Happy birthday to me
I am now forty-three
Happy birthday dear JogBlog
And yes, I’ve been for a jog
After opening my presents (an octopus sculpted by the mega-talented Rich (aka Ume Toys, aka Joggerblogger),
a pair of cat socks, a pair of giraffe socks, a pair of pig socks, the Miranda book, a red polka dot dressing gown and a day off cat-litter-tray-cleaning-duty from iliketocount, and a notepad from Travelling Hopefully)
and eating Ferrero Rocher for breakfast, I said I’m going for a birthday run, do you want come with me? thus completely forgetting how much I hate running with other people. As far as I’m concerned, socialising should be kept for the pub.
But, anyway, he said yes and so we went out for a rainy run. It did mean I got to wear my new Howies running top. It’s made from merino wool so it’s nice and warm. When it arrived, I thought it was too nice to be worn for running and I quite fancied wearing it with jeans to the pub (although not tonight as birthdays are dresses days). After putting it on though, it’s a bit too see-through to wear as normal clothes – if you look closely, you can see my belly button (this also acts as a warning to not look too closely if you don’t want to see my belly button).
The run was wet. My feet got soaked. iliketocount tried to loop off and catch me back up until I reminded him of the ‘with’ bit of ‘running with me’.
So, the presents have been opened, the run has been done, the dress is on – time for the pub!
I’ve obviously become a complete wuss since moving to Kent. In London, it’d have to be at least minus-something before I even slightly pondered wearing long sleeves. This morning, although it was 9 degrees, I put on long sleeves, my Hippsy, my touchscreen gloves and because the top I was wearing had a rather wide neck, my Buff.
I’d worn my Buff a few days ago on my bike. It’s great on a bike if you don’t like strangling yourself by doing your jacket right up, they keep the draught out perfectly. And if you don’t mind looking a bit of a div, you can pull it up over your nose to keep the chill off your mouth. You can even wear it on your head. In fact, there are so many ways to wear a Buff, when you buy one, they’ll send you a booklet and a DVD demonstrating all the different ways.
Today’s run was a 2.5 miler to see how unfit I was. It was also to make me feel slightly less bad about the scales showing me in the dreaded double figures for the first time ever. I had been expecting it – I haven’t exercised properly for weeks and I’ve been eating and drinking loads, the weight didn’t come on by accident. Still, marathon training and Janathon should sort that out. Won’t it?
Stats: Distance: 2.5 miles-ish Time: 30 minutes-ish Pace: Slow Walking breaks: 0 (yay) Long sleeve tops: 1 Hippsys: 1 Pairs of touchscreen gloves: 1 Buffs: 1 Too many pieces of clothing: 3 Digits on the scales: Double Music Courtney Love Knifeworld Mark Ronson Gay Dad Stornoway
It was a misty, gloomy morning and I fancied a trail run. Because it was a misty, gloomy morning, I thought I’d better wear a hi-vis t-shirt, as I needed to run down a pavement-less road for the first quarter of a mile and it was early and I would be there the same time as school-run-mums, although it did occur to me that hi-vis is no protection against school-run-mums as, in my experience, they are usually putting on their make-up or taking off last night’s make-up or painting their nails or brushing their hair or reading a book or writing a book or making a phone call or taking a phone call or playing on their iPhone or playing on their iPad or fiddling with the radio or fiddling with their hair or lighting a fag or smoking a fag or doing the washing or doing the ironing or doing ANYTHING except look at the road they’re driving Little Tommy and Little Lucy along to get them safely to school and you might have noticed that I missed off ‘turning round to stop the kids from killing each other in the back seat’ from my list, as that only ever happens on the television when the woman (it’s always a woman) turns round to stop Little Tommy from mutilating Little Lucy and while her eyes are off the road for that split second, she drives the car into an oncoming articulated lorry and then she’s WRACKED with grief and guilt and blames herself for the death of her beautiful (they’re always beautiful) children and her husband (who usually has enough hair to run his fingers through in agitated anxiety) does his best to reassure her and says it’s not her fault and it could happen to anyone and they’ll get through this together but then a few months later, wifey’s turned into an alcoholic and hubby’s had enough of wifey’s constant drinking and weeping and wracked-with-guiltness and buggers off with someone soberer, younger, blonder and less neurotic and if children’s car seats were fitted with straitjackets we would all be saved from such televisual clichés.
