Category: The Athons

Janathon 3/31 – in which there is much talk of pastry

8 Comments

There comes a point in the Athons where you find yourself muttering “if it wasn’t for Janathon….” Today was that day.  I’d opted for an after work run with Ginge and, had it not been for Janathon, I would happily have got in from work, shut the door and stuck the kettle on.

Before we set off, I peered through the blinds and thought ‘well at least it’s not raining, but I won’t say that because that will curse us’. It turns out that the weather gods can actually hear thoughts as it drizzled at a mile, lashed it down at two and hailed at three.  Running into the wind and with slightly aching legs from yesterday’s efforts, it wasn’t the speediest run in the world but it was three miles that otherwise wouldn’t have been done.

Apart from this, I have mostly been thinking about pastry. I had mixed success with my first creation from The Boy Who Bakes – an orange Portugese custard tart – with hindsight I should have opted for something with a little less disaster potential . I made a beautifully smooth orange custard, rolled, folded, chilled my pastry (and again, and again), lined my cases and they emerged, curdled,  from the oven. Apparently this is a common problem and is due to over-cooking, so although they tasted rather lovely they were a bit on the lumpy side. After sampling a few, the quality control department (Ginge) has declared enough of an interest in them to put them to the “ongoing experiment list”.

It possibly shows something of our personalities that he is willing to try something, refine it and make it again, until he reaches perfection (his recent adventures in homemade pastrami are evidence of this). On the other hand, I have a go at something and if it doesn’t work, I sulk for a bit and then make something else (except oatmeal and raisin cookies – they remain a nemesis that I battle with on a regular basis).

Seeing as I have declared my only resolution for 2012 to be “make a pork pie”, I may just designate this as my Year of Pastry.

Yesterday’s random Janathon blog was jftsmith.

 

 

Janathon 2/31 – in which I run further than I intended, which is nice

15 Comments

I woke up at an unfeasibly early time to wave Ginge off to work and try not to waste too much time before I set off for my run. Placing my trust in the Met Office, I had shuffled yesterday’s planned long run to today in the hope that the weather would be more accommodating. The route I chose is one of those sneaky loops where you reach half way (and could still turn it into an out and back), but you carry on and then it feels like you’re practically home, even though there’s still three miles to go. It’s also a good one for tacking bits on at the end, which is how I ended up thinking “I’ll just go this way for half a mile and then turn back” and then “Well I could just do another half a mile and then turn back” and when I did run back, I ran past the house at 9.25 miles, and it seemed rude not to round up to 10.

On my long runs, I like to listen to spoken word stuff and today was an odd mix of the Infinite Monkey Cage Christmas special (where I learned about superstitious pigeons and pretended to understand stuff about quantum physics) and the dulcet tones of David Tennant reading The Pied Piper of Hamlyn on the BBC Play of the Week podcast. I can neither confirm nor deny that Mr Tennant helped motivate me to run further than I intended. This is mostly because I will get into trouble with Ginge.

I passed a grand total of 4 runners this morning (5 if you count the chap I passed twice) with mixed success on the smiling and saying hello front (much more success from dog walkers, horse riders and the man who must have thought that I was really cheerful but I was just chuckling at something on the Monkey Cage). One lady stared straight ahead without a flicker of acknowledgement despite (or perhaps because of) me grinning and staring intently at her. The next two people I passed, I thought were two quite short ladies in matching Christmas hi-vis jackets, but as I got nearer I realised that they were two fairly young sisters who did a sort of embarrassed “we’re not running really” kind of run as they passed me. Unfortunately, I had already set my face to “beam” and they looked slightly terrified at the weird red-faced woman barking “Morning!” at them. Ah well.

Apart from the daily opportunity to scare people by smiling, the thing that I love about the Athons is the chance to explore other blogs, meet new people and be part of the big fuzzy ball of encouragement that is generator. Unfortunately, now that there are over 200 entrants, it’s pretty much impossible to visit every blog, every day so what I’ve decided to do is pick a random blog every day and have a read of that one. I’m using a random number thingy and the Janathon participant list, so by the end of the month I will have been to at least 31 new blogs. I had a bit of a shaky start with it last night as the numbers it came up with corresponded to blogs that either hadn’t been written or that I already read, but eventually it led me to Carrie at Baby Weight Go.

Finally, I’ve given in and decided to measure this year’s Janathon in Lindor truffle balls, so let me present (named partly in honour of Hels – this is her year for bowling success)….the Ball-o-Rama…

 

 

 

 

 

 

(which is based on 1 mile being about 125 calories and 1.5 balls being 120 calories)

Janathon 1/31 – in which we start the new year with a bit of a tiff

13 Comments

Before I start, I’d best clarify an important detail for any new Janathon readers that I may aquire (Hello new Janathon readers!). I refer quite frequently to a couple of very important people – Miles and Ginge. Ginge is my husband, Miles is my Garmin. Luckily I argue more with Miles than I do with Ginge.

Miles and I started the New Year with a bit of a falling out. It was one of our usual things – not the incessant nagging, just the endless questions.

No. We are not indoors, I wish we were though. It would not be threatening to rain in there.

Miles love, apart from going to work I've barely moved from the settee, you know that. You're dusty.

Of course it is! It's the start of Janathon - we'll be out here a lot...

Eventually, he managed to see past the clouds and found the hidden satellite and we did a nice 3 miles around the lodge, got rained on and then decided to opt for the big steep hill home, instead of the big long not so steep hill home. It knackered me, so I’ve decided that I will own that hill this year.

