Audio Fuel – Easy Beats

7 comments

A man named Sean (not to be confused with Shaun) took pity on me yesterday and emailed me and said as you’ve lost your phone, wallet and forty English pounds, would you like some free running music from Audio Fuel?  And I said no, not really, what do I want any freebies for? but you’ve probably already guessed that is a complete lie as what I really said was ooh, what a gentleman, yes please, I would indeed like some free running music and so the man named Sean (not to be confused with Shaun) sent me five compilations of free running music and I extract the files and with each compilation is a 22 page pdf giving advice on exercise, music, injury prevention, running kit and good nutrition and I especially like the running kit bit as that means clothes and I also especially like the good nutrition bit as that means eating and the compilations are a piece of you know what to install onto iTunes and the compilations I’ve been given range from Easy Beats for a slower run to Full Tilt for (to quote the man named Sean (not to be confused with Shaun)) when a rabid dog is chasing you when you are desperate to use the loo, and your house is on fire.

Unsurprisingly, as I’ve been such a weed lately, I decide to test out the Easy Beats compilation which starts off with a 10 minute track at 125bpm and continues with five more tracks at 140bpm and 145bpm and that’s the last thing I’m going to say about bpm as I haven’t a clue what I’m talking about.

I get outside and switch on my iPod.  How am I supposed to run to this?  I’m never going to keep up and it’s going too fast and I don’t understand this dancey kind of music as it’s all jumbled up and I’m an indie/rock chick but it’s kind of uplifting and I don’t hate it and so I carry on and the first track ends after 10 minutes and I look at my Garmin and I’ve done almost a mile and I think wow, that’s faster than I’ve done for a long long time and the next song comes on and I think I recognise this but then they’re singing in French or something and I think hmm, maybe I don’t recognise it after all but I like it and I get past the tree and there’s an old couple on bicycles coming down the road and the old lady is in front of the old man by quite a way and I think yay, you go old lady, beat the old man and I get to a mile and a half and I stop and turn round to come back the way I came and I’m quite enjoying the music even if I can’t keep to the beat and I go past the tree and there’s another old man on a bicycle and I think it must be National Old People On Bikes Day today or something and he’s got a very red face and I think it’s the sheep killer from the other day and maybe he’s got a red face as he’s embarrassed to be a sheep killer and then I’m back out on the main road and there’s a cyclist coming down the pavement and I think OI, CYCLIST, GET OFF THE PAVEMENT and he pulls in and lets me go past and I feel bad and I should stop thinking all cyclists are like London cyclists, i.e. ignorant, selfish twats and I get home and I’ve done three miles in my quickest time for ages and ages and ages and I think the free running music compilation worked.  Yay.

Stats:
Distance: 3.1 miles
Time: 32:51
Pace: 10:34 m/m
Calories: 310
Men called Sean not to be confused with Shaun: 1
Free running music compilations: 5
Old people on bicycles: 3
Cyclists on pavements: 1
Music:
Audio Fuel’s Easy Beats compilation

Sheep & jeep

2 comments

After venturing into a nearby field on Thursday which was far more enjoyable than running in the road dodging potholes and 4x4s, Shaun bought an ordnance survey map to help me find some more fields and footpaths.  I look at the map and it’s full of dots and dashes and I think I don’t understand this stupid morse code map, give me a London A-Z that I can understand and so I decide to go back to the field I was in on Thursday and when I get round the corner of the field, over the other side I see two people on bicycles and I think OI, GET OUT OF MY FIELD, CYCLISTS and then they come round the corner and it’s two old ladies and they get off their bikes to push them up the steep bit and I think ha, lightweights, I’m going to run up the steep bit and I start to run up the steep bit but then I get a bit knackered so I walk up the steep bit and at the top of the steep bit the old ladies turn left and I think don’t turn left, turn right, I want to turn left and so then I’m following the old ladies and I wonder if they’d let me go out cycling with them but then I think I don’t want to go cycling with old ladies and when they get to the end of the road they stop and I think why are they stopping? and then I think maybe they live there and they do indeed live in the cottage at the end of the road and I get to the main road and I’ve done 1.99 miles so I turn around and go back the way I came and back down the steep bit into the field and there’s a jeep in with the sheep and I wonder what the jeep’s doing with the sheep but the sheep aren’t frightened, quite the opposite as they’re running towards the jeep, following it, and I think aah, that must be their owner and they think they’re going to be fed and then I think poor sheep, they must trust and love him and they don’t know that he is going to be responsible for their murder and I think sheep, don’t follow this man, he will kill you but the sheep don’t read my mind and they follow the sheep murderer until he stops his jeep and his window’s open and as I go past he says morning and he looks like a comedy cartoon farmer with his red face and I think don’t say morning to me, sheep killer, but I say hello back and then I get to the field with the new cows in and I stop to say hello to the cows but they don’t say hello back and then I say goodbye cows, but they don’t say goodbye back either and I walk the rest of the way home in what is probably the slowest four miles ever.

