Category: Salomon 100 Mile Challenge

Mad dogs and Englishmen

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I’m not a man and I’m only quarter English, so I must be a mad dog and I go out in the midday sun and get the train to the forest to practice looking at trees to acclimatise myself for my upcoming trip to Cornwall, as the frequent postings of photographs of verdant ruralness on Emily’s blog are making me a tad nervous, even if she did post a photo of a pavement for me to try and reassure me that there is a bit of concrete around.

I decide to be a sad cow and let my Garmin track me on the train and 4.31 miles and 14:02 minutes later I’m in the forest looking at trees.

And then there’s an uphill bit and I walk up it because I am a weed.

But what goes up must come down.

And it really is a beautiful sunny day and I had planned to run in the forest next week but instead I accidentally went and de-unemployed pikied myself and have to go and sit in an office all week instead instead of running around in the sunshine and practising being a country bumpkin.

And then I see a road and I think eek, I didn’t want to see a road yet, I’m still practising looking at trees but it’s a road without a pavement so it’s like those stupid roads in the countryside with no pavements.

Because I am not brave enough to go on roads without pavements, I stay in the forest but the path has disappeared and now there’s only mud.

And I get nice and muddy and I pass a man with a husky dog and come to a gate which appears to be locked and I’m wondering how to go over the gate and then I SEE A BUNNY!!

There is a bunny in that photo, honest. And then husky dog man just pulls the gate open as it is only pretending to be locked and I’m glad the bunny distracted me long enough so I didn’t try and climb over the gate that was pretending to be locked and look like a muppet.

Then as I’m going past some lake thing

“Last Chance on the Stairway” by Duran Duran comes on and starts off with what sounds like a cigarette being lit and someone inhaling and I’m thinking OH MY GOD, MILLIONS OF 11 YEAR OLD GIRLS LISTENED TO THEIR RECORDS AND THEY’RE ENCOURAGING SMOKING and then I’m thinking I started smoking when I was 11 and it would appear that it’s all Simon Le Bon’s fault and how much can I sue him for and I decide probably quite a lot as he’s probably worth a few quid.

And then when I’ve got over the shock of Simon Le Bon being to blame for millions of 11 year old smokers in the early 1980s I realise I’m a bit lost and haven’t a clue where I am and I come to another road and this one has a bit of a pavement on it and I run down it.

And I come to a residential area but I still don’t know where I am and it would appear I’m not even in London anymore as the road signs don’t have postcodes on them and then I see a sign that says I’m in Loughton and I think I could get the Central Line home but I don’t want to get the tube, I want to get back to Chingford and then I think aah, my Nokia N95 has GPS and maps on it, my N95 will get me home safely but it doesn’t want to get a satellite and the maps aren’t much help so I decide to go back the way I came and I see a duck or a goose or something

and there’s a baby one with it and I want to go closer and take its photo but the big duck or goose or whatever it is starts hissing at me and the baby duck or goose or whatever it is gets in the water and they all swim away and I’m still lost in the forest like Robert Smith and I’m wondering if I’m ever going to get home and then I remember my Garmin has a navigation thing on it but I don’t know how to use it and it doesn’t seem to make any sense and the start keeps moving and the arrow just moves around so I give up on that and trust my instincts that I’m going the right way and then eventually I come to a bit which a sign says is Chingford Plain

and I think this must be where I came in but it doesn’t look familiar but I am in the right place and I get the train and it’s still nice and sunny so I decide to get off two stops early and walk home but I don’t know the way so I consult my N95 and head off in what I hope is the right direction then I get to the medieval house

and I think hurrah, I know where I am now and I’m no longer lost and nearly home.

Today’s route

Stats:
Distance: 6.56 miles
Time: 1:36:10 minutes
Pace: 14:40
Calories: 511
Trees: lots
Mud: lots
Roads without pavements: 1
Gates pretending to be locked: 1
Bunnies: 1
Ducks or geese: 3
Medieval houses: 1
Juneathons completed: 8/8
Music
Duran Duran
Ting Tings
Blur
Foo Fighters
The Jam
Rolling Stones
Beatles
Jeff Buckley
THE 100 MILE CHALLENGE
 Miles completed so far
44.53 out of 100 / 16 days left

The sound of silence

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After reading the sound v silence debate on Runner’s World, I am inspired to conduct my own experiment and go for a run without my iPod, although why there even needs to be a debate about it is beyond me as Walkmans were invented for running with, so really it should be compulsory.