A damp, green, mossy day

Apart from my mum’s present (which still remains unopened) not a single Ferrero has entered our house this Christmas (and not just because I ate them all on the doorstep). Instead, my Christmas nemesis has been the Lindt people with their bloody chocolate-ears. I have devoured a box of Lindt truffle balls (except the white ones, which Ginge took off my hands) and what I haven’t eaten in balls, I’ve made up with the After Eights that are stashed in my office at work. Looking at the nutritional values, I’m pleased to see that the dark chocolates come in at the least calories (by 6…) but am slightly horrified that having the odd sphere of melty goodness every night has clocked up about 1400 calories that I wouldn’t otherwise have eaten. I’m also quite relieved that the minty balls haven’t made their way across the Atlantic yet, I don’t think that I would be able to resist those at all.

That's the problem with these, they go straight to your hips...

In which I refuse to accept that it’s nearly Janathon time again.

4 Comments

Today I was alarmed to see that Cathy had opened the scary door marked Janathon already.

Am I joining in this year? Of course I am. I’m too scared of Cathy to say no. No, it’s not just that; in a perverse way I do enjoy the Athons. I like the single-minded, focused determination that I apply to them (especially when it’s sadly lacking for the other ten months of the year), the feeling that if I can do this then I can do this I can do anything, but probably most of all, I adore the warm fuzzy camaraderie on the blogs and twitter (where the fine line of encouragement and nagging is trod daily).

Of course, I have a decision to mull over – how do I tackle Janathon this year? This will be my fourth Athon (see to your right >>> for the accounts of those) and three of them have been 100% running (and blogging) successes. At the moment my heart is saying, “go on, run every day – you know you can do it, you’ve done it before…”. In the opposite corner is my head saying “yes, you know you can do it, you have nothing to prove and you don’t want to aggravate your hip by running every day you idiot”.

The problem is, while I know my head is right, I mainly only like running and I don’t really want to do anything else. I especially don’t want to do anything else in the month that everyone has decided to do something else as well. I do have a bit of a plan though, it just needs a bit more working out on the logistical side.

PS Had 3 good runs last week – a better than expected pace early Tuesday, a not getting blown away in the gales reluctant (but ultimately enjoyable) after work on Thursday (it was cold, I wore my full length black tights, black jacket and black eGloves and enjoyed feeling like I was a sinister criminal mastermind off to do a diamond heist. And then I put my hi-vis on…) and an intended 6 miles that turned into 8 in the brief spell without rain on Sunday afternoon. Very pleased.

I have a cunning plan, or, Juneathon – the aftermath

6 Comments

It feels like ages since we were trapped in the tyranny of Juneathon, but it’s only been ten days. Originally, my plan was to have a couple of rest days and then (gulp) start following a proper half marathon plan in preparation for Folkestone in September. What actually happened was that I had a couple of rest days, then had a canal running plan scuppered by Peter Andre (well he’d been playing a concert at Haigh Hall the previous night and there was another day of music due to start when we tried to park up on the Sunday), then it was Monday and back to work… So two rest days became four and then I realised that I had to get my trainers on otherwise I might never run again.

The four rest days did give me chance to pore over the training plans that I was considering and I spent that time comparing and contrasting the Runners World Garmin-ready plan with the 2:09 Events plan. The two are fairly similar (well they are for the first four weeks, I can’t bring myself to look past there) but turn out to be exactly the same in that I hate them with a burning resentment. I appreciate that a training plan will keep me focused and help me to reach my potential, but they’re rubbish and harder to schedule than any of the bloody Athons. My main complaint is that they don’t seem to allow for, well, life. Or fun. Or any kind of running that’s not determined by The Plan.

I have planned my first three weeks on the kitchen calendar and have had to negotiate – the Juneathon picnic, giving blood, going for tea at my mate’s house, the wedding of an old rugby mate, the inevitable resulting hangover from the wedding of an old rugby mate and our fourth wedding anniversary. This is in addition to the fact that sometimes I like to run and have a natter with my mate. And sometimes I like to run an unknown distance along the canal stopping to take photos of ducks. If anyone knows of a plan that incorporates that kind of activity, let me know.

As it is, I’ve done the first week back to front, substituted the scheduled intervals for an Audiofuel pyramid and ‘rescheduled’ today’s three miles because I tired and quite frankly grumpy.  The 2:09 plan states that this week’s training is for ‘getting time on the feet and the start of a gradual build up of training’ and having just done 30/30 during Juneathon, I think that this is the least of my worries. My current mindset is to use the plan as a guide rather than, well, a plan. We shall see how successful this is over the next couple of months.

Yesterday was the Juneathon picnic in Hyde Park. In true Athon style, I was up stupidly early to catch the train down to London (although I am now beaten in the Most Miles Travelled to the Picnic category as Unshod Northerner came down from Darlington. Pah) where I successfully negotiated the Tube to meet up with Helsie who introduced me to the delights of Borough Market and the most amazing brownies ever at Konditor & Cook (their sausage rolls are rather gorgeous too, despite the inclusion of carrots).  Despite a lack of directional skills, we made our way over to Hyde Park and located JogBlog, there’s a six pack under here and jen runs 2011 who were guarding the picnic while abradypus, I like to count, unshod Northerner and Journalathon ran round the park. Food was scoffed and we were joined by disjointed tales and it’s better to burn out than fade away before catching trains/retiring to the pub then catching trains home.

Things I learned at the Juneathon picnic:

  • All the Athoners I have ever met have been, without exception, lovely
  • Unadulterated flapjacks are more popular than pretending-to-be-healthy-flapjacks (with sultanas and seeds)
  • In a test sample of Juneathoners, 75% will order a pint of Doombar in the pub
  • I am embarassingly indifferent to doing races
  • I appear to have said that I will (might) do a Park Run next weekend as everyone says that they’re great
  • I am better at taking photos of squirrels (and ducks and bridges and trees) than I am at taking photos of people

According to Hels, he's plotting to take over the world