Cake of Good Hope

Lap of honour

2012-01-08T17:52:00.000Z

This week, I noticed that an illustrious group of 'athoners were planning to meet up at a 10K in Regent's Park today. Keen to put some faces to some names (and names to blogging identities) at last, I tweeted Fortnight Flo and the Magathon to see if there's be room for an extra; kind as they are, they said "Yes!" and I found myself on a bus to London at 6.40 this morning.

A group of friendly looking faces were gathered outside registration this morning so I took a chance and and introduced myself. Fortunately, it was Carla (who is still Flo in my mind), Rachel, Maggie, Louise, and Alma, who are a very lovely lot indeed (and not a random bunch of ladies wondering who on earth the sleepy blonde woman in lycra was bothering them on a Sunday morning). I marveled at how we'd all found each other having not arranged previously to each wear a red carnation; many of the affable 'athoners had met up before but they also had another trick up their sleeves (fast-forward to this afternoon when I looked at my Twitter feed):

Amazing! These are truly dedicated Janathoners, tweeting from the loo queue at a race on a Sunday morning. I can only marvel at the wizardry. I can do things like, you know, 'phone people on my mobile but I don't do that particularly well. I've got catching up to do, people. Maggie blogs whilst running and Rachel managed to send a tweet from breakfast whilst I was otherwise occupied with shoving a sausage sandwich in my face.

Technological talents aside, I had a thoroughly enjoyable morning with a charming, funny and friendly groups of ladies. They are also, incidentally, rather good at the running too and everyone completed the 10K in style. So in honour of these jolly Janathoners, I've attempted to recount my 3 laps of Regent's Park in tweets:

Lap 1:

Lap 2:

Lap 3:

A Tale of Two Coasters

2012-01-02T12:43:00.000Z

Happy 2012, folks!

The only possible start to the New Year was the Hereford 10K, which is now officially a tradition after entering it 2 years on the trot.

Luckily, New Year's Eve turned out to be a relatively low key affair this year, having gone out too hard in the early evening with fajitas and cider at my brother's house, a case of deep vein Strongbowsis set in and we were all ready for bed by half ten. If it wasn't for a game of "spot the lookylikeys in Jools Holland's Rhythm and Blues Orchestra" (I saw Prince Philip, David Walliams and Grotbags... who did you spot?), we'd have been fast asleep as the clock struck midnight. Nobly, we soldiered on through but all agreed we'd do the champagne more justice if we saved it for after the run.

This year's race saw an unprecedented guest appearance from lovely boyfriend on the start line. Now, lovely boyfriend doesn't really share my love of running; he's a fit enough cyclist to do himself a lot of damage in trainers but he fails to see the fun in lacking the ability to freewheel on a descent. He has talked a lot about running "something" in the past and has put a lot of time and effort in to calculating his "virtual pb" of sub-40 minutes so this debut has been a long time coming and the press were notified.

Of course, we had no intentions of accompanying one another around the course. On the odd occassion that we've managed to go out for a run together previously, if he's not crippled me with amusement at the ferocity of his farting ("running jiggles up your innards", apparently. Who knew?) then we've ended up bordering on unkindess. Here's a case in point:

"Lovely boyfriend, you look like this when you run..."

*Cue impersonation of constipated Lego man hurrying for a bus*

"Well, Cake of Good Hope, you look like this..."

*Lovely boyfriend shuffles off up the road like an elderly hen in flip flops*

As such, we ran very different races: I managed to just break the hour (shaving 5 whole minutes off last year's rather sociable effort), whilst lovely boyfriend gained himself a REAL pb of sub-40 and bagged a top 20 place on an undulating course.

Have we converted him to running? Judging by the lack of freewheel on his descent of stairs today, I'm assuming not; although there are witnesses that heard him say he "enjoyed" his race. Our matching set of coasters proved useful in the bar after the race but I may have to resign myself to continuing the collection single-handedly again in future.

Christmas present

2011-12-25T08:00:00.000Z

At this time of year, many running blogs are reflecting on the year just gone. Not here! I won't bore you with a list of resolutions for 2012 either; this is no time for naval gazing, it's Christmas!

As Oogway, the wise tortoise in Kung Fu Panda, says,

Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, but today is a gift. That is why it is called the 'present'."

There's no need to wait until January. If you're not already up to your Christmas crackers in bread sauce then it isn't too late to give yourself a little Christmas present today and this is what the gift tag says:

Don't bother to keep the receipt. No refunds or exchanges necessary. Give yourself this gift and you'll be much nicer to everyone today (you'll also really enjoy your dinner and the first tipple will go straight to your knees). What could be more festive than that?

I hope you have a happy Christmas! Love from me x

*substitute other activities (e.g. bike ride/Twister/wheelbarrow racing) as you see fit.

All bottled up

2011-12-20T18:17:00.002Z

If Santa is still looking for stocking fillers, he'd do well to check out my exclusive new range of aromatherapy oils:

End of Term Euphoria:

Use regularly to restore natural levels of optimism, creativity and sleep. The uplifting properties of this blend can be used to disperse the cumulative tension associated with long-term neglect of partners, friends and family. Can also be massaged into the eye area to reduce dark circles and puffiness.

Christmas Countdown:

This warming blend can be used to excite even the most miserly of beings. The comforting aromas of pine tree and mulled wine help stimulate an urgent need to drink, eat and shop festively. Use sparingly to avoid peaking too soon.

Caution: May cause hangovers.

Runner's High:

Apply liberally for unrivaled sensations of happiness, invincibility and appetite stimulation.

Tip: Blends well with Christmas Countdown.

I ran for the first time in a month today and contemplated the fortune I'd make with the last one. Then I realised the last thing I need is another excuse not to go training.

Still, I plan to make millions with the first bottle come January.

A spiral of self-distraction

2011-11-01T17:35:00.002Z

Today, I have discovered 5 reasons why it would be a terrible idea for me to work from home on a regular basis:

1. Snacks*

(*You want the recipe, don't you...)

2. Doorstep Chuggers

3. Twitter

4. Cold calls

5. My withering will power

The only really justifiable distraction hasn't actually seemed that tempting:

Tomorrow, I shall run to work.

Dear Jim

2011-10-31T09:10:00.001Z

Periodical disappointment

2011-09-30T19:39:00.008+01:00

You may not know this but I'm a subscriber to a very popular glossy mag. Despite its massive following, it's only published once a year. Once a year, every year, except last year, when there appeared to be some kind of administrative error and it wasn't delivered. Obviously, I wrote a strongly worded letter of disgust. Fancy waiting 12 months for my magazine, only to be left so disappointed. Thankfully, the publisher rectified the error and sent this year's digest even earlier than expected. What a relief.

Congratulations to those who have a place in London 2012; I'll look forward to following your progress and cheering on April 22nd. Don't be too disappointed if you didn't though; as Lazy Girl Running says, London's not the only marathon. Personally, I'm looking forward to Stockholm Jubilee Marathon next July.

Will I enter the London ballot again? Of course I will.

Community spirit

2011-08-12T14:10:00.020+01:00

What a week.

As the nation deals with the dreadful scenes across the country, it feels like anyone with a political axe to grind has been only to keen to offer their grievance as a reason for this sad and terrifying behaviour (having nearly ended up with dog turd in my flip flop this morning, I'm half expecting a call to appear on Newsnight later postulating my view that the youth of today are rioting against the pooper-scooping refuseniks of the world. Sounds ridiculous? Watch Newsnight later); for now, we wait for the varied and complicated reasons to unravel (sadly, I fear many of the participants don't know themselves why they joined in) and offer our thoughts to those affected.

Lucky enough to live away from the main trouble, I felt helpless but heartened to seen the @riotcleanup efforts unfold on Twitter on Tuesday and Wednesday. My favourite image of the week (below) circulated the social networks and reassured us that this endearing side of Britain still exists and that most people care enormously for their communities.

(@Lawcol888)

Meanwhile, good news of Run Geordie Run's incredible run across America filtered through the online running community (how have I missed this until now? Thanks, Maggie, for keeping me in the loop. Next you'll be telling me that they changed the name of Marathon bars). He ran an average of 31 miles a day for 100 days, arriving in New York on Tuesday, and has delighted followers with images of his ravaged feet since. As I type this, his fundraising total stands at over £78,000 for the challenge. Amazing stuff.

Sadly, we also learned the terrible news that a fellow Janathoner, Paula, passed away earlier this week. I never met Paula in person but she forms part of a community that has certainly helped rekindle my enjoyment of exercise this year; something I am very grateful for. FitArtist suggested we dedicate a run to Paula this week; if I may, I'd like to extend my dedication to Jan-/Juneathoners, whose community spirit goes a very long way toward keeping me from becoming a running reprobate.

Recreating my favourite Janathon run: I ran to the woods at the top of the hill and climbed a tree. I then ran back down the hill like Phoebe, with Queen's "We are the Champions" at full volume. Nicely done.

I'm escaping Britain tomorrow for a week and hope it remains relatively intact during this time. Don't think of looting my place while I'm away though, lovely boyfriend is staying behind to defend Cake HQ (besides, I seem to have packed pretty much everything I own).

Complimentary coffee

2011-07-28T19:21:00.003+01:00

How to fill the best-flippin-Tour-de-France-in-years-shaped hole in my afternoons this week?

Simple: cycle 40 mile round trip to meet lovely boyfriend at work for a coffee.

All the best bike rides involve a cafe.

Whilst soaking up the sun, enjoying my cappuccino, lovely boyfriend remarked,

"You look a bit like a pro..."

I blushed.

Then he finished,

... one who's let themselves go a bit."

Charming. Coffees are on him next time.

A runner's constitution

2011-07-27T19:21:00.007+01:00

Lazy Girl Running posted her running manifesto earlier today. A great idea, courtesy of Run Dem Crew.

Here's mine:

Running is… just putting one foot in front of the other. Nothing more complicated than that.
Running is not… for fish.
I run… on roads, off roads, in races, in circles.
I run for… me: my sanity and my happiness.
I run because… I say I can.
I run when… I need to clear my head and when I want to fill it.
I run with… little grace but lots of optimism.

I have never run… without a good sports bra.
I have always run… and greeted other runners.
I run in spite of… it being the sport I have least aptitude for.
I don’t run… on a full stomach.
I should run… like Phoebe once in a while.
I might run… faster, one day.
I will run… if I want to.

Yoga matters

2011-07-21T14:36:00.017+01:00

I'm on holiday now and it's bloomin' marvellous; however, with most normal people still fully occupied with proper jobs, I do need to be careful that I make the most of my time off and not fritter it away. Catching myself eating Wotsits for breakfast and contemplating watching an episode of Waybuloo the other morning, I realised I was very much on the verge of frittering. I thought about some worthwhile jobs that I could accomplish this summer. The list is long, ambitious, and mostly unrealistic but I've been making some progress on one of the assignments: find a yoga class I like. Hardly the most philanthropic of tasks but purposeful nonetheless (and a positive spin on the near-Waybuloo indiscretion).

I used to go regularly to a class at the council sports centre where you could hear techno music from the gym thudding through the wall. Then there was a brief fling with a class at the local village hall, where the bangin' choons were replaced with trombone practice next door. That was over 4 years ago and it would appear that my toes have got much further away since then.

Back to the task, I first tried a morning Hatha class at another local sports centre. With the daytime scheduling, there were some impressively supple pensioners there. One cheeky chap said he'd rifled through my handbag during the session. Thankfully, I don't think he had, but it's something to be wary of.

Keen for something a little more energetic, I found the details of an evening Ashtanga class at a yoga studio located behind an Italian restaurant (an encouraging sign, especially as my rusty conversational Italian meant I could understand the swearing coming from kitchen). I e-mailed the instructor to apologise in advance for my inelasticity and she replied to say I was very welcome to join; the look on her face suggested she may have reconsidered when I told her I'd run there. I dripped sweat steadily at the back and slid about on my mat, whilst it dawned on me that the class might be a little more advanced than ideal. The instructor was kind and patient; she reassured me not to look at what others could do (especially those balanced on their heads) as she helped push my unyielding limbs to somewhere near they were supposed to be. I imagine it looked rather like Rabbit trying to push Winnie the Pooh out of his front door. The class finished with some chanting; not normally my thing but the instructor said it was to wish everyone well in the world and I thought that sounded jolly sporting. Besides, she said we could just join in with the bits we knew, which reminded me a bit of hymn practice at school.

