Month: June 2013

Juneathon day thirteen: reminiscing

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Gym etiquette question: is it ok to strip off your (extremely) sweaty t-shirt, towel down your naked chest as if you’ve just got out of the shower and then re-dress (admittedly in a clean shirt) before hopping onto the next bit of equipment? I hasten to add that this wasn’t my behaviour, I just found it a bit disconcerting at 8 o’clock in the morning.

Yes, I have gymmed. Five minutes of unbearable boredom on the treadmill as a warm-up, followed by 15 minutes random hills on each of the the bike and the elliptical thingy. All this was whilst listening to the Cool Britannia episode of Stuart Maconie’s The People’s Songs. I’ve really enjoyed dipping into this series (I ran in the snow listening to the skiffle one during Janathon) and this one made me all reminiscent for 1997. Regardless of politics, this was my post-A-levels, turning 18, not a care in the world summer that by law has to be remembered through a haze of sunsets and kittens (in reality a haze of Strongbow and Guinness, but it’s much the same).

As I pedalled and pushed, I pondered on what 18-year-old me would make of 33-year-old me. I suspect that she would be a little freaked out by the running, but otherwise would be quite relieved by how things have turned out. Conversely, I suspect that 33-year-old me would tell 18-year-old me to slow down on the ale and pies so that I would have less of a beer gut to deal with in my thirties.

I could

I could illustrate this post with a sepia-toned photograph of myself in the late 90s, but I won’t. So here’s a bee on a poppy instead.

 

 

 

Juneathon day twelve: missing

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Over the past few days I’ve realised that I’ve been missing my longer runs. Having found a sensible part of my head that I didn’t know existed, I’m only run/walking for 30 minutes (or 3 miles if I feel I can go on for a bit longer). It’s not just the feeling of the run (well the aferwards) that I miss, it’s just being out and about around the village, seeing things from the pavement that either I don’t notice from the car or running routes that I never drive.

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There’s nothing wild going on, it’s usually just the odd sign about things, or something being demolished or developed, but I feel like I know what’s happening. And I miss that.

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Anyway, today I was on a later shift at work so I could have an early run with none of the trauma of a pre-dawn alarm call. It’s felt harder than other days (but that’s the way of running, it’s no guarantee of how next time will turn out), my running was shorter and my walks more frequent. It’s a bit like doing a couch to 5k in reverse.

 

Juneathon day eleven: warrior

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Once again I awoke bright and early, before my Athon alarm (yes, I really have such a thing set up on my phone) had chance to sound. However, unlike last week, this morning was not a leaping out of bed kind of day. Instead, I let myself be swaddled by the warm milkiness of the state that exists between awake and dreaming. I did dream about going to the gym, but I had no kit and had to go shopping on the way, only to get distracted by a short corduroy skirt from the Jamie Oliver Birdwatching range (even in my dream I recognised that this was unlikely to be a real actual thing).

So today’s exercise has been yoga, where we continued to work on maintaining our cores and engaging our pelvic floors, whilst doing some lovely strong leg work and finishing off with a nicely aligned warrior pose. During the relaxation at the end I nearly returned to my dreaming as I let my bones grow heavy, but was spared the embarrassment of waking myself up with a snore.

Perhaps I should have been meditating on the cruel irony that, of all the beers that Ginge bought at the weekend, the one he said that I would like the best was this one…

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Juneathon day ten: short

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Well the carnival has moved on and the fairground is back to being an expansive of green – it’s as if the whole thing never happened.

After all of this weekend’s excitement, today’s Juneathon was a simple and sedate walk in the park.

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We grimaced a bit at the knock off military fitness group being bawled at by their instructor (it’s really not my cup of tea) and marvelled at the thickery of someone who thought it was a good idea to let a small boy to encourage a swan peck at his feet (as far as I can see that’s a plan that is either going to end in tears or A&E).

Juneathon day nine: foreign swimming

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When we went swimming last weekend, I realised that my emergency-purchase Sports Direct swimming costume would not last me much longer. I wasn’t quite breaking any decency laws, but it was pulling me forward a bit so I was starting to look like a Hunchback of Notredame tribute act. A new one was called for and a bargain one found in the Debenhams sale.

Body: Not blogger's own.

My new costume. Body: Not blogger’s own.

This morning I peeled off the “for hygeine reasons…” label and took it for a test swim at the baths down the road from my mate’s house. This was a very straightforward pool, no moving floors, no changing villages, no fancy water features. Just a 25m pool with no nonsense white tiling and two diving boards (at 11′ 8” in the deep end, you don’t need adjustable floors…). Oh and some slightly scary sea creatures painted on the walls; a frog apparently joy riding on a jetski, a slightly stoned looking dolphin and (my favourite) a shark whose smile said “I want to be your friend”, but whose eyes said “I want to rip you limb from limb”.

I enjoyed a pleasant 22 lengths with breaks for socialising and the heightened danger that comes from having an aerial bombardment of small children diving fearlessly from the board.