On the 17th day of Juneathon, I joined the school run

2 comments

But I was the only one running.

I don’t know if it’s the Juneathon daily exercise energising me, or the home made smoothies I’ve been having for breakfast, but as well as going out for a run before 9am on Tuesday, yesterday I got up before my alarm went off and today I got up at 6:45am and was out by 8:30 (yes, I know that’s a lot of time in between getting up and leaving the house but leaving the house is hard for a wannabe hermit) and I thought I’d better stick to the pavements and cycle lanes and not those stupid country lane things with no pavements as I’m probably going to hit the school run and those school run mums don’t know how to drive and I get down the road and there’s an SRM walking her kid to school and I think flipping heck, I thought country people drove everywhere and good for her and I get to the end of the road and I see a little fat kid and I think where’s he going? the school’s the other way, he must be bunking off but then I see a load of kids in uniform and I think aah, I never noticed a school here before and it must be the secondary school as they’re in uniform and the little fat kid must be going here and not bunking off after all and I go through the path opposite the school and it’s lined with bushes and there’s two teachers in there smoking and I wonder if they’re smoking in there to deter the kids from smoking in there and then I see a house where the owners have painted their double garage doors in the England flag or George’s Cross or whatever it’s called and I think how sad is that? and they’ll have to paint over it when the football’s over and I realise I haven’t seen any cars yet with the England flags on and I get round the corner and there’s an SRM on a bike and her little girl’s on a bike too and I think that’s pretty hardcore as the primary school is quite far away and up a hill and I wonder if they’ll get up the hill on their bikes or will they wimp out and walk it and then I wonder if I’ll be cycling home tomorrow after work as I had planned to cycle home from work from now on but yesterday I didn’t really enjoy it as the first time I did it, it was like a challenge and a little adventure and it wasn’t that busy but yesterday it was busy and it was just a chore and I got really saddle sore and I think I might have to wimp out of tomorrow’s cycle commute and especially as it’s Book Club tonight and I’ll probably be really tired after going to the pub and drinking and getting back late talking about books and then I’m running down the pavement and there’s two women on bikes and I go through the middle of them and one of them wobbles and comes to a stop and I say sorry and then I wonder why I’m saying sorry as I’m on the pavement and they should be on the road and I think GET ON THE FUCKING ROAD and then I’m going down the path and I’m hoping there’s no nonces in the bushes waiting for a schoolchild to come skipping innocently down the path unaware of any nonces in bushes and I think probably not as people shouldn’t let young children out on their own, not even if you want to go to a restaurant or something while you’re on holiday and then further down the path I can see a man and he’s dressed all in black and hasn’t got a dog with him and he looks scary but then he goes down the other path and in fact, I think it’s a she not a he and then I’m back on the pavement and outside the school are about a dozen cars with England flags on them and I think if I was a kid, I’d probably be excited to be driven about in a car with England flags on it and it’d be far less embarrassing than the bright orange Citroen 2CV

citroen

I was driven to school in and it’s not even like my mum was an old hippy or anything, she was completely conservative and totally Tory to the point of having Conservative Party posters in the windows of the house in the 70s, so now you know who to blame for Margaret Thatcher being in power and then I get home and my Hal Higdon Half Marathon Training Program says to do strength training so I do some weights and while I’m lying down doing some bench presses, I look at the dead spiders trapped in the roof of the conservatory.

Stats:
Distance: 3.03 miles
Time: 32:20
Pace: 10:39 m/m
Calories: 312
Early mornings: 1
SRMs walking: 1
Little fat kids: 1
Teachers smoking in the bushes: 2
Double garage doors painted with England flags: 2
SRMs on bikes: 1
Cyclings on pavement: 2
Nonces in bushes: 0
Dead spiders in conservatory roofs: lots
Music:
Audiofuel
The Mission
The Clash
XTC

On the 16th day of Juneathon, I lost my job

One comment

But as I’d been there for four months, instead of the six weeks I was originally hired for, I can’t complain. So, in six weeks, I can go back to being a full-time lady of leisure. Yay.

And after I went to work and lost my job, I cycled home and am now very saddle sore.

Stats (cycling)
Distance: 16.91 miles
Time: 1:43:57
Speed: 9.8 mph
Calories: 520
Jobs: 0
Sore bums: 1

On the 15th day of Juneathon, we’re halfway there!

4 comments

juneathon_2010Here’s my pretty chart of my halfway mark. Who’d have thought I’d turn into a cyclist?!! Thanks to The Red Bucket for posting one on his blog and allowing me to nick the idea. You can make your own on Google Docs. It would be prettier though if I could change the colours. Does anyone know how to do this?

