Category: Janathon 2011

Janathon #3 – fighting the urge to use the same “canal desires” gag that I always use

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Back to work tomorrow, so today was my last run in the daylight until next Saturday. Rather than stick to routes round the village, I’ve decided that my daylight runs should be a bit more interesting, and so I took myself down to the canal for a planned 6 mile plod.

It was a lot colder and bleaker than the last time I went along that particular stretch (admittedly that was in June, on a boat) and I spent the first couple of miles with only a little bit of knuckle peeking out of the thumb holes on my long sleeve top. Unsurprisingly, it was fairly quiet except for a few dog walkers and a couple of anglers – I did spot another solitary runner, but she was just a hi-vis speck of pink in the distance during my return leg.

As I was running, I listened to the sublime Ladies of Letters off of Radio 4 and thought of witty and insightful things to blog about. Unfortunately, I’ve since had to venture into the realms of shopping and the experience has wiped all traces of them from my memory, so you’ll have to make do with photos.

Bleak. But daylight, so yay!

The above photo was only taken because I got busted taking this photo:

Things on the ice - #1 in a series of 3. I'm intrigued by what possible series of events led to this. Intrigued and a little scared.

Next thing to be out in the ice was this:

Things on the ice - #2 in a series of 3. Best seat in the house

And of course, the classic:

Things on the ice - #3 in a series of 3

I got home to find that my old faithful running tights have rubbed another hole in my leg. I really don’t want to pension them off, partly because they’re comfy (apart from making my leg bleed occasionally), they fit my camera in the bum-pocket and I really, really don’t want to go shopping. The only reason I risked retail today was that a particularly jiggly bit of hill has prompted me to invest in some new, ahem, foundation garments. I can only apologise to the woman in the changing room next to me who must have thought that an earthquake was starting as I jumped up and down to give it a test bounce. I’m pleased to say that I am now more structurally sound than I was this morning.

Day 3/31 – 6 miles
Ferrero rochers burned*

*I actually looked at the stats on my Garmin, saw the calories burned and thought “ooh, 10 ferrero rocher” – it’s only day 3, I fear for the next 28.

Janathon #2 – Hungry ducks

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During Juneathon, I enjoyed quite a few early morning runs in one of our local nature reserves. It makes a nice 3ish mile loop, it’s very calming (I stomped there on a spectacularly but pointlessly angry run once. It worked.) and it’s good to get off the main road. I usually take out my earphones to try to focus on the sights and sounds around me, there’s usually a low murmur of quacking to accompany me around the lodge. It turns out that it’s less quiet on a Sunday lunchtime on a bank holiday weekend.  After leaping off the path for one too many duck feeders, I opted for looping back along a quieter path away from the water.

 

Many many ducks

The ducks are coralled in a tiny bit of the lodge. They do have a bit more water available to them this week, but you still get mobbed for bread by a quacking mass of feathers.

Having woken up a touch achy this morning, my quads grumbled about any part of the route that wasn’t on the flat. It’s unfortunate (or a wonderful opportunity, depending on how much of a positive spin you want to put on this) that the return part of my loop is either via a short sharp hill or a long steady hill, neither of which seemed terribly appealing.  Long steady hill won and slowed me down (by a minute/mile), but I made it to the top and home in time for dinner.

Day 1/31 – 3 miles
Ferrero rochers burned*