Running commute #5

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In an attempt to get three runs in this week I pack my running rucksack the night before in preparation for a running commute, not forgetting to pack the essentials of my personal alarm and don’t fuck with me look, due to part of my route taking me up what is locally not very reassuringly known as Murder Mile.

And while I’m at work the managing partner comes round with this  year’s Christmas gift which is a very nice box of handmade biscuits, shortbread fingers, cinnamon stars, Belgian chocolates and a bottle of wine which is a vast improvement on last year’s box of soft centres.

But by 4 o’clock I seem to have accidentally eaten the whole packet of shortbread fingers but I think oh well, I need fuel for running don’t I and it gets to 5 o’clock and my boss says I can go home and I go to get changed and he says haven’t I got a coat and I say I’m just going to get changed, I’m running home tonight and he says oh, I was going to ask you if you wanted to go for a drink but obviously not and I think that’s weird, that’s twice in a week he’s asked me to go for a drink and he hasn’t asked me to go for a drink since last Christmas and I wonder if I can get out of it with the running commute excuse on Friday just in case he asks me again then and I think I’m going to look a right div changing into my running gear on Friday when everyone else is getting dressed up to go to the Christmas party which I’m not going to because a) I hate office parties; b) there is a very high risk I will get obscenely drunk and say something I shouldn’t; and c) my birthday is the next day and I don’t want to be hungover.

So I begin my running commute and a mile up the road I’m in Angel and I’m at the lights waiting for the cyclists to stop going through the red lights and then I’m at some more lights waiting for the cars to stop going through the red lights and I think is it National Go Through The Red Lights Day or what? and I continue down Upper Street and there’s a lot of people and I think to myself I should be grateful of the safety in numbers thing while it lasts because once I get to Hackney I’ll be on the street by myself because people in Hackney are too scared to leave their houses and I’m thinking is this running commute in the dark really a good idea and I’m thinking if a friend said she was going to run through Hackney in the dark I’d say noooooooooooooo, that is the worst idea ever ever ever, don’t do it and so I think maybe I should get on the train at Hackney Downs and then I get to Hackney Downs station and I carry on and then I’m surrounded by housing estates which is a bit scary and then I get to Murder Mile and a police car speeds down the road, siren wailing, and then I’m over the roundabout and not too far from home but there’s fields on both sides and it’s a bit scary and then I go past B&Q which no one has petrol bombed yet but surely it’s only a matter of time due to them being incompetent fools and just as Somerfield appears on the horizon I stop to do my shoelace up for the third time and I wonder if I’ve deserved a bottle of wine and I decide I probably have so I get one and then I’m home and I’ve done a running commute without walking most of it for the first time ever.

Today’s route

Stats:
Distance: 6.36 miles
Time: 1:20:49
Pace: 12:42
Calories: 557
Packets of shortbread fingers: 1
Shoelaces coming undone: 3
Walking breaks: 0
Music:
Hole
Mark Ronson
The Cure
Idle Vice Pirate
Hard-Fi

I am not amused

3 comments

I hear about Niketown’s running club which goes out on Mondays and Tuesdays at 6:30pm and I think that is exactly what I need, although Monday is sexist night as it’s for ladies only and the longest run is 4.5 miles, but on Tuesdays it’s for everyone and the longest run is 7.5 miles.  Don’t they think girls can run 7.5 miles?  Cheek.  But I try all day to ring them to see if they’re still doing it and I can’t get through, all I get is a recorded Yank telling me to press 1 if I want to know the store times.  Bollocks.  I don’t want a wasted journey going up to Oxford Street for no reason as I know I’ll never get out the door when I get home if there’s no running club and so I go straight home and try to leave the house without opening the post or checking Facebook or my email and I manage one of the three and I’ve received my race pack for the Serpentine New Year’s Day 10k and it says STRICTLY NO HEADPHONES and I think they must really mean it as not only have they written it in uppercase but it’s also in bold and underlined and they say if anyone is found to be wearing headphones they’ll have their race number taken away and disqualified and I think well, you’re welcome to take my race number as you’ve given me number sixty fucking nine which is SO NOT FUNNY.  And I’m looking at my race number and I think I can’t wear that, people will laugh at me and I turn it upside down but it still says 69 and I think well, it would do really wouldn’t it, and I think why can’t they just leave out number 69, like Americans leave out floor no. 13 and I don’t want to wear my race number and I think maybe I’ll go out on New Year’s Eve after all.

