Category: Running

Juneathon 2014 – Day 21 – An Unofficial Parkrun

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Hmm, yes, I can see now setting my alarm for 7am when I didn’t go to bed until 2am so I’d get up with plenty of time to get to parkrun was probably a tad optimistic. I totally slept through my alarm and although when I did wake up I could have rushed to get ready and got there on time, I prefer to take my time in the morning, so I cycled down to the park later on to do my own unofficial parkrun. Without the motivation of other people running nearby and without other back-of-the-packers to try and pick off and beat, my time was hideously slow – three minutes slower than the proper parkrun I did last week.

Still, a run is a run and a Juneathon done is a Juneathon done. Ha, I’m so poetic and deep. Feel free to stick that on a meme. Alternatively, feel free to ignore it completely and laugh at my feebleness instead.

Audiofuel Polyrunner: Keep Your Feet To The Beat

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Polyrunner 160 BPM

I’m not actually sure if  Audiofuel founder Sean says ‘keep your feet to the beat’ in the new Audiofuel Polyrunner tracks but he does, in his comforting familiar way, say, ‘1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4’ in the coaching tracks to help you keep your feet to those beats.

On the website it also says Polyrunner will ‘help you run effortlessly like a gazelle’, so I was eager to try out the new tracks with their magical properties that would make me run effortlessly gazelle-like.

Did I run effortlessly gazelle-like? Did I bollocks. I did, however, run slightly better than I did yesterday when I couldn’t even manage a mile without stopping to walk, no matter how many times I reminded myself that Helen just ran a mile without stopping even though she hasn’t run for about a year and is still recovering from having a baby (apparently you don’t just plop them out, then go straight to the pub – it involves blood transfusions and stitches and stuff. Shudder.)

Like all Audiofuel tracks, the music – thanks to composer extraordinaire Howie – keeps you moving and motivated without being annoying or intrusive. The tracks come with or without coaching so if you get fed up with Sean’s voice you can shut him up. Obviously, you won’t get fed up of his voice but if you get brave enough to count to four by yourself, the option is there.

The Polyrunner Bundle is a bargain. For £8.99 you get 7 downloads, including: Polyrunner 160 BPM, 162 BPM, 164 BPM, 166 BPM, 168 BPM, coach free Polyrunner and Polyrunner 160 BPM with individual tracks so you can vary your pace to suit your fitness level and running goal.

Visit the Audiofuel Polyrunner page for more information and to sample the tracks before you buy. Audiofuel even offer a money back guarantee – so if you buy it and don’t like it, you haven’t wasted your pennies.

You will like it though – I guarantee it (although not in a money back way).

(p.s. For those new to Audiofuel – it doesn’t really consist solely of Sean saying ‘1, 2, 3, 4’, it consists of motivational coaching.)

Kickstarter Campaign: The Slick Bib

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I don’t usually promote Kickstarter campaigns but I love the idea behind this one – a running top with an integrated transparent pocket on the front in which to put your race number. No more safety pins, yippee! I hate safety pins – if I pin the number on before I wear it, the number always ends up skewed and I’m absolutely hopeless at trying to pin a number onto myself while wearing my t-shirt. So this Slick Bib would be ideal for me. They’re not just practical, either – these are good looking shirts. Look:

Slick Bib-Two Runners

See? And this one is even nicer.

Slick Bib-Female II

The Slick Bib is the creation of Adrian Santos and, as with all Kickstarter campaigns, different packages are available depending on how much you pledge to invest. I NEED this to be made so please go and invest your life savings (or just a few quid) so I can get a funky t-shirt with a number pocket. Ta. 

Visit Adrian’s Slick Bib Kickstarter campaign here.

Edinburgh Marathon Festival 2014

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My mum took to me Scotland to visit one of her friends when I was about nine years old. We visited a few places but what I remember most were the jumping salmon in Perth and a brown and white stripy woollen jumper from, um, somewhere. The next morning, before anyone else awoke, I quietly got out of bed just so I could wear my new jumper. When my mum got up, she said, ‘You only got up early so you could wear your new jumper, didn’t you?’ Busted, dammit! Was this when my love of stripy clothes began? Or maybe it was just the novelty of having new clothes that weren’t hand-me-downs from two brothers who were both about ten years older than me.