Still reasonably convinced that Ashtanga was more my cup of tea, I booked into another morning class back at the sports centre today. I cycled there this time, having learned my lesson from the run, and arrived relatively composed. This time there was a nice smell of incense and a good mix of participants. It turned out to be the same instructor from the yoga studio and she was even more helpful than before. She remarked that my shoulders "resisted" relaxing as she tugged energetically at my neck (hardly surprising when I write such long, rambling blog posts) and made several more attempts to free Winnie the Pooh.

So far, I think the 3rd class has been my favourite. The morning timing means its a no-go in term time, but I will go again in the holidays. The search for an evening class continues, as do the efforts to avoid the temptation of Waybuloo.

I know there are a few blogging joggers who practice yoga: do you have any tips for finding a class that suited you?

How to make friends whilst racing people

2011-07-18T11:48:00.006+01:00

I did my first Olympic distance triathlon yesterday. Given how little preparation had gone into it, I was quite pleased with my pedestrian time and actually rather enjoyed the extra distance. I even wondered if I should break recent form and consider some training in between these races.

It seems perhaps not everyone enjoys their racing though. At least 3 people mumbled that they weren't having any fun as they streaked past me on the run. Call me old fashioned, but it does seem a silly way of having a crap time on a Sunday morning.

One such character really caught my attention at yesterday's race. We shall call her Skinnylady (merely an observation, with a hint of envy).

It's not unusual for me to be overtaken by a lighter, leaner competitor going uphill on my bike and yesterday was no exception. On the other hand, it's always quite motivating to catch up with someone who clearly takes more care of their self than I do and I do my best to manage that on the descents; however, in the awkward moment as you draw level, I believe it's only good manners to acknowledge that person with a word of encouragement.

"Well done", I said as Skinnylady overtook me on the first climb.

Skinnylady said......... nothing. She didn't even flinch.

Moments later, I moved past Skinnylady on a flat, fast section of road, "Well done, keep it going!"

And Skinnylady said ............. nothing. Again.

On the long climb up to the half way turn, Skinnylady danced past me with some style, to which I offered, "Go on, great climbing!"

Skinnylady exclaimed ................. nothing. Foxtrot Alpha.

At this point, I considered the possibilities: perhaps English wasn't her first language; maybe she was crippled by pathological shyness; or maybe she was just plain rude. As I overtook her again on the next descent, my cheeks were flapping so much I couldn't really speak, so I decided to cease efforts to communicate there.

She finally snuck past me on the way into transition and I assumed that would be the end of our uncomfortable silences. I continued with my campaign of harassment/support and attempted to encourage those passing me on the second lap of their run, comforted by the fact that many of the racing snakes could manage a nod of recognition as they pelted past. Many even initiated their own support with a helpful comment and my faith in camaraderie was restored.

Finally hitting a steady shuffle after 3K or so, I saw a familiar silhouette in the distance... walking. With some curiosity, I drew level and asked if she was OK.

“I’ve got cramp!” Skinnylady barked. I made sympathetic noises and encouraged her to keep moving until it passed. I carried on running for fear of my own cramp or, even worse, another fiery rebuttal.

Some time later, a small voice behind me yelped,

"Thank you for keeping me going. Can I run with you?"

Hello Skinnylady.

I offered her one of my Shot Bloks and said she was welcome to join me. We continued on into the second lap, shoulder to shoulder. I wondered whether small talk would be a wise option but decided that the awkward silence we'd established earlier in the event would probably be more appropriate. Besides, conversation whilst running is not easy with my training base. This continued until a kind-looking man cheered us both on. Breaking all expectations, Skinnylady turned to me, smiled, and said,

"Isn't everyone here friendly?"

She then lengthened her stride and left me for dust.

30) Raising the bar

2011-06-30T20:22:00.006+01:00

So, the end of Juneathon is here and I'd like to congratulate those who hung on in there longer than I managed and, of course, thank Jogblog for organising us all again.

I thought the most fitting way to end the month would be with yet more meticulous statistical analysis. I wanted to compare my Juneathon efforts with what I accomplished in Janathon. After carefully considering the variables, I realised that the data is as discontinuous as my running this month, and the best representation has to be a bar graph. A chocolate bar graph, to be precise. And what could provide better statistical robustness than the reliable Kit Kat Chunky.

Here, you can see my Janathon running efforts, represented by Kit Kat Chunky Original, compared directly with the Juneathon miles, Kit Kat Chunky Peanut Butter:

A slightly sorry story I'm afraid; however, we must remember that Janathon was one whole day longer than Juneathon and, given the extra day, I am sure I would have made up the extra 90-odd miles.

Slightly more encouraging is the comparison of cycling miles (you'll notice I've taken tips from my local Tory candidate's election leaflet when choosing the scale for the y-axis):

According to this graph, Juneathon blew Janathon's swimming efforts out of the water:

And let's not forget the lakeland yomping:

And the mighty press ups:

I think we can conclude that Juneathon has been a roaring success. Go me! I hope you are feeling triumphant at the end of your month.

Day 30 - Round-up run
Distance - 1.7 miles
Cake rating - 5/5 (well, it is the last day)

Day 30 - Cycle commute
Distance - 7.8 miles

Cumulative Juneathising: 45.0 miles running + 5.3 miles swimming + 131.5 miles cycling + token amount of lakeland yomping + 13 mighty press ups

vs Cumulative Janathising: 140.5 miles running + 129.2 miles cycling + 2.9 miles swimming

29) Press on

2011-06-29T23:46:00.006+01:00

What with Juneathon being such a roaring personal success, I wanted to capitalise on my extraordinary self-discipline and make sure I have another project ready to go on July 1st:

(Image source: Mother Fitness)

Cue one hundred push ups. In six weeks, I'm assured that these dinner lady arms will bewaving goodbye to the bingo wings and giving away two tickets to the gun show. Or maybe they'll look just as formless, but better able to support my cake-laden surplus in a prone position.

I did the initial test when I got home from work and managed a mighty 13 press ups. Unlucky for some? Yes, I think so... the plan says I have to do 45 on Friday.

Day 29 - Run to work
Distance - 3.9 miles
Cake rating - 5/5 (my running needs as much encouragement as it can get at the moment)

Day 29 - Cycle home
Distance - 3.9 miles

+ 13 mighty press ups

Cumulative Juneathising: 43.3 miles running + 5.3 miles swimming + 123.6 miles cycling + token amount of lakeland yomping + 13 mighty press ups

28) Birthday cake

2011-06-28T20:26:00.011+01:00

My little blog is 1 year old today.

As a first-time blogger, the first year has been a learning experience from the very beginning. Nothing can prepare you for the all-consuming nature of bloggerhood; at times, it has been an emotional rollercoaster and the blogger-blues can really get you down in the lonely early stages. There have been months where I've barely slept, but that has been balanced by periods of total dormancy. Even at 12 months old, when most blogs are beginning to discover their independence, it's still quite clingy and demands a lot of my attention. Meeting other bloggers with blogs of similar ages has been an invaluable source of support; however, I must be careful not to compare my blog to bigger, cleverer, more developed blogs. After all, each blog reaches it's milestones at its own pace. I am just happy that my blog is a good-natured sort; perfectly content babbling incoherently away to itself whilst it smiles and dribbles gratefully at any one who'll give it a little attention.

Happy birthday, little blog!

Day 28 - Cycle commuting
Distance - 3.9 miles

Day 28 - What? A RUN? Is it your birthday or something?
Distance - 3.9 miles
Cake rating - 5/5 (long overdue)

Cumulative Juneathising: 39.4 miles running + 5.3 miles swimming + 119.7 miles cycling + token amount of lakeland yomping

27) Balls...

2011-06-27T20:46:00.004+01:00

... are something that have seemingly lacked from my recent Juneathon endeavours. Thank goodness travellinghopefully has sent me some in the post:

Thank you, Cassie.

They are rather delicious sweeties, which (along with the lovely sunny weather) have kept me all aglow today.

Day 27 - Sticky cycle commuting
Distance - 7.8 miles

Day 27 - A swim to temper the glow
Distance - 1500 m

Cumulative Juneathising: 34.5 miles running + 5.3 miles swimming + 115.8 miles cycling + token amount of lakeland yomping

26) Goggle-eyed

2011-06-26T15:41:00.007+01:00

Exclusive to Juneathon readers today:

A new, state-of-the-art search engine for all your protective 4-eyed needs.

As fetching as my new goggles are, I also needed matchsticks to get up at 2am and drive to the Henley Swim Classic this morning. I'm off for a kip before I go to find some more shuttlecocks for my xray specs.

(I could bore you with excuses about why I haven't blogged since Tuesday or I could do what the kids do when they're late to lessons: keep quiet and hope no-one's noticed. Thanks for the sweet messages though notmuchofarunner and kimivory - everything's fine).

Day 22 - Cycle commuting
Distance - 7.8 miles

Day 23 - Cycle commuting
Distance - 7.8 miles

Day 24 - Cycle commuting
Distance - 7.8 miles

Day 25 - Cycle commuting
Distance - 7.8 miles

Day 26 - Henley Swim Classic
Distance - 2100 m upstream
Time - 43:34

Cumulative Juneathising: 34.5 miles running + 4.3 miles swimming + 107.6 miles cycling + token amount of lakeland yomping

21) Report time

2011-06-21T22:31:00.007+01:00

FAO Mr and Mrs Cakeofgoodhope:

Cakeofgoodhope started the year well with all the best intentions and, for once, I'd hoped she'd sustain it; however, this month, her attendance has been more than sporadic and she has let her extra-curricular activities hinder her best efforts. It's time she decided where her priorities lie. There are some bloggers who can sustain this level of endurance and there's your daughter, who has delusions of adequacy. The past week is a case in point where she has set herself low standards of exercise and consistently failed to achieved them. Her behaviour has not been up to scratch and her attitude to the Juneathon rules has been disappointing. I'm afraid the evidence suggests that, at this point in time, Cakeofgoodhope has hit rock bottom and started to dig.

Grade: D -

Target: HTFU and go running

Day 21 - Just a bit more cycle commuting and a lot of report writing
Distance - 7.8 miles

Cumulative Juneathising: 34.5 miles running + 3.0 miles swimming + 76.4 miles cycling + token amount of lakeland yomping

20) Suits me fine

2011-06-20T22:00:00.011+01:00

Following my day of dessert-based interval training and race-prep of isotonic wine on Saturday, I thought that today might be a good day to avoid the custard creams in the staff room.

Then my friend Sadie send me this and I started to question my decision:

AA Gill, The Times, Monday 20th June 2011

Something lovely about yesterday's swim was the impressive variety of shapes and sizes of those competing. It seems that good tailors exist in the wetsuit world too. Maybe it's time to stop struggling, ditch the mini-suit and embrace the clotted cream.

Day 20 - Just a bit of cycle commuting in the rain
Distance - 7.8 miles

Cumulative Juneathising: 34.5 miles running + 3.0 miles swimming + 68.6 miles cycling + token amount of lakeland yomping

19) In the drink

2011-06-19T19:00:00.002+01:00

Ensure you drink plenty before and after your swim. Do not drink any alcohol the night before and on the day of the event as it can cause dehydration.

Great North Swim 2011 Event Information

Oh well, we'll count a Saturday evening aboard a boat on Windemere with Team Badger and Fattipuff as a course recce for a Sunday morning in Windemere with 200 well-hydrated swimmers.

Day 19 - Great North Swim
Distance: 1500 metres
Time: 31:48
Cake rating: 5/5 (For effort required to zip up the wetsuit)

Cumulative Juneathising: 34.5 miles running + 3.0 miles swimming + 60.8 miles cycling + token amount of lakeland yomping

18) Caked in mud

2011-06-18T17:00:00.012+01:00

Following yesterday's hardcore effort, we hoped to Go Ape today; however, Grizedale Forest was full of young, hip people who'd got up much earlier than us. Instead, we wandered around and, between intervals of intensive cake-eating, jumped in as much mud as possible.

Day 18 - Running, jumping, ~~climbing trees~~ drinking tea
Distance: Not far
Time: No idea
Cake rating: 5/5

Cumulative Juneathising: 34.5 miles running + 1.5 miles swimming + 60.8 miles cycling + token amount of lakeland yomping

17) Juneathon interrupted

2011-06-17T10:11:00.001+01:00

We apologise for the loss of signal and appreciate your patience whilst we fix the problem.

Please do not adjust your sets.

