Category: Running

I ran yesterday.  It was very boring.  I saw some fields and sheep.  What a surprise.

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

Stats:
Distance: 3.55 miles
Time: 40:05
Pace: 11:17 m/m
Calories: 368
Fields: some
Sheep: some

I’ve only run twice on a Saturday since I moved here, nearly six months ago.  And at home Saturday was the day that I was almost guaranteed to run.  Hmm.  Not good.  But as I was still motivated after seeing the Royal Parks Half last week and because I got up to an empty house (which, as easy as Shaun is to live with, I do like an empty house) and so was nice and chilled out, decided to go for a run.  Actually, I’d decided yesterday and I especially had to run this morning seeing as I’d said to Shaun I couldn’t go to the post office for him as I was going for a run and he said running was more important and so I was let off going to the post office duties.

I decided to investigate the field I’d seen the footpath lead to the other day and as I’m running down the road Modest Mouse start singing “out of breath and out of cash” and I think how did they know? and I get to the first field and there’s a man with a dog but the dog is friendly and not one of those stupid barking ones and so I stop to stroke the dog and its head is nice and soft and warm and furry and I stop stroking the dog and carry on and I get round the field and the man has almost caught me up as he’s taken a diagonal route and then I don’t want to go into the trees in case he follows me but then I think he was in the field before me and probably only went in there to walk his dog, not to follow anyone because he wouldn’t have known if there was anyone in the field to follow or not and so I go through the trees into the next field and then I’m back onto the road and I go into the new field and the path leads up but I don’t want to go anti-clockwise, I want to go clockwise, otherwise it’ll feel like I’m going further away from where I want to go and so I go clockwise but then I realise it didn’t matter which way I went, as I’ll end up back where I started anyway and the bit I’m running on is all freshly tractored and dug up and it’s all soft and the ground is moving beneath my feet and I think can’t they build a nice concrete path through these fields or something? and I get round to the other side and there’s a bridge into another field and I think I’ll investigate that field one day and then I’m on a path that’s not just mud and I get to the tree and I’m not going to be doing my planned four miles, it’s only going to be three and a half and then Muse finish their song and say merci boucoup and I wonder why they’re speaking French and then I realise it’s probably a live concert in France and I wonder if the crowd pretended not to understand what he said and then another band come on and they ask if they’re the best band in the world but it doesn’t sound like Cardiacs so no, it wasn’t the best band in the world and I get home and I’ve done 3.5 miles really really slowly but I blame the mud.

Stats:
Distance: 3.54 miles
Time: 42:24
Pace: 11:59 m/m
Calories: 366
Empty houses: 1
Mes gone to the post office: 0
Friendly dogs: 1
Stupid barking dogs: 0
New fields: 1
Muses speaking French: 1
Best bands in the world: 0
Music:
Modest Mouse
Muse
Kaiser Chiefs

After turning up to just miss Shaun over the finish line at the Royal Parks Half (he crossed the line at a blistering 1:37 and I got there at 1:43, bah), I was quite sad at seeing all the runners and not being one of them and so the next day, newly motivated, I wanted to go out for a run.

Except I didn’t as I had a load of things to do, but I did look at races in the future and came across the Thanet 10 on 6 December.

When Shaun came home in the evening I said do you think I can train in time? and he said no, so I said why not? and he said because you didn’t train for the Royal Parks Half and so I said but if I did train, can I get up to 10 miles in 7 weeks and he said yes and so I said I’m going to enter the Thanet 10 then and he said ok but don’t buy your entry beforehand, enter on the day and I said why? and he said because you keep buying entries and then not turning up and I thought he had a point and so I’m going to try not to buy an entry although it will be difficult because I like buying things that I will waste like entries to races I don’t turn up for and clothes that will remain in the wardrobe, unworn, for many years and houses I don’t live in and so today I woke up still motivated and went out for a run and wondered if it would be more fun if I could see where I was going and so I put my glasses on to run in for the first time ever.