Another place we went to was Edinburgh to watch the Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo. I remember another girl accompanied us, the daughter of a family friend, I assume, and blankets were handed to us on the way in because they didn’t want us southern softies to freeze to death in their cold castle. That blanket came in handy; it certainly was cold in the environs of Edinburgh Castle that night and our appreciative clapping was drummed out by our feet instead as no way José were we going to take our freezing fingers out of those blankets, no matter how many acrobats were skipping and somersaulting and strutting their stuff below us. I’m slightly ashamed to admit that the somersaults are the only thing I can remember; I was obviously still in my ‘When I grow up, I want to be Olga Korbut’ phase (which came a few years before my ‘When I grow up, I want to be Toyah’ phase; a phase I haven’t really quite grown out of yet).

Still, this is a running blog, not a ‘What I did in the holidays thirty-five years ago’ blog and as you all probably know, Edinburgh is also famous for its marathon.

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The Edinburgh Marathon is part of the Edinburgh Marathon Festival, which takes place this year on Saturday 24 May and Sunday 25 May. The Saturday is for the lightweights taking part in either the Junior Race, the 5k or the 10k, while the Sunday is for the hardcore taking part in the marathon, half-marathon or the intriguingly titled Hairy Haggis Team Relay where you can run in a team of 4 (as far as I can tell, dressing as a haggis is optional).

All the races have reached their capacity but if you are going up there for the weekend (and it’s the Bank Holiday Weekend, so why not stay on an extra day?) and haven’t booked your hotel yet, there are a couple of Holiday Inns in Edinburgh you might want to consider. I’ve only stayed in a Holiday Inn in Portsmouth, which is a *few* miles south of Edinburgh but, as it was for the Great South Run, they’re obviously used to hordes of runners. To find out if there’s availability to check in, check out the Holiday Inn Edinburgh and the Holiday Inn Edinburgh – City West. Alternatively, you’ll find information about accommodation on the Edinburgh Marathon Festival website.

The Sock Mine: Running and Cycling Socks

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I have real trouble finding decent running socks. My favourite are my Reebok ones but they’re so old and hard now, they can almost stand up by themselves and are only my favourite because they a) fit; b) don’t give me blisters; and c) don’t fall down at the back. I bought a few pairs of Puma which were supposedly in my size but are way too big; other running socks I have either give me blisters or are too short and fall down at the back into my trainers.

So, hurrah for The Sock Mine. The Sock Mine are a family-run UK-based manufacturer and have just launched a range of technical running and cycling socks. And guess what? Yep, they fit and they don’t fall down into my trainers and they don’t give me blisters and they’re comfy and they have that left and right thing going on which only serves to make me spend more time than necessary putting socks on as I try and remember my left from my right.

 

sock-mine-running-socks

 

I wore my running socks again today (I use the word ‘running’ loosely) and they still had that soft-and-clean-new-socks feeling (although anything has a soft-and-clean-new-socks feeling compared to my crusty old Reebok socks) despite having been through the washing machine.

If you’re into your technical blurb that accompanies a lot of socks, you’ll find plenty on the Sock Mine website. For example, these Cool Runner socks “provide soft cushioning in major contact areas, whilst the moisture management system from the COOLMAX yarn wicks away moisture from the skin leaving feet comfortable and dry”.

There’s even a little diagram for people like me who, when they see the technical blurb, actually see, ‘blahblahblahstuffnooneunderstands’.

technical-blurb

Ah, it all makes sense now.

Review: TomTom Runner GPS Watch

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Although Garmins have got more attractive over the years, no one’s ever going to accuse them for putting looks before functionality. So, when a pretty watch comes out, there’s a collective gasp of (at least from the more shallow amongst us) ‘ooh, pretty watch’.

tomtom-arm

The TomTom Runner GPS Watch definitely comes under the ‘ooh, pretty watch’ category, despite it being not exactly dinky. I do like chunky watches though. Just not as chunky as my old Garmin 301 which took up most of my arm. The Garmin being compared below to the TomTom is a Garmin 405.

tomtom-garmin

(Now is probably a good time to confess – as you’ve probably spotted the date in the photos – this review is a bit overdue. Oops. If you didn’t notice the date in the photos, well, um… as you were.)

