Month: January 2012

Janathon 6/31: In which I mostly eat vegetables

4 Comments

Had I been planning my runs around the weather, I would have gone out this morning when it was cold but clear. However, bed seemed more appealing this morning and I postponed to an after-work run (always a dangerous plan on a Friday). I went for my standard Janathon out and back (right at the front door, right again at the top of the road, run, turn round, home) because it’s well lit, not too hilly and the return leg always passes quickly no matter how far you run. It was strangely enjoyable for a Friday night

With Janathon done and Ginge at work, I’ve had my standard lonesome tea (a big veggie stirfry, usually cobbled together but today from this recipe off of the Good Food website – I am not proud to admit that although the recipe called for 350g of veg for four people, I scoffed a 300g boxful on my own. But I did reduce the sauce, so I’m not larded up on peanut butter) and am now eyeing up the haul from Ikea. The rest of this evening will be spent communing with an allen key, debating whether to fill the baking tin with Edd’s chocolate chip cookies or something from the Book of Dan and pondering which path my Janathon journey will take over the next few days.

Yesterday the random Janathon generator found Finding Jacky and her wonderful mindmap.

Janathon 5/31: In which I am both lazy and working hard at the same time

5 Comments

If I hadn’t run yesterday morning, I would have fallen of the Janathon wagon. By the time we got back from Ikea, I was felt tired and grotty, enough so to retire to bed at 9.45 and sleep until I really should have got up for work.  Oh, I didn’t entirely sleep through, I was woken up in the early hours by the bone-chilling howl of the wind (I have just been informed that an aluminium shed was blown across the village overnight*). Needless to say, I didn’t even consider a morning run today.

By 5 o’clock, I was finishing work and all I wanted to do was go home, eat my tea and be cosy. I texted Ginge. My side of the conversation went something like “Starving. Have run out of food. Do I HAVE to run tonight?” to which he replied with the suggestion that I just run a mile as fast as I can. It seemed a good as way as any to clock in for Janathon, have a slightly useful run and be finished in time for a brew and some scowling at crochet.

In the end it turned out that getting changed, getting Miles to find a signal and getting out of the door actually took longer than the run. I pootled round the block to wake my legs off and off I trotted. Running in the wind seems to have dislodged some gunk from the bottom of my lungs, which is probably a sign that I should put more effort in more often.  It took 08:54, which I’m pleased with (I rarely see 8s), but it did remind me of the pace that I’ve lost over the last few months.  Anyhow, Ginge’s latest suggestion is that I repeat it again at the end of Janathon, which isn’t a bad idea. I may keep him.

I didn’t manage to do my random number doodah yesterday, but I did read My Dodgy Feet whilst crammed into the back of the car with a substantial amount of flatpack.

*In reality, it may have only flown about 100 yards but that’s still further than a shed should travel independently.

Janathon 4/31 – in which I am just pleased that all my clothes are not inside-out and back-to-front

4 Comments

It goes without saying that getting up to run before 6.00 is a lot easier in June than in January. Even in January some days are easier than others; I will wake up before the alarm goes off, spring out of bed, get my kit on and be out of the door with a spring in my step. Other days it is a bit more of a Lazarus-like scenario. Today was somewhere in between. I hadn’t slept brilliantly and had even dreamed about having to blog whatever I was dreaming about (luckily the details are hazy). However, I knew that if I didn’t get up immediately, I would fall back to sleep and Janathon would end up as me running laps of the Malm department at Ikea.

So, up, appropriately dressed, Miles charged and with a signal (I assume he knew that he would have been thrown across the garden had he not located his satellite at the first attempt), hi-vis blaring, shuffle on and time for some intervals with Audiofuel (Pyramid 180). It wasn’t pretty. I kept my feet to the beat, mindlessly followed the instructions, managed to stop Miles during the first 30 second sprint, pondered whether I could call it a sprint when it felt more like a waddle, marvelled at how the 75 second sprint felt like twice that length, came down the other side of the pyramid relatively unscathed and cooled down all the way home.

My legs are somewhat grumpy – I think I will try to shut them up with a bit of foam rolling, my (slightly neglected) rehab exercises and a rest of more than 12 hours between runs.

Yesterday’s random Janathon blog was Living for the Adventure (includes pictures of waterfowl)

Janathon 3/31 – in which there is much talk of pastry

8 Comments

There comes a point in the Athons where you find yourself muttering “if it wasn’t for Janathon….” Today was that day.  I’d opted for an after work run with Ginge and, had it not been for Janathon, I would happily have got in from work, shut the door and stuck the kettle on.

