Tag: parkrun

Juneathon Day 27 – Warning: Contains A Bit Of Swearing

6 comments

This is what I posted on the Juneathon Facebook Page this morning:

Juneathon Facebook page screenshot

The clean version

When I said ‘scuppered’, what I really meant (and what David was referring to) was this:

Facebook status update screenshot

The slightly more Tourettes version

 

Yes, parkrun fucking well fucked up my fucking challenge that I’d been fucking looking forward to for fucking weeks.

*Non-sweary bit*

In case you don’t know what my challenge was, I’d challenged myself to run my local parkrun at 9am, then get to the gym in time to do a spin class at 10am. Although there are only two miles between the park and gym, given how slow I am at a) running; and b) cycling, an hour – although not impossible – would be cutting it fine but, as long as the parkrun started on time, my challenge would be completed successfully and I could spend the rest of Saturday walking around saying things like, ‘yay, go me and my successfully completed challenges’.

*End of non-sweary bit*

But, did it start on time? OF COURSE IT FUCKING DIDN’T. I got to the park with plenty of time to spare but the introductory talk thing didn’t start until 9:05 and instead of just getting on with it and starting the run, the bloke started doing the crappy clapping everyone thing and so I thought fuck it, this is going to go on for at least another five minutes, I’m going to the gym, as I don’t want to miss spin and so I fucked off from the stupid fucking parkrun and went to the gym and went on the rowing machine and treadmill instead before going to spin.

Stupid fucking parkrun fucking up my fucking challenge.

Bah.

Stats

Running: 0 miles because stupid fucking parkrun
Challenges completed successfully: 0 because stupid fucking parkrun
Cycling: 4 pointless miles because stupid fucking parkrun
Rowing machine: 15 minutes because stupid fucking parkrun
Treadmill: 15 minutes because stupid fucking parkrun
Spin: 45 minutes. Yay for spin

Juneathon Days 21 and 22 – No Slactivities For Me

Leave a comment
Friends of Pilgrim Hospice Social Rides

I’m fourth from left in the pink top and pink shoes. A lovely summer’s day at the seaside. Brr.

Ha, you thought I’d slacked off yesterday, didn’t you? Well, I’m here to tell all you disbelievers that I didn’t slack off, so there. In fact, I went on a 30 mile bike ride yesterday (after getting the day right). I couldn’t be bothered to blog when I got in and sat and read my book in the conservatory instead (Twenty Thousand Streets Under The Sky by Patrick Hamilton, in case you’re interested. I love Patrick Hamilton. If you haven’t already, read Hangover Square, it’s brilliant.) and then later on, I sort of forgot. That’s ‘sort of forgot’, as in ‘totally forgot because I ate pizza and drank wine and then watched crap all night on telly instead’.

This morning I went to the gym and did 20 minutes on the rowing machine, 22 minutes on the treadmill doing Audiofuel’s 180 Pyramid Max interval session, then 20 minutes on the cross-trainer. I also booked spin classes for tomorrow evening and Saturday morning. As you’ll remember (if you’ve been paying attention that is but, if not why not, hmm?), I challenged myself to a parkrun/spin challenge. The challenge involves running parkrun quick enough, then cycling back quick enough to get to the spin class in time. To be honest, although the timing is quite tight, it’s nowhere near impossible and unless my legs or wheels fall off or an unlikely but extremely unlucky combination of both, it should be fine. Touch wood, fingers crossed, stroke a black cat, etc.

Also this morning, Carla, Rachel and I have been discussing arrangements for Sunday’s Great Kent Bike Ride (where fellow Juneathoner Helen will also be joining us). It didn’t take long for the discussion to turn to where we’ll be eating and drinking after the ride and we are all now looking forward to our Wetherspoon roast. Yum.

You may be wondering where my marathon training is going to fit into all this spinning and cycling. I’ve been wondering the same thing myself and have decided Saturday’s long run of 7 miles is going to happen on Wednesday, although I’m supposed to be doing 4 miles tomorrow, so it’ll probably be more of a 7 mile walk.

Stats

Cycling: 30 miles
Rowing machine: 20 minutes
Treadmill: 22 minutes
Cross-trainer: 20 minutes
parkrun/spin challenges coming up: 1
Great Kent Bike Rides coming up: 1
Wetherspoon roasts looking forward to: 1

Juneathon Day 6 – An Ultra-Parkrun And A Sunny Spin Class

3 comments

Sunshine

Helen left a comment on yesterday’s post suggesting we go to our respective parkruns and give each other a virtual high-five. We did this a while back as we’d both been slacking in our running (she probably had a good excuse like just having had a baby or something and I probably had a slightly less good excuse like just having been to the pub or something) but Helen is now running regularly and recently ran London Marathon, whereas I have done fuck all by way of running for weeks and so I’d only be high-fiving myself which, let’s face it, would look a bit weird.