Day 17 - 6.5 hour road trip to the Lake District with Fattipuff

Cumulative Juneathising: 34.5 miles running + 1.5 miles swimming + 60.8 miles cycling

16) Love triangulation

2011-06-16T21:50:00.004+01:00

Once upon a time, a girl met a beautiful new running gadget; sleek, stylish, and up-to-date, she was smitten with him from the moment she clapped eyes on him.

It wasn't long before they were totally inseparable. They would spend hours together every weekend, traipsing through town, careering around country lanes and wandering in the woods. Their liaisons became more and more frequent, sometimes meeting every day.

The girl thought the gadget was the best thing that had ever happened to her. She thought the gadget completed her; however, one day, things started to change.

The gadget became more and more disparaging, slowly wearing away at the girl's confidence. It was as if he was deliberately trying to undermine her.

He would question her constantly. Where was she going? How far had she run? How many minutes rest did she plan to take between intervals? He was becoming possessive and wanted to know her every move.

The girl knew well that trust is the foundation upon which a relationship is built. If you don’t trust each other, no matter how much you adore them, the relationship can't possibly survive. The cracks were becoming bigger and bigger with every run. The sparkle was disappearing, the romance floundering, their affection growing weaker by the day until, finally, the energy has almost completely gone.

Surely this relationship wasn't completely doomed?

The girl needed some distance, some time to reflect and re-evaluate her priorities. She asked the gadget for a trial separation and moved him into a drawer with immediate effect.

Fortunately, today, the girl feels more encouraged by the happy, healthy relationships of other runners and their gadgets. There's Jogblog, who seems so content with Cedric, and Travelling Hopefully, in the first flush of romance with her new beau, Miles.

The girl remains determined that the rift can be healed and that she will run with the gadget again one day.

Day 16 - Jog home, undetected by satellites
Distance: 3.9 miles
Time: No idea
Cake rating: 5/5 (very excited to have won some sweets - thanks, Travelling Hopefully!)

Cumulative Juneathising: 34.5 miles running + 1.5 miles swimming + 60.8 miles cycling

15) Sugar-coated

2011-06-15T21:41:00.008+01:00

“Right, Cakeofgoodhope, what have you got to say for yourself? Why have you been brought back into the boardroom today?”

“I really don’t know, Lord Sugar.”

“I’ll spell it out for you shall I? You’ve failed to once again on this task. Other Juneathoners have managed miles of running today and what have you done?”

“I know, Lord Sugar, but I was up really early and marking exams again before work.”

“Marking schmarking, what kind of a namby pamby excuse is that? Do you think that stopped me when I was starting out? When I was 14, I’d mark 200 exam scripts and run a marathon before opening by market stall at 4am…”

"Lord Sugar, with respect…"

“SHUT UP! I’m talking. Now I’ve got to get rid of someone and quite frankly it should have been you after that bleeding pie chart. Tell me why I shouldn’t!"

“Because I’m committed, Lord Sugar, that’s why, and I have a proven track record jogging, logging and blogging every day in Janathon."

“Committed? You should be committed based on some of the jibberish you put on this so-called blog."

“But, Lord Sugar, in Janathon, my blog was quite g…."

“Stop going on about bleeding Janathon. So what? I was a jogger, ran every day to my market stall, but that didn’t help me sell computers when I got older.”

“Yes, Lord Sugar, you’re right Lord Sugar, I’ve learned from my mistakes. I’ll put in 100% from now on."

"Cakeofgoodhope, as much as I'd like to believe you, we've been here before and your promises were as much use as knickers on a kipper...

...YOU'RE FIRED!"

Day 15 - Cycle commute (tired, not fired, but nearly expired)
Distance: 7.8 miles

Cumulative Juneathising: 30.6 miles running + 1.5 miles swimming + 60.8 miles cycling

14) In gear

2011-06-14T22:50:00.005+01:00

What I did today for Juneathon:

Day 14 - Marking marathon & cycle home the "long" way for the sake of Juneathon (all in running gear, of course)
Distance: 9.5 miles
Cake rating: Not worthy of cake

Cumulative Juneathising: 30.6 miles running + 1.5 miles swimming + 53 miles cycling

13) Call the poll-ice

2011-06-13T20:00:00.002+01:00

In Janathon, I was a good girl. I jogged, logged and blogged every day like a proper swot; however, this Saturday, I broke my own self-imposed rule about running every day and I've felt quite liberated since! Freed from the shackles of Juneathon Purism, I can "just do something active" and enjoy it. So today, I threw away my rulebook once and for all and just went for a swim. Very pleasant it was too.

What with yesterday's unruly undergarments, you'd be forgiven for thinking that things have spiraled into total anarchy around here, but which crime DIDN'T I commit today?

Please feel free to cast your vote in the comments below. Who knows, maybe there'll be some hardcore statistical analysis to summarise how much of a delinquent you think I am.

Day 13 - Scandalous swim
Distance: 1500 metres
Time: ~28 minutes
Cake rating: 4/5 (rule-breaking, but not record-breaking)

Cumulative Juneathising: 30.6 miles running + 1.5 miles swimming + 43.5 miles cycling

12) Bra crimes

2011-06-12T11:46:00.014+01:00

Earlier this week, I heard on the radio about a research group at the University of Portsmouth that investigates the biomechanics of runners' bosoms, in order to develop better sports bras for female runners. According to their results, one's lady berries don't just bob innocently up and down during a run; instead, they take an altogether more circuitous route, gambolling around in a figure of 8, like a couple of drunken hooligans.

Is it any wonder it's so bloody difficult to find a good sports bra?

I've tried many different styles for running and found very few champions. There have, however, there have been plenty of outlaws:

Conviction: Public disorder (partners in crime: they were pretty useless working alone)

Conviction: 3 counts of Grievous Bodily Chaffage

Conviction: Crimes against fashion

I'm tempted to burn all these lawless rapscallions (except the Enell, which is the least of all evils... and cost me small fortune). Luckily, more compassionate souls exist who believe that all sports bras have rights. Rights that need protecting. That's why LessBounce.com are organising a sports bra amnesty. According to their e-mail this week, if you send back an old sports bra*, you'll recieve £3 off your next order. All old sports bras are sent to Oxfam Wastesavers for recycling.

So whilst the quest continues to find the perfect scaffolding system, you can save a bit of cash in the meantime (assuming the postage on your boulder holder comes in under 3 quid).

*Less Bounce says: 1 amnesty sports bra can be claimed against each new sports bra ordered. Send old sports bras to "LessBounce, The Old Bank, High St, Netheravon, Salisbury SP4 9PQ", with your name, address, order details and payment.

Day 12 - About a mile of gambolling with the girls
Distance: 0.9 miles
Cake rating: 1/5 (rain stopped play)

Cumulative Juneathising: 30.6 miles running + 0.5 miles swimming + 43.5 miles cycling

11) Time out

2011-06-11T20:30:00.002+01:00

6 o'clock Alarm went off... Fffffnnnnnnrrggrhgrhgrgrghhh

7 o'clock Got to work... Sigh

1 o'clock Met lovely boyfriend & pals for lovely lunch... Mmmmm

4 o'clock Just lay of sofa for a seco... Zzzzzzzz

7 o'clock Regained consciousness... What? Where? Have I been asleep?

And now, the time is...

Beer o'clock

What? No running?

Day 11 - Cycle commute (with "executive decision" not to run today)
Distance: 7.8 miles

Cumulative Juneathising: 29.7 miles running + 0.5 miles swimming + 43.5 miles cycling

10) Creative stamina

2011-06-10T09:03:00.006+01:00

Friday is one of my late evenings at work. This evening, I finished to find that the groundsman had locked my classroom with my belongings inside. The point of this very boring story is that my run home was scuppered, so I cycled back and completed a very dissatisfying token mile.

Luckily, Juneathon remains a force for good and I was touched to read that Warriorwomen had very generously accredited me with, what she calls, "creative stamina" in her blog yesterday; something I certainly feel I'm lacking today. Continuing her theme of recommendations, I'm going to leave you today with a tremendous video of the amazing Danny MacAskill - someone with truly outstanding creative stamina. Enjoy!

Day 10 - Cycle commute (with tricks and stunts galore, of course)
Distance: 7.8 miles

Day 10 - Lousy mile run
Distance: 1 mile
Cake rating: 1/5

Cumulative Juneathising: 29.7 miles running + 0.5 miles swimming + 35.7 miles cycling

9) Soft core

2011-06-09T20:29:00.006+01:00

Core stability: I have very little. But I do have the Cadbury's Creme Egg that lovely boyfriend hid from me 3 weeks ago.

I am now going to take a break from floundering around the living room on Furriballs (the fitball) to eat it (the egg, not the fitball).

Day 9 - Run to work
Distance: 4.0 miles
Time: 0:46:25
Pace: 11:36 min/mile
Cake rating: 2/5 (properly grumpy after finding the park gates locked)

Day 9 - Cycle home (followed by wobbly fitball fun)
Distance: 3.9 miles

Cumulative Juneathising: 28.7 miles running + 0.5 miles swimming + 28.0 miles cycling

8) No excuses

2011-06-08T19:30:00.012+01:00

Week 2 of Juneathon is here! How are you feeling? Full of beans? Raring to go?

Or a bit tired? Rain not helping? Motivating starting to waver a little?

The Janathon Excuse Generator was designed to help negotiate such difficulties but proved too cumbersome to be of much use in its first edition; keen to make efficiencies wherever and whenever possible, I've streamlined it for Juneathon:

You're very welcome.

Day 8 - Cycle to work
Distance: 3.9 miles

Day 8 - All too familiar run home (familiar, like this diagram)
Distance: 3.9 miles
Time: 0:47:11
Pace: 12:05 min/mile

Cake rating: 3/5 (equivalent to the number laps completed in the Excuse Generator)

Cumulative Juneathising: 24.7 miles running + 0.5 miles swimming + 24.1 miles cycling

7) Gruffalo vs Juneathon

2011-06-07T19:33:00.006+01:00

A girl took a jog on her way back home.
Then the girl saw a chip shop and her mouth began to foam.

“Where are you going to?” the chip shop seemed to utter,
“Come and have chips with some nice bread and butter.”
“It’s terribly kind of you, Chippy, old son -
But I’m going to run home and log Juneathon.”

“Juneathon? What’s a Juneathon?”
“A Juneathon! Allow me to go on…
It makes me get out and go for a run
And then I can boast about what I’ve just done.”

“Where are you doing this?”
“Why, here on my blog -
I waffle and ramble after doing a jog.”

“Waffling and rambling! No thanks! Get stuffed!
Good by little girl,” he scoffed and huffed.

“Silly old Chippy! He should log on -
I think he’d enjoy a good Juneathon.”

On went the girl as she continued on back,
But the girl saw a bakery and her lips began to smack.

“Where are you going? Do you need a short break?
Come and have doughnuts and biscuits and cake.”
“That’s ever so good of you, Bakery, old chum -
Bit I’m still running home to log Juneathon.”

“Juneathon? What’s a Juneathon?”
“A Juneathon! Must I go on?
It’s a month-long project that gets us all moving!”
(This may not be great but the rhymes are improving.)

“Why are you doing this?”
“My reasons are hazy
But I know if I don't then I'll tend to be lazy.”

“Rhyming and moving! You’ve got to be joking!
Good bye silly girl,” he spluttered, near-choking.

“Silly old Bakery! He can jog on -
Only the bravest do Juneathon.”

Up the last hill the running girl hopped,
But, seeing a pub, she finally stopped.

“Why don't you join us? You look a bit parched.”
“Sod this, you’re right,” and in she marched.
“Mine’s a pint, but make it a quick one -
I’m still running home to log Juneathon.”

“Juneathon? What’s a Juneathon?”
“A Juneathon! Oh do come on!
It’s an annual festival of fun and excuses,
The best ones stemming from beer-related bruises.”

“When are you doing this?”
“Right now, can’t you see?
I’m a finely honed athlete on a big fitness spree.”

“Finely honed athlete! Who are you kidding?
You’d better leave now, running kit is forbidden.”

“Lovely old pub! I’d better be gone -
There’s still 3 weeks left of this Juneathon.”

Sorry Julia Donaldson - Children's Laureate is rightfully yours.