Off I go without my iPod and have forgotten I haven’t got it with me before I’ve even got to the gate where I go to switch it on. I haven’t even got to the end of the road before I’ve tried to push in my headphones further into my ears. I start to run and I don’t think I like this running without music thing and I keep thinking someone’s running behind me but it’s just my trouser legs brushing against each other and I get to the traffic lights and there’s a dead mouse or bird or something but I don’t stop to take its photo and I go over the footbridge and it’s all echoey and scary and I need my iPod to protect me and I think why does it feel safer when I can’t hear anything around me, is it like when you’re a kid and you think an axe murderer has broken in to bludgeon you to death, you hide under the covers because that will obviously save you and further down the path is a green chili and I think how did that get there? but I don’t stop to take a photo and then I get to the bridge and I think oh no, I don’t want to go under the bridge without my iPod and as I’m going through the bridge THERE’S A MAN COMING TOWARDS ME AND HE HASN’T GOT A DOG and I think I’m going to have a heart attack but he walks past me without murdering me and then there’s a man with a dog and I’m wondering if maybe I’ve got it wrong about men without dogs and maybe it’s men with dogs you should watch out for but the man with dog is friendly and he says morning and I say morning back and then I see some cherries on the ground and I think there must be a cherry tree here and I look up and sitting in the cherry tree is a bird.

And then there’s a woman yapping away on her mobile and I’m thinking if I had my iPod on I could drown her out and then I’m home and my experiment has come to an end and I have come to the conclusion that I prefer running with music and maybe I should go and start a 16 page thread about it.

Stats:
Distance: 2.96 miles
Time: 34:48 minutes
Pace: 11:45
Calories: 297
iPods: 0
Dead mice or birds or something: 1
Green chilis: 1
Men without dogs: 1
Men with dogs: 1
Cherries: lots
Birds sitting in cherry trees: 1
Women on mobile phones: 1
Juneathons completed: 7/7
Music
None
THE 100 MILE CHALLENGE
 Miles completed so far
37.97 out of 100 / 17 days left

New shoes on Thursday

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Yesterday in the post came a letter from the crooks offering me a decent amount of compensation, so like any self-respecting money grabbing whore, I decide to take the money and run and I book a flight to Cornwall so I can go and visit Emily in a couple of weeks, yay.

And after I’ve finished getting letters from crooks and booking flights to Cornwall, I sit up late drinking, watching Lost and ringing people to laugh at them for being over 40 tomorrow and therefore officially old, I get up too late for the yogalates class I’d planned on going to at the gym.  Still, because I am not a wuss and because it’s still the month of June and therefore Juneathon must be done and also because it’s not the 24th yet and I still need to clock up 100 miles, I decide to run to the gym.

Because I’ve decided to ditch the Nike+ Sportband due to it being a worthless piece of crap, I put on my new shoes

although my new shoes are trail shoes and I can’t remember there being any trails between my house and the gym and they’re not very comfy but they get me to the gym in a weedy run/walk kind of way and I get to the gym and do 20 minutes on the rowing machine and go to do 20 minutes on the elliptical trainer but wimp out after 1k and then manage a feeble 2k on the bike and then I walk home and it’s 2:15 and I think where did the day go?

Stats:
Distance: 2.07 miles
Time: 29:28 minutes
Pace: 14:15
Calories: 165
Letters from crooks: 1
Flights booked to Cornwall: 1
Runs to gym: 1
Walks back from gym: 1
Feeble efforts in the gym: 1
Juneathons completed: 5/5
Music
The Beatles
Young Knives
Plain White Ts
Manic Street Preachers
Mark Ronson
The Cure
Sisters of Mercy
Hard-Fi
THE 100 MILE CHALLENGE
 Miles completed so far
35.01 out of 100 / 20 days left

Walkathon day 4

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Unlike yesterday, when it pissed down constantly, today is a beautiful sunny day and I take my unemployed pikey self round the marshes and think to myself, this is far better than sitting in a windowless office in the City being frozen to death by the air conditioning.