Before we set off, I peered through the blinds and thought ‘well at least it’s not raining, but I won’t say that because that will curse us’. It turns out that the weather gods can actually hear thoughts as it drizzled at a mile, lashed it down at two and hailed at three.  Running into the wind and with slightly aching legs from yesterday’s efforts, it wasn’t the speediest run in the world but it was three miles that otherwise wouldn’t have been done.

Apart from this, I have mostly been thinking about pastry. I had mixed success with my first creation from The Boy Who Bakes – an orange Portugese custard tart – with hindsight I should have opted for something with a little less disaster potential . I made a beautifully smooth orange custard, rolled, folded, chilled my pastry (and again, and again), lined my cases and they emerged, curdled,  from the oven. Apparently this is a common problem and is due to over-cooking, so although they tasted rather lovely they were a bit on the lumpy side. After sampling a few, the quality control department (Ginge) has declared enough of an interest in them to put them to the “ongoing experiment list”.

It possibly shows something of our personalities that he is willing to try something, refine it and make it again, until he reaches perfection (his recent adventures in homemade pastrami are evidence of this). On the other hand, I have a go at something and if it doesn’t work, I sulk for a bit and then make something else (except oatmeal and raisin cookies – they remain a nemesis that I battle with on a regular basis).

Seeing as I have declared my only resolution for 2012 to be “make a pork pie”, I may just designate this as my Year of Pastry.

Yesterday’s random Janathon blog was jftsmith.

 

 

Janathon 2/31 – in which I run further than I intended, which is nice

15 Comments

I woke up at an unfeasibly early time to wave Ginge off to work and try not to waste too much time before I set off for my run. Placing my trust in the Met Office, I had shuffled yesterday’s planned long run to today in the hope that the weather would be more accommodating. The route I chose is one of those sneaky loops where you reach half way (and could still turn it into an out and back), but you carry on and then it feels like you’re practically home, even though there’s still three miles to go. It’s also a good one for tacking bits on at the end, which is how I ended up thinking “I’ll just go this way for half a mile and then turn back” and then “Well I could just do another half a mile and then turn back” and when I did run back, I ran past the house at 9.25 miles, and it seemed rude not to round up to 10.

On my long runs, I like to listen to spoken word stuff and today was an odd mix of the Infinite Monkey Cage Christmas special (where I learned about superstitious pigeons and pretended to understand stuff about quantum physics) and the dulcet tones of David Tennant reading The Pied Piper of Hamlyn on the BBC Play of the Week podcast. I can neither confirm nor deny that Mr Tennant helped motivate me to run further than I intended. This is mostly because I will get into trouble with Ginge.

I passed a grand total of 4 runners this morning (5 if you count the chap I passed twice) with mixed success on the smiling and saying hello front (much more success from dog walkers, horse riders and the man who must have thought that I was really cheerful but I was just chuckling at something on the Monkey Cage). One lady stared straight ahead without a flicker of acknowledgement despite (or perhaps because of) me grinning and staring intently at her. The next two people I passed, I thought were two quite short ladies in matching Christmas hi-vis jackets, but as I got nearer I realised that they were two fairly young sisters who did a sort of embarrassed “we’re not running really” kind of run as they passed me. Unfortunately, I had already set my face to “beam” and they looked slightly terrified at the weird red-faced woman barking “Morning!” at them. Ah well.

Apart from the daily opportunity to scare people by smiling, the thing that I love about the Athons is the chance to explore other blogs, meet new people and be part of the big fuzzy ball of encouragement that is generator. Unfortunately, now that there are over 200 entrants, it’s pretty much impossible to visit every blog, every day so what I’ve decided to do is pick a random blog every day and have a read of that one. I’m using a random number thingy and the Janathon participant list, so by the end of the month I will have been to at least 31 new blogs. I had a bit of a shaky start with it last night as the numbers it came up with corresponded to blogs that either hadn’t been written or that I already read, but eventually it led me to Carrie at Baby Weight Go.

Finally, I’ve given in and decided to measure this year’s Janathon in Lindor truffle balls, so let me present (named partly in honour of Hels – this is her year for bowling success)….the Ball-o-Rama…

 

 

 

 

 

 

(which is based on 1 mile being about 125 calories and 1.5 balls being 120 calories)