Day 7 - Run to work (sadly avoiding chippy, bakery and pub)
Distance: 3.9 miles
Pace: 11:19 min/mile
Cake rating: 3/5 (the rule of three)

Day 7 - Cycle home
Distance: 3.9 miles

Cumulative Juneathising: 20.8 miles running + 0.5 miles swimming + 20.2 miles cycling

6) Angles of reflection

2011-06-06T19:06:00.012+01:00

Today was the first day back after a lovely holiday so I decided on some Juneathon-style commuting. The benefit of this is that the run home presents an excellent opportunity to do some serious thinking after a day's work:

I think it has been a good day when this is all you think about on the run home.

Day 6 - Cycle to work
Distance: 3.9 miles

Day 6 - Run home
Distance: 3.9 mile run
Time: 0:46:27
Pace: 11:54 min/mile (nowhere near fast enough to cause a nosebleed)
Cake rating: 4/5 (1 for each cookie left; no revenge tactics required)

Cumulative Juneathising: 16.9 miles running + 0.5 miles swimming + 16.3 miles cycling

5) Take the biscuit

2011-06-05T20:05:00.007+01:00

Continuing the food theme this weekend, I thought I'd offer a treat to all Juneathoners*.

I found this recipe via What Katie Does. She calls them "filthy good cookies" because they take just 15 minutes and 4 ingredients to make (or 5 if you're feeling flush and pimp them with chocolate). They're known less elegantly in my household as "those crack biscuits" because they're a bit habit-forming. I've Juneathoned the recipe below to make it an ideal post-run warm down. Now that's dedication.

*Of course, if you have a nut allergy then you won't agree that this is a treat. Just have the chocolate and save yourself 15 minutes.

Day 5 - Run-bake-stretch
Distance: 1 mile run
Time: 0:10:35
Pace: 10:35 min/mile
Cake rating: 1/5 (1 mile = 1 biscuit)

Cumulative Juneathising: 13.0 miles running + 0.5 miles swimming + 12.4 miles cycling

4) 3 courses

2011-06-04T23:59:00.001+01:00

Day 4 of Juneathon was a race day.

If you're not already familiar with it, triathlon is a multi-sport event where competitors participate in 3 sequential endurance events. Races may take a variety of forms, but a standard layout is normally adopted and events tend to vary, instead, by distance.

I got off to a strong but splashy start and showed some pleasing perseverance in the first discipline. Transition was smooth and it wasn't long before I was away on the second stage: generally considered the most technical of all three disciplines, it required presence of mind and a some clever tactics to gain a strong position in the field. The final stage can be a bit of a slog, especially if you've bitten off more than you can chew earlier in the event. A focused mind and some gritty determination are needed to complete this most grueling of events.

Oh yeah, I also did Blenheim Triathlon. That was fun but there were no poppadoms.

Day 4 - Blenheim Triathlon
Distance: 750 m swim, 20 km cycle, 5.4 km run
Time: 1:47
Cake rating: 3/5 (3 is the magic number)

Cumulative Juneathising: 12.0 miles running + 0.5 miles swimming + 12.4 miles cycling

3) Tight fit

2011-06-03T16:26:00.011+01:00

No, not the 80s pop sensation (although I will include a gratuitous link to their number 1 cover... eeee-eeeee-eeeeee wimboweh, wimboweh). Rather, an update on Operation Neoprene.

Loyal blog followers may ~~yawn as they remember~~ recall my quest to squeeze back into my child-sized wetsuit, ready to accommodate some silly notions of swimming about in the great outdoors this June. New readers may appreciate the abridged version: an initial bout of enthusiasm, some startling early results, but then the inevitable boredom of listening to the Headless Wetsuit Man and his Good Fridge Fairy:

On Tuesday, with lovely boyfriend out for the evening, I wriggled and wrestled my way into the wretched thing to see whether I'd need to source an alternative for tomorrow's Blenheim Triathlon.

"Eeeee-eeeee-eeeeeeee-um um-a-weh!", I cried in astonishment as I managed to squeeze myself in and do up the zip, albeit with limited feeling in my hands and feet and some restriction around the throat (details, details). I fumbled a text message to my friend to inform her of this wondrous news and communicated my mild concern that getting back out of the suit might pose more of an issue. She helpfully replied suggesting that I take Joey's advice to help Ross with his leather trousers. With the suit already on, I failed to see how talcum powder and body lotion were going to help me at this stage and contemplated spending the night in the bath like ~~a beached whale~~ Daryl Hannah in Splash. Thankfully, a good tug at the zip and some further wrenching and wrangling finally liberated me (lucky really as lovely boyfriend was not there to pour buckets of water over a stranded sea mammal).

I'm now confident that I'll make it at least as far as the lake tomorrow without the need for a tin of goose fat (perhaps I'll eat that instead... I jest). The rest is less certain. Even if I'm able to move my limbs sufficiently to swim 750 metres, there's the small matter of freeing myself afterward from the talcum powder body cast.

Day 3 - Run in the jungle heat
Distance: 1.4 miles
Time: 15 mins
Av Pace: 10.42 min/mile
Cake rating: 4/5 (a-wim-um-um-ba-wehhhh!)

Cumulative Juneathising: 8.6 miles running

2) Incentives

2011-06-02T15:00:00.001+01:00

I bribed myself into running today.

The sad thing is, by the time I got home, I'd really gone off the idea. I ate it anyway.

Day 2 - Long way to Waitrose
Distance: 3.4 miles (+ 0.4 mile walk home carrying the loot)
Time: 36 mins-ish
Av Pace: 10.35 min/mile
Cake rating: 2/5 (resorting to bribery at this stage is disappointing)

Cumulative Juneathising: 7.2 miles running

1) Going with the flow

2011-06-01T17:00:00.000+01:00

Day 1 - First run towards a new t-shirt
Distance: 3.8 miles
Time: 40 mins-ish
Av Pace: 10.30 min/mile-ish
Cake rating: 5/5 (make my t-shirt an XL)

Cumulative Juneathising: 3.8 miles running

Floaters

2011-05-08T19:27:00.015+01:00

Don't worry if you lose count in the swim: after 28 lengths, someone will put a big number 2 in the water.

(Pool-side race briefing, BUSA triathlon 2007)

It may have been 4 years since my last triathlon but this announcement still concerned me, so I elected to close my mouth and keep count at today's event, Banbury Triathlon.

Starting with a 750 m outdoor pool swim, the organisers decided to make wetsuits optional and there were many competitors taking advantage of the extra buoyancy this provided. Not me though. Operation Neoprene has attempted to swim away since the marathon (you'd be forgiven for thinking it had been buried at sea if you'd seen me scoffing key lime pie last night); so this unsinkable battleship braved the parky waters in nothing but a trusty Aldi trisuit and suffered the inevitable ice-cream headache.

With 4 weeks to go until Blenheim Triathlon, it might be time to concede that post-marathon refueling is no longer necessary and it's time to get back to work on losing the rubber ring.

London 2011

2011-04-19T14:38:00.002+01:00

As my face turned grey and the cold swell of dread surged from the pit of my stomach, a kind-looking lady beckoned me to the registration desk and asked if all was OK. Reassuringly amused by my mistake, she was willing to believe I was merely inept, rather than fraudulent, and, after making me empty out the contents of my handbag and summoning her colleagues for a good giggle, took the signature on my Visa card as proof of identity. For those who've faced year after year of ballot rejection, London Marathon is not the impenetrable fortress of organisation that it sometimes appears, instead it seems it is run by lovely people with big hearts; however, I really wouldn't recommend risking such a balls up to anyone else, particularly given the grief I gave the poor lovely boyfriend about looking after his passport properly on holiday. Free to enjoy the rest of the Expo, I steadied my nerves at the London Pride stand and wondered if they'd pipe out Goodwin's "The Trap" around the whole run on Sunday.

Sunday morning: Marathon day. Doo doo di doo di dooo di doo dooooo, di dooo di dooo di doo dooooo. There are certain things a marathoner needs to take care of before the race starts; some are best accomplished in privacy before leaving the house, but the urgent need to pee is recurrent and regular if you're keeping well-hydrated and I was already squirming in my seat before the train arrived at Blackheath. Scouring the start for any signs of a portaloo (long queues/whiff of farmyard), I noticed these signs (left) and remembered giggling at the "P-Mate" leaflet in my goody bag the night before.

In for a penny (and desperate to spend one), I joined the queue, wondering if I was supposed to fashion a device myself from the leaflet and panicked that I'd made another foolish oversight in my preparation by not bringing it. Thankfully, courteous marshals were handing out the cardboard tubes at the entrance and I needn't revive a fleeting childhood obsession with origami. I'm not sure the inventors had accounted for running tights when they designed them and a certain amount of "exposure" was required to do the business. I'm pleased to report that the humble bin bag, worn usually for its thermal properties, serves well as a protector of modesty too - all the more reason to take one to future races.

On any given Sunday, I'd have taken the ability to pee standing up as a notable accomplishment in itself and demanded a medal, so the pressure was certainly on to top that; luckily, 26.2 miles of London streets lay ahead. The start was remarkably relaxed and eerily easy to forget where you were; normally, I would have watched the entire preamble on TV, cheered on the wheelchairs and elite girlies, before marveling at the men and masses making their way through; however, 9.45 am had arrived with little recognition of that and we were moving slowly across Blackheath towards the start of my 5th marathon on a very warm April day.

I think there's a whole other blog on ways to make marathon running as hard as possible for yourself, but I think I'd already spotted the winner in this category as we merged with the green start in the first mile: a man dancing his way around the entire course. I've since Googled his cause and you can find out more about Ben Hammond here. He was just one of many extraordinary people I ran alongside over the course of the day.

I concentrated on keeping a slow, steady pace in the first few miles, trying to ignore the rising temperature and taking on water wherever I could. Lovely boyfriend was ready at 8 miles to remind me to keep drinking as it was turning into a scorcher of a day. Turning right around the corner just after 12 miles to see Tower Bridge looming ahead was a truly magical moment. I nodded to the man next to me and puffed, "This is what it's all about," as a tingle went down the back of my neck. He looked slightly startled and cantered off to avoid any further such affirmations. I kept left to look out for my friends, but the overwhelming crowds made it impossible and I settled gratefully for shouts of encouragement from total strangers knowing that another friend, Amy, was volunteering at the Lucozade stand in a few miles.

Halfway was where the wheels startled to wobble on the wagon, much earlier than any marathon I've run before. I was absolutely roasting but risked popping if I drank any more water than I was already. As we turned into the relative shade of Narrow Street, I opted for some run/walk; a decision I was very glad of as I saw St John's volunteers attending to withering runners on the pavements. I kept this going until I saw Amy at mile 15 and stopped for a quick, sweaty hug before plodding on again.

Putting my name on my running shirt was one of the single best decisions made in preparation for this marathon. I guess it's not for everyone, but hearing even the surliest-looking teenager manage a "Gaaaaaaan Kaaaa-yeeeeee" as I lurched past was enough to keep one foot moving in front of the other. At one point a lady shouted, "Slow run is better than no run, Katie" and this became my mantra for the rest of the day.

The height of the buildings in Canary Wharf offered some much-appreciated shade, even if my GPS didn't like it, and I reaslied I could recognise some of the runners around me as the field was spreading out to a more comfortable population. I spent a while running with Batman, who never seemed to tire of being serenaded with "d-nur d-nur d-nur d-nur", and finally realised that the white-haired man in front of me, sending the crowds in to a frenzy, was That Chap from Emmerdale. By far the most popular runner was this man though.

(Picture by Ross Holdsworth)
Reaching 22 miles, I was back to scanning the crowds on the right for lovely boyfriend and lapping up the cheers from anyone who could decipher my name from the sweaty sign on my shirt, when I heard louder and more excited screaming than I'd experienced all day: one of the friends I'd missed earlier, Sadie, was on the other side, leaping up and down with the kind of energy I could only envy at that point. I stopped for another sweaty hug (I should really stop that or they may disown me) but made my excuses when I saw Pingu getting away.

It's hard to describe the crowds over the next 4 miles. Just when you thought they couldn't get any louder or more excited, the folks a hundred metres later would blow that away. I finally caught up with lovely boyfriend just before Blackfriars Underpass and wondered whether he'd placed himself there deliberately to indulge his love of zombie movies: dark, stinky and filled with the walking (jogging) dead, this was the only part of the course bereft of support and a friendly face before it was definitely welcome.

