of neglected shoes: 1
Pairs of running shoes that have only been worn once: 2
Bags of doom: 1
Blisters: 1
Music:
Audiofuel

Bunny in a Bag

3 comments

I was going to do four miles today but didn’t fancy doing the same route I did on Saturday as I get scared going down the deserted trail in case all those people-who-like-murdering-people-on-deserted-trails you hear about all the time are there, or at least one of them, and so I decide to go through the fields, even if the pathway’s not there anymore because of bastard farmer scum and I’m running down the road and there’s a plastic bag in the road with flies buzzing around it and I wonder what’s in the bag and as I get up to the bag I see two little fluffy feet sticking out of it and I think OH NO, THERE’S A BUNNY IN A BAG and I wonder how the bunny got in the bag and I feel sick and I don’t want to leave the bunny in the bag but I equally don’t want touch the bunny in a bag and so I leave the bunny in the bag where it is, squished and dead in the road with flies buzzing around it and I go through the first field which is all grass and I hate running on grass so I walk most of it and then I go through the next field which is all mud and I hate running on mud so I walk most of it and then I think well, at least it’s good training for Grim but it’s not wet mud and I think maybe I should spit on it or something but I retain my ladylike sophistication and decide not to spit and because the field’s all ploughed and stuff there’s no pathway and it’s hard to find the next stile and I think considering it’s an official route and it’s the Greensand Way and everything, why don’t they concrete the whole 108 miles or whatever it is to make it easier for people to follow the path? and I get back to the road and I decide to take the road back home and then I decide to add a bit on to my route and go through Stanhope, although everyone in Kent seems to be scared of Stanhope but this is because everyone in Kent is a wuss and hasn’t been to Hackney and Stanhope looks posh compared to Hackney and then I see a sort of high-rise, well, it has four or five storeys anyway, which is the highest rise I’ve seen since leaving London and I wonder if that’s why people are scared of Stanhope and they think all bad people live in high rises and I think they’ve probably just been watching too many gritty police dramas from the 70s or something as all the baddies usually live in high rises in them and I get through Stanhope without seeing Dennis Waterman or Lewis Collins and I decide to take the scenic route home but I forget that this will make me go past the bunny in a bag again and then I see the bunny in the bag and I wonder again how the bunny got in the bag and was it someone’s pet bunny that got attacked by a fox and they put it in a bag and threw it in the road? or maybe it was roadkill and someone stopped and put it in a bag to preserve its bunny dignity and I think I’m going to start a Facebook group called SAY NO TO BUNNIES IN BAGS and then I’m at the end of the road and there’s a Tesco van outside someone’s house and I think you lazy bastards, there’s the biggest Tesco I’ve ever seen just five minutes’ walk up the road but maybe they haven’t got a car and they’re stocking up for Christmas or something.

Stats:

Distance: 4.75 miles
Time: Ages
Pace: Slow
Bunnies in bags: 1
Sort of high-rises: 1
Actors from gritty police dramas from the 70s: 0
Tesco vans: 1

A run

2 comments

Actually, this blog post should be entitled ‘a walk’ because I walked most of my three mile run today. I seem to be walking most of my runs at the moment. And then not even blogging about them but Shaun says I have to keep blogging so I keep getting freebies and that seems like a good enough reason to me and also Helen asked me on Twitter if I was going to blog today’s run and I said my runs are VERY uneventful and all I saw was a squirrel and my postman and she said she doesn’t trust squirrels and so I said how can you not trust squirrels? and I also told her about Shaun murdering one by running over it when I was in the car and when he run it over he had an evil smirk on his evil smirky face and she said they’re too cute and must be planning world domination and I’m not sure if the squirrel I saw was planning world domination but I’d rather the squirrel was planning world domination because then the national food might be Nutrageous Bars which are very very nice but very very hard to get hold of and if the postman had world domination he might make it law to dye yourself orange and wear shorts every single day of the year, even in deep deep snow, so on balance, I think if I had to vote for either squirrels or my postman, it’d be squirrels.