And as today’s run is going to be a leisurely affair, I stop to see what the sign about cyclists on the boardwalk says

and it says the boardwalk is for pedestrians and cyclists can piss off. Yay.

Then across the river I see something being built and I wonder if it’s affordable housing and can I get one seeing as I’m unemployed now and then I can rent it out and live on the rental income and not bother getting a proper job.

And then a cute bloke with a dog comes over the bridge and I wonder if he’ll marry me and let me spend my days not working but taking pictures of building sites instead and I decide probably not and maybe I’ll have to go and get one of those job things and then an ironman runs past me and I know he’s an ironman because he has the ironman tattoo on the back of his calf and I think it would look better on his ankle but apparently you’re not supposed to call them tattoos although I wasn’t told what you’re supposed to call them instead as it looked like a tattoo to me and then I get to the filterbeds and there’s a lock on the gate

so I have to take the path along the river instead

and then I see some lilypads

and I wonder if there’s any frogs as I like frogs but I can’t see any frogs so I continue on my way and try to get over the disappointment of not seeing any frogs and then I get to the bit of the marshes where there’s going to be a half marathon

and it’s going to comprise of six laps or something and I think SIX LAPS ROUND THE FIELD? Fuck that, I would lose the will to live after a lap and a half and it looks like it’s all going to be on grass and I don’t like running on grass unless they’re going to take in the foresty bit too and then I see a tower block

and I think fuck off tower block, you’re spoiling my view, but what do I expect? I’m in Hackney and Hackney is the home of the council estate and then I get to a bridge I’ve never been over before

so I go over the bridge I’ve never been over before but it doesn’t seem to go anywhere so I go back over the bridge I’ve never been over before which is now the bridge I’ve been over twice and there’s a sign saying no fishing

and there’s a fine of £2,500. £2,500? Blimey, would be cheaper to go to the chippy I would imagine, not that I would know how much fish costs in the chippy and people shouldn’t be fishing anyway. Poor little fishes.

And then I’m back at the stables

and a horse comes over to see me

and then my phone tells me it’s run out of memory and so I can’t take any more photos so I think I might as well go home then.

Stats:
Distance: 6.51 miles
Time: 1:44:29 minutes
Pace: 16:04
Calories: 477
Sunny days: 1
Cyclists not allowed on the boardwalk: all of them
Building sites: 1
Cute men with dogs: 1
Ironmen: 1
Locks: 1
Lilypads: lots
Frogs: 0
Towerblocks: 1
New bridges: 1
No fishing signs: 1
Phones running out of memory: 1
Juneathons completed: 4/4
Music
The Secret Machines
The Levellers
The Beatles
Morphine
Fuzzbox
Stereo Total
Nirvana
Young Knives
Plain White Ts
Dexys Midnight Runners
THE 100 MILE CHALLENGE
 Miles completed so far
32.94 out of 100 / 21 days left

Juneathon Day 2

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Not only is it the second day of Juneathon but it’s also the first day of my new life as a lady of leisure, which I have decided sounds better than unemployed pikey.  I email the agency and say those crooks at [enter name of crooks here] have given my job back to their old secretary who came back from travelling the world early, i.e. after two weeks, the lightweight, and the agent does sound genuinely upset for me and not just because of the commission he’s just lost although he will be even more upset when he hears that the other new secretary rang the crooks this morning and told them she wasn’t going back in an act of solidarity and therefore that’s quite a lot of commission he’s just lost.  Oops.