Thank you for the race pack containing a lovely blue technical t-shirt, my race number, a VIP wristband and, um, a rain poncho.
Today I ran for six miles and, while I’m no mathematician, I believe 10-6 = 4 and so, on Sunday, if you can set my start line up at the six mile mark, I’ll do the remaining 4 miles from there. Ta.
Also, I see on your Bupa Running Facebook Page you’re having a Q&A between 1-3pm next Friday (26 Oct) with a Bupa sports physio for any runners taking part in the Great South Run to ask any questions about niggles before race day or any final preparation they need, which is all well and good, but will they be addressing the more important issues such as whether there’s a bar in the VIP area?
Once again, I have slacked in my training. This never used to happen when I lived in London. In London, I had a routine of running home (6 miles) from work once a week and then a long run on a Saturday morning that I rarely missed (we’ll forget that training shouldn’t really consist of fewer than three runs a week). Since moving, I haven’t trained properly for a single race. Today’s excuse is that it was after 8 when I got up and it would have been too late to run after having breakfast as I feel guilty if I go for a run when I should be studying or working.
I even had some pretty purple Brooks Pure Flow running shoes to try out.
Oh well, they’ll have to wait for another time. I’m definitely going for a run on Saturday morning, no matter how late I get up (feel free to swear at me if you see me on Twitter saying ‘got up too late to run, bah’), so maybe I’ll wear them to the gym tomorrow (I’ve also slacked off going to the gym since being back at university, no wonder I’m sleeping so badly at the mo).
I did force myself out for a short bike ride yesterday after lunch. Maybe I’ll go for a run at lunchtime…
It’s 6:15am. I shouldn’t be awake at 6am, I’m a student, dammit. I shouldn’t be up until at least lunchtime Neighbours (If there is still such a thing as a lunchtime Neighbours. There was in the olden days when I was on the dole in Liverpool. I need to stop saying ‘in the olden days’ though as I said it twice yesterday at my first day back at university and I’m 42, not 92).
The reason I’m up at this unstudently hour is because I want to go for a run before going to university (I’m getting fed up of spelling university in full but Shaun tells me off if I call it uni although even my mum calls it uni and she’s hardly down with da kidz) for the first playwriting seminar of the year. I also want to go for a run early so I can try out my new Run Safe running light.
The Run Safe running light is a little light that attaches to your running shoe laces. It just clips on, so there’s no faffing about threading laces through holes.
The light comes on automatically when it senses motion, so you don’t have to worry about turning it on or off.
(Sorry about the blur but it turns itself off quickly and so it wasn’t easy to get a photo of my foot not moving.)
It’s a sensitive little soul though and will come on at the slightest movement, i.e. if it’s on a table and you walk past it. The box says it will flash for 520 miles but it’s going to be flashing in transit so I wouldn’t order it from America if I were you.
I was a bit worried about looking a bit of a dick with a red light flashing on my foot and I expressed my dick concerns to Twitter who reassured me that it’s ok to look like a dick if it’s in the interest of health and safety.
By the time I left the house, the sun had come up but I took my red flashing light for a run anyway. There’s not much to say about the Run Safe light really – you can see what the benefits are. It’s light (10g), easy to fit to your shoe, and turns itself on and off automatically. The only downside is that I could hear it clacking against my shoe when a quiet bit of music came on, so if you don’t listen to music when you run, that might be annoying (or I might not have fixed it firmly enough to my lace. Also, I have super-sensitive hearing).
A three mile run was on the schedule for today and I’d plotted out a roads-with-pavements-only route and dodged children walking to school (they start early, don’t they? I was pleased to see them walking though and not being driven. Loads of kids round here get driven to school. In my day I had to walk all the way from Essex to London to go to school (yeah, ok, so it was only about a quarter a of mile but that’s not the point)) and dog walkers.
I got back to the house at 2.87 miles and decided to carry on and do the final .13 miles and anyway, Liiines by Ghostpoet had just come on my iPod and I wanted to listen to that.
When I got back I was a teensy bit pleased to see that – although I had walked a bit – I’d done my three miles in 11.01 minute miles which is my old slow-average. Now I need to get back to my old not-so-slow-average which doesn’t mean that’s a fast-average but just a not-so-slow-as-really-slow-average.