Nothing much happened on my run but there were a few dog walkers about and I don’t like stupid countryside dogs as all they do is bark and make me nervous and I don’t see the point of people in the countryside having dogs as they all keep them on leads and the dogs can’t even play freely and the dogs must be a bit pissed off and that’s probably why they bark so much and not happy friendly dogs like the ones in London and a couple of people went over a stile and carried their dog over and I wondered how they carried their dog over as it looked like a heavy dog to me and then another couple of people came along with their stupid barking dog who started snapping at my heels and I thought I’m going to kick your stupid barking dog in the head if you don’t pull it away and they did pull their stupid barking dog away and it remained unkicked in the head and as I got out of the field I saw a footpath I’d never seen before and I wondered if it was because they’ve cleared the entrance to it or is it because of the magical properties glasses have of improving your sight? and I get back to the house and I’ve gone 2.99 miles and so I run down to the end of the garden to make it up to 3 miles and I’ve done it without stopping in 34 minutes which I’m quite pleased with until I realise that I should be able to do it in 30 minutes which means I’ve got to shave over a mile a minute off my time and I think maybe this marathoner’s pasta will help and they also do a triathlete’s pasta too, cool.  (Thanks to Go Faster Food for bringing this to my attention on Twitter.)

Stats:
Distance: 3.03 miles
Time: 34:07
Pace: 11:16 m/m
Calories: 313
Races not entered: 1
Pairs of glasses worn: 1
Stupid countryside dogs: 3 or 4
Pasta shapes for marathoners and triathletes: 1
Music:
Radiohead
PJ Harvey
Blondie
The Cure
Muse

I have run.  Three times.  Two of which I didn’t blog.  But running round here isn’t very inspiring and I don’t have anything to blog about.  Nothing of any interest, anyway. Today I saw a dead hedgehog but I think it was the same dead hedgehog that I mentioned before and I reckon mentioning a dead hedgehog once I can probably get away with before I bore people stupid, but mentioning the same dead hedgehog twice might be pushing it a bit. 

Still, maybe the new area will be more inspiring.  We’re on the move.  And I only moved here five months ago.  But Shaun wanted me to go and see a house he was really excited about because it’s got a 150’ front garden and a 160’ back garden, or something like that and I looked at the particulars and said no way, I’m not living there, it’s got beams and fireplaces and everything else that I really really hate and I don’t care if it’s got a big garden and we went to look at the house from the outside on the way back from seeing a nice house in a crap location and it’s on a busy road and the busy road is very ugly and the house is opposite a pub and a motorbike shop and I said forget it, I’m not living there and I say I’m not even going to go and look at it but somehow in the morning, I’m getting in the car to go and look at the house I’m not interested in in the slightest and we go into the house and nearly bang our heads on the ceiling as the ceilings are very low and we’re not exactly tall, we’re only 5’6 and we look round the house and the house is very unloved and I think the man who decorated my house must have decorated this house and it’s done really really badly and I go into the conservatory which Shaun says will be my office and I think hmm, I could see myself working in here and it overlooks the garden which is the most gorgeous garden I have ever seen in real life and it’s got trees and everything

and we look upstairs and Shaun stands in the bath to see if there’s enough room for a shower and he bangs his head on the ceiling and decides not but says he can raise the ceiling and fit a shower and we look in the bedrooms and they’re very small and the fitted wardrobes in the  main bedroom don’t even open without a massive yank and we leave the house and I say, actually, I quite like it, you can buy it if you want to and we go and see another house which isn’t even a house, it’s a bungalow and although it has a lovely kitchen and is well decorated and not falling apart like the other one, I don’t get any sense of home about it and I say I don’t like that one and Shaun looks surprised and says really? and I say, yes, really, don’t like it, I like the other one and he says ok then I’ll make an offer on the other one and he does this on Monday and they say no, and the negotiations go on for a couple of days and eventually they say yes and hurrah, we’re going to go and live in a falling down house where anyone over 5’6 will bang their heads.