Stats:
Distance: 4.02 miles
Time: 56:12
Pace: 13:58 m/m
Calories: 342 
Morse code maps: 1
Old ladies on bicycles: 2
Steep bits: 1
Sheep killers: 1
Speaking cows: 0 
Music:
Nine Inch Nails
Mansun
Joy Division
Gay Dad
Sleeper
Jimi Hendrix 

Woof!

2 comments

After getting monstrously drunk last Thursday; so drunk I fell asleep on the train, lost my phone and my wallet and had to spend £40 in a taxi to get home, I haven’t been feeling well since.  Whether it was a week-long hangover, or the copious amounts of alcohol kick-started some little bug I had hanging around, I don’t know.  But I’ve been too weak to run and have hardly left the house all week.  Until this morning.  This morning I decide to get back into my schedule that I had promised faithfully to stick to and went out for two miles.  I get out the door and am seriously not feeling like running and I decide just to get to the corner and turn back, thus turning my run into a measly one mile but I get to the corner and decide I’m too fat to go back and if I want to lose weight without drastically reducing my food and alcohol intake, I’m going to have to do some exercise and so I carry on and I get to the sign that says public footpath and I stop and ponder this and think maybe I should go in the field for a change, seeing as I hate running on the road so much and so then I have to decide whether to go in the field on the left or the right but they look the same so I go into the one on the left and it’s a cornfield or something and there’s a path been trampled through it so I follow the trampled through path and I come to a field I’ve never seen before with sheep in and there’s loads of sheep, some with black faces, and I wonder if I’ve done a mile and I look at my Garmin and it says I’ve done a mile exactly and I wonder whether I should turn round and go back and I decide to carry on and the sun’s got very hot and I’m quite enjoying being in a field especially as I can have my iPod turned up without worrying about getting squished by a car and I wonder if the field loops round to where I started but then I get to the end and there’s some trees and I’m outside the field on the other side of the fence and I wonder if I carry on going will it take me back to where I started and there’s a pond or something and then it doesn’t look like I can get any further and I decide to turn back and to explore another day and I get out of the trees and two dogs run over and stand in front of me barking and barking and I’m scared as I only know London dogs and they’re usually harmless and just come over for a bit of a sniff before wandering off and don’t stand there baring their teeth barking at me like these ones and I don’t know about countryside side dogs and they could be trained to kill or something and I can’t see their owner and I’m looking around thinking what the fuck am I supposed to do and I’m frozen to the spot and I don’t know whether to say good doggies, calm down, as they might be dogs with attitude or something and this will only wind them up further and then I see a man in the distance walking towards me and I think thank fuck for that and he says don’t worry, they won’t bite and he’s making snapping gestures with his hand and I say are they just noisy? and he says yes, and I say oh, ok then, thanks and I walk past the noisy dogs and the man says sorry and I say that’s ok and I continue running and I run back round the field and I get back to the road but this isn’t the bit I came in and I must have missed it but I don’t think I’m lost and I get round the corner and I can see the main road and there’s only half a mile to go and I get home and I’ve done 3 miles instead of 2 and I think hurrah and then because I am hardcore, I do my weights too.

Today’s route

route230709

Stats:
Distance: 3.03 miles
Time: 37:28
Pace: 12:21 m/m
Calories: 278
Cornfields: 1
New sheep: lots
Dogs barking at me: 2
Music:
Nine Inch Nails
Rolling Stones
Charlatans

Speeding along at 27mph

One comment

Up bright and early today as I’ve got a busy day ahead, first going down to Maidstone Library to have a chat about being a volunteer computer buddy, then off to London (hurrah) to see a man about a website, then I’m meeting a friend for drinks and dinner and because I promised I was sticking to my schedule this time, I don’t wimp out of my scheduled two mile run and weights session, especially as when I get on the scales I want to throw them out of the window, because surely they can’t be right?  Can anyone recommend some decent bathroom scales?  I’ve got my eye on these ones, although if I get on them and they show the weight they’re showing on the picture, they’ll be following the cheapy ones out of the window.