I eventually leave the house after checking Facebook but resisting the urge to check my email and head off on my five mile route and as usual there’s too much traffic and having to stop every two yards to cross the road is seriously pissing me off and then I’m wondering what the song is that’s just come on my iPod and I run out in front of a car and I think oops, maybe the race organisers have a point about the headphones and I say sorry to the woman who nearly ran me over and I carry on and I get to the corner of the High Street and I think to pass the time I’ll count how many kebab shops and takeaways there are between here and the station and then I go past the Vic pub and they’ve got a sign up saying they’ve got a roof terrace and I think since when? do they just mean you can sit on the roof? and I think I should investigate, maybe on Saturday and then I realise that I am so intrigued by the Vic’s roof terrace that I’ve forgotten to count the kebab shops and I was up to 13 and then I’m going down Lea Bridge Road and there’s a power cut on the side of the road I’m on and it’s not making me feel any safer and there’s a tower block which is completely unlit, except for three windows which have lights flickering in them and they must be sitting in candlelight and then I’m back on a bit which has lights and it’s not like the 70s anymore and then I go round the corner and a hoodie comes along and leans over and says something to me but I can’t hear what he says and I think well, there’s a plus point for my iPod but then I think I probably wouldn’t have been able to understand him anyway, even if I didn’t have my music on and then I’m nearly home and I think I need to change my route and find a quieter one as an hour to do 5 miles is really shit.

Stats:
Distance: 5.10 miles
Time: 1:00:13
Pace: 11:48
Dodgy race numbers: 1
Cars nearly running me over: 1
Power cuts: 1
Unintelligible hoodies: 1
Music:
Baby Teeth
Devo
Elysian Fields
Edie Sedgwick
Editors
The Eighties Matchbox B-Line Disaster
Eminem
The Electric Soft Parade

The modern scientific training regime

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As is becoming a bit of a Friday habit, I stay up late drinking wine and get the munchies but I have it on good authority that the most important elements of a modern scientific training regime are: (1) quality rest periods; (2) balanced nutrition; and (3) effective hydration. AKA lie-ins, chips and beer.  Or in my case lie-ins, cheese toasties and wine.

So I get up late and email Bear and say I stayed up late drinking wine, do I have to go out for 7 miles this morning? and he emails me back and says no, you have to do 8 miles, I checked your schedule.  Bollocks.

I eventually leave the house around lunchtime and I go past a house that’s for sale which has the advantage of being on the edge of the marshes but also has the disadvantage of being about 5 seconds walk from Ex Boyfriend’s house and I wonder if I bought that house how accommodating would he be if I went round to borrow a cup of sugar and I decide probably not very so I decide not to buy that house and as I get to the bridge where Ben came off his bike and broke his jaw there’s a man running really slowly and I follow him through the bridge and I’ve nearly caught him up and he’s obviously more of a finely tuned athlete than I am as he runs up the bridge at the marina whereas I do my usual stop and walk up it thing and I’m thinking please don’t go the same way as me as I’m going to have to overtake you, even I don’t run that slowly and if I overtake you, I’m going to feel bad and he does turn the way I’m going but he sticks to the path and I go alongside the river and I overtake him and then I get to my favourite bridge and Slow Bloke doesn’t go over the bridge but carries on and I get over the bridge and I think hang on a minute, weren’t the cows here last week? but the cows aren’t here now and I think maybe they’ve gone back to where they used to live and I wonder if the cows got confused with all this moving about or maybe they just got pissed off and I got to where the cows used to live but THE COWS AREN’T THERE.  Fuck.  Where have the cows gone?

And in place of the cows is this building thing.