And, anyway, I’d booked to go to spin and although on a good day, I could get back in time from parkrun for the class, I didn’t think today would be one of those good days so I said I’d do 5k on the treadmill at 9am instead.

However, when I woke up, my legs, shoulders and arms were aching. Plus, it was after 9am when I got to the gym and I didn’t think I’d have time to do 5k on the treadmill before spin so I decided to do 5k on the rowing machine instead. This plan was scuppered (don’t you just love the word ‘scuppered’?) when my heels kept slipping out of my trainers. This has never happened before so maybe along with my recent weight-loss my feet have also shrunk. Still, after pulling my trainers back up for the third time in five minutes, I unsurprisingly lost my patience and abandoned the rowing machine and decided to do 5k on the cross-trainer instead. This took about 20 minutes and I still had time left before my spin class, so I did another mile and decided that meant I’d done an ultra-parkrun. Get me and my highfalutin ultrarunner ways.

After my ultra, I ambled over to the room in which the spin class is taken and found an empty room. ALL THE SPIN BIKES HAD BEEN STOLEN BY FAT THIEVES WHO WANTED TO GET THEIR BEACH BODIES READY FOR SUMMER.

Gits.

Except they hadn’t been stolen – by fat thieves who wanted to get their beach bodies ready for summer or otherwise – the instructor had moved them all outside so we could have a sunny spin class. Yay.

I have decided though that a parkrun/get-back-in-time-for-spin challenge would be a good Juneathon thing and, unless I get a better offer for the morning of Saturday 27 June, this will be happening then.

Stats

Rowing machine: about 5 minutes
Cross-trainer: about 26 minutes / 4.2 miles
Spin class: a sunny 45 minutes
Juneathon’s completed: 4/30

 

 

PBs And The Gods Of Sloth

6 comments

The Gods of Sloth were looking down on me last night as I was searching for a reason to drink wine. I knew drinking wine would prevent me from getting up early enough to go to my local parkrun but I really fancied some. It didn’t take long for me to find a reason – two reasons, in fact. The first was when I saw the weather forecast predicted 25mph winds and the second – which had me opening that bottle of wine faster than you can say ‘corkscrew’ – was when I saw parkrun had teamed up with a charity that tests on animals. Bad parkrun, bad bad bad!

Still, Janathon doesn’t care about windspeed or any other reasons for not running so I decided to do a parkrun distance on the treadmill at the gym and I must have ran like the wind because I GOT A MUTHAFUCKING PARKRUN PB, WAHOO! Okay, so I didn’t actually get a parkrun PB what with it not being done at an actual parkrun and it probably wasn’t accurate what with it being on a treadmill, but it’s the fastest I’ve run in at least five years and so I’m keeping that wahoo. It’s mine – all mine.

Oh, and in case you think I’ve been slacking the last few days – I haven’t. I’ve just been slack with the blogging but I’ve been gymming and body pumping and cycling and spinning and stuff and if you don’t believe me, here’s my calendar on Running Free Online.

Slacker? Me? Nope.

Slacker? Me? Nope.

The JogBlog Guide To Healthy Habits

Leave a comment

Krakau, Gefängnis Montelupich, Klosterschwester

The best way to get into the habit of doing something is to do it regularly. Okay, so obviously a habit isn’t something you do once, but how do you make something into a habit? Here are three of my tips to doing something more than once.

  1. Get a training schedule: I’ve got a couple of half-marathons coming up at the beginning of 2015 and I know if I don’t get a schedule and just leave my training to the ‘do a run when I feel like it and hope my mileage magically increases without trying too hard’ method, then it’ll get to January and I’ll think, ‘Oh shit, I’m doing a half-marathon in a couple of weeks and I haven’t done more than a couple of parkruns since August. Oops’ and then I’ll end up limping round the half in 3 hours and pretending my leg fell off or something.My favourite schedules are the ones by Hal Higdon. I especially like these because they’re in miles and not all that fancy 8 x 400m easy x I-haven’t-a-clue-what-you’re-talking-about stuff and I also especially like these because you can generate them into iCal files to import into Google Calendar, Outlook, iCal, etc.schedule
    Want to know just how successful getting a schedule is? Well, it’s Wednesday today and usually, I’d spend a Wednesday evening drinking wine while watching Waterloo Road and The Apprentice (DON’T JUDGE ME) but, because my schedule says I’ve got to do 7 miles tomorrow (actually, I should be doing the 7 miles on Saturday but I won’t be able to but schedules can be rescheduled), the wine will be absent. See, schedules are healthy habit inducing!

