Tag: janathon 2014

Janathon Day 19 – a parkrun PW, one day later

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tortoise

As mentioned yesterday, as I got up too late to make it to my local parkrun, I promised to do the parkrun distance on the treadmill instead. Unfortunately this plan was scuppered because all three treadmills were being used, so I parkrunned on the cross-trainer instead. So, today, I decided to cycle to the park and do my own parkrun there. Then I decided to ask iliketocount if he wanted to come with me. He originally said no, he had to wash the car, so I started mumbling about how he never wants to spend any time with me so he relented and said he’d drive down there.

When we got to the park, I remembered I don’t like running with people. Although, iliketocount hasn’t really grasped the concept of ‘with’ as he spent most of the time ten feet ahead of me, only turning round occasionally to tell me to stop walking.

I didn’t stop walking though and it’s probably a good thing I didn’t do parkrun on Saturday as, when we got in, iliketocount looked up Saturday’s results and said if I’d done it at today’s speed, I’d have come last.

Oops. 4/10. Must try harder.

Janathon Day 18 – parkrunning on a cross-trainer

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Dammit, because I got up too late to go to my local parkrun, I told the WHOLE INTERNET I’d do a parkrun distance (i.e. 5k) on the treadmill instead. I got to the gym and went on the rowing machine first and in the mirror in front of me, I could see all three treadmills behind me were being used (and being used by walkers, bah) and I thought, would it be really rude to go and stand next to a treadmill, queueing up, like people used to do in the gym in London when all the machines were in use? I decided it would be really rude, so I decided to do the 5k on the cross-trainer instead.

Before I’d got to the gym, I’d handpicked my own playlist and I was reminded Julia Buckley posted her playlist on Facebook the other day. Julia said it was her ‘trendy’ playlist and I debated her use of the word ‘trendy’, as it – as far as I could tell – had nothing post-90s on it (which isn’t a bad thing. I am a huge 90s-indie-Britpop fan). While I was on the cross-trainer though listening to my playlist, the words ‘pot’, ‘kettle’ and ‘black’ came into my head as Ben Folds Five, Elastica, The Cult, Hole, etc. popped up and I thought I’m hardly down wiv da kidz either.

playlist-18012014

But then ‘What Doesn’t Kill You’ by Jake Bugg  came on, and a little later ‘Reflektor’ by Arcade Fire came on and I thought yay, those songs were out last year – I am down wiv da kidz after all. Get me, I’ll be watching X-Factor next.

And because I’d told the WHOLE INTERNET I was going on the treadmill, I did ten minutes on it to make my gym session up to an hour.

I’m now pondering going to the park tomorrow to do my own parkrun, but I reserve the right to postpone my ponder if it’s pissing down.

Janathon Day 17 – cow onesie plank saves the day

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You know when you wake up and you feel ‘meh, can’t be bothered to do anything’? That was me yesterday. I was going out for afternoon tea with Helen and Mary, so I didn’t have time in the morning to do much, so my plan for Janathon was to go to the Post Office about a quarter of a mile away, then walk back the long way – the long way adding an extra mile and a half to the route. But, it was raining and I was feeling meh and I really couldn’t be bothered to even walk the quarter of a mile to the Post Office, let alone another mile and a half on top of that.

So I thought, I can’t really count the cycle to the station and back, so I’ll go on the rowing machine when I get back. Then, when I was round Helen’s flat after the afternoon tea (which involved eating scones the Cornish way – sorry Devonshire people),

scones

she gave me the birthday present she’d been hanging on to until she saw me. She said ‘you must do a plank in it’ and so, aha!, I thought, that’s Janathon sorted.

cow-onesie-plank

I still want more pajama/onesie planks, so get your photos posted!

Janathon Day 16 – Almost sabotaged by Windows

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I was up later than usual and I had an editing and copywriting seminar in the morning, so to save time, I decided to body pump in my pyjamas and slippers and I even did it while I was still drinking my cup of tea. Now, that’s dedication.

Halfway through though, Windows decided to interrupt my workout by installing updates, then restarting the laptop.

windows-updates

Yes, I swore at it.