A good night’s sleep. Up before 7:30. An empty house. Music on loud. This is my perfect Saturday morning and the perfect conditions to motivate me to go out for a run. That and my new trainers that New Balance sent to me and the rest of the bloggersphere.
These patriotic shoes are the New Balance 890v2 that have been given the red, white and blue treatment in honour of being their Shoe of the Month, commemorating the Olympics in London.
I don’t usually run in shoes unless they’re ones that I’ve gone to a shop and tried on and bought myself but I put these on last night, and if I’d tried these on in a shop then yes, I’d probably have bought them as they just felt right. They look good, too.
Me and my new shoes went off for our run and as Hal Higdon had me down for six miles, I went to do my route that takes me up to the lake and back down again. It wasn’t long before I started walking and I kept telling myself that if Bupa were good enough to give me a place in the Great South Run, the least I could do is to put some effort in and not walk it, as how embarrassing would it be for me to get back to them after the race and say ‘um, I walked it and came last. Soz’? very fucking embarrassing, that’s how embarrassing it would be.
So, I tried to put a bit more effort into it and I ran round the lake and overtook a man and on the way back round the lake the man was in front of me and I thought how did he get there? and I thought OHHHHH, HE TOOK A SHORTCUT AND CHEATED, YOU DIRTY ROTTER, then I remembered that I wasn’t in a race with him and forgave him for cheating and then I was walking again and he overtook me and he went the same way I was going round by the houses that back onto the lake and I thought, hmm, he doesn’t look like someone who has a house that looks onto the lake and then I wondered what sort of person does look like that and I decided it was the type of person like the old lady with the little dog who I had passed earlier on and I was right, ha!, and the man didn’t live in a house on the lake and I overtook him and I wanted to walk again but didn’t want him to keep seeing me walk in case I bump into him in the future and he says ‘aren’t you the girl who kept walking when she was running round the lake?’ and that would be more embarrassing than being asked at the beer festival last Sunday ‘aren’t you the girl that was in town a few weeks ago taking pictures of people called Steve?’
And so I finished running round the lake and headed back for the final three miles and I tried to find some uplifting music to give me a boost and Polyphonic Spree came on and yay! there is nothing more uplifting than Polyphonic Spree and so I looked to see what other Polyphonic Spree I had on my iPod and I only had two songs and I thought well, that’s not going to get me very far is it? and the next song that came on was a Police song and I thought is it all about Ps today or what and then I thought about Bob Holness and remembered he was dead and then I remembered Terry Nutkins was dead and so I thought aha! to pass the time, I will think of celebrities who have died this year but I could only think of Jimmy Savile and so I thought to myself I will run until I’ve thought of another one but nothing came except some actor I had never heard of until people were RIPing him on Twitter the other day and then I thought what about Eric Morecambe? Did he die recently? and I couldn’t remember and then I thought aha, Max Bygraves and then I really couldn’t remember any more and thinking up dead famous people made me remember the song by A House
And then I thought, ooh, they could update it and do a new one with dead celebrities who come under the light entertainment category, then I thought, maybe they’ve already thought of that and are just waiting for Brucie to pop off to the Palladium in the sky and then I carry on walking and running and I’m not sure if my motivational tactic of not stopping until you can’t think of any more dead celebrities is going to catch on.
I’M ON THE TRAIN! No, really, I am. I didn’t have time to blog after my run this morning and so because I am so dedicated and committed to blogging every run, I decided to take my netbook with me on the slow train and blog during the journey.
Anyway, my run this morning. Yes, I did one. I am diligently following my Hal Higdon half-marathon plan to train for the Great South Run. I’ve been diligently following it since Monday and so far have only slacked on two out of the four days.
My run last Saturday was eventful. I was running down the trail and there was a man in front of me with a black dog, two young girls and… A BIRD OF PREY ON HIS ARM. I stopped running in case I scared the bird and hoped I could walk quickly enough to catch him up and say ‘oi, what’s that?’ and I did catch him up and I said ‘hello, what’s that’ (I left out the ‘oi’ bit) and he said ‘it’s a goshawk’ and I said ‘a what?’ and he said ‘a goshawk’ and I said ‘oh, a goshawk. That’s not something I see every day when I’m out for a run’. I didn’t have my camera on me, but here’s a photo of a goshawk.
