My New Year’s Eve review of 2011

31/12/20116 Comments

It’s that time of year again when we all look back, reflect on the previous twelve months, feel slightly inadequate and make all sorts of rash promises for the New Year. Going back to my first post of Janathon 2011, I had been a bit of a slacker on the running front and mostly reflected on my knitting goals for 2010. Most of these have been on a rolling programme since 2009. The beautiful but barely started throw remains beautiful, but barely started, my wool stash has grown and remains chaotic, the felted bag hasn’t been knitted, let alone felted…. I have however, finally, started to knit a sock.

I took this photo months ago. It's not really come on a lot since then.

Learning crochet was also on the rollover list. Until Boxing Day. Yes, on Boxing Day night, I decided that if I didn’t have a go right that minute then I would be sitting here in December 2012 saying that I still haven’t learned to crochet. Alright, so my attempts so far aren’t brilliant, but they do show progress and it’s the furthest that I’ve ever got with a crochet hook. I’ve pencilled in a trip been to the wool shop to get some advice and a book today – but if anyone in my woolly/running crossover has any ideas for a good beginners project (I’m rubbish at just making sample squares to practise) then please let me know!

That's progress that is.

Anyway, that’s wool not running. I did make one running related resolution last year and I kept to it, I just didn’t admit it to anyone other than Ginge because it’s a bit shameful. For the last year, I have undone my laces every time that I finished a run instead of just scuffing off my trainers by the heels. I’m 32, I shouldn’t be proud of this.

Moving swiftly on, what did I do this year? Well, in January I amazed myself my completing 31/31 in Janathon. It was mostly cold and dark, but it kickstarted the most regular spell of running that I have ever done because it showed me that often the only thing stopping me from running is me.

On a cold and frosty morning

In February, I decided to run the length of the Leeds-Liverpool Canal. In the end, logistics got the better of me and I only ran the Lancashire side. Still, that was unexpected and it gives me something to do next year.

The start of our canal adventure

In March, I learned how to felt. Nothing to do with running, but on our way home I did spot some runners participating in what turned out to be the Gin Pit Marathon. Now, for everyone who has ever run a marathon outside this nation’s capital city, only to be faced with friends and family who consider London to be the only marathon (the rest are all shorter, obviously) the Gin Pit Marathon is possibly the ultimate anti-London marathon. There are two races on run on Saturday and Sunday, you can run either or both, each has a maximum of 30 competitors. Oh, and you need a map. No cheering crowds, no live music, no smiley marshalls. Just you and the pavement (and your map). I know that I couldn’t do that.

Woolly goodness

Then came April, where I mostly overheated. I bought a hat. It continues to look ridiculous on me, but became an essential part of kit in September.

Blue skies and sunshine

May. Ah, May. When I ran in Central Park. Enough said.

The Central Park reservoir running track

It was inevitable, but June brought Juneathon. I did 30/30 and my running felt brilliant. I really enjoyed it.

Just what you need during An Athon

And then came July, when I came crashing back down to earth and struggled to put one foot in front of the other because of an irritable iliotibial band that gave me excruciating pain in my hip and knee. I found myself a physio, bought a foam roller and embraced other ways of seeing the Leeds-Liverpool canal.

Now that's the way to do it

In August, the country was rioting, it was my birthday (celebrated by running along the Wigan flight of locks – I know how to party) and the Athon community mourned Paula Butler, who died suddenly when out running. I’ve only just seen this, but her family have set up a donation page in her memory which is here if anyone wants to contribute.

Canals have certainly featured heavily this year

September saw me complete the Blackpool Illuminations 10k and the Folkestone Half Marathon. This doubled the number of races that I ran in 2010. Despite my erratic training, I took 6 minutes off my previous 10k time and am now determined to have a sub-hour 10k this year. Folkestone was a somewhat tougher proposition as I was defeated by heat (despite my hat) but it hasn’t put me off doing another one.

The Kent Police Band welcoming us across the finish

I had another first in October, getting my lovely new trail shoes lovely and and muddy.

