Category: Junathon 2010

Day 16/30- lumbering

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Had another of my panicking that I’d missed the alarm mornings, eventually waking up 2 minutes before the alarm went off and then trying to ignore it. Well worth it though, I took myself down to the lodge and enjoyed the peace and quiet (I’m sure the anglers were thinking the same thing before I lumbered past). There was an amazing mist swirling just above the water, most of the birds were still asleep and all was still and calm. Rather splendid and made me wish that I was organised enough to take a camera with me.

Not a blistering  pace, but covered 3.5miles, which was an accidental extra mile and a half more than I’d intended. I think it’s going to be mornings for the rest of the week as the weather is promising niceness. I’ve realised that my head likes morning runs, but I think my body prefers later ones (except in the heat) – probably something to do with being forced to go from unconscious to running in less than 20 minutes. Unfortunately, it’s just going to have to lump it.

Day 15/30 – in which I curse my garmin, but then grin wildly at the thought that we’re over the hump

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Or, Day 15/30 – Goldilocks rules

A day’s training meant that it was never going to be an early one today. In fact, I was so stressy about the day that I dreamt vividly and woke up convinced that I had to go to Blackpool, rather than Liverpool today. I’d been looking forward to an evening run and had lots of exciting plans of where I could possibly go after work. Be careful what you wish for – I think I’d got so enthused with the concept that none of my routes lived up to the hype. Everywhere that Ginge suggested was wrong – that was too long, too short, too urban, too isolated (I don’t go through fields), too much like a morning run, too hilly, too scary as I had no idea what the hills would be like…. Eventually we settled on a sort of figure of 8 that I could add on to if I felt like it (ha).

I have lingering grumpiness and all of this took a good hour to sulk work through, by which time I’d nearly convinced myself that Juneathon was a pointless exercise because it’s inevitable that I will fail at it sooner or later, so I may as well stop now. Truly I am a sunshine-filled optimist at the moment.

When I did eventually set off, my garmin had a bit of a hissy fit and chose to ignore the first 0.2 miles – this did not help my mood, because we all know that if the garmin doesn’t record it, then it hasn’t happened… I was also too hot – when I’d left Merseyside, it was cloudy with a nice breeze, back home I’d neglected to consider the properties of the large shiny ball hanging there in the bright blue cloudless sky.

For a good portion of this run, my motivation was the thought that there were no shortcuts home so I might as well keep running, but after a while I was actually enjoying myself (sort of) and did 5 miles (plus the bit that my contraption ignored).  I was also quite pleased that my average moving speed was 10.36min/mile, which for me is a decent plod, especially as I’d felt like I was running through custard.

Tomorrow, it’s back on the 5.45 alarm call for an easy early one. Hurrah!

Day 14/30 – To Tesco and beyond…

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Some of yesterday’s grumpiness has lifted, I suspect partly because I opted out of a morning run today. This gave me a whole 37 hours of rest between runs. Woo and indeed hoo!

Monday night is big shop night, so while Ginge drove home and put the tea on, I ran the three miles back. To speed up the process (I was starving), I shopped with running kit hidden under jeans and fleece. If nothing else, I was toasty warm while we selected our dairy products – even if it did end with a certain amount of blushing and an interesting set footprints on the dashboard as I shimmied out of my jeans…..

Day 14 – two weeks done!

Juneathon Week 2
Count: 7 Activities
Distance: 23.02 mi
Time: 04:08:48 h:m:s
Elevation Gain: 849 ft
Avg Speed: 5.6 mph
Calories: 2,900 C

One mile further and 0.2mph faster!

Total Juneathon count: 14 Activities
Distance: 45.04 mi
Time: 08:13:41 h:m:s
Elevation Gain: 2,435 ft
Avg Speed: 5.5 mph
Calories: 5,642 C

Day 13/30 – whose bloody idea was this?

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Alright, I was perky a couple of days ago but this morning was a bugger. I resented that I had to go out and do bloody Juneathon (staying in bed until Desert Island Discs started) and I was grumpy for the majority of the 3 miles that I hacked out. The only highlight was nearly being run over by the man who ran into the back of my car in March – he’s going to have to get up pretty early if he’s that determined to take me out, I was still too fast for him this morning….

At 11.30, the village was mainly occupied by people either doing landscape gardening or clanking bottles or cans into their wheelie bins. No runners passed, but I did see a couple of women bedecked in pink being dropped off after one of the local race for lifes (races for life? Races for lives? I don’t know).

It was a bit overcast and gloomy when I went out, unfortunately this turned into a downpour by this afternoon – which cut short my planned morris dancing watching as they only managed a couple of routines before being beaten by the weather (and before we went to another pub).

Morris dancing in the rain

Morning glory, flowering briefly today

Crikey I’m grumpy tonight.

Day 12/30 – garlicky

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Another day, another morning. By heck it hurt. Well not hurt exactly, I think it was just the effect of having 12 hours between yesterday’s efforts and today’s, but everything was just a bit weary and achy. I ended up 2.5 slow miles (I’m not finishing the week with a point something) down by the lodge, Dracula being made all the more atmospheric by the smell of wild garlic.

While I’ve been running to Dracula it’s been atmospheric, if not necessarily speed-enhancing. Seeing as one of the Juneathon prizes is four audiofuel complilations, I thought I might give them a whirl with the Juneathon mix. I suspect that it may be a bit of a change from my usual mix of Show of Hands, Flight of the Conchords and Dolly Parton.

Audiofuel Juneathon Mix