If you get bored of your chosen colour, the screen snaps out of the strap so you can change this, as I found out when I was playing with it (I’m assuming that’s why it snaps out, anyway – it could be for a far less girly reason than this).

tomtom-strap 

It’s easy to set up. You just plug it into your computer and set up TomTom MySportsConnect desktop application and it asks you a load of stuff like what do you want to call your TomTom Runner. I unimaginatively called mine Tom. I know, I know… It also asks you your date of birth so your performance is measured more accurately, and if you have an account with one of the MapMy thingies (Run, Fitness, etc.) it’ll link you up automatically.  If you don’t have a MapMyThingy account, you can see your stats in MySports or download them in various formats.

tomtom-website-options

But what about the actual functionality of it? The actual ‘how does it work on a run’ bit? Well, it got a signal as quickly as my Garmin and gave a little vibration when it was ready to go. This means you don’t have to stand there staring at your wrist – you can just stand in your front garden in your running gear like that’s a perfectly normal thing to be doing.

staring-at-garmin

As you can see from the photos (no, not the one with the girl staring at her wrist – the ones further up the page), it’s got a big, clear screen which you can change to show the usual distance, speed, calories, etc. I wore my Garmin and the TomTom together and the results were almost the same, only the calories burnt were shown to be higher on the TomTom.

The TomTom doesn’t have the multitude of functions a higher spec Garmin has (it’s purely for running, no option for cycling) but if you want a basic GPS watch for running, then the TomTom is a good choice and not just because it’s pretty.

An accidental run

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I’d only had the vague notion of going to the parkrun this morning but, after being awake from 4am to 5:30am (luckily then falling into a sleep deep enough for me to sleep through the 6am kitty-puke-o’clock), I didn’t wake up until 8:50. That was that vague notion unvagued then. But, as the parkrun organisers still haven’t sorted out my time from last week – they’ve got me 90 seconds faster than I actually was, which I wouldn’t mind so much but it’s flagged up as a PB and I’d prefer my PB to actually be my PB – I don’t want to go back until my time is corrected anyway.

So, where to run? As it was a beautiful morning, I decided I needed to see some greenery and water, so I told Shaun I was going to do my six mile route up to the lake and back. He said ‘you can’t do six miles, you’ll break, you’ve only been doing three miles’ but I reminded him I wasn’t famous for overdoing things and most of it would be walking.

When I got to the lake, I decided to carry on and continue through the park then go back past the local-ish shops. When I got round the park though, I changed my mind and went back past the lake and back the way I came. This turned out to be a 7.63 mile run.

Yay.

I have blisters now though.

Bah.

And because tomorrow’s supposed to be another beautiful, sunny day, tomorrow I’m cycling to the beach and back – a twenty mile round trip.

Janathon Pyjama Plank Challenge Giveaway!

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Well, this is a teensy bit late, eh? Still, here are the entries we received for the Janathon Pyjama Plank Challenge. As mentioned on Helen’s blog about a billion years ago, eGloves will let the winner – as chosen by you – choose a pair of gloves from their range, up to a value of £30.

Helen has also nicked her boyfriend’s copy of Born to Run by Christopher McDougall, which will go to the planker with the second highest number of votes.

To vote, leave a comment below with the number of your favourite planker.

If I’ve missed anyone out of the gallery, please email me your planking photo.

Voting will be open until 31 March 2014.

 

 

Stressssssssssssssssssss

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The last two nights I’ve been kept awake feeling anxious about the gas and electricity keys going missing (not that my ex-tenant asked if she could change the meters to key ones in the first place, bah). I posted them to the decorator in my house a week ago but they haven’t turned up. I put £50 on each of them which is money I don’t really want to go missing, plus it means the decorator has had to hire generators which cost fuck knows how much and it also means I’m going to have to cancel the plumber who was coming round tomorrow to look at the broken boiler when I was in London to see the decorator and I don’t want to have to keep making trips to London and yes, blah blah blah, grand scale of things, blah blah blah, starving babies in Africa, blah blah blah, but I’m lying awake thinking about it and I need to be getting on with my four remaining assignments and the dissertation for which deadlines are a-looming and not worrying about meter keys going missing, leaving me with no gas or electricity when I need decorators, plumbers and carpet layers, etc. who probably don’t want to work in the dark. (They’d probably quite like to be able to have a cup of tea, too.) 

Still, when I got up, I remembered running is supposed to be good for stress, so I decided to go for a run. I also had some Teapigs Organic Matcha which apparently Buddhist monks have been drinking for centuries as it stimulates alpha brainwaves to help create a state of mental alertness while keeping you calm and focused at the same time. (If you want to know more about matcha, I blogged about it on my Planet Veggie blog earlier this morning.)

So, with all that running and matcha I should be in a matcha-induced-Buddha-like-blissful-zoned-out-state now, shouldn’t I?

Well, I’m not.

I did quite enjoy the run though, even if, while standing in the front garden staring at my wrist, I was reminded of the picture fairweatherrunner posted on her Facebook wall yesterday in an 80s-Rob-Newman-esque ‘see her? That’s you that is’ kind of way.

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