I look out of the window and there’s some men in hi-vis jackets by the bus stop and I don’t want to run past them and I wonder if they’re waiting for a bus but I haven’t got all day to hang around here and so I’m brave and go outside and one of them’s sitting down on a chair so I don’t think they’re waiting for a bus and as I pass them they say morning and I’m confused as workmen usually say awright darlin’ or something and I say morning back even though I am confused and I start to run and I feel lighter despite what my bathroom scales say and I wonder if it’s because I’ve had about six inches cut off my hair and I decide my scales are lying as I haven’t been drinking that much or eating any crisps or chocolate except for the few white chocolate buttons that came in my free graze box (if you want one go to www.graze.com and enter the code HQTGF3G) and I get to the new cows on the corner and a fly flies into my eye and a cow runs along the field next to me and I’ve never seen a cow run before and I get to the tree and come back as I’m only doing two miles today and as I get back to the road there’s a sign saying they’re doing speed tests or something and that’ll be why the men are there and they’re still there at the bus stop and there’s a sign that tells me I’m doing 27mph and I think their sign is about as accurate as my bathroom scales.

Stats:
Distance: 2.12 miles
Time: 22:52
Pace: 10:47 m/m
Calories: 188
Lying bathroom scales: 1
Inches off hair: 6
Free boxes of food: 1
Flies in my eye: 1
Cows running: 1
Signs saying I was doing 27mph: 1

Start of a new schedule (and this time I mean it)

4 comments

I didn’t do very well with my new training schedule so I’ve started it again, and have stuck diligently to it so far.  All two days of it.  I have also started a new healthier eating regime which means fewer mince pies and crisps and less chocolate, wine and beer.  Eek.

So after doing my weights yesterday and not having any mince pies, today I get up early to go for a two mile run. 

After I get up, I look out of the window and there’s a hot air balloon going past and I wonder who gets a hot air balloon at 7:15am and maybe that’s how countryside people commute and I don’t waste too much time on Facebook and I’m out by 8:20 and before I get to the tree my Garmin says I’ve gone a mile but I can’t have gone a mile as the tree’s a mile away from home and I’m not at the tree yet and I get to the tree and there’s a lot of cars around and I wonder why there’s so many cars and then I think ah, it must be the school run, there’s a school just round the corner and I go round the tree and back the way I came and there’s a van with Accident Exchange on it and I wonder what an accident exchange it, do you swap accidents with people? like I’ll swap you my broken leg for your gouged out eyeball? and as I get to the end of the road there’s a man and a woman with three dogs taking up all the room and I think pull your dog over to the side so I can get past you ignorant twat, I’m not running around you and he doesn’t look like he’s going to pull his dog over but I carry on on the side I’m running on and he does pull his dog over and they’re busy chattering away to each other in that way that old people do and I had told myself I was going to walk when I got to the road but I carry on and I think I’ll stop and walk when my Garmin says I’ve done two miles but if it was out before then maybe it won’t register the two miles properly and so I carry on until I get home.

Stats:
Distance: 2.14 miles
Time: 23:46
Pace: 11:06 m/m
Calories: 176
Hot air balloons: 1
Accident Exchange vans: 1
Old people with dogs in my way: 2
Schedules stuck to for two days: 1

Technorati Tags: hot air balloon,weights,strength training,mince pies,crisps,chocolate,wine,beer,Facebook,Garmin,dogs,old people,Accident Exchange

Totally Wild Challenge 2009

4 comments

You’d better sit down.  What I’ve got to say is going to shock you.

I’M DOING A BIKE RACE!!  A 30k one to be precise.  The Totally Wild Challenge.

Ha ha, yes me, the one who HATES cyclists and wants to gun down every single one that goes through red lights or cycles on the pavements but I have mellowed towards cyclists since I’ve been here, probably because there are no red lights to go through or pavements to cycle on. 

And not only am I doing a bike race, I’ll be doing a 10k run first. 

totally_wild_challenge
Am I hardcore or what?

Bald sheep

Leave a comment

Yesterday I went for a measly 2 mile run, of which one mile was walked.  But the dirty brown colour changing sheep have changed colour again and are now bald and clean colour changing sheep.

sheep 003

And I am just testing out this new feature I found on my new pc that has been driving me up the wall since I got it (the pc, not the new feature I found) and I can write a blog post from the photo gallery when I’m looking at photos of sheep and stuff.  Which to be honest, doesn’t seem much easier than logging into my account and blogging from there although this has saved me messing about with the photo in Photoshop and uploading it.  And I can have pretty round corners and stuff. 