Stats:

Distance: 3.1 miles
Time: Not telling, it’s too embarrassing
Pace: See above
Squirrels: 1
Dyed orange postmen: 1
Blog posts that went from talking about running to world domination very quickly: 1

Dogs in fog

6 comments

I almost got up before eight this morning. I woke up at 07:55 and thought  if I get up now, I’ll be up before eight but I ignored myself and then at 07:58 I thought I can still get up before eight but ignored myself again and then it was 07:59 and I thought I’ve still got time to get up before eight but continued to ignore myself and then the clock was showing 08:00 and I turned over to look at the other clock in case it said 07:59 and I could still get up before eight but that clock said 08:00 too but I got up so I could at least say it hadn’t really gone past eight when I got up and I had a cup of tea and a banana smoothie and put my running gear on and emptied the dishwasher while my Garmin was outside getting a signal and I put on my ipod and went outside and my Garmin, although getting fully charged after each use, has for the last few weeks said it only has 9 hours of battery life, when it used to be 12, although I’m not actually planning on running for 9 hours at any point during my lifetime, so until it starts saying 15 minutes of battery left, I don’t really need to worry.

I start off down the road and it’s foggy and I think I’ve got to cycle into town later to get the train to London and I don’t know how to cycle in the fog, do I put my lights on or what and how will the car drivers see me? and then I think BUT I’M RUNNING NOW IN THE ROAD AND HOW WILL THE CAR DRIVERS SEE ME? I WILL GET SQUISHED IN THE FOG AND DIE! and a car comes round the bend in the fog and I can only just about see it but luckily it sees me and doesn’t squish me in the fog and I get to the safety of the closed off road where there aren’t any cars in the fog, only dogs, like the one attached to a lead held by a lady in a pink jacket and the dog is very small and I think you shouldn’t have small dogs, you should get a proper size dog like

IrishWolfhound1

an Irish Wolfhound as I did when I was younger as that’s a proper dog and I get a mile up the road and turn round and go back the way I came and there’s a woman with three dogs and they must be evil vicious devil dogs as she pulls them to her and stops while I go past and I’m feeling politer today and I say thank you and she pulls a kind of grimacey face and then through the fog I can see the houses at the end of the road and then I’m home and I get back on the internet and people are Tweeting that they’ve got their VLM magazines and I hear the postman put something heavy through the letterbox and I go and investigate and me and Shaun have matching magazines with some very pissed off looking people on the cover which means WE ARE REJECTS and I’m slightly disappointed but I don’t know why as it’s unlikely I’d have done any training or turned up to do it anyway.

Stats:
Distance: 2.03 miles
Time: 22:31
Pace: 11:07 m/m
Calories: 202
Fogs: 1
Cars squishing me in the fog: 0
Dogs in fog: 3
VLM rejection magazines: 2
Music:
Black Wire
David Hentschel
Avi Buffalo
Cardiacs

Round the bend

4 comments

I’ve been slacking slightly less. Only slightly though, as I went to the gym on Saturday morning (which was empty. And I mean empty; I was the only person there. I’d been expecting it to be packed but nope, obviously all the people in Ashford were outside Greggs queuing for cakes) and today I did a short run. A very slow, short run.

It started off going up a hill, so of course, at 0.14 miles, I stopped to walk up the hill. I eventually start running again when it levels off at the village hall and go up the trail that goes through the field and Courtney Love starts singing She Walks Over Me and I can keep in time to this and I wonder why I can keep in time to this

and not to Audiofuel and then a woman with a dog on a lead pulls her dog to the side and stops to let me go past and I don’t say thank you as I don’t like the stupid countryside people with their stupid countryside dogs that they have to keep on leads because they are VICIOUS DEVIL DOGS and not the nice friendly dogs that used to be free to play over the marshes and not walked around the field tied to a lead. And then further on there’s another stupid countryside person with a stupid countryside vicious devil dog and she pulls her dog away too and stops to let me go past and I think aren’t any dogs round here allowed to run free? and I get to the top of the trail and I’ve done a mile and I only wanted to do two miles and so I need to turn round and go back the way I came but I don’t want to run past the vicious devil dogs again and so I go back down the road and on the other side of the road is a footpath and although I haven’t got my glasses on, it would appear the black and white things I can see the footpath is heading towards are COWS! I haven’t seen cows for ages and ages and I think shall I go and investigate the cow field? and then I think no, as I haven’t got a camera with me and I need cow based photographic evidence if I’m going to go and see cows and so I continue down the road and it’s quite busy and cars keep going past and as I get to a particularly sharp bend, I can see a van coming and I have to stop and let the van go past and I keep stopping to walk and I think how come, when I was just beginning to run, I’d never stop to walk, even if it meant slowing to a 13 minute mile shuffle but now whenever I get a bit tired, I just give up and walk?

