Category: The Athons

Juneathon 3/30 – anything could happen in the next half hour

2 Comments

It’s only day three of Juneathon and already I am relying on the route where Ginge throws me out of the car in a layby on the way home from Tesco.

I had no treasure plans in mind when I set off. I’d spotted an orange squashed on the road on the way to Tesco and thought “Oooh, something orange“. This thought was then followed up with “Ooooh, roadkill that’s something orange“. Sadly the route I ran home was a different one, so the squashed orange enthusiasts amongst you will have to wait another day. I plodded along, my eyes darting left (a stick shaped like a letter) and right (roadkill) but to no avail. I did spot a pleasant pheasant but they aren’t on the list.

I’m not the pheasant plucker…

I was getting a bit desperate, but then with half a mile to go I was overtaken by a Skyride and I thought, “Ah, cyclists, I’m sure that they’re on the list” so I crossed my fingers all the way home and thanks to Knitrun4sanity there it was on the list.

Number 38: Cyclist

Juneathon 2/30 – unexpected treasure

11 Comments

Before setting off for this morning’s run I announced that I would be seeking ducks and baby swans, and duly set off on the same run that yielded ducks and baby swans earlier in the week. Unfortunately, the swans were having a lie in but there was plenty more to see.

First off, I nearly ran headlong into the postman and cursed as his mate drove off into the distance. I ran round the corner, nearly got squished by a police landrover and scuttled across the road to take a sneaky picture of a postvan (thank you knitrun4sanity.

Proper Postman Pat style – no Jess though, which would have ticked another one off the list.

After the postvan, I ran down the hill looking for sticks shaped like letters other than I or L. I spotted some cows and decided to take a photo purely to curry favour with JogBlog…

Cows.

But while I was taking the photo, I noticed an unusual bit of rubbish (suggested by fairweatherrunner) in the hedge…

They’re a size 8. So before anyone asks, definitely not mine…

After the unexpected pause, I trundled on down to the lodge and found no baby swans, but there were some ducks in a splendid flotilla…

ONWARD!

There may have been no baby swans, but I did find a feather

Fluffy feather

…which was suggested by Fortnightflo, and was only outdone by what I found as I embarked up the final steep hill – an even better feather, which I tucked into my camera and carried all the way home.

Could I blog with a quill? I bet someone could.

And that was that for that run; 3 miles done, Juneathon treasure hunt ticked off, big smile on my face, what more could you ask for?

Juneathon 1/30 – it begins with a pothole

13 Comments

On a night out a couple of weeks ago someone showed us a photo of a pothole in our village (that’s the kind of wild rock’n’roll nights out we have). At the time, we denied the hole’s existence and declared the picture to be photoshopped because the traffic cones had funny perspective. Yesterday I drove past the end of the road where the hole allegedly was and noticed that it was home to some shiny JCBs and there was a mini diversion in place. ‘Ah’ I thought ‘So it was an actual hole’. In the days between these two fascinating events, abradypus added ‘pothole’ to my treasure hunt list.

This morning, I got up at 5:15 to do a three mile out and back, taking in the amazing hole that was worth people showing off in the pub. And they’d only gone and filled it in. I’m still claiming it.

20120601-200738.jpg

A few people have asked about the rules of my treasure hunt. When I first had the idea, I planned to have a list of 30 items and would do one preordained item per run. Then I realised that I would most likely go insane. So I have decided to wing it take a more flexible approach to the hunt. Basically, I will try to find at least one item on each run, for each item I find whilst running I will award myself 3 points. I’m also letting myself claim things that I stumble across when not running, but for those I will award myself 1 point. Thanks to JogBlog’s natural sense of joyful evil, I will also be putting some items up for a vote and will try to find the winner on a particular run.

Technically, the list closed at midnight last night with a grand total of 67 items. 67 is a very untidy number and I would be much happier and able to relax if it was a nice round number. Seeing as it’s my rules (and I’ve just realised that Jen, Phil and Morning of Magicians gave me some wonderful suggestions that I somehow missed yesterday) I’m going to add these other suggestions and recalibrate the list. Starting with… the Olympic torch relay.