And then one of the young girls said ‘I bet you’re in the Olympics’ and the man said ‘no’ and I thought ‘DID YOU HAVE TO SAY THAT QUITE SO QUICKLY? COULDN’T YOU EVEN HAVE HESITATED FOR A MOMENT BEFORE DISMISSING QUITE SO EASILY THE CONCEPT OF ME BEING IN THE OLYMPICS?’ and I thought that’s as bad as the supermarket self-service thingies when you have to wait for a member of staff to come and tell the machine that you’re ‘clearly over 25’ and they do it immediately without even hesitating and weighing up whether you are ‘clearly over 25’ or ‘hmm, borderline, but I’ll let her have that bottle of wine anyway’ and I was so offended at the man’s impudence that I couldn’t think of anything witty and, hopefully including a mention of Jessica Ennis, to say and came out with a lame ‘no, it’s sixty miles away’ which is probably the lamest response ever ever ever and then I say to the girls ‘I bet you can’t catch me up’ and they start running and the man calls them back and I think oops, maybe I shouldn’t have encouraged two young girls to go running off into the bushes with a stranger even if it is a stranger who is a) clearly over 25; and b) clearly not in the Olympics and I carry on with my run and I get over the ditch which isn’t full of water despite it having been raining heavily and then I see a dead fox and I don’t want to step over the dead fox but it’s too narrow to do anything but step over it and I wonder how it got there as there’s no road except for the one over the fence and maybe someone hit it with their car then stopped and got out and threw it over the fence or maybe it was in someone’s garden and they killed it and threw it over their garden fence and I’m brave and step over it and carry on my run and I can’t remember if anything else eventful happened on that run.
Today’s run almost didn’t happen as I set my alarm for 8 as I had to be back and ready to go to London at lunchtime to see Abigail’s Party in the afternoon (I like the matinees – plenty of time for going to the pub after) with Helen and as it takes me aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaages to get ready (or more realistically, it takes me aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaages to be arsed to get ready) but I didn’t get up ‘til 9 and so I didn’t get out for a run ‘til 10 and I put on my Asics and went on my run and didn’t see any goshawks or girls who think I’m in the Olympics or men who don’t think I’m in the Olympics and even the dead fox wasn’t there anymore and I wondered where the dead fox went and then I got to the slopey bit and there was a man at the top and I decided it would be shameful to let him see me walk up the slopey bit and then I realised my lace was undone and I wanted to do it up but didn’t want to bend over and have my bum sticking out in the air in front of the man and then I wondered which was more embarrassing; being seen to walk up a slopey bit or sticking my bum up in the air in front of him and I ran up the slope then I saw a railing thingy I could put my foot on and lace my shoe up without having to bend over too far and therefore not put him through having my bum sticking up in front of him and the rest of the run was uneventful and free of bum/slope dilemmas and I got in with plenty of time to get ready and then I go and get the train and I think that is where this story began.
I foolishly said on Twitter yesterday that I quite fancied going for a run today. I also said that when it came to today, I probably wouldn’t fancy it anymore. @LouisaWilliams4 piped up ‘I’ll do it if you do it’ or something like that and so I thought aha! a challenge (sort of), ok then, it’s a deal.
And so, this morning, even though I had one of the worst night’s sleep ever (although worst night’s sleep ever seem to be the norm these days), I put on my running gear and went for a run. After putting on my running gear, I almost took it off again because my new running tights were so tight they were squeezing the fat out of me like liposuction or some other cosmetic procedure and they were almost like normal tights, not running tights, and I wondered if maybe I should put my jeans over the top but I took the risk of people laughing at any VPL I might have had and at least they were so tight they gave me a flat tummy (without needing a drastic cosmetic procedure) and so I went outside.
