Tag: Running

Day 2/30 – Browbeaten

1 Comment

Well, the Juneathon fear is loosening its grip slightly. This morning I woke up at 4.50, which is only an hour before my alarm and therefore an improvement on yesterday. I didn’t leap out of bed with quite the same enthusiastic terror as yesterday, which led me to ponder that if this is what I’m like on day 2, what am I going to be like on day 22.

Just did 2 miles this morning, sort of  breaking one of my cardinal rules on the way – never run down a road that calls itself a brow, it may be fun on the way down, but it will all end in tears on the way back. It was misty and grey this morning, the complete opposite of what I had been promised, so I abandoned my plan of going round the lodge and thought I’d just do a mile out and back again. As I ran down the long slope of the hill, I was suddenly gripped with the idea “I don’t feel like running back up the long, slow hill, why don’t I come back up the shorter steeper hill that I never run up because I tried it a year ago and it was a git”.

I did it. In a shuffling, huffing and puffing way, but I did it. I’m now just a little bit narked that I’ve looked at it on my garmin stats and the little graph doesn’t look half as impressive as I hoped it would. Pah.

Tonight is yoga night and tomorrow is supposed to be a post-work run. I’m divided on this. Part of me says “Yay! Lie in!”, part of me says “Arse! It’s going to be hot and sweaty!” and I’m not sure which will win.

Day 1/30 – Facing the elephant

2 Comments

And so it has arrived. The elephant of Juneathon has been a mere speck in the distance, but now it has thundered closer and we’re all staring it in the tusks. I was so petrified of racking up a Juneathon fail on day one that I woke up at 3.24 panicking that I’d slept through my alarm. This was followed by a dream about arriving too late for it, so in some ways it was a blessed relief when the alarm did go off at quarter to six.

I’d spent last night hunting down all of my kit and assembling in a big box that is currently neatly organised, but will soon resemble a jumble sale at the church hall. All of my bits are in there, from my “best” to the online sale impulse buys that can only be worn under the cover of darkness.

I’d planned on doing 3 miles, but because of the previous evening’s unheard of levels of organisation, I had enough time to do 4 and still be back in time for a shower and porridge. I went in a direction that I don’t usually go, which did make a nice change and wasn’t half as hilly as I dreaded. When I set off at about ten past 6  it was really quiet, even the papershop wasn’t open yet, but saw a few people to wheeze a cheerful “morning!” to on my return home. I don’t think I saw anything really exciting, certainly not in the realms of Highway Kind’s wheelbarrow). Oooh, having said that, my favourite morris dancers (and I fully I appreciate the desperation of that sentence) are on at the local pub’s folk festival, which is ace.

Tomorrow’s going to be another early one, then Thursday evening and Friday morning. For a while it did look as if every morning was going to be an early one because of after work commitments, but thank goodness it’s not.

Bring on day 2…

Fighting fit for Juneathon

2 Comments

This weekend I’ve truly had an athlete’s preparation for the forthcoming hell that is Juneathon. Let’s just say that it started with a sausage butty and has just ended with a chippy tea. In the middle, I’ve shovelled a tonne of gravel, had 2 trips to the tip, been scared witless by a 3 year old’s birthday party (but did enjoy the fire engine cake), listened to the Archers omnibus (oooh, that Pip) and been up to my elbows in compost. It’s been lovely.

On Sunday morning, I went out for an earlyish 3 mile plod around the village. It was a bit breezy, but the sun was shining and after sitting on the loo reading about the dangers of multitasking, I decided to make it a bit of a mindful one. I stuck with the tunes for the boring bits of the run (I find the sound of my lungs a bit off-putting) and trundled around the lodge taking in the sights and sounds.

Only two hours to go until it’s officially Juneathon… It’s a bit daunting that there’s so many participants this year (67  on the official list when I last checked over at Juneathon Central) and I don’t envy Iliketocount who has the unenviable task of judging the whole malarky. Good luck people!

Speed = distance/time

Leave a comment

I can remember that much from GCSE physics. Unfortunately I can’t apply this to tonight’s run as I was Garmin-free.

Not through forgetting it, not charging it or lacking a signal, but rather because of the watch amnesty at tonight’s club session.  On a Thursday it’s an hour’s run, usually out and back, so obviously the speedy ones at the front go further than us at the back, but we should all still end up together at the end. However, apparently some people have been a bit fixated on their garmins recently and although they’re doing their hour, they’re not going any further or faster. So to break free of the shackles of time and distance, we ran out and back on a route that covers 5 1/4 miles and just enjoyed running at a natural, comfortable speed.

Despite feeling a bit naked without it, it was quite nice just enjoying the sunshine, running through the park and having a natter. Thinking about it now, I probably wasn’t the target audience for doing this kind of run – I’d be better if someone followed me with a cattle prod shouting “FASTER! FASTER!” – but it’s still 5 miles even if I don’t have the stats to prove it. You’ll just have to take my word for it mind…

I don’t like Mondays

Leave a comment

The looming prospect of Juneathon has got me thinking about consistency and how the heck I’m going to run every day. I’ve not been in a good routine for ages and as regular readers will be aware, it doesn’t take a great deal to distract my attention. Ooooh look, a pigeon…..

Where was I? The genius that is Running Matters wrote far more eloquently than I can on the matter, and I’ve been having a think about when I run and when I don’t.  Embracing the geeky joy of  Garmin stats, I’ve been looking at my calendar and have found that I don’t like Mondays. In the last few months I have run twice on a Monday, and one of those was a bank holiday so it doesn’t count as a real Monday. Why don’t I run on a Monday? Because in the morning getting up is hard enough and after work is Tesco night (I lead a very exciting life). Tuesdays are an entirely different kettle of fish. I love running on Tuesdays, morning, evening, whenever; if I don’t go out any other day, I’ll go out on a Tuesday.  Luckily, Juneathon starts on a Tuesday.

Fingers crossed, Juneathon will help kickstart getting into a routine (albeit a terrifying one) because it should weaken my pathetic excuse of not having time to fit in a run and might help overcome my dislike of Mondays.

That just means that I need to deflect the distractions and, in theory, I’m on to a winner.  Unfortunately, I’m also let down by organisational skills. For instance,  I’ve found that, at any one time, I can only find two-thirds of my running kit. You’ll be relieved to know that this doesn’t mean that I’m out scaring the horses in my socks and sports bra, just that I can only ever seem to locate two sets of my three decent(ish) running clobber and spend a lot of time running around trying the find something to wear. I have no idea where the third set hides, but it will not outsmart me in June. No sir. Similarly, my Garmin and mp3 player will remain charged and ready to go, rather than hiding their bits in my knitting box.

This is the plan. If nothing else, I’m paving a road to hell with all these good intentions.

NB. Good intentions are not a recognised solution to mending pot holes, although they are economic. (See that?  That’s satire that is.)