The other reason for my early start was that the Olympic torch relay was passing though town at 7.20 and having been stuck in a meeting and missing it pass right outside my work yesterday, I decided to go and have a look. It was very brief and strangely moving.

20120601-201057.jpg

20120601-201228.jpg

20120601-201248.jpg

For anyone bearing torches later in the route (Hels, I mean you) I would say, make sure that you wear good undies that don’t give you a VPL because a lot of people are going to take photos of your bum.

20120601-201930.jpg

(I’ve had to edit this post to try to hide my thickery that I missed shed loads of suggestions yesterday)

My Juneathon Treasure Hunt List

15 Comments

Thank you all for your suggestions – I fear for the sanity of some of you.

UPDATE: I also fear for the sanity of me. Due to tiredness and being a numpty, I somehow missed a load of suggestions, so I’ve recalibrated the list to an equally untidy 79.

UPDATED UPDATE: Just spotted that we had two badgers in the list, I have culled one but we’re still untidy with 78. I’m not very good at this am I?

  1. Creature
  2. Glitter
  3. Cake
  4. Cat
  5. Sheep
  6. Motorbike
  7. Hill
  8. Viewpoint
  9. An interesting tree
  10. An exotic animal
  11. Road kill
  12. A geocache
  13. Goat
  14. A roadside egg stall
  15. A view through an arch
  16. A pebble
  17. Something orange
  18. 39 steps
  19. Trig point
  20. A red door
  21. A blue fence
  22. The ark of the covenant
  23. A tree with someone’s name carved in
  24. An orchid
  25. A piece of grass longer than 50 cms
  26. A cloud that looks like someone/ something (preferably a crocodile)
  27. Rhino
  28. Llama
  29. Pub
  30. Milestone
  31. Pothole
  32. Feather
  33. Parkrun t-shirt
  34. Union Jack
  35. Local ale
  36. Manchester tart
  37. Post van
  38. Cyclist
  39. Fire engine
  40. Unicorn
  41. Penguin
  42. Kiwi
  43. A dignified pigeon.
  44. A piece of street furniture that looks like a face.
  45. The meaning of life.
  46. An ice cream cornet without the ice cream
  47. A shell
  48. A penny
  49. Unusual bit of rubbish
  50. A Lego mini figure
  51. A dragon
  52. A badger
  53. A pirate
  54. A stick shaped like a letter (but not an I or an L)
  55. A giant rabbit (preferably wearing a bow tie and/or a top hat)
  56. Dr Who with an iguana
  57. A half eaten Greggs
  58. A Kentish Orchard
  59. Teaspoon
  60. Teabag
  61. Dice
  62. A pink car
  63. A chalk drawing on the pavement
  64. Treasure (money)
  65. A baby swan
  66. Run an errand i.e. run home with a 2kg bag of potatoes
  67. Climb a tree en route
  68. An interesting plaque
  69. Pretty bunting
  70. Beach
  71. Pier
  72. Olympic torch relay
  73. Supermarket
  74. Ducks
  75. Riverboats
  76. Castle
  77. Motorway
  78. Thunderstorm
  79. …
  80. …

 

Janathon 31/31 – in which I collapse, face down in my porridge

12 Comments

Well that’s another another Athon signed off. 31 from 31. Running every day (despite not intending to that at all) and hopefully not incurring any niggling injuries along the way (I definitely see some foam roller action in my near future).

After Sunday’s long run, I totted up my mileage so far and it came to 95.5 miles. My total for Janathon 2011 was 103 miles. I ummmed and  ahhhhed about trying to beat last year, but decided that isn’t part of my Janathon story and chose to aim at 100, which left 1.5 miles this morning. I really didn’t want a repeat of Juneathon 2010 (when I got back to the tent after my ‘final’ run only to tally up my mileage and realise that I had done 99, so I went back out and did another one) so I did 2 miles. Just to be on the safe side.

I’m happy to confirm that this final effort has left my Janathon total as follows:

  • 31 activities
  • 100.65 miles
  • 17 hours and 31 miles
  • 3403ft of elevation gained
  • 12,354 calories burned

Which equates to around 150 Lindt balls (or 171 Ferrero Rocher in old money).