Despite being up at an unseemly time for a Sunday, I didn’t get round to running until this afternoon. At half seven, I was sitting in the living room listening to the rain lashing against the window while I planned a route. However, given the meterological prospects for the day, I realised that it was far more pleasurable planning the run for another day rather than actually completing it this morning.

Instead, I pottered about for a bit and then went up to my mum’s to help set her up with a new laptop (she ventures on here now and again – Hello Mum!). Laptop sorted, schemes plotted, world set to rights and its 2 o’clock. I toyed with the idea of running near mum’s and staying for lunch, but I realised that I had to go home and avoid the ironing, so off I went.

The route that I chose was one that I thought was four miles, but turned out to be nearer three so I had to do a bit of funny looping round to get the extra mile. If I was alone, I probably would have settled on three miles, but I was being chivvied along by the 40 minute Rollercoaster mix from Audiofuel. This was one of the tracks that I picked after my efforts with last year’s and listening to it today, I realised that I’ve not really commented about using them on here. In short, I bloody love them.

Fair enough, they’re not the sort of tracks that I’d listen to in the car (although being reminded to breathe and relax might come in handy on my daily commute) but I can run to them quite happily. I use the tracks with coaching and find that my running style becomes better and (whisper it) I feel like a runner when I’m listening to them. I don’t realise that I’m holding tension in my shoulders until the voice reminds me to relax and then I notice that they’re up round my ears. Over summer I used the long run tracks to gradually increase my mileage (I managed to get up to 10 miles, then panicked and barely ran for a month) and I’ll definitely be using them again when Janathon’s over. In fact, to mark being over the Juneathon hump, I’ve just downloaded an interval session to brighten up this week’s morning runs.

Due to the re-routing of this weekend’s runs, today’s photos were taken in mum’s garden and were inspired by a post at Little Cotton Rabbits, which introduced me to the idea of the Splash of Colour project (link includes photo of cows…) and seemed just the thing this grey, wet weekend.

Day 16/31 – 4 miles

Ferrero rochers burned

Given that some brave Janathon souls were doing Grim today, I’m slightly ashamed by how soft I was this morning. I was accompanied by Ginge again today and when he asked how far I was going, I cheerfully replied “four to six miles”. We set off. It was a bit drizzly. We reached the 2 mile point for an out and back route and I suggested making a bit more interesting and looping back through the next village. The rain came down harder. Ginge suggested doing a route that took us off road, down the side of the railway tracks (I’m not allowed to do this route on my own as it’s a bit lonely and there might be all sorts of ne’er do wells skulking in the bushes). The rain grew fatter, the wind grew stronger. “How far are we doing?” asked Ginge. “As long as it’s at least 3 miles…” I replied. We carried on and started to do a loop round the back of the house to make it up to 4 miles. “How far’s left?” asked Ginge. “We’re just coming up to 3.75” I replied. We carried on through the now pouring rain, bracing ourselves against the gusts. “How far now?” asked Ginge. “You’re not going to like me” I replied. “What have you done?” “Um. Well we’re still at 3.76. I must have pressed stop when I faffed around with my sleeve….”. And so I carried on with another mini-loop to take it to 4 while Ginge retired gracefully indoors (having run an actual 4 miles, but without feeling the need to have this evidenced via Garmin, ah to be free of the tyranny).

I was hoping to have some interesting animals from today’s run, but once again there were only sheep.

Day 15/31 – 4 miles

Ferrero rochers burned

The weekend has started early in our house – how can you tell? I’ve had jam on my porridge. Usually weekdays have a scattering of sultanas, but at the weekends various forms of sugar come out of the cupboard – jam, syrup, honey, a spoonful of demerara sugar… From Twitter, it seems like a lot of Janathon is being fuelled by oaty goodness and the comments on the Guardian food blog proves that for every bowl of porridge there’s a different special technique or secret ingredient to ensure perfection. Apparently all my additions are sacrilegious to proper porridge and it’s fair to say that I’m unlikely to win the Golden Spurtle. However, looking at the recipes, it seems that the Speciality Section did include porridge kedgeree so maybe I’m onto something with kipper porridge.

Today’s run was a 2 mile out and back. I have realised that running down the big hill just to turn round and run back up the big hill is a particularly miserable route in the pre-dawn darkness. Daylight running tomorrow!

Day 14/31 –2 miles

Ferrero rochers burned

I must be getting used to the mornings as I spent the entire day with the nagging feeling that I’d forgotten to do something. Luckily (really?) I’m on an early one tomorrow so that we can have an evening of dvds and falafel. Instead, day 13 was a sociable three miles where we moaned about stuff, set the world to rights and ticked off another day of Janathon. According to the timber yard clock, it was a balmy 10.3C and I was far too warm in my jacket.

I appear to have run out of words tonight. Work continues to leave me feeling whacked at the end of the day and I find myself drifting off to the imaginary wool shop that I run in my head whenever things get bad. Being positive about it, the nightmare that I had on day 6 has just about reached a satisfactory conclusion, despite continuing to be a cursed at other points during the week. Also, it is almost Friday. This is a good thing.

Hopefully normal service will be resumed tomorrow (by normal service, I mean early morning rambling nonsense. Don’t say I didn’t warn you).

Day 13/31 –3  miles

Ferrero rochers burned

The gods are determined that I’m going to do morning Janathons. 03:49 I wake up to remember that I haven’t reset my alarm clock to Janathon time. Ridiculous.

06:00 up. 06:19 out of the door. 06:21 scare large man running with large dog and jumping over large puddle (he was surprisingly graceful) by wearing fluorescent yellow and chirping “MORNING!” at him. Run bizarre looping route for 2 miles, get wet through with drizzle, go home. That’s about it.

I thought I was doing well avoiding any major mishaps, but then I scaled my foot with porridge and dropped my omega-3 capsule into the bowl. I think I’m going to start having Cocopops on Janathon mornings.

Incidentally, I was wondering what supplements other people take? I know omega-3 is supposed to be good for joints (which is handy) but the woman in the health food shop recommended it to me for my psoriasis (which I treat with a combination of harsh chemicals and whimsy). I’ve never given much thought to taking anything else.

Day 12/31 –2 miles

Ferrero rochers burned