No cycling for me today though. Today I got up early and plotted a 3 mile route on Gmap Pedometer and was out of the door by 9am (that’s early for me these days, so shut up) and started off up the hill and got about three feet up the hill before deciding to walk and I did my run with a bit of walking in it and nothing very exciting happened and as I got to 2.4 miles I thought no way is it .6 miles back to the house and it’s going to be more like 2.7 miles and Gmap Pedometer must be lying and when I got back to the house it was indeed 2.7 miles and I thought well, I’m not going up the hill again to make up the mileage so today’s run is only 2.7 miles and not the 3 that the Hal Higdon Half Marathon Training Program had me down to do today.

Stats:
Distance: 2.72 miles
Time: 29:20
Pace: 10:48 m/m
Calories: 279
Pretty charts of the halfway mark: 1
Lying Gmap Pedometers: 1
Hal Higdon Half Marathon Training Programs: 1
Halfway through Juneathons: 1
Music
Audiofuel
MGMT
Joy Division

On the 14th day of Juneathon, I caught up with my blogging

One comment

Today I went to the gym and went on the elliptical trainer, rowing machine and weights, then I came home and had a really nice lunch of a falafel, hummous and salad wrap and then I filled in a job application for a job at the library and managed to tell them about Juneathon which must surely get me the job? and then I cycled a round trip of 7.34 miles to buy some eggs and then I came home and caught up with the blogging I haven’t done over the last few days.

Stats (gym):
Elliptical trainer: 20 minutes
Rowing machine: 20 minutes
Weights
Calories: 250

Cycling:
Distance: 7.34 miles
Time: 40:51
Speed: 10.8mph
Calories: 247
Nice lunches: 1
Job applications containing mentions of Juneathon: 1
Far away eggs: 6
Blog posts written in a bid to catch up: 5

On the 13th day of Juneathon, I did the Great Kent Bike Ride

Leave a comment

They short-changed me. I entered in good faith a 35 mile bike ride and my Garmin only measure 33.39 miles.

Bah.

I got to the park where the start was and although it was supposed to be a ride and not a race and a family event, it was full of serious looking cyclists wearing lycra and on proper bikes, not pink ones with wicker baskets. I felt like I was in fancy dress.

Still, I cycled 33.39 miles around Kent and got a few ‘hellos’ and ‘mornings’ and one ‘OH MY GOD, LOOK AT YOUR BIKE, I WANT THAT BIKE. THAT IS AWESOME!!!s’ and got to the finish line and the man on the tannoy said ‘that’s the first proper bike I’ve seen come through so far’ and I go and buy a nice red t-shirt from the nice lady on the www.bike-events.com stall who says I’m the spitting image of her cousin and then Shaun comes to collect me and we go to Wetherspoons and I have a roast dinner containing 1,039 calories and he has burger and chips containing 1,270 calories.

That’s a lot of calories.

Stats (cycling):
Distance: 33.39 miles
Time: 3:10:50
Speed: 10.5 mph
Calories: 1,099
Proper cyclists on proper bikes and wearing lycra: hundreds
Unproper cyclists on pink bikes with wicker baskets not wearing lycra: 1
Roast dinners containing 1,039 calories: 1
Burgers and chips containing 1,270 calories: 1

On the 12th day of Juneathon, I ran to the new Juneathon 2010 Audiofuel mix

2 comments

Junathon2010Mix That nice Sean man from Audiofuel (I would call him that nice young Sean man but I have since found out he’s older than me) has made us lucky Juneathoners a new mid-Juneathon 2010 mix for us all. Yay.

You can download it for free here.

I took it out for a test run and very good it is too. I even had a laugh out loud in the street moment when, at 18 minutes into it, Sean says ‘well done on the run and don’t forget to blog about it when you get home’.

Um, I didn’t forget to blog, I just didn’t blog.

Until now.

Oops.

Sorry.

On the 10th day of Juneathon, I did the Crisis Square Mile Run

One comment

Yes, I’m late with this. I’m also late with days 11, 12, 13 and 14, so this is going to be short.

Crisis Square Mile Run 2010 highlights:

  • Meeting Fit Artist for the first time
  • Meeting up with Eating Trees for the second time
  • A little girl running alongside me for a little while
  • My fastest mile in a race, ever (I think)
  • Beer
  • Pizza
  • More beer

Lowlights:

  • Stupid girl barging me on the bridge at the finish
  • Missing Fit Artist at the finish line
  • Having to leave the pub to get the train home

crisis 002

Stats:
Distance: 4.47 miles
Time: 45:29
Pace: 10:11 m/m

On the 9th day of Juneathon, I did my first ever cycling commute

4 comments

I wasn’t going to blog tonight, I was going to blog tomorrow. But then I started reading the other Juneathon blogs and thought I MUST BLOG JUNEATHON. IT IS THE LAW. And stuff. And so here’s my blog for today.