I know there are many other marathons, I've run and enjoyed a very small number of them, but I have wanted to run London Marathon for a very long time; I may have even watched every one of the previous 29 events, either on TV or in person, and failed to get an entry to at least 7. Forget the pain and exhaustion, I was determined to enjoy every single step of those final couple of miles. I attempted to say thank you to or at least smile at anyone that shouted my name because I was genuinely grateful for their help, for giving up their Sunday to watch this very special event. Turning the final corner, I could hear the commentator questioning the whereabouts of Callum Best and knew the finish was close: a short "sprint", an over-indulgent victory wave and I was there. 5 hours and 30 minutes (a new P.W.!) and a London Marathon finisher. Thank you to all who have supported, encouraged and even run with me to make this happen.

Have I already looked up when the ballot opens for London 2012? Of course I have.

Organisation is key

2011-04-18T19:02:00.007+01:00

Friday: Final 3 mile run. Go to hairdressers for cut and colour (discuss weekend away in London, "Aw that'll be nice, there are some really good bars there"). Pick up final supplies: gels, jelly babies, Savlon, post-race crisps. Check bus times (find that Oxford Tube are kindly providing free transport to runners. Bonus). Write list of stuff to pack for the weekend.

Love a good list. Can't go wrong with a good list.

Saturday a.m.: Pack bag, sticking rigidly to list. Must obey the list. The list says I need my registration form. The registration form says I need my passport to collect my number. Find both and place securely in handbag for Expo later. Check once more that registration form and passport are securely in handbag. Finish packing kit bag.

Get on bus:

"May I have a free journey to London, please? It says on the website I can because I'm running the marathon."

"What?"

"The London Marathon. I'm running it. See, I have the form here." Wave registration form triumphantly in driver's direction.

"Dunno what you're talking about. You'd better get on anyway."

Sit down, check carefully to put registration form back in handbag with passport. Good times. I am running the marathon and have almost managed to convince the nice bus driver of this fact.

Saturday p.m.: Make it to King's Cross to meet friends off Edinburgh train. Go for a 30p wee in station loos (30p! No loo roll or working taps either). Marvel at how busy and important everyone looks. Make our way to Expo at Excel centre, making full use of Oyster cards (they make you feel like a busy, important London-type, rather than provincial nobody). Check passport and registration form are still securely in handbag.

Arrive at Expo, follow queue of people. Can't go wrong with a queue, nor a list. Arrive at registration desk to collect number and breathe sigh of relief that both passport and registration form are still in my handbag.

Excellent organisation. Well done me.

To be continued...

Lighting the taper

2011-04-11T18:26:00.010+01:00

Something dawned on me yesterday: just a week remained until London Marathon. You may think me careless to even need reminding but I've been away on holiday, enjoying the blissful denial as weekdays and weekends merged gloriously together. I was dragged back to reality this morning and made it to Palma airport to accompany the sun-crisped, Stella-drenched masses on the return leg of their journey back to Blighty.

I am at least aware that I should be well into the "tapering" phase by now: the practice of reducing the volume and intensity of training in the run up to an important race. Did you catch those two important words there? "Volume" and "intensity"? I’m not sure I did; in fact, it would be a gross misrepresentation to state that my training has convincingly consisted of either really. If we're thinking geometrically (and why wouldn't we... isn't your mind a permanent blur of isosceles trapezoids and polyhedra too?),then in order to have a taper, surely there must have been some width in the shape to start with (now "width" is a word with more familiarity, particularly for describing my backside in running shorts). No, this girl's training triangle's taper would have Pythagoras scratching his magnificent hypotenuse.

Not that I'm fretting about this; preparing for this marathon has had as much emphasis on enjoying the running again as it has building the mileage and I feel like I've been successful in the first aim, even if the marathon sits trouser-soilingly close on the horizon. And, if the conventional training programme is going to undergo such modifications, then so too can my interpretation of the idea of tapering. So, here are the 4 priorities for a taper I have decided upon in the absence of any accepted wisdom:

1. Stay intact

Tips: Avoid mildly straining a quad muscle during an embarrassingly energetic attempt to conquer the under-13s netball team in an end of term "friendly" game. If this cannot be avoided, better not to aggravate said strain by bunny-hopping over pot holes whilst out on the road bike and/or tripping on a kerb on the way out of the local bar in cycling shoes.

2. Stay well

Tips: Dodge germs by getting lots of fresh air and keeping away from sneezing, lurgy-ridden people. Spending a week cycling behind a man recovering from a chest infection intermittently triggering some kind of intergalactic snot-nebulae across the peleton is definitely not advised.

3. Eat well

Tips: Take care selecting foods to eat during the period of tapering. Aim for nutritious and healthy meals, rather than high fat snacks and treats. Drink plenty of water, rather than coffee in sun-soaked Mallorcan cafes.

4. Rest well

Tips: Resist the temptation to book a cycling holiday in the fortnight before the marathon, particularly if you are weak-willed against the promise of sunny days and visions of men in lycra. If this is unavoidable, stop regularly, being sure to take into account Taper Tip number 3.

1 week in Mallorca, 350+ miles on the bike and 6 days to go until the marathon. I hope this taper hasn't burned out by Sunday.

British Sleepy Time

2011-03-29T19:25:00.003+01:00

BST is kicking my ass.

Seriously, getting up in the dark again is horrible, particularly as stamina dwindles towards the end of term (along with the ability to maintain a blog, apparently). Sadly, this has had certain consequences for the training this week: firstly, by feeling lousy on Sunday and abandoning the long run a mere 3 miles in; secondly, by failing to find the right kit in my "walk-on-wardrobe" before work this morning (cue bewildered fumbling for running shorts in my bag after work this evening and a grumbling bike ride home).

I'm not going to let this donkey dung of a week so far get the better of me though and I've scrabbled for some positives to resuscitate a little motivation (and serve as a quick update):

I have managed a 19 and 20 mile run in the last month
I did Reading Half nearly 6 mins faster than Wokingham in February
I'm 17 lbs down on the start of Operation Neoprene.

You can't polish a poo, but you can roll it in glitter.

Operation Neoprene

2011-03-13T09:32:00.008Z

The masters at Snugg have returned my miniature wetsuit already; not with the expected puncture-repair-style criss-cross sticking plaster, but instead a whole new arse panel has been expertly stitched in because, as Mr Snugg put it, "your entire crotch needed replacing".

Sadly, the wetsuit appears no larger than it did 2 weeks ago and there's no sign of a modesty panel, as per TravellingHopefully's suggestion, so Operation Neoprene must continue in earnest. Luckily, my groundbreaking strategy of "Eat what I want, but only when I'm hungry. Then, stop when I'm full" has yielded a somewhat unexpected loss of 10 pounds so far.

It's tempting to extrapolate this and assume I'll be in my wetsuit by 10am next Tuesday; however, this may be a tad unrealistic. In fact, my graphical projection below suggests the results of a continued loss at this rate may be even more dramatic than that:

So I went for a pub lunch today, just to be on the safe side.

Wishful shrinking

2011-02-26T12:58:00.027Z

I've been on holiday this week; although, instead of getting away, February half term tends to be the time when I get my sh*t together and catch up with all those jobs I've ignored since Christmas. It's nice to do this at a leisurely pace but it does make it one of the most expensive weeks of the year: Car MOTed and taxed, hair cut, dentist visited, flights booked and races entered. It might have been cheaper to go to Vegas for the week.

Earlier in the week, I was chuffed to get an entry for the Henley Swim in June, which prompted me to get my wetsuit out of the wardrobe, remembering that the last time I wore it I pranged the backside on a bit of barbed wire attempting to slide safely into the lake at Eastnor Castle. I should have been more reckless and just jumped in; it would have saved me swimming 1500 m with a torrent of water gushing around my arse. So this week I also got around to contacting the highly-acclaimed Snugg Wetsuits and sending the sorry article for some restorative patchwork around the rear-end.

The last time I wore this bad boy was in 2007: I don't remember being child-sized myself, but the wetsuit definitely appears to be so (pictured with my trainers for scale) and it's clear that I must have been significantly smaller back then to squeeze myself into it and retain near-normal circulation in my limbs. Alarmingly, it seems I'm going to need to undertake a considerable task before June if I'm to avoid either buying a new wetsuit or having to employ a lady's maid to hoist me into it. There is, of course, the added bonus that any progress made towards getting in that wetsuit should also help my cause for London, given the lessons learned at Dublin Marathon.

It's just a question of finding a way to do this now. You see, I really like food. Oh, and I really hate diets. To give you an idea of why, I'll give you a synopsis of some of the diet advice that has made an impression on me in one way or another over the past 10 years:

(1) Tyrannical rowing coach: "YOU'RE A BIT FAT. EAT LESS!"

(2) Fat Fighters slimming club: "Eat as much as you like as long as you categorise all of your food as brown or white and don't eat potatoes on the same day as meat and give all the naughty foods a cute, phonetically-confused names, like "vyce", "gylt" or "glutoneee", so you make sure you hate yourself a little bit when you eat them. Oh, and please pay £5 a week for us to tell you that."

(3) Lovely boyfriend: "It's easy: calories out must exceed calories in.... it'll help if you stop raiding the fridge for cheese all the time too.""

Now, being told I can't do something I want to do never sits well with me and generally makes me even more determined to prove otherwise; whereas being given permission to do something I would very much like to do does little to encourage any sense of restraint or moderation: two virtues I was hardly blessed with. As such, although I've managed to lose weight following the advice of both Diet Gurus (1) and (2) in the past, I've learned very little about a healthy and sustainable attitude to food in the process.

I can, of course, see that the nitty-gritty of lovely boyfriend's no-nonsense scientific equation makes perfect sense; however, it can be hard to swallow (if you'll pardon the pun) such sane and sensible advice from someone a) close to you, and b) whose only ever need to count calories has been in an attempt to gain weight. Added to that, the idea of scrutinising everything I eat for its calorific value sounds a bit miserable.

I do realise that there is no magic solution and, ultimately, some hard graft is required, but I know that any changes I do make need to be both realistic and sustainable, particularly as I would like to continue eating cake. So I'm proposing this radical plan:

Eat what I want, but only when I'm hungry. Then, stop when I'm full.

Simple, eh? We'll see about that.

I promise I won't inflict an exhaustive account of this process on you, but I'm hopeful that the public shame of the occasional blog post might provide me the virtual kick in the arse that Janathon did. Again, we'll see.

I wonder whether I should leave the creepy, headless wetsuit figure hanging next to the fridge though, just to make me think twice about the cheese-raiding.

Dublin

2011-02-20T08:57:00.033Z

Watch me ... watch me! I got it! Watch me ... I got it! HEY!
I got somethin' that makes me wanna shout!
I got somethin' that tells me what it's all about! Huh, I got soul and I'm super bad!

(James Brown, Super Bad)

The Godfather of Soul has made a fairly frequent appearance on my running playlist ever since I raided lovely boyfriend's collection of 70s funk albums for my iPod; however, I did without his shouts and screams today and settled for a nice, long natter with Mr Lumpy Badger over the course of a 15.7 mile run instead. For the badger boy, this was the furthest he'd ever run (go Badger, go!); for me, this marked the end of 8 weeks of London training so far, which entitles me to a little more marathon reminiscing.

Following Amsterdam 2005, I was certain that I had to run another marathon and, more importantly, that it had be better than the first experience. My lunatic friends were reassuringly keen for another adventure too, so we settled on a weekend away to run Dublin Marathon in October 2006. Luckily, my failings at Amsterdam were solely due to my own inadequacies, so that was fairly easy to remedy; I consulted the Runners World "ultimate" training schedules and decided to put in the advised 16 weeks of hard work, instead of the 10 weeks of faffing and denial I'd resorted to previously. In pursuit of marathon fitness, I also managed to lose about 10 kg; now that doesn't sound a lot when you're packing to meet Ryanair's uncompromising baggage allowance, but it definitely felt a lot when carrying said baggage to the youth hostel and it was comforting to know that I wouldn't have to carry that additional mass around another 26.2 miles.

In Amsterdam, we learned a lot about appropriate preparation on the day of the marathon (or at least about inappropriate preparation). In Dublin, we learned exactly what to do the day before: namely, a trip to the Guinness factory for my first ever pint of this nutritious, yet delicious, sports drink. In fact, this is a pre-race ritual I have grown very much accustomed to since (the pint, that is, not the factory). We were organised enough even to sort out some breakfast for the race morning and looked very wise and experienced as we chowed down on muesli and yogurt, instead of pastries and cold coffee, at 6am in the hostel common room; all the more, we took pity on a nice Swedish man who was eating a very sad looking banana for sustenance. We saw him later that day and found out he'd run the race in about 2:30, we hoped, in part, thanks to our mercy muesli.