  2. Get a training buddy: In general, I don’t like running with other people on a social basis as I’d rather zone out and listen to my music but a really good way to make sure you get out the door is to arrange to meet someone; whether that’s by publicly stating on your running group leader’s Facebook page that you’ll be coming to the Tuesday night speed session (yes, I did that and to make sure I definitely didn’t weasel out of it, she came and picked me up and gave me a lift there) or to arrange to see a friend at parkrun. You’re not going to stand your friends up, are you? Nope. Well, not unless you’re a bit of a twat, anyway.

  3. Get signed up to Janathon: Okay, I’m biased because I’m the Queen of ‘Athons (curtseying in my presence is optional) and the more people who sign up, the better I look but Janathon is a fantastic way to get into the habit of exercising. Not only will you feel fitter by the end of the month but you’ll have so much energy you won’t want to stop and you’ll be begging me for a Februthon.

So, there’s the JogBlog Guide To Healthy Habits, and here are some tips from simplyhealth – what are yours?

Be Seen and Be Safe In The Karrimor Running Reflekt Range

3 comments

Guess who stuck diligently to the first week of their half marathon training schedule last week? Yep, you got it – not me. I wasn’t a complete slacker though, as I did join my running group on Tuesday evening for their speedwork session, which involved running past the Outlet Centre’s food court approximately twenty-three times and I can tell you, the smell of chips frying didn’t get any less tempting the more times I ran past it. But at least I was only running past it and not through it, like the Ironman participants had to do in the summer, only to be rewarded for their efforts with a plastic cup of water and an energy gel when they ran – drooling and starving like an extra from The Walking Dead – through the exit.

I should probably admit, I only went to the session because, in an act fuelled foolishly not by wine for once, but by coming home energised and motivated after my local parkrun the Saturday before, I posted on Emily’s – our running group leader – Facebook page that I would be coming along on Tuesday and posting it publicly on her page so I couldn’t get out of it. She even offered me a lift, so there was definitely no getting out of it and now she says now she knows where I live, there will definitely be no slacking off in the future.

As it was an evening run, it gave me the chance to try out the new Karrimor Running Reflekt range I’d been sent. As you’ve probably guessed from the name, it’s made with reflective material. On one of the billion tags that were attached to the jacket and tights, it said to take a photo with the flash to see the transformation. So I did. Here’s the jacket.

Karrimor Running Reflekt Jacket

Photo taken with flash

Karrimor Running Reflekt Jacket

Photo taken without flash

And here are the tights and jacket together, in a runner’s equivalent of double denim.

Karrimor Running Reflekt Tights

Photo taken with flash

Karrimor Running Reflekt Tights

Photo taken without flash

As you can see, these clothes really are reflective. When you’re outside and not taking photos of yourself in the mirror while being ignored by your cat, you can’t tell they’re reflective by looking down at them but my running group were impressed by how reflective they were and wanted to know where they could get some.

It’s not all about the reflectiveness though – this is decent kit. I’m really fussy about my running tights as ones that don’t stay up or are uncomfortable really get on my wick(ing fabric – ha!) These tights are great. They’re thick, long enough (they’re almost too long and I usually have the opposite problem and can’t get tights/trousers/leggings long enough), have zips on each ankle/calf, have a zipped pocket on the back and – most importantly for me – they stay in place and there’s no running along pulling your tights back up while simultaneously hoping you’re not giving yourself a wedgie in full view of any passing dog walkers. You’ve probably noticed they have a pink pattern on the ankles and this is going to annoy the pink haterz, but I like it.

I don’t usually wear a jacket while running as I get too hot, but as it was raining, I thought it might be a good idea and although it fit well and was comfy enough, I did get too hot but if you like running in jackets and want one that will help you not get run over, this is the jacket for you. Karrimor also do a reflective long-sleeved running top but I didn’t get sent one of those to try, boo.

The Karrimor Reflekt running tights are a bargainous £19.99 (honestly, they’re well worth this – I want to get some more as I haven’t got any other decent long running tights) and the jacket is £59.99. The range is available in men’s and women’s (unsurprisingly the men’s tights don’t have pink bits) from the Karrimor website.

Oh yeah, I ran five miles this morning to make up for the five miles I didn’t run on Saturday. I’m not sure how well I’m going to be sticking to my schedule the rest of the week as I’ve been invited to afternoon tea at the Houses of Parliament tomorrow for a running thing (just thought I’d sneak that in there) and I’m out all day on Thursday.

Just getting my excuses in early.