Stats (for the last three runs)
Distance: about 9 miles
Time: about 2 hours
Pace: about 12 m/m
Calories: about 900
Same dead hedgehogs: 1
New houses: 1

It’s been a while since I’ve been up before 8am but this morning I was up before the fake sunrise had finished doing its fake sunrise thing and I decided I would go for a short run.  But when I looked out of the window it looked a bit foggy and I wondered if it was real fog or just some kind of countryside early morning in late September fog thing and I wondered if I went out in the fog would I get run over if no one could see me and I thought about going to  the other fields that me and Shaun walked over the other week but I decided just to do my three mile route and by the time I left the house the fog had gone and I set Cyril to pace me 11 minute miles because I thought surely I can manage three 11 minute miles? and I got to where the cows should be and the cows still weren’t there and I think flipping hell, it’s like the marshes, one minute the cows are there and the next they’re not and it’s like they’ve disappeared Paul Daniel’s stylee or something and it’s not fair and cows should always be there because that’s what fields were invented for except fields with sheep in and fields with pigs in and I get to the field where there aren’t any sheep or cows or pigs, only the occasional dead mole and it’s  nice and bright but not hot and I remember why I like running first thing but a proper first thing and not a 10am first thing and I get to the next field and there’s a man walking towards me and I wonder why there’s a man in the field and I think my t-shirt has ridden up and my belly will be wobbling about and I don’t want to pull my t-shirt down as that will just draw attention to it so I suck in my belly the best I can and as the man gets nearer I see it’s not a man but an old lady wearing wellies and she’s got a big smile on her face and I smile and say morning and I think she says morning back but I’ve got my iPod on and then I get to the road and there’s cars going past and I think it must be the rush hour and I don’t want to get run over but when I get on the road there’s no cars and I get past the tree and I’m getting tired and I want to stop but I do a deal with myself and promise myself that if I can get to the road without walking, I can walk the rest of the way and even turn my Garmin off so it can’t out me for being a lightweight but I stop to walk and I think nooooooooooo walking, and I start to run again and then walk again for a few steps but I make it to the road and I stop my Garmin and walk the last half mile back.

Stats:
Distance: 2.52 miles
Time: 27:32
Pace: 10:56
Calories: 261 
Fields with cows: 0
Fields with sheep: 1
Old men who are really old women: 1
Joggers needing to take their glasses out with them: 1 
Music:
The Cure
The Shining
BRMC
Cardiacs