The start in the centre of the city was a big improvement on the train journey to the outskirts of Amsterdam, but the crowded streets made it slow going to the start line; still, chip timing saved any worries and it wasn't long before we were on our way on what has remained my favourite marathon to date. Everywhere the course went, there was cheery support: from shouts of encouragement to hand outs of sweets and lollies. The course went through one estate where the local children had devised dance routines to keep the runners going and families had set up makeshift water tables outside their houses. It might be a stereotype to say the Irish are friendly, but with this evidence to go on, what else do you expect me to say? The training had also paid off, meaning I could enjoy the distractions whilst maintaining a halfway respectable pace. I finished in 4:07, a 40 minute improvement of my Amsterdam time, and the finishers' photo had much bigger smiles than the one taken 12 months previously. I'm a long way off a run like this on April 17th 2011, but knowing that I can enjoy a marathon this much is enough to keep me going with my more pedestrian pace for now.

You'd be right to wonder how the weekend could have got much better, but it did. James Brown had taken his "Seven Decades Of Funk World Tour" to Dublin that weekend and, passing the theatre, we managed to score some last minute tickets to watch his gig that night. The bouncer was very apologetic that our seats at the front on the balcony were "too dangerous" for us to stand up and dance on; we grinned and accepted his apology, happy to rest our weary legs and let the late, great Mr Brown do the dancing. What a show! I think I might consider using his "cape routine" in a race one day as a tribute.

Lessons learned by running Dublin marathon:
Marathons are fun.
A few kilos make a big difference.
Go to see aging soul legends while you have the chance.

A half, in quarters(ish)

2011-02-13T18:17:00.011Z

Today was Wokingham half marathon: a great event that I'm very fond of running (well-organised, chip timing, scores of cheery marshals and loads of loos). This year, it was perfect timing for some London training so I gratefully accepted a lift from the Badger Clan and lined up in the drizzle to do my first half since October 2008. Rather than subject you to a full-blown race report, I thought I'd summarise my main thoughts during the very enjoyable 2 hours 10 minutes and 54 seconds that I spent running in the wind and rain this morning:

That healthy kick of realism in the 4th phase was fine with me. There's a lot of work to do in the next 9 weeks; however, more optimistically, it's nice to know that a lot can be done in that time. Meanwhile, today's efforts have been celebrated spectacularly with a pint of Guinness and a stonking feed at the pub. Perfect Sunday.

Carry on Running

2011-02-11T20:36:00.004Z

At yesterday's track session, I received a rare compliment about my running style:

"You have a lovely quick running cadence and the quietest feet here tonight," remarked our coach as he jogged casually alongside me mid-interval.

"Thank you!" I spluttered and panted, surprised yet flattered.

"You're making me breathe quite heavily now."

Oh er, missus.

White noise

2011-02-06T19:59:00.008Z

Please accept our apologies for the interruption to transmission this week. Our engineers have been working on this as our main priority and we hope to restore normal service following Janathon.

Conveniently, a particularly busy week at work fell after, rather than during, Janathon and enforced a brief pause in training and blogging. With legs feeling much better for the rest and Sunday here again, I was raring to go again this morning. Ever supportive of my running efforts, lovely boyfriend initiated a conversation about my training aims for the day:

If you've read this far then I presume you have better manners than lovely boyfriend and won't tune out completely to this update; however, I may try to catch you out, so do try to keep your wits about you.

Indeed, Wokingham half marathon is just next week: an opportunity for some pre-London miles with the distraction of a race atmosphere and some different roads. Gah! The sky has just turned purple! I certainly have no PB ambitions but it'll be good to see how the distance feels now. After last week's accidentally long run, I thought today would be a good chance to test out the effects of the Janathon mileage with a shorter effort. Woah! Look! A flying monkey! I thought a direct comparison with January 1st would be most telling, so I set my GPS to bleep after 10K and off I went. It certainly was blowing a hooley this morning, but I powered on in the Force 9 gale and managed to shave a very satisfying 3 minutes from my hungover New Year's Day shuffle. Behold! A man running backwards! I loved Janathon and I hope the mileage has established a good base for the year, but there were times when I thought I was just training myself to run slower and slower. The aim for February is to run less but run better. So far so good.

For the record, I actually saw a man running backwards today. I wasn't sure if it was a training drill or whether he'd succumbed to the effects of the headwind.

31) 12 step programme

2011-01-31T17:24:00.004Z

So, here we are. Our beloved festival of activity and excuses is drawing to a close and 31 days have been jogged, logged and blogged. A huge well done to all involved in Janathon - starters, finishers and side-lined family members.

Upon reading about the potential effects of janatholism, my good friend and keen Janathon supporter/widow, Mrs Lumpy Badger, commented,

There's a twelve step program to help with this sort of thing. The second step is February...

I'm just not sure if I'm ready to go cold turkey though. The withdrawal symptoms could be worse than the potential effects of pursuing this for another month. For our own health and sanity, I'd like to propose we continue on with:

Febtathlon? No? Too pink?

Well, I guess this is it then. *Sob*

Thank you, Cathy; thank you, blog writers; thank you, blog readers; and thank you, Ron.

It has been a blast.

Day 31 - Road to recovery run
Distance: 3.27 miles
Time: 38:19
Av Pace: 11:43 min/mile
Cake rating: 31/31 (boom)

Cumulative Janathising: 140.5 miles running + 129.2 miles cycling + 2.9 miles swimming

30) Binging

2011-01-30T15:14:00.006Z

Like many Janathoners, I have a busy job, but it's a busy job that I love and I'm fortunate that the uncompromising hours are offset by some pretty generous holidays. In term time, it's so easy to say, "I can't go training, I've got too much to do". Then the holidays get here and I go bonkers for a week until I end up knackered, injured or both. Lovely boyfriend refers to this cycle as "binge training".

Let's be honest now, Janathon has been one long training binge; however, this has been far more useful than any training binge I've ever been on before. By doing Janathon, I've learned that I can go training in term time; in fact, I can do so much more than go training in term time. I'm really looking forward to February, not so that I can have a rest from running, but because I'm excited to see what a "normal" week might look like. What I really hope is that it's going to look a whole lot different to what a normal week had become last year.

According to my totals on RunningFree, I have run for 27 hours, cycled for 12 hours and swum for 2 hours so far this month. That adds up to a crude estimate of 27610 kcal burned (using this website); that could be cancelled out by one heck of a binge:

27610 kcal = 3.2 of these bad boys

Would you like a slice?

Day 30 - Unintentionally long run
Distance: 15.19 miles
Time: 2:54:25
Av Pace: 11:28 min/mile
Cake rating: 5/5 (enough to earn a quarter of that cake)

Cumulative Janathising: 137.2 miles running + 129.2 miles cycling + 2.9 miles swimming

29) We're going on a long run

2011-01-29T13:46:00.024Z

It's Sunday tomorrow, which means a long run for many of us. To get you in the mood, may I present:

"We're going on a long run"
(With sincere apologies to Michael Rosen):

If you'd like to turn this into a piece of performance poetry to keep you going on your long run tomorrow, then take a look at this video for some helpful hints:

Day 29 - Run to dinner at Fattipuff's house
Distance: 3.12 miles
Time: 35:17
Av Pace: 11:18
Cake rating: 5/5 (1 trolley, several puddles, no hills, delicious dinner waiting)

Cumulative Janathising: 122.0 miles running + 129.2 miles cycling + 2.9 miles swimming

28) A mini-adventure

2011-01-28T16:30:00.026Z

I have a whole weekend off work. A WHOLE WEEKEND. This also meant an early finish today and the rare opportunity for a weekday run in daylight; something that should be grabbed with both hands. As I cycled home, I was pondering what I should do, "Hmmm. Long run this weekend? How far do I really want to run this afternoon? Could just do a mile."

It's lucky there are some wise, wise Janathoners whose blogs I can turn to when stuck for inspiration. For instance, there's Guru Maggie and her Positive Running Belief^TM philosophy; she made me think, "Whatever I do today, I'm going to use my PRB^TM". Then there's Janathon deity, Local Adventures, whose approach to running is both awesome and refreshing. Local had commented on Maggie's blog yesterday, saying that he finds his PRB^TM is helped by having targets. But not necessarily distance or time targets; instead, he suggests experience targets, like "I will run through puddles". What a fantastic idea! Time and distance targets are all well and good, but they can grow tiresome and even demotivating if all doesn't go to plan. This made me think about setting a target for today's run. In teacher jargon, a good target should be SMART:

Specific
Measurable
Achievable
Relevant
Time-related
So I thought hard and decided on today's experience target:

"I will get my shoes muddy on my run today"
SMART. The pavement plodding and commuter running had grown quite tedious and the remaining daylight meant I could head out for a mini-adventure to the woods. No distance I have to run, no intervals I have to count, no recoveries I have to time. Just get yer shoes good and filthy. Perfect. I hadn't felt so excited about a run in months.

I dug out these boys for the occasion and took a before picture. As you can see, they were already a little grubby, but this mud is older than some of my friends' children.

The woods are at the top of this steep hill. Not a problem. I had Maggie's message and PRB^TM on my side today. The road said SLOW. I said, "So?".

At the top, I began my quest for mud. There were a few puddles and a bit of frozen earth at first, not quite what I was after; however, a bit of persistence led me to this:

Mission accomplished. Target reached. Running triumph.

The reward?

Trundling on home, I got back to the SLOW sign. This time I thought, "Not on your nelly!" and I ran down the hill like a 7 year old chasing an ice cream van.

Here's the after photo of my shoes and socks. I think some of the mud may have fallen off on the way down the hill, but it's left a trail that says, "I ran here and it was 'king awesome!".

1 target, 2 runners and 3 miles have taught me a lot today. Thank you, Maggie and Local. I think I might take my PRB^TM to the PUB this evening and raise a glass to Janathon.

Day 28 - Muddy run
Distance: 3.62 miles
Time: Not important.
Av Pace: Who cares?
Cake rating: 5/5 ('king brilliant)

Day 28 - Cycle commuting
Distance: 7.81 miles
Time: 46:10
Speed: 10.2 mph

Cumulative Janathising: 118.9 miles running + 129.2 miles cycling + 2.9 miles swimming

27) Furriballs and other beasts

2011-01-27T20:28:00.006Z

This is our pet wolf*, Furriballs. He's a lovely creature. We decided to inflate him when I felt the need to increase core strength and stability; lovely boyfriend's bicycle pump did the job rather well.

This little fellow is a new addition to the household. He's a bit shy and likes warm, dark places; he'll often disappear under your buttocks after a run.

Then there's this beast. We normally keep him muzzled in a cage in the garden. He's a vicious creature that likes to attack fleshy areas; in the past, he has been known to cause significant pain to my outer thighs.

*No wolves were actually harmed in the writing of this blog. But if you also own a bright purple gym ball that looks unsightly in your living room, rather than inflating your pet, you could have a look here.

Day 27 - Track session
Distance: 3.72 miles [inc 3 x 800 m steady]
Time: 0:40:17 (of 1 hour session; more running, less listening this week [800s @ no frinkin' clue, stupid GPS)
Av Pace: 10:49 min/mile
Cake rating: 3/5 (brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr)

Day 27 - Cycle commuting (home-work-track-home)
Distance: 11.25 miles
Time: 1:04:21
Speed: 10.5 mph

Cumulative Janathising: 115.3 miles running + 121.4 miles cycling + 2.9 miles swimming

26) Manners

2011-01-26T20:58:00.010Z

Where I grew up it is tradition
to give a nod of recognition
to other runners, slow or fast,
as you go gaily cant’ring past.

Where I’m from it's de rigueur
with other runners to concur
that running on mile after mile
is helped by just a little smile.

This tradition should translate,
as you go from place to place,
but what I've found since moving east
is a far, far colder beast.

So aloof, important, busy:
“How dare this woman blonde and dizzy
try to interrupt our morning rush
with that daft grin upon her mush?”

I'm lucky if I get a grimace,
it's like I've tried to lick their face.
At worst, they spit and cough and hack,
as if I've begged a piggy back.

It really, really makes me sad.
What am I doing that's so bad?
But I'll continue with my visage
And try to spread my jolly message.

Jogging, fartlek, sprints, whatever;
No matter how diverse our endeavour,
All I ask is your permission
To nod and say "I know your mission".