Dirty colour changing sheep

Leave a comment

I slacked at the weekend, although it would seem I’m not the only one as since the end of Juneathon, there’s hardly been any blogging going on, and therefore I would assume no running either.  Tsk.

But the unticked box on my schedule was bugging me so even though I woke up knackered due to not sleeping well and having weird dreams about ex-bosses being in Tehran (is there even such a place?) and ringing me every five minutes, I got up and told myself I was doing the four miles my schedule said I should have done at the weekend.

I look out of the window and THE SHEEP HAVE CHANGED COLOUR

and they’re no longer white and fluffy although the sheep at the back of the garden aren’t usually white and fluffy anyway, they’re usually more of a manky cream colour but they’re never actually brown.   Dirty sheep.

And so after the shock of seeing the dirty changing colour sheep I set up Cedric to pace me 11 minute miles to see if going reeeeeeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaaallllllllllllllly slowly will help me to actually cover 4 miles today and my route covers the Bad Road and I hope there won’t be any falling down rabbit hole incidents today and I’ll have to be brave and ignore the cars and I go down the road and see white fluffy sheep, not dirty brown ones, and  I get to the Bad Road and I go round the bend without falling over and after the bend are cows, hurrah, and I go round the second bad bend without getting run over and there should be more cows but they’re not there and I think I only risked my life on the Bad Road so I could see cows and I only saw half the cows I should have done, bah, and I carry on going and I’m still ahead of Cedric and I’ve got two miles to go and I get round the corner and there’s a man trimming the grass on the side of the road and I’m looking a right state as it’s been raining and I’ve run two miles and I’m soaking wet and bright red and I hope he doesn’t notice me and he looks up as I pass and smiles and says morning and I think DAMN YOU, FRIENDLY VILLAGE PEOPLE and I get to the end of the road and I think if I turn left I can be home in five minutes but I’ve got a mile and a half to go and so I carry on straight and a girl on the pavement stops to let me go past and I say thanks and then I get round the corner where Costcutter is which reminds me of London as it’s run by Asians and everything and is my new favourite shop and there’s a girl on the pavement smoking and she doesn’t move out of my way and then I’ve run out of pavement anyway and I’m getting tired and I want to stop and I can hear something big behind me and I stop and let a petrol tanker or something go past and then two more cars come up behind me and then they all stop to let a truck carrying a JCB come through and I think you get some big trucks and lorries and stuff down these small country lanes and then I’m doing a mix of run/walk and Cedric’s overtaken me and I haven’t got far to go but I’m not going to catch him up and then there’s a Range Rover or something right behind me and makes me jump and I think oops, I should concentrate more, that came up slowly and then I’m back on the main road as Soft Cell start singing Sex Dwarf and I think hurrah and turn it up and then I’ve only got a few hundred feet to go and then it’s in minus numbers and I think does that mean I’ve gone over four miles now? and so I stop my Garmin and it says Cedric beat me.  Bah.

Splits

Stats:
Distance: 4.05 miles
Time: 46:18
Pace: 11:25 m/m
Calories: 351
Dirty brown colour changing sheep: some
Fluffy white sheep: some more
Friendly village people: 1
Girls on pavement stopping to let me past: 1
Girls on pavement not stopping to let me past: 1
Petrol tankers: 1
Trucks carrying JCBs: 1
Range Rovers nearly running me over: 1
Cedrics beating me: 1
Music:
Modest Mouse
Muse
Charlatans
Soft Cell

Can I have your attention please? Very important blog post!

12 comments

It’s that time again, an award ceremony bigger than the Brits, Oscars, X Factor Finals and, um, other ceremonies that I can’t think of right now.

So, with no further ado and other clichés, here is the winning Juneathoner and runners up.  I asked Joggerblogger how many winners I could have and he said only one.  Bah.  It was a difficult decision but I finally made up my mind.

In first place we have …

… Mr Eating Trees!  Not only did he stick rigorously to the Laws of Juneathon by running or exercising every day and blogging every day too, he also excelled himself by running and blogging whilst on holiday in Greece.  Hardcore.  Well done ET.  You can go home now.

But even though I’m only allowed one winner, I want to mention the special efforts of a few  others, call them runners up if you like but I prefer to think of them as The Special People.

In no particular order:

Highway Kind.  He only missed one day of exercise/running but he has, as always, been the most kind and supportive blogger amongst us, always there with his kind words of wisdom and support at the right time.  What a nice man.  Thank you HK.

Fit Artist.  She is supremely hardcore.  She fulfilled Juneathon by running every day; no wimping out for her by walking the dog and calling it Juneathon, oh no.  And not only did she run every day, she fitted it in around looking after two year old Hector and even left her own party at 10pm to run round the block dressed up in her dress and pearls. How cool is that?