Still, deciding my time could probably be spent more productively than swearing a lot and staring at the screen watching the percentage of completed updates slowly creep up to 100%, while I was waiting I emptied the dishwasher.

Dedication and multitasking, and I hadn’t even finished my cup of tea.

I am hardcore.

Janathon Day 15 – Tabata is not for me

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tabata

A few weeks ago, I was asked if I’d like to attend a Tabata class. This prompted flashbacks involving a shouty orange woman to the last time I’d said yes to attending a gym class when not knowing anything about the exercise involved, so I politely declined.

They didn’t want to let me off that easily though and asked if I’d like a DVD to review instead. Okay, I thought, I’m willing to embarrass myself in the privacy of my own home and so I politely accepted.

It’s taken a while for me to get the DVD out but, hey, it’s Janathon and Janathon is a good time to be trying new things, so today was the day to get Tabata’d up.

Tabata is trendy-at-the-mo high intensity interval training (HIIT) and apparently the only scientifically proven fitness session born in a lab, not a gym. Being one of those annoying vegetarian animal-rights people, I was a bit worried about the ‘born in a lab’ bit but I ascertained from the intro it was tested on small Japanese men and not bunnies so, so far, so good.

Except, further into the intro it became clear me and Tabata weren’t going to get on. It consisted of fresh-faced boys and girls wearing skin-tight white lycra doing what can only be described as break-dancing but without the spinning-on-your-head bit (for those of us old enough to remember break-dancing). Uh oh.

I started the warm-up and that was fine; it only involved moving my arms a bit. But then the lycra-clad gym bunnies on the screen started moving more and getting on the floor and I ended up just watching and not doing and so I gave up and went to the gym instead.

If you like gym classes that involve coordination and floorwork, you’ll probably like Tabata (you can find official Tabata classes at your local Fitness First), although Warriorwoman did a Tabata workout on a treadmill, I think that’d be more my kind of thing.

Janathon Day 14 – it has to be seen…

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…to be believed, but I’m still going strong! Quite literally strong, too, as I went to the gym this morning and could definitely feel the difference in my fitness. I burned more calories than usual on the rowing machine and I stormed through Audiofuel’s Thru the Gears on the treadmill without slowing down for a walk break. Go me!

And to copy Dave Lewis, who keeps posting his pretty runningfreeonline.com calendars on to the Janathon Facebook Page, here’s mine (yes that’s a photo of me in a race wearing devil’s horns and the number 666):

calendar

Janathon 2014 totals so far:

Running: 13.92 miles
Cycling: 95.09 miles
Cross-training: 4:48 hours
Total time: 17:41 hours
Calories: 6194

Well done everyone who’s successfully completed their second week.

Janathon Day 13 – multitasking

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Body pump in the conservatory was planned for this morning but the laptop decided not to work until I’d restarted it and let it do its disc check thingy (haven’t seen a disc check thingy since the days of *shudder* Vista), so while it was doing its thing, I decided to make some peanut butter granola bars. These are super-mega easy to make, can be adapted to fit in with your store-cupboard ingredients and are quite healthyish I think (healthier than Ferrero Rocher, peanut butter fudge, salted chocolate, chocolate biscuits, pizza and garlic bread – which was yesterday’s diet – anyway).

peanut-butter-granola-bars

(Photo from my Planet Veggie blog)

By the time I’d put them in the oven, the laptop had decided to play nicely and by the time I’d finished my workout, the granola bars were cool enough to eat. Result. (Obviously there was a bit in the middle where I’d taken the granola bars out of the oven.)

Peanut butter granola bars (makes 9 bars, 150 calories per bar)

150g granola (or muesli)
4tbsp crunchy peanut butter (or smooth)
4tbsp Golden Syrup (or healthier stuff)
1 tbsp wholewheat flour (or plain)

  1. Slowly melt the peanut butter and Golden Syrup in a saucepan.
  2. Add the granola and flour to the peanut butter and Golden Syrup mix and stir thoroughly.
  3. Press the mixture into an 8” square tin and bake in the oven at 180C for about 8-10 minutes, or until the edges are turning brown (it can burn easily, so keep an eye on it).
  4. Score lightly into 9 pieces.
  5. Leave to cool, then cut them into 9 pieces.