As soon as I got to the pavement there was a cyclist coming along and I thought you needn’t think I’m moving out of the way, you can get on the road, it’s hardly busy but she just kept cycling and I just kept running until she eventually stopped and stood at the side and I said thank you even though she was giving me a dirty look and I thought YOU WERE ON THE PAVEMENT, YOU SHOULD HAVE BEEN ON THE ROAD WHERE CYCLISTS BELONG, SO DON’T GIVE ME ANY DIRTY LOOKS MISSY and then I carried on and after a mile I decided to walk and I went past a church and two old people were carrying flowers out and I thought oh, maybe they’re putting flowers on a grave and maybe it would be disrespectful to start running again now and so I carried on walking but then I thought huh? they were carrying the flowers away from the church and into the car so maybe they were stealing the flowers from dead people’s graves and I thought BAD OLD PEOPLE! BAD BAD BAD! and then I decided to run the last .25 of a mile back and I haven’t heard from @LouisaWilliams4 yet so I hope she’s kept to her side of the deal and hasn’t reneged on it like a friend did on Twitter a few weeks ago when they promised me a kingdom for finding some chocolate things and although I found them, I got fuck all.
Stats Deals struck on Twitter: 1
Worst night’s sleep ever: billions
Pairs of new tight running tights: 1
Cyclists on pavements: 1
Cyclists on pavements I refused to stop for: 1
Cyclists on pavements giving me dirty looks: 1
Mes bothered about getting dirty looks: 0
Old people maybe stealing flowers from dead people: 2
Kingdoms: 0
I wanted to try out the wireless pulse monitor today on a run, to see how it compared with my Garmin. This meant taking my iPhone out with me and so I had my Garmin on one wrist, my pulse monitor further up the same arm and my iPhone strap on my other arm. I decided not to wear my wrist wallet, but to put my keys in my back pocket (thankfully I was wearing tights with a pocket) because although the symmetry would have been pleasing, I looked stupid enough with three black straps on my arms, let alone four. God knows what the neighbours thought; they probably thought I was going to three funerals that day or something.
One strap I didn’t have on (blimey, that would have made five) was my Cram Alert Sport ID. I am aware that owning a Sport ID and not wearing it is like having a smoke alarm without batteries in it but then I thought aha! I’ll have my phone with me – If I’m found lying in a ditch (why is it always ditches? I want to be found somewhere much more rock ‘n’ roll than a ditch; like Noel Fielding’s bed or something),
the paramedics can look at my phone and find out who I am from there. Although, they wouldn’t get much information from the list of my recent phone calls; I rarely make a phone call and the only ones I receive are from cold-callers. The best way to find out who I am and who I’ve communicated with the most recently would be to have a look at the Words With Friends or Draw Something apps but then they might start finishing my games for me and forget about me lying there dying in a ditch/Noel Fielding’s bed and they’ll only remember me when the battery runs down.
Still, I stopped worrying about paramedics running my battery down by playing MY games of Words with Friends and Draw Something and went on my run. I shuffled along until I got to the slope where I usually stop and walk and decided to give my pulse monitor a little spike by running up it
and then I ran through the housing development and on the fence just outside it was a sign. No, not a sign from God, just a sign drawing-pinned to the fence.
The housing development has got its own chip van. Bastards. I want one. Or a pizza van, at least. Although, if the wait for chips from the chip van is anything like the wait in the fish and chip shop down the road or in the Chinese takeaway, I’d be better off waiting for the potatoes that Shaun has planted (or about to plant, I don’t know about these gardening things) to grow and make my own. Bit of a cheek though, calling it The Village Chippy. The development isn’t even finished yet. Can a not-yet-finished development be a village?
Anyway, that’s my exercise for the week done. I’m having a rest day tomorrow as on Friday I’ve got a fitness assessment at BUPA. I was going to go before but Warriorwoman’s report (and subsequent conversations on Facebook/email) scared me off with tales of topless exercising so I cancelled it. Instead of emailing the man who arranged it for me ‘IF YOU THINK I’M EXERCISING WITH MY TITS OUT, YOU‘VE GOT ANOTHER THINK COMING, MATEY’, I tactfully said I couldn’t make it to London that day. Unfortunately, he saw me moaning about it on Twitter and emailed me to say that I could keep my t-shirt on and a sports bra with no underwire is fine too and would I be willing to reschedule it? I waited for Rachel’s report and Rachel’s report (and subsequent conversations on Facebook/email) reassured me that there was no topless cycling and so I emailed the man back and said ok then, book me in. So, hopefully, as I’ve had a week of exercising and a week of NO ALCOHOL AT ALL, they won’t find me too much of an unfit bloater.
A report of my un-topless exploits in King’s Cross will follow next week.
The run was wet. My feet got soaked. iliketocount tried to loop off and catch me back up until I reminded him of the ‘with’ bit of ‘running with me’.