With thanks to the one runner (of 11 seen) that nodded back this morning.
You made my day.

Day 26 - Run to work
Distance: 3.90 miles
Time: 48:16
Av Pace: 12:22 min/mile
Cake rating: 2/5 (1 for each of the smiley runners out this morning)

Day 26 - Cycle commuting
Distance: 3.93 miles
Time: 26:27
Speed: 8.9 mph

Cumulative Janathising: 111.6 miles running + 110.1 miles cycling + 2.9 miles swimming

25) What would Ron wear?

2011-01-25T20:08:00.020Z

Have you jogged, logged and blogged every day in January?

Do you have a testimony of courage and discipline to share with your friends and family?

Do you have a desire to share your belief in Ron?

What Would Ron Do?

Ron boldly proclaims the message to RUN!

Check out our new range of WWRD merchanise available to help you boldly proclaim the message to RUN!

SPECIAL OFFER! WWRD Rubber wrist band ~~£20.00~~ £10.00!

NOW with bonus motivational message:

For something more elegant, try Fatipuff's bespoke silver jewellery. This charming bracelet is what we like to call an "all-rounder" - the sort of thing one can wear with any outfit, to any occasion.

Finally, if you wish to proclaim Ron's message loud and clear, check out our new line of WWRD apparel. Coming soon!

Available in white or pink, naturally

Remember, if you are fighting a weak will in the face of strong temptation and need a reminder of your belief in a moral imperative to act in a manner that would demonstrate your love of Janathon, just ask yourself:

"What would Ron do?"

Day 25 - Cycle commuting
Distance: 3.90 miles
Time: 22:16
Speed: 10.5 mph

Day 25 - Run home
Distance: 3.88 miles
Time: 48:20
Av Pace: 12:27 min/mile
Cake rating: 2/5 (gimmestrength)

Cumulative Janathising: 107.7 miles running + 106.2 miles cycling + 2.9 miles swimming

24) Outliers

2011-01-24T17:05:00.013Z

I have realised that yesterday's blog presents a significant outlier on my graph showing the relationship between miles run and blogworthy news. In fact, today, I've run under 2 miles and I really have very little of interest to talk about. Perhaps we ought to take another look:

I wonder now if I was too hasty with my interpolation. The shame.

Not wishing to present anything other than the most robust statistical analysis, I have re-plotted the graph using all 24 Janathon data points to date.

As feared, you will see that the previously postulated line of best fit is wildly off the mark; however, an altogether more significant correlation has presented itself instead:

"What would Ron do?"

Run.

Day 24 - Recovery run
Distance: 1.83 miles
Time: 22:06
Av Pace: 12:04 min/mile
Cake rating: 3/5 (not statistically significant)

Day 24 - Tri club swim
Distance: 2400 metres
Time: 1 hr session
Cake rating: 3/5 (I wonder if Ron swims?)

Day 24 - Cycle commuting
Distance: 7.86 miles
Time: 47:32
Speed: 9.9 mph

Cumulative Janathising: 103.8 miles running + 102.3 miles cycling + 2.9 miles swimming

23) Amsterdam

2011-01-23T14:40:00.018Z

You should run your first marathon for the right reasons, because you'll never be the same person again. You must want to do it, not do it because your boss did it or your spouse did it.

(Bill Wenmark, running coach. Via Runner's World Daily Kick in the Butt)

I'm not sure what Bill's position would be on "entering a marathon because your squiffy mate, Hammo, said she was going to and you were so squiffy you agreed", but that's how I found myself entering my first marathon in 2005. Truth is, I'd always wanted to be able to say I'd done a marathon, my dad ran one when I was very small (apparently I spectated from my pushchair asking helpfully, "Where's Daddy? Why is he taking so long? Why does he look so tired?"), and I'd been accumulating a small stack of London rejection fleeces in the years running up to this.

It wasn't long before Hammo's persuasive nature had taken a further 3 victims and a crew of five were preparing to tackle our maiden marathon. "How had she managed to do this?" you might ask. By disguising this test of endurance as a jolly weekend jaunt to Amsterdam is how. She is a cunning creature indeed.

I don't remember exactly what I did in terms of trying to find a training programme but I do know that I can't have followed it very well. I do seem to remember thinking I was still quite fit from rowing and cycling (this was a delusion); I also sprained my ankle playing netball about 5 months before the marathon, thus enabling me to procrastinate a little further before starting with the training (this was unwise); finally, I do remember going out for one long run, where I ran as far as I could, basing my mileage on an approximation of 10 min/mile and came home when I was tired after 3 hours or so, claiming it to have been at least 18 miles (this was totally inaccurate and wildly short of the mark, I later discovered using Google maps).

So, in hindsight, my training had been delusional, unwise and inaccurate. Terrific stuff.

Lucky then that I was blissfully unaware of this. In fact, the scale of the task we had undertaken only really began to hit home whilst perusing the map over a pizza the night before. Fortunately, we had innocently installed ourselves on a table outside a pizzeria directly opposite a coffee house and we grew passively more positive as the evening wore on.

Race morning arrived and we faced the first task of finding some breakfast before locating the right train to take us to the out of town start. Hammo was on the ball and got us to the right platform, but we were less prepared with the nutritional aspects and grabbed ourselves some coffee and croissants from a grubby kiosk at the station. The journey was a truly enlightening experience: firstly, by meeting a chap we called "100 marathon man" - he had a special t-shirt on that proclaimed this and he took great pride in warning us that we were grossly unprepared for the day's events; secondly, we discovered that the train journey was just long enough to take us through steps 1-4 of the 5 phases of caffeine intake. We hurriedly bid farewell to 100 marathon man and trotted as fast as we could to the portaloos and bag drop.

As far as the run itself, I think I remember 4 main aspects of the course:

1) 3 laps of the stadium: at the start, halfway through and at the finish. The one at halfway forced me to go to my special place and have a stern chat with myself.

2) The 5 mile out and back along the river: here I saw thousands of runners on the other side of the river at least 10 miles ahead of me. Special place visited again.

3) The industrial estate: a part of the course where tumbleweed replaced spectators.

4) The finish: specifically having to do a final lap of that wretched track, the kind lady who took my timing tag off because I couldn't bend down, and eventually finding my cheering friends who had all finished before me.

I have few other memories of the run itself, except that I know I have truly never been more relieved to finish a race. Oh, and that Gatorade is not a sports drink I like to consume, let alone wear for several hours after sloshing it over myself from a crumpled plastic cup. I realise that I may sound a little negative about my first marathon, but I was pretty gutted at this point. Gutted at myself for preparing so badly and gutted that I wasn't as fit as I thought. There were many great things about the race too, not least the brilliant idea by the organisers to abandon the tried and tested space-blanket and replace it with this example of sartorial elegance (modelled below by Hammo).

Maybe Bill was right and I did enter for the wrong reasons but it all changed on that day. I would definitely tackle another marathon and this time it would be personal.

I have found today has been the toughest of Janathon so far; I have very little to complain about in life but I arrived home aching and tired from work yesterday and woke today grumpy that I would have fit in a long run before going back in to work this evening. Only I didn't have to go and do a long run at all, did I? I chose to enter VLM and I really want to run it. If I want to get better at this sport I love, I'm going to have to get out there and put the work in. So I did, wearing my bright orange Amsterdam 2005 t-shirt. And in doing so managed to go through the 100 mile mark today.

Today is 23rd of Janathon, it also ends Week 4 of my marathon training. If I make it to Week 8, 12, and 16, then I'll blog about the 2nd, 3rd and 4th marathons, respectively. Lucky you.

Lessons learned by running Amsterdam marathon:
A marathon is quite a long way.
A 16 mile "long run" is not long enough.
Gatorade is like lemon-flavoured sweat.

Day 23 - Long slow run
Distance: 12.12 miles
Time: 2:19:49
Av Pace: 11:32 min/mile
Cake rating: 5/5 (because I know now I feel better for running 12 miles than I would have from watching the Hollyoaks omnibus)

Cumulative Janathising: 102.0 miles running + 94.5 miles cycling + 1.4 miles swimming

22) Rein-Venn-tion

2011-01-22T16:20:00.017Z

Following Thursday's post on attempting to achieve work/life balance this month, top Janathon Health and Wellness experts, Dr Maggie and Dr Midgie, expressed concerns over the absence of eating and sleeping from my routine.

Fear not, my esteemed colleagues, these two occupations form integral parts of my lifestyle and I have incorporated them into my diagram as follows:

Thank you for your concern. I am definitely well-nourished, if a little sleep-deprived; however, I fear that my Venn diagram may have been rendered as helpful as knickers on a kipper. Or, to put it another way:

("Math" by Tenso Graphics - check out their other awesome illustrations)

Day 22 - Sleep run to work
Distance: 3.87 miles
Time: 0:48:27
Av Pace: 12:31 min/mile
Cake rating: 4/5 (running equivalent of a snooze button)

Day 22 - Cycle commuting
Distance: 3.83 miles
Time: 25:16
Speed: 9.1 mph

Cumulative Janathising: 89.9 miles running + 94.5 miles cycling + 1.4 miles swimming

21) JOGLE Janalogy

2011-01-21T17:30:00.010Z

A few years ago, my good friend, Mary, and I decided that we wanted to cycle from John O'Groats to Land's End (JOGLE). I won't go into too much detail; but suffice to say that a combination of naïvety, determination and Vaseline will get you a long way and we completed the ride in 12 days. One of our Janathon number, Chris@Silly'sJogle (go and check out his website!), is planning an altogether more impressive feat by running from John O'Groats to Land's End later this year and I'm really looking forward to following his progress.

Something Mary and I insisted on doing each day wasn't just the no-double-dipping-in-the-Vaseline-pot-policy but also looking at a big map of the UK in a road atlas to see how far we'd covered. This was pretty punishing in the first few days, it looked like we'd accomplished barely anything; but there was a point when we thought, "Holy moley, look at how much of Britain we've cycled!". Since you know I love a good Janathon progress analogy (a Janalogy, if you will), I thought I'd make a JOGLE map to show you where we've got to at the end of Week 3:

Day 21 - we have made it 610 miles to Herefordshire!

Only 268 miles to go. I wonder if Jules@2011 will make us all a nice cup of tea when we make it into Cornwall?

Day 21 - Cycle commuting
Distance: 3.90 miles
Time: 22:14
Speed: 10.5 mph

Day 21 - Inspired (but not inspiring) run home from work
Distance: 3.86 miles
Time: 0:46:01
Av Pace: 11:55 min/mile
Cake rating: 4/5 (inspired by listening to a man who'd rowed the Atlantic and climbed Everest; he made my run home seem very insignificant in comparison but the route seem very dull)

Cumulative Janathising: 86.0 miles running + 90.6 miles cycling + 1.4 miles swimming

20) E-Venn-tful evenings

2011-01-20T08:10:00.017Z

In the midst of a busy week, I've been contemplating some ideas on how to maximise the "life" part in my work/life balance during January. Here are my thoughts so far:

Work to live? Live to run? Run to work...
...I'd better go and sort out the shoe logistics for the latter.

Day 20 - Track session
Distance: 2.70 miles [inc 4 x 400 m steady pacing]
Time: 0:28:45 (of 1 hour session, lots of standing around listening again) [400s @ 2:15, 2:12, 2:10, 2:08]
Av Pace: 10:38 min/mile
Cake rating: 4/5 (I'm slow, but at least I'm quite consistently slow)

Day 20 - Cycle commuting (home-work-track-home)
Distance: 11.37 miles
Time: 1:06:57
Speed: 10.2 mph

Cumulative Janathising: 82.1 miles running + 86.7 miles cycling + 1.4 miles swimming

19) A conundrum

2011-01-19T20:43:00.009Z

I was thinking of setting this as a brainteaser tomorrow:

Your teacher has a cupboard full of shoes in her classroom and would like to run every day in January. She has a bike to travel to and from work, which can carry one pair of shoes in the panniers, whilst she wears another pair on her feet; or she could run, wearing just one pair of shoes but not carrying any. If the old trainers and new trainers are left at work, she won’t have her nice trainers to go running on Sunday; if she leaves all her shoes at home, she won’t be able to run home from work. How can she travel to and from work, wearing the correct shoes and ensuring she can go to the track on a Thursday and do her long run on Sunday? Remember, the fox will eat the chicken if left together; there is room for just 3 people in the hot air balloon; and there is only one parachute.

Please answer in full sentences and include a diagram with your explanation.

