Category: Junathon 2010

Day 11/30 – Pointing. The sports bra of building work.

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Or, why is it that big baldy sweaty men will say hello to you, but dainty little things with bouncy ponytails stare straight ahead and blank you.

I digress. We are having some pointing done. We knew that this would happen at some point, but found out yesterday that it had started yesterday when himself got home and found a man up some scaffolding in the back garden. I hate pointing. I also hate sports bras, and I decided that my hatred is for pretty much the same reasons. I won’t deny that they’re both essential and both are essential to maintain structural integrity, however both are bloody expensive, if they’re doing a good job then you don’t know they’re there and neither is glamorous enough to show off to people. I shall be bitter when we hand over the cheque for the pointing and I shall be bitter when I am brave enough to go to M&S to update my personal scaffolding.

Given that I’d opted out of a longer run last night, I felt obliged to do a bit tonight and everything felt ok. Ended up doing 6 miles, through the next village and back whilst listening to Dracula. Luckily no one was near enough to hear me when I decided to join in with it – red-faced and sweaty is scary enough;  red-faced, sweaty and yelling “we need BLAD!” (it’s what Van Helsing called blood what with his comedy accent and all) is perhaps too much.

Over a third of the way there AND it’s the weekend! Hurrah!

Day 10/30: Camaraderie with big sweaty men. Also, ducks.

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Today’s run was planned to be a long club run. However…

I had a work day that was very intense, not in a bad way, just full on and I’ve completed my third incident form this week. By 5 o’clock my head was full and my muscles were zinging. Normally I would come home and slouch with a brew and hobnob, but not during Juneathon, oh no.  Instead of a club run (where I would have to be vaguely sociable) I went round to my mum’s to offload (declining a cup of tea and a delve in the treat tin) and ended up doing a 2.5mile route of my mum’s suggestion.

It took me down an offshoot of the canal that is closed to boats, but seems very popular with dog walkers and duck feeders (including my mum who does this route as a pram walk with my niece). The ducks seem to have got wise to this and there was a flotilla of twenty-odd ducks who were pursuing a small girl in a bright pink anorak. I do hope she had enough bread to satisfy them, otherwise I fear that they could have ganged up and carried her off.

Being out at teatime meant that I actually saw people, including a few runners. I have missed the pleasure of connecting with others, even if the only thing that we have in common is that we’re wearing trainers.

I finished up being a lot more chilled and even enjoyed running without tunes, so that’s a result even if it wasn’t what I planned.

Day 9/30 – brief

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I’m sure that my morning runs were never this lacking in people. There was a chap with a dog at the end of a road, but I didn’t see anyone to wheeze “morning!” to and once again have nothing interesting to report.

I was going to do 2 miles with my garmin virtual training bully and set it so my pace would be at least 10.30min/mile, but then I decided that I didn’t want to be a prisoner to the tyranny of the garmin so I just set off. And did my 2 miles at 10.08min/mile.

Day 8 – perky but old

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Another quiet and uneventful morning run (4 miles) today – the most remarkable thing about was that I woke up feeling enthusiastic about going out. Possibly it was because I had a crap day at work lined up and running was the lesser of two evils, but I have a sneaky suspicion that I was just looking forward to it. Odd I know. And this was despite the fact that when I checked the weather last night, my running time fell somewhere between ‘light rain’ and ‘heavy rain’.

In the event, it was light rain. The sort that’s quite nice when you’re on your way home when it starts, but when you set off in it you can’t tell if it’s going to start belting down and if you chance it in a t-shirt you end up cold, drenched and miserable. Not wanting to chance it, I wore my jacket (whose waterproof-ness I tested the other week while shovelling gravel, doing the garden and going to the tip. I do recognise the fact that, having owned the jacket for over a year, I probably should have already tested it a few times in more conventional running situations. Like running. In the rain) and ended up warm, clammy and with Miami Vice stylee rolled up sleeves.

Even more disturbing than the enthusiasm and the Miami Vice sleeves is the thought that popped into my mind when I saw the rain – “well it’ll do the garden some good, that’s the main thing”. I am truly one step closer to middle age.

Day 7/30 – one week done

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Another early morning one today. Made a kind of attempt at doing something structured up a hill with not entirely successful results, oddly I went a bit faster after I’d tried it (I think I was trying to make up for my embarrassment). I think I need more grading with both the hill and the reps. 3 miles altogether.

Day seven means we’re a quarter of the way there folks!

Count: 7 Activities
Distance: 22.02 mi
Time: 04:04:53 h:m:s
Elevation Gain: 1,586 ft
Avg Speed: 5.4 mph
Calories: 2,742 C

This also makes a very satisfying blue stripe across the garmin connect calendar!