After the fifth good night’s sleep since I got here, there’s a pounding on the front door at about 9am and I think who’s that? the post doesn’t come ‘til lunchtime and I think maybe I should just ignore it, if someone banged that loudly on my door in London I’d have jumped out of my skin and gone to hide in the bathroom or something but this isn’t London and then I think maybe it’s my OU stuff but I’m not expecting that ‘til Monday and I go downstairs and through the door I can see a DHL van and I think WOO HOO, MY OU STUFF IS HERE and I open the door and the DHL man comes over and hands me a parcel bearing the words URGENT – EDUCATIONAL MATERIALS ENCLOSED and his scanning machine doesn’t work and he keeps trying and keeps trying and I’m thinking JUST GIVE ME THE GODDAMN URGENT EDUCATIONAL MATERIALS and he keeps trying with the scanning machine and I say do you have a piece of paper I can sign instead? and he says no and then he gives up and says he’ll just write my name in it and I think in the olden days we’d have none of this palaver with scanning machines and I go inside with my urgent package and open it and I go upstairs and log in to the OU A215 forum and gloat tell everyone my package has arrived but no one else has got theirs yet and now they’re all waiting with their noses pressed against their windows waiting for the DHL man to bring them their urgent educational materials and then I’m stuck between wanting to have a good browse through my OU stuff and going out for the run I told myself I was going to do and I post my dilemma on Facebook and the man from roadrunning.net says split the difference and go cycling, then you won’t feel guilty and I think oooooooooooooooh, good idea but then I think I might still feel guilty and my urgent educational materials will still be here when I get back and so I put on my running gear and go outside and I get round the corner and a woman with a kid pulls the kid over to the side so I can get past and further up the road a woman pulls into the side and stops to let me go past and I think does she think I’m that fat? there’s enough room for both of us and I say thanks and these polite people are freaking me out and I think there’s no need to be this polite, I’m from London, I’m used to people knocking me off the pavement, I can take it and I get round another corner and there’s a bike leaning against a wall and I think cool bike and then I see it’s an official Royal Mail bike and I think cool again and maybe I should be a postie so I get a cool bike and there’s a man running up the road ahead of me and I wonder if he’s running or just running as he looks like he’s wearing a normal short sleeved shirt and not a short sleeved t-shirt or running shirt and I wonder why he’s running and then I see the postie up further ahead of him and I wonder if he’s running after the postie and the postie goes into someone’s garden and the man follows her and I go past the house and the man has got a letter in his hand and he’s patting a dog and the dog’s owner’s there and the postie’s there and they’re all having a good chinwag and I’m thinking that’s not the sort of thing you see in London, the dog would be barking at the postie and the man who wanted his letter would be calling the postie a f*****g w****r or something for not waiting for him to answer the door and the postie wouldn’t have left her bike unattended two hundred feet away as it would get stolen and I carry on going and someone behind me says morning and I look behind me and there’s a man in an electric wheelchair and I say morning back and he overtakes me and I wonder if it’s shameful to be overtaken by someone in a wheelchair and I decide not if it’s an electric one but it would probably be shameful if I got overtaken by someone in a manual one or whatever you call it and I go past the vegetable house and there’s still no vegetables there and there’s temporary traffic lights on the corner where I want to turn off and I’m hoping the road’s not closed and I get to the corner and there’s just a little hole they’re digging and I wonder why they have to stop the traffic to get round the little hole but the road’s not closed and I realise I haven’t seen any traffic yet and then I think I’ve just tempted fate and now I will see lots of traffic and I do indeed see a car go past in the distance and I turn round the next corner and a horse trailer overtakes me and then two trucks go past on the other side and then there’s a motorbike and then a man on a pushbike nods and smiles at me and I go past the house that had the bikes outside it for £10 and they’re back again and also on a table is a metal thing with a sign saying £85 and I think if I had something worth £85 I wouldn’t a) put it in my front garden; and b) put a big sign next to it pointing out how much it’s worth and I think it’s a good thing country people live in the country as they wouldn’t last five minutes in London if they kept on chasing posties and going into people’s gardens and leaving vegetables and money and valuable metal things outside their houses and I get back to a pavementy bit and I wonder if I should go the long way home and I decide I need to go back and inspect my urgent educational materials and I wonder if I can run up the hill but I decide to quit while I’m ahead and stop my Garmin and walk when I get to the corner after 3.1 miles.

Stats:
Distance: 3.12 miles
Time: 33:17
Pace: 10:41 m/m
Calories: 323  
Packages containing urgent educational materials: 1
Women with kids getting out of my way:1
Women thinking I’m too fat to get past her: 1
Cool Royal Mail bikes: 1
Men running after posties: 1
Men in electric wheelchairs overtaking me: 1
Cars: 1
Horse trailers: 1
Trucks: 2
Motorbikes: 1
Men on pushbikes: 1
Bikes for £10 for sale: 2
Metal things for £85 for sale: 1
Hills run up: 0 
Music:
New Model Army
The Cure