I went to work on the train and took my bike with me on the train and then I did some work and then I said ‘I’m cycling home now’, and my workmates said ‘what, all the way?’ and I said ‘yes, all the way’ and they said ‘                    ’ and looked at me and I got my map out and asked one of my workmates about a roundabout on the route and the other workmate said ‘don’t you even know the way?’ and I said ‘no’ and she said ‘                    ’ and so I got on my bike and I cycled down the road for a bit and then I cycled down the A28 for 12.8 miles and then eventually at a grand total of 17.64 miles later, including a stoppy off bit at Tesco to get some wine I was home and that is my Juneathon for the day.

p.s. I saw a dead rabbit.

Stats (cycling):
Distance: 17.64 miles
Time: 1:49:07
Speed: 9.7mph
Calories: 539

On the eighth day of Juneathon, I went exploring

4 comments

Last night I dreamt I had a squirrel stuck up my nose. Not just his head up there with his little feet sticking out my nostril, but properly up there. In my dream I didn’t want to try pulling him out as I thought he’d be too big, so I left him up there and carried on with my day.

That dream is going to stick with me forever.

That dream wasn’t actually anything to do with Juneathon but I just wanted to share it (even though you’ve probably already read about it on Twitter or Facebook. Yes I’m one of those sad people who catalogues their every waking (or dreaming, in this case) moment via social media).

Still, as traumatised as I was, Juneathon had to continue. I decided to just do a couple of miles today, as I’m doing – for the fifth year running – the Crisis Square Mile Run on Thursday, along with Eating Trees and Fit Artist. This year’s bag-looker-afterer will be the Artist Formerly Known As Little Crutchey Man, aided by my friend Gary.

So off I went down the road and then I decided to go exploring down the footpath which isn’t a path at all

greensands way 023

and I think countryside people need to go and look up ‘path’ in the dictionary and all I can see is a field and I’m thinking do I just run round the field, or what? and then I come to a stile (is that the right spelling? It can’t be ‘style’, as countryside people have none)

greensands way 024

and I think aah, I’m allowed to cross over stiles without getting shot by ruddy-faced farmers and then I see a sign on it pointing the direction for the Greensand Way

greensands way 025

and I think hurrah, as I’ve been trying to find out where it is for ages and ages and so I decided to follow the Greensand Way, although not all the way, as it’s 108 miles long and then I’m in another field

greensands way 026

and then I cross over another stile and there’s a little bridge type thing

greensands way 027

and then another little bridge type thing

greensands way 028

and when I get over the little bridge type thing, lo! there’s a path!

greensands way 029

and I’m glad someone round here knows what a path is and I decide the field must belong to a Londoner and I decide this even more strongly when I get to the next stile and see it’s held together with barbed wire

greensands way 030

and there’s quite a nice view

greensands way 032

until I look to the right and see the housing development that reminds me I’m in Ashford

greensands way 033

because, like in London where you’re never more than six feet away from a rat, in Ashford, you’re never more than one hundred yards from a housing development, and then I get to the end of the field and there’s a road

greensands way 035

and although I don’t want to follow the Greensand Way any further, I’m wondering if I go right, will the road take me back? but I don’t want to climb over the stile, as it’s covered in stinging nettles

greensands way 036

and so I decide to go back the way I came

greensands way 037

and when I get to the next road I see a roundabout

greensands way 038

and although Ashford is the home of the roundabout, I think I recognise it and wonder if I should go back by road but I decide to continue back the way I came and I go back through the fields and back onto the road and my T-shirt is rising up in the wind and there’s someone coming towards me so I try to pull my T-shirt down but it doesn’t want to go down and so I suck in my stomach instead but I don’t want to flash my belly button as it’s a naked belly button as I had to have my belly button ring taken out as it went manky and the person coming down the road is a little old man and he smiles and I think aaah, nice little old man and he smiles back and then I get home and read up on the other Juneathon blogs and The Red Bucket has done a nice little pie chart and I think I WANT ONE and therefore he is my Juneathon Hero of the Day.

Stats:
Distance: 3.01miles
Time: 44:33
Pace: 14:48 m/m
Calories: 238
Dreams of squirrels being stuck up my nose: 1
Greensand Ways: 1
Stiles with barbed wire: 1
Stiles with stinging nettles: 1
Housing developments: 1
Roundabouts: 1
Little old men: 1
Nice little pie charts: 1

1 … 56 57 58 59 60 … 118