Mud.

I lost my mojo a bit in November, but Ginge and I did take our trainers to Conwy and we ran round the castle.

Viking!

And so to December. It’s been cold, wet and miserable. My training’s gone a bit erratic again. I’ve decided to do the Liverpool Half in March so I’ll have to get my arse in gear soon. Luckily, as of tomorrow, I’ll have no excuse because it’s the start of Janathon.

2010 – 429.57 miles
2011 – 706.87 miles

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

In which I have a go with two new bits of kit and also don’t fall over

29/12/201129/12/20111 Comment

I started this post last week, but then Christmas intervened and it went into the folder of forgotten drafts. If I’m honest, in our house Christmas has actually got in the way of Christmas at times – my Christmas cake remains naked and the marzipan and icing remain unopened… ah well.

Anyway, the events of this post took place on December 18th.

On Sunday, I was giddy with the excitement of being able to run in daylight (it’s the small things that matter most) and settled on a precise distance of ‘somewhere between six and nine miles’. It was both bloomin’ freezing and slippy out there after a flurry of snow, so I decided to be turn the threats of personal injury and general mardiness into the opportunity of trying out new gizmos.

Firstly, my eGloves – after I was sent these, the weather became unseasonably warm and I hadn’t had a good opportunity to try them out. Since then, the temperature has dropped (anyone would think that it’s winter) and I’ve worn them purely for the simple function of keeping my hands warm. For the majority of the time, I have incredibly cold hands (good for making pastry, less good for making friends) and so far, the gloves have kept them toasty. My worry was that they might keep my hands too warm while running as this is the only time that my hands defrost somewhat. In fact, they kept me at a perfect temperature until I had about a mile to go and then I tucked them in the waistband of my tights until I got home.

Clearly keeping hands warm is the primary objective for most gloves, but the e-glove has some nifty science bits (apologies if this is too technical) on the fingertips, which allow you to paw at your smartphone and stay warm in all weathers. I don’t usually run with my iPhone,being somewhat accident-prone I can’t help thinking that it would all end in tears. However, I was running alone, Ginge was at work, it was icy underfoot and if I was going to fall on my arse, I wanted to be able to summon help.

Luckily, I had recently acquired an armband for my phone and this seemed the ideal opportunity to give it a whirl. My first challenge was to get the phone into its little neoprene papoose. I failed this challenge on the first attempt. Being somewhat accident-prone, I have a robust rubbery bumper on my phone which takes the sleek, iconic piece of design that Apple intended and turns it into something from the Fisher Price range. Only after I had tried to stuff the phone and its bumper into the case, only after I had sworn a bit, only after I had declared it to be a flawed design, did I realise that the problem was user error. I removed the bumper and it fitted in neatly…

It took a bit of fettling to get the armband securely velcroed onto my arm (turns out that they’re not as big as I think) and I suspect that I’ll need a bit of practice to be able to use my phone effectively while it’s on my arm. Having said that, the eGloves worked really well through the plastic screen and I was able to run to the Infinite Monkey Cage podcast, making me fitterer, strongerer and cleverer by the end of my run.

Oh and I ended up erring on the side of caution and only ran 6 miles. As home came into sight, the pavements became treacherous and I did a marvellous Bambi on ice impression but managed to stay on my feet. Result.

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

13/12/201113/12/20114 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.

In which I ride my wave of enthusiasm and then get all panicky

06/12/20112 Comments

After all of the relaxation of the Conwy trip, we had a slightly faster paced break in New York (I know, NYC more lively than Conwy, who’d have thought?) and it left me full of enthusiasm and excitement for (a) Christmas and (b) doing stuff. I often get this after being away (or at work, after being on courses) and love the giddy energy that I have for new projects, until life gets in the way and everything drifts a bit. This time, I was reinvigorated about running after passing a Nike Women advert about not letting the weather beat you and stop you running (which I have since tried to find, but can’t – though this is the image on it).