After emailing the crooks and telling them I know about the other girl coming back, I fix up an appointment to see another agency tomorrow morning and then decide to get some Juneathoning done before continuing on my new unemployed pikey lady of leisure lifestyle and I decide to wear my new shoes but I’m wearing a red t-shirt again but I decide that not wearing red and green together hasn’t done much for my luck so far in my 38 years and so I decide to be reckless but then remember that my new shoes have weird Salomon quicklaces on them

and so I can’t tie my Nike+ pouch to them and although it’s completely pointless me taking the Nike+ Sportband out because it’s inaccurate and the calibrating didn’t work, I still want to take it out because it updates the Nike+ challenge widget thing over there on the right and makes me look like I’ve run a lot of miles and even more importantly, run further than Warriorwoman although I don’t think that’s cheating as much as trying to make out going on a Wii is valid Juneathoning.

Stats:
Distance: 3.03 miles
Time: 31:42 minutes
Pace: 10:27
Calories: 305
Agencies losing lots of commision: 1
Agencies to see tomorrow: 1
Crooks emailed: 1
Days of being a lady of leisure: 1
Juneathons completed: 2/2
Music
The Secret Machines
The Levellers
Toyah
Muse
THE 100 MILE CHALLENGE
 Miles completed so far
26.43 out of 100 / 23 days left

City of London Race for Life 2008

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After getting the sack from my new job on Friday for the spurious reason that my twat of a boss found me a bit abrupt, I later find out that his old secretary came back from her travels early and asked for her job back. Wanker. I spend Saturday drinking and sulking and decide that I’m not getting out of bed today, let alone go and run a Race for Life with 10,000 women wearing pink and walking really slowly but by the time I drag myself off to bed at 3am I decide to set my alarm anyway and see how I feel in the morning. In the morning I feel shit but I decide to do my race and, after all, Juneathon starts today and the laws of Juneathon must be upheld.

I get in the right lane this year, the lane for runners, unlike last year when I joined the walkers by mistake and I think we’ve set off but everyone’s still walking and I don’t see a start line and then we get round the corner and I see the start line so we haven’t started yet and then there’s a countdown and it takes three minutes to get across the start line so I decide my Garmin time will be my official time and by the time we’ve gone .2 of a mile, people have already started walking and I decide to push anyone walking out of my way and then I see some shops that look familiar and I realise we’re running down Cheapside and I’ve just gone past my ex-work and I think I should have brought a petrol bomb with me or something and after about 2 miles I overtake a girl who had been walking in front of me and who’d I’d already overtaken and I think how did she get there? and then I realise SHE CHEATED!! She must have crossed over the island and CHEATED and I’m pretty sure if you cheat in a charity run then you definitely go to hell and then some woman barges into me so I elbow her in the ribs and she says sorry and at last the race is over and my Garmin says it was only 2.75 miles but because I spent most of it stuck behind people walking slowly I don’t qualify for free pizza which I have been promised if I can do a sub-30 5k and I go and get my medal and my goody bag which consists of a granola bar, cranberry juice, moisturiser, face wash, deodorant and a horrible brown lipstick but at least I got a goody bag unlike Shaun, who, in his last race only got a paper cup and speaking of Shaun he’s just started a blog so he can join in Juneathon, so go and take the piss out of say hello to him here.

Goody bag

Today’s route

Stats:
Distance: 2.75 mile
Time: 32:32 minutes
Pace: 11:50
Calories: 276
New jobs: 0
Hangovers: 1
Women wearing pink and walking really slowly: 10,000
Juneathons: 1
Music:
The Mission
Sisters of Mercy
Madonna
Faith No More
The Secret Machines
The Levellers
Baby Teeth
Hole
Chumbawamba
THE 100 MILE CHALLENGE
 Miles completed so far
23.46 out of 100 / 24 days left

A slight detour or two

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As this weekend’s long run will consist of doing the 5k City of London Race for Life, I decide to ramp up my mileage by undertaking another one of those running commute things that I love so much. Although I do seem to have a running commute convert who actually enjoyed the experience. Ha, he’s new to London, it won’t be long before he’s hard and cynical like me the rest of London.

