Tag: Janathon

Janathon Day 23: Multi-tasking

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Thought I’d stick my PC Fitness DVD on today and do some weights. Couldn’t be arsed with all that step touch/march/kick step warm up rubbish though so emptied the cat litter tray during that bit and put stuff to be recycled in the recycling bags during the rest bits and did general faffing about in the stretch bits at the end. I did the weights bits in between all the cat litter tray emptying/recycling/faffing bits though, honest.

And I’ll be doing my uni cycling commute in a bit, too. (That’s a commute to the station, not a commute on a unicycle.)

Stats
Weights DVD: 15 minutes
Cat litter trays emptied: 1
Stuff put in recycling bags: Some
Faffing: A bit
Cycling: 6 miles

The JogBlog Guide to Spending More Time In The Gym

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Current Janathon record holder – Kevin Foreman, who ran a staggering 455 miles in Janathon 2012 (and blogged every day unlike some of the slackers currently at the top of the leaderboard) – tweeted me a couple of days ago and said:

kevin-tweet

to which I replied, ‘no it bloody well doesn’t’. Or words to that effect. Anyway, while we’re all ‘enjoying’ the snow here in the UK, spare a thought for poor Kev who is sweltering away in the searing Australian heat.

 

kevin_foreman_janathon_t-shirt

I want photos of you wearing your Janathon t-shirts! Buy them at the Janathon Cafe Press Shop and send them to me (the photos, not the t-shirts. Although, if you’re offering, can I have one like the one Kevin’s wearing in a size 12 please?)

Anyway, back to the subject of today’s post. How to spend more time in the gym than you’d planned.

I don’t know if I slept through my alarm or ignored it, but either way, I got up later than I’d wanted to, which meant that I wouldn’t be getting to the gym when I wanted to which meant that I’d be getting back later than I wanted to so I pondered whether to just not go to the gym at all but then I thought, aha! I don’t have to spend an hour in the gym, I can just spend half an hour in the gym and be back at the time I wanted to be back and when I thought that, I FELT LIBERATED. And not only did I feel liberated, I realised I’d worked out a genius idea of how to spend more time in the gym than I had planned because although ideally I would have spent an hour in the gym, half an hour is more than no gym at all.

Or something like that.

Janathon Day 18: Tired

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I’ve been working soooooooo hard and Janathoning sooooooooo much, today I was too tired to do anything.

Ok, so I went to the pub last night with HelsBels and today I was too hungover to do anything. However, because it’s Janathon, and because Janathon does not give a shit about how many glasses of wine you had last night and how rough you feel today, I had to do something. So I did five push-ups against the wall. You may mock.

Day 17: GRUMPY

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I woke up grumpy. I saw people making the same lame Tesco jokes (you thought beefburgers were only made of beef? Seriously?) and I didn’t get any less grumpy. I saw people posting status updates that it was cold (it’s January. Der.) and this didn’t make me any less grumpy. I went to the gym at 9am and no one had opened it yet and that didn’t make me any less grumpy either and so I came home with the hump.

What did make me smile though was seeing Travelling Hopefully had changed her Twitter avatar to a penguin, so me, HelsBels and Fairweatherrunner all changed ours to penguins, just to confuse her. Well, that and because we like penguins too.

Even in my red mist of rage, I didn’t forget about Janathon. Instead of walking back from the gym, I ran. I know it’s not far, but I would have stomped back if it hadn’t been for the J word.

Stats
Grumpy moods: 1
Tesco jokes I am sick of seeing: Flipping billions of them
Open gyms: 0
Penguin avatars: 4
Runs back from the gym: 1

Janathon Day 16: New Balance Minimus Zero

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Yesterday I said that I was going to go for a trail run in my new New Balance Minimus Zero (there’s a couple of photos of them on yesterday’s blog. They’re pretty, go and look at them). I also said that I’d changed my mind because the snow and the rain would have made the field a bit yuk.

I still didn’t go to a field today (which is probably just as well as, according to the website that I’ve just looked at, they’re for pavement running, although the man who sent them to me said they were trail shoes), but I did go for a run in them. Only a short run though, as – as the name implies – they’re minimal shoes and New Balance advise that you build up wearing them. That’s my excuse for only doing a short run, anyway.

These shoes, as well as looking good, are comfy. Despite the bobbly Vibram soles (if you didn’t bother looking at the photos like I just told you to, go and look now as there’s also a photo of the blue and black bobbly sole), these didn’t feel ‘barefoot’ but they did encourage me to strike mid-sole and I felt like I was gliding along at high speed, even if my stats say otherwise.

Stats
Pairs of new running shoes: 1
Run: .72 of a mile

Janathon Day 15 and an incentive for you to carry on

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Last night’s plan for today:

Get up at 7am, go for a short run in a field at 8ish to try out these New Balance Minimus Zero trail shoes

new-balance-minimus-zero

with their snazzy (do we still say ‘snazzy’ or do I sound like an 80s throwback?) Vibram soles

new-balance-minimus-zero-sole

but when I got up I remembered that it snowed and rained all day yesterday and the field would be a bit yuk.

So, Plan B, then:

Get up at 7, go for a road run at about 8.