And I think that’s no good, cows are better than buildings and what the fuck is it anyway?  And I get across the road and there’s a group of cyclists stopped off at the pub and I think I quite fancy a drink but I have no money on me and I wonder if they’d swap a pint for a photo of a cow and I think probably not so I continue on my way.

I get through Hackney Marshes without getting murdered and as I go through the bridge at Lea Bridge Road, Slow Bloke comes through and he says morning and I say hello back and then I wonder which route he took and then I think oh my god, if he came the direct way here from where I left him, that is seriously slow and I think no, he must have gone a different way and then I think why did he say morning when it’s about 1:30pm? and then I’m back at the stables and I’ve gone 6 miles and I need to do another two and I’m only a mile from home and I don’t know which way to go to make up the miles and I think shit, I should have thought of this before I left the house and I continue through the marshes and go through the bridge and there’s this sign

and I don’t know what it means.  Who’s not dedicated to the public and why not? And I leave the marshes the way I came in and then I’m at the park and I have about a mile to do so I go into the park and there’s people playing football which doesn’t help much with my football phobia and I do a lap of the park and then go round the edge of the sports field and back onto the street and then I’m home and I’ve done my longest outside run ever ever ever.

Today’s route

Stats:
Distance: 8.29 miles
Time: 1:33:59
Pace: 11:20
Calories: 720
Cows: 0
Slow Blokes: 1
Dedication to the public: 0
Music:
Polyphonic Spree
Rollins Band
Faith No More
The Cure
Stereo Total
Mark Ronson
Cardiacs
Chumbawamba
The Cooper Temple Clause
The Damned
Hole
The Horrors
Junior Senior
Sex Pistols
Ween
White Stripes

The gloves are on

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Running in the evening never seems like a good idea when I get in from work and the reality’s not usually much cop either but I get changed before I change my mind and make vegetarian beef style teriyaki instead and stay in and make some more rings like these

and I get outside and FUCK IT’S COLD and I go back indoors and put my gloves on and I think to myself I need some new running kit, I haven’t got enough winter stuff and I set off on my five mile route and it’s not as easy as I found it last week and it’s cold and it’s windy and there’s loads of people and cars in my way and my iPod’s not throwing up great tunes  and I think I’m going to cut my run short and just do three miles and then I think no I can’t do that as no exercise = no low fat brownies as in this month’s Runner’s World magazine which I made yesterday and which are very nice indeed and apparently an ideal post-run snack after training on dark Winter evenings although I decided they were the ideal pre-run fuel too as a finely tuned athlete can’t live on spinach soup alone and I keep going and I think I promised myself I was going for a run on Wednesday evening too although if I go out tomorrow night I don’t think that’s going to happen and I think am I ever going to manage three runs in a week? and I decide I probably won’t and I eventually do 5 miles and I’ve done under 11 minute miles for the first time in about five months, hurrah.

Stats:
Distance: 5.06 miles
Time: 55:35
Pace: 10:59
Calories: 458
Low fat brownies: 1 (so far today)
Music:
Rollins Band
B52s
Soft Cell
Temple Cooper Clause
Faith No More
Polyphonic Spree

SogJog

5 comments

After sleeping the best sleep I’ve had for months, I get up and wonder if a bottle and a half of wine was the best pre-run fuel I could have chosen but I feel remarkably ok and I’m looking forward to going out for 7 miles as per my schedule although it’s getting late and I’m not very good at running later in the day and it’s pissing down but I remind myself that I like running in the rain and my iPod eventually updates and it’s chosen some great tunes for me and I go outside and wait for my Garmin to get a signal and it’s taking ages and ages and ages and I go and stand on the other side of the road and it’s still taking ages and ages and ages and I’m getting soaked and freezing and after about ten minutes I think fuck it, I’m going home, I can’t run without my Garmin, and I cross the road to go home and it springs into action and I think oh I’ve got no excuse now but there’s a bunch of hoodies under the bridge and I wonder if they’re just sheltering from the rain or waiting for someone to murder but as I was waiting for my Garmin to get a signal a couple of people had come through the bridge without getting murdered so I decide to be brave and run under the bridge and through the hoodies and they let me go through without murdering me which is handy as getting murdered would fuck up my training a bit.