I still can’t sleep here, I’ve only had four decent night’s sleep since I got here and I’m tired but I’m getting fatter and fatter and I need to do something to shift the weight (apart from stopping eating pizza) and so after downing a pint of soya milk, banana, blueberries and pineapple smoothie, I feel a bit livelier and head out the door to the field.  As I’m entering the field I see a little dead animal on the wooden pallet and I think it’s a rat but it’s a bit cute to be a rat and it’s a bit big to be a mouse and I crouch down nearer to get a better look and I think is it a badger? and I think no, they’re big and have a white stripe or something and I decide it must be a mole and aah, poor little mole being dead and I wonder how it got killed and there’s a lot of dead animals around here, even dead squirrels and I leave the little dead mole to continue with his being dead thing and I get to the corner of the field and I decide to carry on round the perimeter inside the fence and I get back to the opening on the road and I decide to see what the field opposite’s like and it’s all lumpy and bumpy and I’m going really slowly and I think why can’t they put a  nice pathway through all the fields, like in the marshes, so I can run faster than 12 minute miles and not be at risk of twisting my ankle and I think this field’s big, I’ll be here all day if I continue going round and so I go back the way I came and as I leave the field a couple walk past me and the girl reeks of perfume and I think bleurgh, that smells worse than the countryside did yesterday when everywhere I went stank of shit and then I go home and think how can I lose some weight and I can’t think of anything so I phone the pizza restaurant and book a table. Yah.

Stats:
Distance: 3.25 miles
Time: 40:01
Pace: 12:18 m/m
Calories: 284 
Dead moles: 1
Fields: 2
Women reeking of perfume: 1
Pizza restaurants: 1 
Music:
New Model Army
PJ Harvey
The Dude
The Smiths

I was tired when I got up and I thought I’m too tired to run but then I thought I’d feel less tired if I run as I’m probably feeling tired because I’m not doing enough exercise but I was feeling a bit pissed off and I thought if I run I will feel less pissed off because I’m probably feeling pissed off because I’m not doing enough exercise and then I thought I’m cold and so I thought well, if I run, that will warm me up and so I decide to look on gmaps to see if I can see if the field goes back onto the road and it looks like it does so I decide to investigate over there and I get outside and I think oh no, Sean from AudioFuel sent me a new track but I forgot to put it on my iPod but then I remembered that there were good songs on my iPod on the way to Sainsburys yesterday and if it’s good enough for Sainsburys then it’s good enough for a run and Black Kids come on and I run down the road and there’s a woman in a bright yellow jacket walking her dog towards me and she pulls in and stops to let me go past and I say thanks and I get to the field and I see the sheep that haven’t been murdered by the red faced sheep murdering farmer yet and I get up to the trees where the path continues and a tractor comes down the path and I think oh no, not more tractors, I don’t want to go down there if there’s more tractors and after the tractor’s gone past I carry on going and there’s no more tractors and there’s a little pond thing and I think hurrah, water, I never see any water around here, only trees and fields, and I continue down the path and after not very long I get to the road and I carry on the road towards the house and a truck goes past and as I get to the tree and go to cross the road a car goes past and I think oops, didn’t hear that coming, I’d better turn my iPod down and then a truck carrying a skip goes past and I think there’s a lot of traffic down here today and then I go past the women in the bright yellow jacket with her dog again and she stops to let me go past again and I say thanks again and I get back to the main road and there’s two lorries parked a bit on the pavement but not as much as Mr White Van Wanker Man the other day and I get past them without hurting my shoulder and there’s two policemen on motorbikes talking to a man and I wonder what they’re talking about and they’re there for ages and ages and I go home and take a photo out of the window and post it on Twitter and that will probably be the most excitement I’m going to have all day.