What happened in reality:

I got up at 7, looked at my university timetable for tomorrow and decided that tomorrow would be better for a run and the gym would be better for today and so I would go to the gym at 9am when it opened.

At 8:30 I fancied some hot chocolate, so I made myself some then decided to do a Janathon mailout as it was the halfway mark. I sent out the Janathon newsletter then stared at the Mail Chimp stats showing me how many people had opened it/clicked a link in it/complained about it, etc. for about an hour then decided it was too late to go to the gym and so I went downstairs to the conservatory and did 20 minutes on the rowing machine. Pathetic, I know.

I haven’t forgotten it says ‘incentive’ in the title.

I mentioned a Janathon incentive. I have waved my Sooty wand (not to be confused with a fairy wand according to Travelling Hopefully but ‘pah’ to her) and magicked* up a pair of running shoes courtesy of SportsShoes.com worth up to £90 to be given away to one lucky Janathon participant who has been hardcore enough to exercise and blog every day.

Oh, what’s that? You’ve been a bit of a slacker? Never mind, I’ve also got some Deep Heat goodies (a tube of Deep Heat, a tube of Deep Freeze and a tube of Deep Relief) that I’ll give away in a draw open to all Janathon participants (although, if you’ve been slacking, you probably don’t need any muscle rub type stuff, do you?)

For more information, visit the competition page on the Janathon website (don’t enter the competitions yet though).

Stats
New pairs of almost barefoot running shoes: 1
Runs in fields done: 0
Road runs done: 0
Gyms gone to: 0
Rowing machine: 20 minutes
Sooty wands: 1
Fairy wands: 0

*asked their PR if I could have some.

Janathon Day 14: Almost cheated

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I cycled to the station in the snow. I cycled back from the station in the rain. Would this count as Janathon, I wondered. A little voice in my head nagged at me, no it bloody doesn’t count, you know the rules. Janathon exercise is extra exercise, not something you’d do anyway. So, I listened to the little voice and when I got in, I did 15 minutes of weights in the conservatory with the lights off, in case next door saw me exercising in the cow socks and penguin pajama bottoms I’d got changed into.

Stats
Cycling in the snow: 3 miles
Cycling in the rain: 3 miles
Weights DVD: 15 minutes
Pairs of cow socks: 1
Pairs of penguin pajama bottoms: 1

Janathon Day 13: Donkeys and potato shaped animals

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I asked Twitter if they wanted sheep, cows or donkeys. A few people asked for sheep but Ben asked for donkeys and so I thought if he can be arsed to run 255 miles (not a typo) so far for Janathon, then the least I could do is be arsed to go and take a photo of a donkey or two for him.

donkeys

The donkeys were photo’d after we’d been to the farm shop where I bought a potato shaped like a rabbit (I originally thought it was shaped like a pig but have since changed my mind and decided it was a rabbit).

bunny_shaped_potato

And a potato shaped like a hippo.

hippo_shaped_potato

I didn’t buy them just because they were animal shaped, honest*.

I saw some sheep too. 

sheep

I didn’t see any cows though, so it’s just as well no one asked for any.

This bike ride was done in my new Adrenaline Women’s Iso-Viz Jacket. As you can see from the photo, it has nice long sleeves (so many jackets have sleeves that are too short for my gangly arms)

mountainlife_womens_jacket

and it’s slightly longer at the back, making it perfect for cycling.

mountainlife_womens_jacket_side

It also has taped seams to make it extra waterproof. The only thing I don’t like about it is that there are no side pockets. It has a back pocket and a chest pocket and that’s it.

So, we’re nearly at the halfway mark for Janathon – keep up the good work!

Stats
Cycling: 7.05 miles
Donkeys: 2
Sheep: Lots
Cows: 0
Rabbit shaped potatoes: 1
Hippo shaped potatoes: 1
Hi-viz jackets: 1

*I so did.

Janathon Day 12: My first parkrun!

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Since when did Saturdays begin at 7am, huh? Well, this one did. After Nici said on a previous blog post that one of her mini-Janathon challenges was to finally get to a parkrun, this reminded me that I’d kept meaning to get up (down? across? not sure…) to Whitstable which is the venue of my nearest one.

Whitstable, although only 30-40 minutes away by car, takes nearly two hours on the train and so I asked iliketocount if he would drive there and he said yes and, so, this morning, off to Whitstable we went.

It was great! I’d run the Folkestone Half the year before last and found out that coastal runs are pretty dull. But the Whitstable run had enough scenery going on to make things interesting and although it was mainly an out and back along the seafront, there was a muddy bit before looping back which broke it up a bit.

Coming back down to the finish though, I saw the runners ahead going up a hill at what appeared to be a 45 degree angle. NO ONE TOLD ME THERE WERE GOING TO BE HILLS! BASTARDS! I got to the bottom of the hill and it didn’t look too bad from there, it definitely didn’t look as bad as it did from the distance and I told myself that I could run up it, or at least stagger in a fashion not too far removed from running.

I made it to the top of the hill and looked at my Garmin: 34:08, which is mighty fast for me at the mo.

Stats
Distance: 5k
Time: 34:08
Pace: 11 m/m
Whitstable parkruns: 1

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