I get to the marshes and to the marina and I remember I need to check up on the cows as I haven’t seen them from the train this week and I hope they’re not gone because they’re usually there until January and I get over my favourite bridge and HOORAY the cows are there, they’ve just been moved and that’s why I couldn’t see them from the train and I wonder why they’ve been moved and they’re not fenced in in their new location and there’s a man in with them

and I wonder if cows are friendly because my knowledge of cows is very limited what with me being a townie and that but I don’t think they’re as friendly as horses and they might not appreciate me going and stroking them and I stand there and decide whether to go over to the cows but I decide to be chicken and carry on running down to where the cows used to live and just past there they’re building something

and I think what the fuck are they building on my marshes? and there’s a van with Arena Structures on it and I think an arena? maybe some bands will play here, that’ll be cool, maybe Bobby or Cardiacs will play and just a mile away from my house too, yay.

And I get past the ice rink and to the pub by the river and Bear had emailed me and  requested some chips from the pub but the pub is shut so I text him to tell him he can’t have any chips and a three legged dog comes past and I go over the bridge and it’s still raining and there’s loads of puddles on the path and I decide not to run by the river in case I fall in as the path is narrow so I take a detour and then I haven’t a clue where I am but I follow the path round and I eventually find myself back on familiar territory and a runner comes past and obviously as only finely tuned athletes run when it’s pissing down, he recognises me as a fellow finely tuned athlete and gives me a wave and after four miles I get some feeling back in my hands which have just about warmed up and I think next time I’ll take my gloves and then another runner also recognises me as a fellow finely tuned athlete and smiles at me and I think other runners are friendlier when it’s raining, and then I’m under the bridge and out of Hackney Marshes and I run up the steep bit for the first time ever and pass the stables and over the footbridge and then I’m back out on the road and when I get through the bread factories I’ve done 10k and I need to do another mile and I go up to the sports field but there’s about a million people in there playing football so I go round the edge and into the park and half a lap of the park later I’ve done 7 miles and am back to where I was in my schedule before I got injured, hurrah.

Today’s route

Stats
Distance: 7.05 miles
Time: 1:18:27
Pace: 11.07
Calories: 637
Weather: pissing down
Cows moved: 6
Building works over marshes: 1
Three legged dogs: 1
Runners being friendly: 2
Music
Faith No More
The Cure
Belle and Sebastian
Devo
Polyphonic Spree
Jamiroquai
Rollins Band
Rolling Stones
Stereo Total
Hole
Marc Almond
Eighties Matchbox B-Line Disaster
Daisy Chainsaw
Ween

A finely tuned athlete

3 comments

After a fun Friday, a hungover Saturday and a profitable Sunday, I remember half-marathons still don’t run themselves and so I decide that tonight I’m going to go out for five miles and I put it on Facebook and I lied last time on Facebook and I don’t know how many times you’re allowed to lie on Facebook before you get struck by lightning or something so I decide not to take the risk that it’s only once and I spend all day trying to stay awake and I decide I probably need more to eat than fruit and soup and so I go to Sainsburys at lunchtime and buy a malt loaf, promising myself that I will resist eating the whole thing in one go and I cut some off at about 4 o’clock and oh my god, it’s gooeyness is so so nice and I put the rest in my bag and wonder if I can resist troughing the rest of it after my dinner tonight and I can’t wait to get home because my boss is being annoying and on my way home I start to think of excuses why I can’t go for a run but I can’t think of any, it’s not even cold and actually the malt loaf did its job and I feel quite energetic and I get home and feed the cat and get changed and head off for my four mile route that I’m going to have to add a mile on to somewhere and I get to the tube station and I’ve gone 2.5 miles and I think bollocks, I thought it was 3 miles to here, I need another 2.5 miles and so I continue down to Bakers Arms and I’ve still got another 2 miles to do and I’m not 2 miles from home and I get to Somerfield and think oh I should have brought some money out with me, I could do with a glass of wine and then I think no, I will have a drink tomorrow with Joggerblogger who is in Ye Olde London Town tomorrow and has requested the pleasure of my company and I keep going dangerously near my house but I’m determined not to go in until I’ve done 5 miles and I keep going and keep going and eventually my Garmin ticks over to 5 miles, hurrah.