Stats:
Distance: 1.97 miles
Time: 23:03
Pace: 11:42 m/m
Calories: 196
People in gym: 0
Vicious devil dogs: 2
Vans on bends: 1
Stoppings to walk: a few
Music:
Hole

Cancel your NYE celebrations, your attendance is required at Janathon

12 comments

Last week I ran 1.95 miles.

My legs ached the next day.

On Wednesday I spent an hour at the gym.

My legs have been aching since.

This can only mean one thing.

I AM A SLACKER.

What I haven’t been slacking at, however, is preparations for Janathon. No, that’s not a typo, Janathon is Juneathon’s new baby brother.

I didn’t want a Janathon. My loyalties lie with Juneathon but after going up to London to interview Sean at Audiofuel (no, I haven’t transcribed it yet. It’s taking me about 30 minutes to transcribe 5 minutes and there’s 50 minutes to get through), he suggested having a Janathon.

I said na (I did, really. If you’ve heard my accent, you’ll know this is true).

But then he mentioned it on Facebook and everyone said ‘yay, Janathon, what a cool idea’ and so I said ok then, we’ll have a Janathon. And because I’d meant to organise Juneathon properly next year and get a website running and make the guidelines clearer and get t-shirts printed and stuff (after okaying it with Joggerblogger that it was ok for me to take Juneathon and do my own thing with it), I thought I’d better get a website going for Janathon and so Sean came down to discuss all things Janathon and now I need to make a website and get prices for t-shirts and things.

Oh, and I ran another 1.95 miles today. I started walking at about 1.3 miles and then I was reminded of this video

and thought they’ve got an excuse for running like that, they’re just about to complete an Ironman.

At my current fitness, I couldn’t even complete a Tinfoilman.

Stats:
Distance: 1.95 miles
Time: 22:06
Pace: 11:19
Calories: 194
Janathons: 1
Tinfoilmans: 1
Music:
Delorean
Audiofuel
Cardiacs

Belkin DualFit Armband for iphone 4

15 comments

A long long time ago, I was sent an email asking me if I’d like to try out an armband for the iphone. Not having an iphone and not having the teeniest inclination of ever owning an iphone, I emailed back and said no ta.

Luckily, apart from being a hypocrite and now owning an iphone (baa), I’m also not very good at clearing out my email inbox and so I found the email, and said “hello, you offered me an armband a little while ago but I didn’t have an iphone but now I do, so can I have one now?” and luckily the nice lady didn’t say no, too late, bugger off, but she said of course you can and she sent me the Belkin DualFit Armband for iPhone 4 from her website full of iPhone 4 accessories.

The armband is nice and soft and feels like the velvety inside of a cat’s ear although the website says it’s made from a lightweight, breathable neoprene and not cat’s ears, so vegans: you’re ok.

armband 003

There’s a little slit in the armband and I don’t know if this is the real use for it, but you could put a coin or a key inside there or just do what I did and stick your finger in it and wonder what it’s for.

armband 004

It’s fucking huge. It takes up more room on my arm than my Garmin 301 does and I wonder if running around with an expensive phone on my arm in full view is a good idea. If I was still at home in Walthamstow, then I probably wouldn’t go out with it strapped to my arm but here in semi-ruralness, I decide to take my chances as most of the riff-raff round here are two miles away in the town centre queuing up outside Greggs.

I load up my phone with Audiofuel, Stornoway (who I discovered when XFM played ‘Watching Birds’ a couple of weeks ago and which is now my new favourite song) and Hole and go outside for the first run in about three weeks.

The phone’s easy to use through the armband and although looking at it upside down hurts my eyes, I can quickly put it on shuffle and adjust the volume and then I’m off.

I just do two miles today and considering how I haven’t run or been to the gym for ages, I don’t do too badly and although the Folkestone Half-Marathon at the end of the month is out, I still might make the Ashford 10k in October.

Stats:
Distance: 1.95 miles
Time: 22:08
Pace: 11:21 m/m
Calories: 194
New armbands: 1
Music:
Audiofuel
Stornoway
Hole

p.s. I’m having a giveaway on Planet Veggie. Go and enter my competition. Now. Please.

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