Janathon day three: asleep

03/01/201313 Comments

Last night I asked twitter if I should run in the dark in the morning, or run in the dark in the evening. Turns out that I needn’t have bothered asking anyone because at half five this morning, I was physically incapable of opening my eyes let alone getting out of bed, getting dressed and getting out for a run.

After work, I had a cracking headache and it was one of those “if it wasn’t for Janathon, I would be at home on the couch with a brew” moments. I split the difference between a token one mile and a respectable three miles, notching up an acceptable two at a pace that I was quite happy with (I am chosing to ignore that the first half was downhill). It wasn’t an exciting run by anyone’s standards.

When I was home, I asked twitter if it was acceptable to blog about knitting during Janathon (I have days where I am incapable of making decisions without the aid of twitter – you people have no idea how much power you wield over me, do not abuse it). The answer was a resounding YES. Part of the reason that I asked is that I’ve been mulling over the idea of having two separate blogs for running and knitting, but fear that I would end up with two blogs that I neglect equally. And while there is such a vast overlap in the venn diagram of knitters and runners, I think I can get away with the odd woolly post.

The question that I struggle with the most is “what are you knitting at the moment?”. It should be simple. I should answer “sock” (well it’s been true for the last two years). I was asked the question last week and my answer was something like “well, I’m merging two patterns, one for a little woolly Woody Allen and one for a little woolly Holly Golightly and am turning them into a little woolly roller skating hot pant wearing granny with her arm in plaster”.

Roller derby granny

I am very proud of her bun

I should have said sock.

The basic pattern is for a Knit New Yorker from Lauren O’Farrell’s (aka @deadlyknitshade) latest amazing book Stitch New York. It is just as wonderful as Stitch London and I was very pleased to find it under the Christmas tree!

It was a good haul under the tree

Janathon day two: canal

02/01/20135 Comments

First off an apology – the link to the google bundle yesterday was the 2012 Janathon list – while there are quite a few repeat offenders on the list, if you signed up with that link, you might be missing out on the full Janathon experience. I’ve amended the link accordingly (thanks to the eagle-eyed Not Much of a Runner for pointing it out).

The advantage of working a late shift is that I had time for another daylight run this morning (I’m being spoilt now). The disadvantage is that I didn’t have time to blog (although I did manage to stick two loads of washing on, hurrah for the Athons…) and had to spend the day repeating the mantra “don’t forget to blog…”.

I had a parcel to collect from the post office, so porridge-filled and lycra-clad I trundled off into town and then drove down to the canal for a damp and drizzly towpath run. I’ve neglected my canal running since the “running the length of the Leeds-Liverpool canal” project ground to a halt last year (I did the better half in 2011, but the other side of the Pennines eludes me) and it’s gone on my stuff to do list for 2013.

This was an uneventful three miler along my home stretch, the drizzle was steady and I thought that the wind was gentle until I turned round and ran into it…

A strangely low water level

I saw some cows.

Especially for JogBlog

I finished the run by splashing fearlessly through the many puddles so that the gathering anglers would see that I was hardcore and not think that this was just on day 2 of a new resolution.

Locks

Oh, and himself did 16 miles on the bike.

Janathon day one: Fields

01/01/201302/01/201311 Comments

After such a wild New Year’s Eve it was a wonder that I made it out at all today…

Who am I kidding? We watched Batman, I had a couple of glasses of wine and I carried on knitting the final 25% of my socks. I woke up in time for Big Ben on the radio and a small arsenal of fireworks going off outside before promptly falling asleep again.

Rivington from a distance

Ah well. What I did manage was to use Janathon to procrastinate over actually going out to do Janathon. It was for all of your benefits (honest) as the time was wisely spent creating a Janathon Google Reader bundle so that all of the posts are in one handy location (I take no responsibility for the hours that you will inevetiably lose whilst trying to keep up with everyone else’s posts – it is like trying to stop the tide). Anyway, during the time that I spent faffing around on the internet in my pyjamas the sun came up and the sky was blue (in parts) and I realised that I better get myself out of the door before Ginge came home from work (especially after he texted to say that he’d done 15.5 miles on the exercise bike).

Fields of green

Trainers on, Miles fully charged, out of the door…and nearly straight back in again because blue sky or not, it was bloody freezing out there. Running into a very bitter wind, the first mile took somewhere around a week to complete but the rest wasn’t too bad and I even managed a decent pace in the last mile or so.

Waterlogged railway – engineers on Bank Holiday overtime in the very distance

Juneathon 30/30 – The hunt is over

30/06/201215/11/20129 Comments

On the final day of Juneathon I decided to do a loop around the campsite without being able to remember how long a loop it was. Turns out that it was shorter than if I’d done the out and back that I first thought of. So I added a bit on and made it 3 miles.

And then I got back to the tent and not only did I discover the meaning of life…

…but there at the side of the tent was the bloody Ark of the Covenant*!

Which was nice.

*May not be the real actual Ark of the Covenant**

**No Lego mini figures were harmed in the making of this blog

Juneathon 29/30 – feel the fear and do it anyway

29/06/201215/11/20126 Comments

I hope you all appreciate the anxieties I’ve been overcoming so that I can find all this treasure. I’ve become fairly shameless at photographing people’s property, things in bins and knickers in hedges. Today however was an entirely different kettle of fish. I know I’m not alone in feeling panicky when it comes to walking or running through farmers’ fields, even when then there’s a footpath – I suspect it’s the knowledge that you’re at risk of annoying a man who is likely to have a shotgun license.

Today was my fault. Kind of. When I saw that trig point had been added to the list, I had to do a bit of research to find out (a) what they are and (b) where I might find one. I learned that they come in different shapes and sizes, they tend to be up hills and it appears that there are people who go round photographing them as a hobby. I quite like that we live in a world with people who do things like that, partly because it makes me feel better about doing all this palaver.

Having identified one not too far away (and convenient for another bit of treasure), I printed off a map, which somehow has survived the journey down and a week in the tent. We navigated our way to a probable field by applying my OS map reading knowledge, skills (and I use the term loosely) that have been untouched since second year geography. Decades have passed since then, so I was quite proud of being able to use landmarks to navigate us to where the thing should be. After quite a lot of tramping, we deduced that we were in the wrong field and should have been in the one next door.

Unfortunately we couldn’t see a way into the next field, so off we went looking, determined that there had to be a way in. Way in located, we set off round the edge of the field, fighting the temptation to say sod it all the way. Just as we were about to give up, old eagle eyes spotted something on the horizon. There it was in all its concrete glory.

This does not do any justice to the amount of back and forth toing and froing that was involved in finding the bloody thing. I took Miles with us and all together we clocked up a 3 mile walk. With hindsight, I reckon that around 2 of these were done whilst traipsing fruitlessly through fields…

After all this excitement we went hunting for rhino and were rewarded with a glimpse through the leaves.

Finally, we took advantage of being up a big hill in order to admire the scenery from a viewpoint overlooking fields and sea.

And after all that, we just have one more day to go!

Travelling Hopefully

cos where's the fun in arriving?

Category: The Athons