Roosport Fitness Pouch

Leave a comment

Last week’s parkrun was a personal worst. It was all going so well, too. My first mile was ran at 10 minutes something and I was thinking, yeah, bitch, I’m going to own this run, I’m going to nail it, I’m badass and well, you get the picture – I was doing okay. Then I got a tickly cough and the tickly cough decided to stick around, as tickly coughs are wont to do. I kept stopping to cough and stopping to cough and then an old lady runner came trotting up behind me and stopped and asked if I was okay. I told her I was fine and she carried on running and then my cough stopped and I started running and I’d almost caught her up and then I had flashbacks of my first ever 10k when I fell over a football and a girl picked me up and shouted at the footballers for me and then near the end, I overtook her and I felt really bad and I’ve felt guilty ever since (I have such a huge guilt complex, I should really be Catholic except that would involve me being Catholic and I don’t want to be Catholic and not wanting to be Catholic kind of rules me out from becoming Catholic. I think.) Anyway, here was my chance to recoup my karma. Recouping karma with a cough, yeah! So, I did the decent thing and didn’t overtake the old lady runner and kept behind her and stayed keeping behind her even when she was far far away and out of view because obviously I didn’t want to risk catching her up and undoing all that karma I’d just recouped. And because I’d walked leisurely around the last two miles of parkrun recouping my karma, my time was appalling. So this week I had to redeem myself and go faster. And go faster I did. By about three minutes, hurrah.

roosport

On today’s parkrun, I had with me a handy little detachable pocket that had been sent to me. It’s a Roosport magnetic pocket and it’s really cool. And the magnet is a ‘Yeah Bitch! Magnets!’ kind of magnet.

You get your finger caught in the Roosport’s magnet and you will feel as much pain as if you got it slammed in a car door. But, assuming you’re not a masochistic clumsy bugger like me and can manage to operate a simple magnetic flap, you need a Roosport if you have no pockets in your running tights or you want to carry a phone but don’t want to look like a dick by wearing it on your arm.

It’s got a zipped pocket for keys, cards, etc., and an open pocket in which to store your phone (it would have been perfect for me to store the little camera I used to take out with me in case I came across a cow-based photo emergency). It’s even got a little hole in the side for your headphone wire to come through, which would be perfect for those who use their phone for apps while out on a run. The reason for the magnet is so it attaches to your running tights. Genius! As I mentioned, I wore mine today at the parkrun, using it to keep my keys and barcode in (it came in handy for the cycle up to the park too, to keep my iPod in) and it’s comfy to wear and you don’t even notice it’s there. I’m sure you’ve got the gist of it, but here’s a short video so you can see it in action.

You can buy the Roosport from their website at www.theroosport.com

Juneathon 2014 – Day 21 – An Unofficial Parkrun

Leave a comment

Hmm, yes, I can see now setting my alarm for 7am when I didn’t go to bed until 2am so I’d get up with plenty of time to get to parkrun was probably a tad optimistic. I totally slept through my alarm and although when I did wake up I could have rushed to get ready and got there on time, I prefer to take my time in the morning, so I cycled down to the park later on to do my own unofficial parkrun. Without the motivation of other people running nearby and without other back-of-the-packers to try and pick off and beat, my time was hideously slow – three minutes slower than the proper parkrun I did last week.

Still, a run is a run and a Juneathon done is a Juneathon done. Ha, I’m so poetic and deep. Feel free to stick that on a meme. Alternatively, feel free to ignore it completely and laugh at my feebleness instead.

Juneathon 2014 – Days 13 –17 – Including A Run With Other People

4 comments

I haven’t slacked as much as you might think, so there. On the 13th (last Friday) I went for a run/walk along the Greensand Way. It would have been more run than walk but the second field had hip-high grass and even a walk was difficult.

The next day I redeemed myself by going to the local parkrun. Despite going along on my own as usual, Helen said she was going to hers and also on her own and she was sure she was going to be really shit as she’s still getting her fitness back after having a baby. So, we decided to telepathically encourage each other round the course. It worked, too, as we both ran it a lot faster than we thought we would. Virtual high-fives all round, yay.

Sunday I walked to Tesco and back. IT COUNTS.

Monday I did some kettlebells and on Tuesday I decided to go out with the local running group (not to be confused with this local running group who were horrific and quite literally pushed me out the door when I said I didn’t know they were running so far and I’d come back another time) and join them for their speedwork/laps session. What they failed to mention on their schedule is that sometimes these laps are HILLS. I hate hills. We slowly ran up to the bottom of the hill and were told to do as many laps as we could in 30 minutes. I tagged along with a couple of the others who have just finished their beginners schedule and after three laps (half the lap is the hill, the second half is a lovely downhill) we decided we’d had enough, but then one of the other girls came along and said ‘come on, you can do one more’ so we gave another lap a go and ran some of the hill and I was pleased with my three and a bit laps as usually when I see a hill, I don’t even attempt it, I just stop and walk up it.

Today, so far I have done 30 minutes of body pump and I’m going to the gym later and then to a spin class.

See, told you I haven’t been slacking. Just slacking on the blogging.

Janathon Day 19 – a parkrun PW, one day later

3 comments

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.

1 2