Janathon Day 12 – it’s all going well

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I’ve always been a fair weather cyclist, only venturing out for a leisurely ride on hot days, usually poncing about the countryside on my pink Pashley Poppy.

pashley_poppy

Since getting my Boardman though

boardman

and feeling guilty with it spending most of its time in the garage (although not as much time as my little Raleigh Shopper which I haven’t been on for years),

raleigh-shopper

as my £30-from-gumtree mountain bike

mountain-bike

is the one that gets the most use, getting me to the station and back or taking me into town, I’ve taken the opportunity when it’s arisen to get out for a longer ride on the Boardman.

Over the last few weeks, these rides have been a trip to Wye and back (around 20 miles), 28 miles last Sunday and then a record ride for me – 40 miles yesterday.

I was feeling mega-super-hardcore about my 40 miles, until I remembered @naominf RAN 45 miles the day before. Mega-mega-super-super-hardcore.

Although my Janathon exercise effort was to be applauded,

cycling

my diet certainly wasn’t. My food intake for the day was:

Breakfast: satsuma, nectarine, plum

Lunch: Creamy hot chocolate and a toasted teacake

Post-bike ride: 2 x hot chocolate (I was freezing) and 3 biscuits

Pre-dinner snack: 2 x Ferrero Rocher

Dinner: pizza and garlic bread

Post-dinner: 1 piece of peanut butter fudge, 3 squares salted chocolate, Tesco mint thin

Think I need to go and make some granola bars so I have something a bit healthier I can munch on instead of Christmas leftovers.

I also need some cold-weather cycling kit as the three-quarter length cycling tights I bought in the summer weren’t quite up to the job of keeping me warm. Any suggestions?

Janathon Day 11 – up before 7

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Despite deciding when I went to bed last night I wasn’t going to set my alarm and go to parkrun this morning as I had been up late writing and submitting an assignment, my brain had other ideas and woke me up early with the beginning of my dissertation proposal so I thought I’d better get up and write it down before I forgot it. Which meant I was up with plenty of time to get to parkrun.

If you were on Twitter a week ago, you might have seen a conversation between me and @TrevB1 where he said if he got a London Marathon place through his work, he’d do a long run in his tiger onesie and asked if I wanted to join him for a run in my penguin onesie. He suggested Guildford and so I thought, aha! I can’t get to Guildford, I can get out of running in a penguin onesie, so I said ‘sorry, can’t get to Guildford, can you get to Ashford?’ hoping he couldn’t get to Ashford but, alas, he said if he got a place, he’d come to Ashford. Bugger.

Unfortunately for @TrevB1 but fortunately for me, he didn’t get a London Marathon place, so if you came on here looking for pics of us running in our onesies, um, sorry about that.

What I did turn up to parkrun in this morning though was my Janathon t-shirt.

janathon-t-shirt

It didn’t get me a parkrun PB, but it did get some admiring looks (or I might have imagined that).

If you want to get a Janathon t-shirt or mug or something, there are some massive discounts at the Janathon Cafe Press shop at the mo, plus a further 15% off until midnight. I might buy some pyjamas; if they get here in time, I can do another Janathon pyjama plank.

Janathon Day 10 – I remember when…

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…I didn’t leave assignments until the last minute. Oh, hang on, no – that must be someone else I’m thinking of. I’ve got an assignment due at midnight and at the moment I’ve only written down a few notes and made a couple of sketches (I’m designing two adverts – one for readers of The Telegraph and one for readers of The Sun, then talking about why I’ve used certain words and images in them), so if anyone sees me on Facebook or Twitter between now and then, unless I’ve said ASSIGNMENT SUBMITTED, YAY, please send Mark Zuckerberg and Jack Dorsey a message telling them to disconnect me from their social networks.

Ta.

In the meantime, here’s what I’ve done for Janathon so far today.

body-pump

This weekend’s activities will hopefully be a parkrun tomorrow and a 38 mile bike ride on Sunday. Although, this depends on a) whether I get up on time; and b) how far I get with my dissertation proposal that’s due in by midnight on Monday.

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