So after a busy busy busy day at work which was made busier by my boss coming over to me at lunchtime while I was on the internet and telling me I’ll go blind and what was I reading and me replying “something about Michael Jackson’s kids”, he says I obviously haven’t got enough to do but I’m pleased he didn’t come over five minutes earlier because then if he’d asked me what I was reading I’d have had to have said “a review of a film about a man bleeding to death after having sex with a horse” and then my boss might have questioned my long-term career plans at his firm. He ignores the fact I’m at lunch and obviously have important things to do like read about Michael Jackson’s kids and men shagging horses and gives me work to do and I’m flat out until hometime at 6 o’clock and I set off in the rain for my commute and when I get to Stamford Hill I wonder if Bernard’s mate has ever been there and if Jewish and Muslim people are on his list of people you shouldn’t six next to on a bus along with homeless, gay, disabled and black people, as announced by him when he unequivocally displayed his bigoted twatness to Tracey a few weeks ago and I when I get over the bridge at the marina I see a dodgy looking bloke standing at the end of the bushes and I’m thinking why is that dodgy looking bloke just standing there in the rain and when I get a bit nearer I see another dodgy looking bloke hitting the bushes or something and I turn round and go back the way I came and then I’m thinking shit, I really really don’t want to go home by road but my desire to really really not want to go on the road isn’t as strong as my desire to really really not get attacked and I go up by the river and I get to the ice rink and then I have to decide whether to go past the stables or back out onto the road and I go over the bridge and can see another couple of dodgy looking blokes on the marshes and so I go out onto the street and continue that way and I think every cloud blah blah blah and at least this way I’ll get my mileage up for the 100 mile challenge so yay.

Today’s route

Stats:
Distance: 7.15 mile
Time: 1:26:07 minutes
Pace: 12:02
Calories: 695
Converts to a running commute: 1
Bosses interrupting my lunch: 1
Dodgy looking blokes over the marshes: 4
Bigoted twats: 1
Detours: 2
Clouds with silver linings: 1
Music:
The Mission
Sisters of Mercy
Soft Cell
Madonna
Faith No More
The Beatles
The Secret Machines
The Levellers
Baby Teeth
Hole
The Polyphonic Spree
Scissor Sisters
Yeah Yeah Yeahs
Chumbawamba
Troggs
THE 100 MILE CHALLENGE
 Miles completed so far
20.71 out of 100 / 26 days left

Bus driven mad

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I get up too late to go to the gym before work and so I decide to go at lunchtime just for a mile on the treadmill to see if I can calibrate the stupid poxy Nike+ Sportband thing which still shows me as breaking world records ha ha and I get to the gym and there’s no air conditioning but I think it doesn’t really matter as I’m only doing a mile and I get on the treadmill and try three times to start the treadmill and my Nike+ Sportsband at the same time and each time they’re way out and then duh I remember that the treadmill will be in kilometres and the Sportband will be in miles so I forget trying to synchronise them and just do a mile and after a mile I stop and because there’s no air conditioning I am completely minging and the gym is the only place I can put up with air conditioning as this is England and we don’t need air conditioning EVER except for the gym and I’ve had my heater on at work since I’ve been there and it seems like my Sportband and the treadmill were pretty spot on and I go back to work and freeze in the air conditioning and then I go to my evening class and then Tracey says do you want to go for a drink and I say no and then I’ve changed my mind by one tube stop and say shall we go for a drink at Liverpool Street and when we get out at Liverpool Street there aren’t any trains going to anywhere and I think shit I’ll have to get the tube and a bus or a cab home and we go to the pub and we pass one on the way that’s cheaper and we get veggie sausage and mash and a bottle of wine for about £12 between us and then we get the tube and then I get another tube and then I get the bus and there’s a man on the bus on his mobile having a conversation about the bus and he’s telling whoever he’s talking to that when he got out of the tube there were three buses and the 97 is faster than the 69 and sometimes he doesn’t get a bus ’til 10 o’clock and I’m thinking whoppee fucking do just shut the fuck up but he doesn’t and he carries on and on with the same conversation about how there were three buses and sometimes he gets this bus but sometimes he gets another bus and I’m swearing under my breath and really really really wanting him to SHUT THE FUCK UP and I’m wondering if the person on the other side of the conversation is losing the will to live as much as I am and I can’t take the bus conversation anymore and I get off the bus early and I walk down the street and as I get to Somerfield it has a sign saying half price wine so I have to go in and get a bottle and I get home and I plug in my Nike+ Sportband but it doesn’t upload anything so I reboot my computer to see if that will change its mind but it doesn’t so I go to download the software again but I can’t download it and I think I hate the Nike+ Sportband thing.