Today’s route

Stats:
Distance: 2.95 miles
Time: 32:37
Pace: 11:04 m/m
Calories: 305
Tractors: 1
Women wearing bright yellow jackets: 1
Lorries on pavement: 2
Policemen on motorbikes: 2
Music:
Foo Fighters
Lush
Black Kids
New Model Army
Duran Duran
Graham Coxon

When I woke up this morning, I wondered if running was a good idea after cycling 20 miles yesterday, but I felt ok so I went downstairs to see if the mystery banana thieves had been in overnight but lo! there were bananas sitting happily on the kitchen worktop, so I had a banana and blueberry smoothie and went back upstairs to play on Facebook do some very important work and I look out the window and it’s raining and I think maybe I shouldn’t run and then I think but I like running in the rain and I wonder if I should wear a long sleeved top as I might be a lightweight and walk most of my run and then freeze and I ponder this on Twitter and get a few answers along the lines of long sleeves will slow me down when they get wet (thanks @joliciousjewels); it’s still too hot for long sleeves (thanks @warriorwoman); and arms dry quicker than clothes (thanks @haulingmycarcas) and so I pull out a dark blue t-shirt from the drawer but then I think that it’s a bit grey and dark outside and maybe I should wear something a bit brighter as I’ve got to run on these stupid country roads and the country people might need more of a visual clue that I’m there running along the stupid country roads and I get outside and there’s a van on the pavement and I think HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO GET ROUND YOUR VAN MR WHITE VAN WANKER MAN? and I can’t walk around it as the road’s too busy and I’ll get squished and so I squeeze through the gap between the hedge and the van and I duck to get under the mirror but I unduck too soon and hurt my shoulder on the mirror and I hope I’ve broken his mirror and I think bah and I start running and I get to the vegetable house and there’s nothing there; no eggs, no vegetables, no price list, no jar for money, no board or anything and I wonder where the vegetable people have gone and maybe they’re on holiday or moved or got shot by the gypsies or something and then I turn off round the little road that is so small you wouldn’t think any cars would ever go down it but every time I go down it there is a car, including this time as a car goes past me and I step onto the verge to get out of its way and the man in the car gives me the half-wave-while-still-keeping-a-thumb-on-the-steering-wheel-thing and I get round the corner to the busy road that Shaun said he wouldn’t run on but that’s because he’s a lightweight and I am obviously far more hardcore than he and the house that on Sunday was selling the bikes outside for £10 each is still selling them but they’re both kid’s bikes and I don’t think I’ll get looked at down noses if I got one of them any less than I would do on my Pashley Poppy if I do the 40 mile cycle race I’ve entered and then I get back to the land of pavements and houses and I decide to carry on going and go the long way back and the camber’s killing my leg and I go in the middle of the road but I don’t like it in the middle of the road so I go back to the side and I get to the tree and I think hooray, just a mile to go and can I make it without walking? but I doubt it and a car goes past and there’s plenty of room for him to get past me but he goes half on the verge and I think why are you doing that, you moron? there’s plenty of room and so I go on the verge to let him pass and he doesn’t bother to do the half-wave-while-still-keeping-a-thumb-on-the-steering-wheel-thing and I think well next time I’ll just let you run me over and then I think that’ll probably hurt me more than it will hurt him and I get to 3.85 miles and I stop to walk and I think NOOOOOOOOOOOO, NO WALKING and so I start to run again and I get to 3.91 miles and I start to walk again and I think in a second I’ll be going past the cows and I can’t let the cows see me walking because they will mock me and so I start to run again and I think at least make it as far as the road and I’m not too far from the road and if I laid down and stretched out really far, as far as I can, stretching all the way from my toes to my fingertips then, um, I still wouldn’t reach the road but it’s not that far away and I make it to the road and I decide to walk the last half a mile but I sort of run/walk it back to the house.

Today’s route

Stats:
Distance: 4.59 miles
Time: 52:25
Pace: 11:26 m/m
Calories: 475
Mystery banana thieves: 0
White van wanker mans: 1
Hurt shoulders: 1
Vegetable houses with vegetables: 0
Car drivers doing the half-wave-while-still-keeping-a-thumb-on-the-steering-wheel-thing: 1
Car drivers not doing the half-wave-while-still-keeping-a-thumb-on-the-steering-wheel-thing: 1
Cows mocking me: 0
Music:
Foo Fighters
The Smiths
Muse
Nirvana
Basement Jaxx
Blur