Today’s route

Stats
Distance: 5.01 miles
Time: 55:53
Pace: 11:09
Calories: 437
Malt loaves: 1
Joggerbloggers in London: 1
Music
The Cure
Siouxsie & The Banshees
Faith No More
Simian
Calvin Harris
The Damned
Devo
Elastica
Hot Chip
Manic Street Preachers
Mark Ronson
Scissor Sisters
Stereo Total

I am not feeble

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I went to bed early last night and this morning got up with my fake sunrise and decide to wait until it’s daylight to go for a run but I’m still knackered and I’ve been tired all week and I wonder why I’ve had no energy and I think I probably need to eat more chips instead of living on soup and water and I get outside and close the front door behind me and bloody hell it’s cold and I get to the marshes and it’s windy too like I don’t go slow enough already and I get to the stables and a horse comes to the fence to say hello so it would be rude not to take its picture.

And apart from the horse based photo emergency I manage to do a mile without stopping and it’s lightly raining which is nice and refreshing and I go past the cows but they’re too far away for me to take their photo and I go over my favourite bridge and get to the marina.

and a bit further down I see two swans having a chat

and I get to the bridge and I go into Tottenham marshes and there’s an old man on a boat with a pointy woolly hat on and bushy grey hair and he looks like an elf and I’m wondering if I can get to the other side of the river to come back down and I can’t remember where I ran in the Tottenham Marshes 5 race but I’m sure on the last stretch it backed onto itself but I can’t see where and I get to the bridge where the race started and I wonder if I can go down the other side so I go to investigate and there’s a gate and a sign so I go to see what the sign says and it says anti-climb paint and I think well I don’t want to climb over it anyway and I try the gate but the gate is locked and it must be for houseboat owners only and I look at my Garmin and it says I’ve done 4 miles and I think I should go back the way I came as I don’t want to overdo it and go further and I’m 2 miles from home so I go back the way I came and I see a rat but it runs off too quickly for me to take its photo and a few feet further along I see another rat and it’s in this photo somewhere, honest.

And then I think maybe I don’t want to live on a boat after all if there’s loads of rats around and then I think about the rat in my attic which I’ve heard twice this week and then Elf Man walks past me and he’s carrying a big sack on his back and I think wow he really is Santa’s Little Helper after all and then I’m back on the street and two miles later I’m home and I’ve done nearly 6.5 miles but really really slowly and I’m going to have to stop taking photos every five minutes. Hmm.

Today’s route

Stats:
Distance: 6.43 miles
Time: 1:19:05
Pace: 12:17
Calories: 606
Horses: 1
Cows: 6
Swans: 2
Rats: 2
Elf Men: 1
Music:
Bikini Kill
Mark Ronson
Devo
Maximo Park
Pixies
The Coral
The Gossip
Bjork
The Kooks
Stereo Total
Elastica
Dirty Pretty Things
Clinic
Faith No More
Gorillaz
Ween
Scissor Sisters
The Fratellis
Rollins Band
The Damned
Sex Pistols
Siouxsie & The Banshees

I am feeble

One comment

I wake up late after dreaming about Bobby Conn jumping into the sea from 100s of feet up in the air and a cute man in a wheelchair and I spend a couple of hours putting off going for a run and thinking I could go tomorrow instead and I check the weather forecast as today’s weather is looking very nice indeed from the window in my spare room and the weather forecast for tomorrow is rain although that could be rubbish as the weather forecast for today is cloudy and all I can see is blue skies and I think I’d better go for a run today, it looks like the weather for it and I’ll be pissed off if I put it off ’til tomorrow and then it’s raining and I plot a route on the gmap-pedometer website to see how far it is up Tottenham Marshes and back and it’s six miles and I think cool, I’ll do that and I think I’ll make today a leisurely run and take my camera and I eventually get out the door at about 11 and I haven’t even gone a mile and I’ve stopped to walk and I think why am I so tired? and I think it’s nearly lunchtime and I’m hungry, maybe I should just go home and get some lunch and I remember I ran at lunchtime once before when I had a week off work and I was feeble then too and I manage to run a bit more but then I stop again and I think I’m going to have to go home, this is no good and I get to where the cows live and think I might as well take a picture while I’m here.