And of course, I have to mention the lovely Joggerblogger.  Like a phoenix rising from the clichéd flames, he came back to us to take over his rightful place as Chief Juneathoner and also took running back up again after the doctors told him he couldn’t run again due to arthritis.  And not only that, he spiced things up a bit by coming back as a double act with his daughter, although personally I think playing the cute child card is a bit underhand.   But still, where would we be without JB?  Well done, JB and JB Jnr.

Strumming, Running & Drinking.  Emma needs a special mention as Juneathon encouraged her to stop smoking and she hasn’t smoked since 2 June.  Well done.

Sorry if I’ve missed anyone out you think needs a special mention, you can berate me in the comments section.

Stats:
Juneathon winners: 1
Juneathon Special People: 4 and a small one
Cute child cards played: 1
Clichés: at least 2

July, the month of no crisps

3 comments

Juneathon always spurs me on to take up another challenge during July and last year I became vegan for a month and so this year I wondered how well being vegan would go down now I don’t live on my own anymore and do most of the cooking and I didn’t have to wonder for very long as I know exactly how well it would go down and it would go down like the proverbial and so I’ve decided to give up crisps for a month and even though there are two multipacks of Walkers and two big bags of Phileas Fogg crisps under the stairs, I will resist.

And even though this morning I was slightly hungover after going to the pub last night to discuss the important business of the Juneathon winner (and yes, I know I promised to announce the winner today and I will later, so it’s at the top of the page and will stay at the top until I run/blog again), I put on my serious athlete head that I thought I’d left in London and look at my half marathon schedule and adapt it so it covers more weeks and ups the mileage to 12 miles instead of 10 miles and today I’m down for three miles and strength exercises that I also got from the Hal Higdon website and so after rehydrating myself with a cow mug full of fruit tea and a pint of lemon and lime flavoured water I get changed, put some sun lotion on and head off into the sunshine.

After 1.14 miles, Sleeper come on and Louise Wener starts telling me not to call her unless I’m dying in a traffic accident and I think I can’t call her at all, traffic accident or otherwise, as the only thing I’m carrying is the back door key and if I am in a traffic accident, the police will have to try the key in all the houses in the local area until they find the right one or maybe they’ll look at my Garmin and check out the houses in a 1.14 mile radius or maybe they know how to use a Garmin properly and use it to navigate back to the house or maybe they’ll go back to the station and download SportsTracks and look on Google Earth and find my house and let themselves in and find my mobile phone and find Shaun’s number so they can tell him I was in a traffic accident but I’ll probably be dead after all that faffing around so I decide I should try not to die in a traffic accident and a car goes past to test the not dying in a traffic accident theory and I don’t die and I don’t wobble or shake or hold on to a tree or anything and I carry on until I get to 1.5 miles and turn around and at 2 miles I stop and I think noooooooooooooo, don’t stop and I skip through my iPod to try and find some inspiring music and I skip past Faith No More and Rollins Band (sorry rock people) and the Levellers come on and I think I wonder what the Levellers would do? and I decide that they would probably stop running and go and sit in the nearest field and drink cider and smoke dope and I decide that’s probably not very good half marathon training and so I carry on with a bit of run/walk for the last mile and I look at my Garmin and I’ve only got .8 of a mile left to do and I think how hard can it be? and I try to run but I’m feeling a bit tired and heavy and sick with lemon and lime flavoured water sloshing around in me and it took me ages to decide between summer fruits flavour and lemon and lime flavour and now it’s making me feel sick and I blame Shaun for introducing me to flavoured water, as good old fashioned plain tap water used to do me just fine and I get home and there’s a million bugs stuck to my sun-lotioned arms and face.

Stats (running)
Distance: 3.02 miles
Time: 35:35
Pace: 11:48 m/m
Calories: 264
Crisps given up for July: all of them
Traffic accidents: 0
Lemon and lime flavoured pints of water: 1
Cow mug full cups of fruit tea: 1
Bugs stuck to me: a million
Music:
Sleeper
Levellers
Hard-Fi

Stats (weights)
Bench press: 2 x 12
Rowing: 2 x 12
Overhead pull: 2 x 12
Curls: 2 x 12
Crunches: 3 x 15
Lunges: not many as knee started making cracking noises

Stats (rowing)
Distance: 0.6 miles
Time: 14 minutes
Count: 542
Calories: 32.2

 

 

1 … 62 63 64 65 66 … 118