That'll be me that will

“Yeah!” I thought “That’s the kind of runner I want to be”. Then I got back to the UK and it was cold and dark and raining and I didn’t run for 5 days.

Part of the reason that I didn’t run (aside from laziness and an aversion to the cold, dark and rain) is that my hip pain has come back a bit. I fully concede that this is my own fault for neglecting both my foam roller and therapeutic exercises. I tried to run on Saturday but it felt completely wrong, both physically and mentally, and I decided to devote Sunday to some serious rolling, leg waving and thera-banding instead.

On Monday I was faced with the choice of running early in the cold/dark/rain or running late in the cold/dark/rain. I opted for the early one (knowing I would be very short of time in the evening) and was rewarded with one of the worst night’s sleep that I’ve ever had. There is something soul destroying about still being awake at two in the morning, knowing that you can only have a maximum of three hours sleep before the alarm will sound for running. Needless to say, when the alarm did go off (after I had eventually drifted off only to be woken at three by the sound of hailstones the size of golfballs) I chose to ignore it and did some more hip therapy in the evening.

I finally ran this morning when I bounced out of bed at 5.30, was out of the door by 5.50, enjoyed my run, barely got rained on and managed a casual three miles (barely taking any notice of Miles) at under 10 minutes/mile, which I was incredibly pleased with. My pace has gone to pot since my hip started (back in June I was managing 9 minute miles) and that’s going to be one of the things that I inded to address over the next few weeks.

I am going to need some kind of focus because the wave of holiday enthusiasm also carried me to the realisation that if I want to do a spring half marathon, I will need to find one, enter it and train for it. I had a choice of three in the North West in March; Blackpool, Liverpool or Wilmslow. First to be discounted was Blackpool; I liked the 10k in Blackpool, but I’m not sure that I’d fancy doing twice the distance down the sea front in early March. The toss up between Liverpool or Wilmslow was put to Twitter, whereupon Twitter told me that they’re both good, flat, PB achieving races that I would definitely enjoy. From my own musing, I was concerned that I wouldn’t be posh enough for Wilmslow and that there wouldn’t be enough to occupy Ginge while I run round for a couple of hours, but I was still open to either of them.

Then I read the small print of Wilmslow’s information. My panic button had been triggered by the strapline “A race…not a run” on the bottom of the entry form and a bit more reading lead to the discovery that the course has a time limit of 2 hours 35 minutes. Now, I ran Folkestone in 2.33 with injury afflicted training and in stupidly hot conditions. I would hope (and expect) that I would finish under 2.30 next time. I was heartened by the confidence that other people have in my ability to run and enjoy this race. I was also intrigued by what happened to anyone still running after 2:35. Suggestions varied from disappointed head shaking by peers to being mown down by a combine harvester. Liverpool it is then.

In which we storm a castle before breakfast

12/11/201113/11/20116 Comments

After my Friday learning stuff at Liverpool Uni, Ginge retrieved me from Kirkby station and we ventured down the motorway to Wales. We’re staying in Conwy for a couple of nights and Ginge very kindly offered to accompany me on an adventure run around the town.

Our room is on the top floor of the hotel and Miles seem to appreciate being nearer to the sky so he can find those pesky satellites.

I seem to be drawn to running near water – seafront, canals, rivers, wherever. Now, I’d love to claim there’s some deep psychological or meditative reason for this (though generally it does make me feel happy), but it’s mainly the simple fact that watery places tend to be flatter. Whilst Conwy does have enough water to warrant having a lifeboat, it’s also in Wales. Ergo there are hills. That’s not what I signed up for.

Up and up the town walls we climbed…

Up and up the stone steps, round and round the spiral staircases, until we were the kings of the castle.

Working our way back down the uneven, slightly slippery stairways involved a little more caution (and downright girliness from me at times). Then it was through town, onto the quayside, back through the woods and up some more hills before returning to the hotel for a lovely breakfast.

UPDATED – for Adele, yes we did see the smallest house!

Travelling Hopefully

cos where's the fun in arriving?

Tag: Running