And I get over the boardwalk and I think I should run again but I think there’s a steep bit in a minute and I don’t do steep bits so I might as well wait ’til I’m back on the path and I get to the path and run again and then stop again and I’m thinking about my lunch and what to have and I’m inspired by Londonjogger who made a vegetable soup the other day and I think I have some swede left from last night’s veggie shepherd’s pie, I wonder what swede soup would be like and I’ve got some green lentils left too, I can chuck them in and then I think I’ve got some split green peas, they can go in and also there’s some black eyed beans to use up and I think yay, that sounds like a nice soup and I will eat well today and have an early night and get up early and go for a proper run, not like today’s feeble effort and as I go past the stables I take a photo of the horses so they don’t feel left out

and then I run/walk the rest of the way home and make soup and try and decide whether to dye my hair mystic violet or cyber purple.  I think it’s going to be cyber purple.

Stats:
Distance: 3.10 miles
Time: 42:08
Pace: 13:34
Calories: 260
Cows: 6
Horses: 2
Soups: 1
Music:
New Model Army
Death House Chaplin
Stereo Total
Devo
MAP
Citizen Fish
Junior Senior
Faith No More
Subhumans
The Libertines
The Cribs

Shameless self-promotion

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This post is to do with nothing about running, but it’s my blog, so it’s allowed. I think. This is an act of shameless self-promotion.

Not only can you come and visit me and buy my jewellery at the Christmas Without Cruelty Fayre (hate that spelling!) but if you order online with the code SS07, you can get 20% off. I even made a pretty flyer to advertise this fact.

Normal service will resume tomorrow.

Stats:
Acts of shameless self-promotion: 1
Flyers: 1

A cameraless run

One comment

I am a lady of leisure this week. Well, I would be if my to do list didn’t consist of 17 things for me to do. And it’s not a very good to do list, evidenced by the absence of any mention of wine, beer or pizza.

And after my scales showing me as being 9 st 0 for the last couple of weeks, today they inexplicably show me as being 9 st 3. Bah. Although when I saw the contents of my recycle bin it would appear that maybe it’s not quite so inexplicable after all.

So I went out for a six mile run and I went the right way this time so it really was six miles and I’m overtaken by lots of cyclists on their way to work and I’m feeling nervous about going into Hackney Marshes on a weekday as I don’t know if anyone will be over there and then I’m in the foresty bit feeling paranoid and a man runs past me and I almost jump out of my skin and then I see a man walking towards me with a big stick and I think why is that man in the forest with a big stick? and then a man comes up the river bank with a bicycle and I think what was he doing down there? and the foresty bit seems never ending and I wish it would hurry up and end and I eventually get to the clearing and get to the bridge and there’s workmen on the bridge and and I think shit if I can’t go over the bridge I don’t know how to get home from here apart from going back the way I came and I don’t want to do that and I especially don’t want to do that when I look at my Garmin and it says I’ve gone five miles and so I go up to the workmen and say is the bridge closed? and they say yes but I can jump over if I want to but not to jump jump as it’s slippery so I cross over the bit of the bridge they’ve taken off and try not to fall into the river and then I’m on my way home and think the first thing I will do on my to do list is some web design work for a client in Crete as I’ll get paid for that, yah.

Stats:
Distance: 6.31 miles
Time: 1:12:53
Pace: 11:32
Calories: 612
Men with big sticks: 1
Weeks off work: 1
Music:
The Strokes
The Young Knives
Cardiacs
Cristina
New Model Army
The Who
Maximo Park
Ween
Manic Street Preachers
The Holloways
Editors
Pixies
Lily Allen

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