Stats:
Distance: 1 mile
Time: 12 minutes
Pace: 12:24
Calories: 92
THE 100 MILE CHALLENGE
Miles completed so far
13.55 out of 100 / 27 days left

The joys of a running commute

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Reading The Red Bucket’s blog today prompted me to think about the joys of a running commute and to share my happy ponderings with the rest of the world.

But I couldn’t think of any.

You get up in the morning with the best of intentions and pack your running gear. This is an exercise in endurance in itself. What do you take? What don’t you take? I have had to learn how to travel light and also how not to mind freezing on the platform while I’m waiting for my train because I’ve had to leave my parka at home. I fail miserably at not minding freezing.

You get to work and your workmates look at you in admiration (at least, I think that’s what it is. It could of course, and possibly more likely, be looks of bewilderment) when you say you’re running home and you smugly think to yourself yay, I am fit and healthy and you are a lazy bastard. Then it gets to the afternoon and you think fuck, I’m knackered and now I’ve got to run for over an hour instead of sitting on a train for 15 minutes. In fact, by the time your Garmin has got a signal, you could have been home with your feet up watching the early evening news (or Hollyoaks).

You have to dodge slow people walking and talking on their mobiles; you have to dodge slow people looking at maps; you have to dodge slow people stopping to light cigarettes and you have to dodge people who are just slow. The only good thing about this is that they are so wrapped up in their own little slow world that they don’t hear you when you swear at them under your breath.

Then you have to stop every four yards to cross the road. Or alternatively you can just get run over every four yards by cars driven by fuckwits who don’t bother to indicate. And don’t forget to look out for cyclists going through red lights. And cyclists on the pavements. And, erm, cyclists in general really.

And of course, it’s dinnertime and the smells from even the greasiest fast food places are enough to make a health-conscious vegetarian’s mouth water. Almost. Although that’s nothing compared to the lager envy you get when you commute in the summer and run past all the people enjoying a cold beer in the evening sun.

When you eventually get home, it is of course late o’clock and by the time you’ve showered and had your dinner there is fuck all else time to do anything else.

Er, yeah, a running commute. I definitely recommend it.

Stats
Distance: 6.06 miles
Time: 1:11:11
Pace: 11:45 m/m
Calories: 586
Slow people: lots
Cars nearly running me over: lots
Cyclists going through red lights: lots
Music
Bobby Conn
The Levellers
Madonna
Radiohead
Baby Teeth
Devo
Janis Joplin
Scissor Sisters
Rolling Stones
THE 100 MILE CHALLENGE
Miles completed so far
12.55 out of 100 / 28 days left

3 miles in 30 minutes

5 comments

As Warriorwoman has impressively spent two days chasing tube lines, after cleaning my embarrassingly dirty kitchen, I enter three races and this sufficiently motivates me into venturing out into the Bank Holiday sunshine rain to keep up with the challenge within a challenge (although I am quietly confident that it won’t be long before Warriorwoman slacks off with pathetic excuses like exams/broken backs/flowers to water, etc.)

I go round the marshes and get soaking wet and I do my 3 mile route in just over 30 minutes and therefore it’s looking likely that I will do my sub-30 5k at Sunday’s RfL if I don’t get stuck behind too many pink-lycra-clad women walking really slowly whilst eating pies and therefore can claim my free beer and pizza. Hurrah.

Stats
Distance: 3.01 miles
Time: 30:05
Pace: 10:00 m/m
Calories: 303
Races entered: 3
Sunny weathers: 0
Rain: lots
30 minute marshes: 1
Free pizzas on the horizon: 1
Music
The Beatles
The The
The Smiths
Bobby Conn
Mika
The Mission

Miles completed so far
6.49 / 100

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