Day 19 - Run to work in stinky old running shoes
Distance: 3.85 miles
Time: 0:46:55
Pace: 12:11 min/mile
Cake rating: 3/5 (slow but beautiful morning run)

Day 19 - Cycle commute in cycling shoes
Distance: 3.92 miles
Time: 26:41
Speed: 8.8 mph (overtaken by a slug in flip flops)

Cumulative Janathising: 79.4 miles running + 75.3 miles cycling + 1.4 miles swimming

18) Don't panic!

2011-01-18T20:17:00.026Z

Dear Janathoners,

YOur Courage, YOur Cheerfulness, YOur Resolution
Will Bring Us Victory.

(Via Keep Calm-o-matic)

"What would Ron do?".

Ron would run. Ron's not worried.

Day 18 - Cycle commute
Distance: 3.83 miles
Time: 0:22:42
Speed: 10.1 mph

Day 18 - WWRD Interval Run
Distance: 5.59 miles [1.1 mile warm up; 4 x 0.5 mile intervals + 2 min jog recovery; ~1.9 mile cool down]
Time: 1:06:47 [0.5 mile times: 1@ 5:21; 2@ 5:02; 3@ 5:04, 4@ 5:07]
Av Pace: 11:56 min/mile
Cake rating: 3/5 (Ron to the rescue)

Cumulative Janathising: 75.8 miles running + 71.4 miles cycling + 1.4 miles swimming

17) Excuse Generator

2011-01-17T17:02:00.004Z

Week 2 is done and we're on to the second half of Janathon; however, there's a new working week stretching ahead so you may wish to use my revolutionary, patented, brand-spanking new Excuse Generator:

Reassuringly, as you can see, there is only one real way out of the Excuse Generator.

Day 17 - No excuses run before swimming
Distance: 1.87 miles
Time: 20:54
Av Pace: 11:10 min/mile
Cake rating: 3/5 (sore leglets today)

Day 17 - First swim of 2011
Distance: 2200 metres (sorry, I run in imperial and swim in metric)
Time: 1 hr session
Cake rating: 3/5 (skill and drills, simulated drowning and some evil 50s)

Cumulative Janathising: 70.2 miles running + 67.6 miles cycling + 1.4 miles swimming

16) Long run, in short

2011-01-16T11:01:00.012Z

Sometimes a graph is worth a thousand words:

Day 16 - Long slow run
Distance: 10.13 miles
Time: 1:58:44
Av Pace: 11:43 min/mile
Cake rating: 5/5 (double flippin' figures, baby!)

Cumulative Janathising: 68.3 miles running + 67.6 miles cycling

15) Rosé tinted

2011-01-15T20:39:00.007Z

You wouldn't be too far from the mark if you were to proffer that I'm not really one of life's morning people. If I ruled the world, I'd probably ban single digits on alarm clocks (just so you know). I'd been a bit apprehensive about the first Saturday of work in 2011 and I'll even admit to making one or two grumbly noises involving words like "fiddlesticks" and "goodness gracious, it's jolly early for a weekend" when the alarms (I have 2, in case I batter one of them to smithereens) went off this morning. Wisely, I ran home from work last night, leaving my bike stranded there and forcing me to peel on some manky kit and plod my way back in the dark and drizzle this morning.

Now, contrary to the picture I'm painting, I don't particularly like being grumpy; it's too much like hard work (hard work that doesn't even count as exercise for Janathon). So I weighed up my options: (1) continue to stomp along, muttering away to myself, "too-fffnnnn-early-too-ffnnn-dark-grrr"; or (2) have a bit of a chat with myself, HTFU and admit I was actually quite enjoying running so early on a Saturday morning whilst most normal people were asleep.

The result? I did enjoy the run (despite the painfully slow pace) and overall it has been a cracking day since (if you are interested, the highlights have included making parachutes, measuring the force of friction acting on a running shoe (must count for Janathon, surely?), coaching netball and teaching the 5 Ds of dodgeball).

The power of optimism, eh? In honour of this turnaround, I'm going to be so bold as to claim Day 15 as near enough half way through Janathon (or at least it will be by halfway round your run tomorrow) and celebrate it appropriately by raising a glass of vino pinko.

As we approach half way, is your Janathon glass half empty or half full?

Day 15 - Thirsty run
Distance: 3.87 miles
Time: 0:51:27
Av Pace: 13:41 min/mile (how so slow?!?)
Cake rating: 4/5 (glass half full but I'm ready for a refill, excellent)

Day 15 - Cycle commuting
Distance: 3.79 miles
Time: 24:37
Speed: 9.2 mph

Cumulative Janathising: 58.2 miles running + 67.6 miles cycling

14) Janatholism: Part 3

2011-01-14T21:27:00.021Z

jan·ath·ol·i·sm (jan-uth-ol-izum)
n. Pathology
A chronic disorder characterised by dependence on jogging, logging and blogging. Symptoms may include excessive sweating; fabrication of outlandish excuses; the development of withdrawal symptoms on reducing or ceasing access to the internet; a steadily declining grip on reality; and decreased ability to function socially.

(Janatholism Symptoms Part 1 - Preparation)
(Janatholism Symptoms Part 2 - Delegation)

The physical effects of janatholism may range from mild muscle soreness to complete loss of coordination and normal walking gait; however, janatholism is a both a physical and psychological condition. In the early stages, the janatholic will insist that running and blogging are purely social endeavours, that they could stop if they wanted to. Gradually, an increase in tolerance develops, meaning that excessive mileage or extra hours spent reading and commenting on blogs are required to "feel the buzz" or to "get high". In the later stages of dependency, janatholics will stop at nothing to get their fix. This is generally known as "going the extra mile". Could this be you?

Part 3 - Dedication:

1) Have you turned an innocent trip to the shops into an excuse for a Janathon outing?*

2) Have you taken the long way round the garden in your dressing gown to clock up extra mileage?**

3) Have you have wondered if running through the stroke of midnight will count as 2 runs on 2 separate days?***

4) Have you have experienced total lapses in common sense just to complete some extra exercise?

“Hmm, if I use my left hand to open this can of beans, I wonder if that will count for Janathon? What about if I take off both the top and the bottom?”

…moments later….

“Oh no, there seem to be beans all over the floor. I wonder if the cleaning will count for Janathon…”

5) Are you constantly extrapolating your efforts into a predicted total for the month?

"If I opened two of those cans every day from now until the end, that will make... erm.... 34 cans of beans opened.... GO ME!".

Know the signs, people. Preparation, Delegation, Dedication.

And if you are a janatholic... well done on completing Week 2!

[Thank you - *LazyGirlRunning; **JogBlog; ***Notmuchofarunner]

Day 14 - Cycle commuting
Distance: 3.93 miles
Time: 21:56
Speed: 10.8 mph

Day 14 - Unplanned run home from work in a fit of Week 2 excitement
Distance: 3.85 miles
Time: 0:46:21
Av Pace: 12:02 min/mile
Cake rating: 4/5 (actually rather enjoyable)

Cumulative Janathising: 54.3 miles running + 63.8 miles cycling

13) Janatholism: Part 2

2011-01-13T21:37:00.011Z

12) Janatholism: Part 1

2011-01-12T18:53:00.017Z

jan·ath·ol·i·sm (jan-uth-ol-izum)
n. Pathology
A chronic disorder characterised by dependence on jogging, logging and blogging. Symptoms may include excessive sweating; fabrication of outlandish excuses; the development of withdrawal symptoms on reducing or ceasing access to the internet; a steadily declining grip on reality; and decreased ability to function socially.

It is important that you know the symptoms of janatholism so you can recognise it in yourself and others at an early stage.

Janatholism Symptoms Part 1 - Preparation:

1) Dependents will insist that their toenails must be kept short for running; fingernails short for blogging.

2) They will maintain that running shoes and white socks can be paired with any clothing (jeans/office gear/highland dress), making a style statement that they are fully prepared to defend if it means they can head out for a jog at any time.

3) Accompanying outfits for (2) are generally chosen based on visibility and/or breathability for the same reason.

4) They will happily put upper body mobility on hold for the entire month of January; it's much easier to wear a sports bra all day than waste precious running time contorting oneself to get into it later on. (Generally affects only ladies. Or does it? We are here to help, not judge.)

5) They are prepared to sleep in clean running kit to ensure a swift start to their run in the morning.

6) They may even consider sleeping in dirty running kit when really pushed for time. (Only in very extreme cases of janatholism will dependents actually do this. This is rare; however, recovery from this degree of dependence is improbable.)

Tomorrow, Janatholism Symptoms Part 2 - Delegation...

Day 12 - Slow morning run to work in warm kit
Distance: 3.26 miles
Time: 0:40:39
Pace: 12:28 min/mile
Cake rating: 3/5 (legs pretty duff from last night)

Day 12 - Cycle commute back up the hill of doom
Distance: 3.91 miles
Time: 25:18
Speed: 9.3 mph

Cumulative Janathising: 47.7 miles running + 48.6 miles cycling

11) Breakfast of champions

2011-01-11T19:30:00.014Z

Important news, folks.

Ron has spoken again.

Last time he spoke, it was through the mysterious medium of flat-pack furniture assembly. How, I hear you ask, did he manifest himself this time?

...

...

...

2 words....

1 tasty snack...

26 pasta letters* swimming in a strangely sweet tomato sauce...

Yes...

Alphabetti Spaghetti.

It's true. I know it because I saw it with my eyes.

What would you do, Ron?

Run. Ron said so.

(*I have reason to believe that Ron would also like to have said "JOG LOG BLOG" if it weren't for a frustrating lack of Gs. Make that 25 letters.)

Day 11 - CYCLE
Distance: 3.9 miles
Time: 0:21:58
Speed: 10.8 mph

Day 11 - RUN
Distance: 6.65 miles [1.25 mile warm up; 3 x 1 mile intervals + 3 min jog recovery; ~1.7 mile cool down]
Time: 1:18:05 [1 mile times: 1@ 10:37; 2@ 10:27; 3@ 10:35]
Av Pace: 11:44 min/mile
Cake rating: 2/5 (*OING UP HILL AT THE END WAS *RUESOME, *RIM AND *HASTLY)

Cumulative Janathising: 44.5 miles running + 44.6 miles cycling

10) Ten for ten

2011-01-10T07:57:00.005Z

Laughter and tears are both responses to frustration and exhaustion. I myself prefer to laugh, since there is less cleaning up to do afterward.

Kurt Vonnegut

For Day 10, 10 blog posts that have brought a smile to my cakey chops during the first 10 days of Janathon.

In no particular order:

Accountability’s indoor running
Dadoorunrun’s sports bra haiku
JogBlog's happy, pink bike
The Magathon's squirrel conspiracy theories
The VR's gym rant
RunHelenRun's animated treadmill disaster
39midlifecrisis' ripple stomach threatens to halt the treadmill
Thereisasixpackunderhere's onions all the way
Fattipuff needs an abacus
MrLumpyBadger takes photon 2 pruv to septical poeple he si bolgging and tairning.

Thank you for making me smile.

Day 10 - 1 mile run too early for laughter
Distance: 1.1 miles
Time: 0:11:47
Pace: 11:00 min/mile
Cake rating: 2/5 (Ugh. Not a morning person.)

Edited to add:
Day 10 - Controversial cycle commuting miles
Distance: 7.8 miles
Time: 0:47:15
Speed: 10 mph
Cake rating: No cake, it's work. Controversial logging of commuter miles?! Tough. I'm going to because: (a) I want to compare times through the year; (b) it would be easy not to cycle and to drive instead; (c) cycling shoes = kit; (d) it's hilly; (e) I'm out of reasons; (f) ha. Ooh, rarely have I been so controversial. I should do that more often. It felt good.

Cumulative Janathising: 37.9 miles running + 40.7 miles cycling

9) Bikes, bungees and bricks

2011-01-09T10:26:00.034Z

Lovely boyfriend is a racing snake. He doesn't like to run but he rides bikes at speeds unfathomable to many human beings. I, on the other hand, go weeks without going out on my bike and still somehow expect to be able to keep up. I'll always complete the ride, due to a freakish level of determination, but not always without a hint of grumbling. I like to call this a talent; lovely boyfriend says it is a liability. He's a patient man.

I try to slow him down with cake, but it just makes him stronger.

Sometimes, when struggling to stay together on a climb, I am offered the "Hand of God" - a gentle push to maintain momentum; but it's hardly the safest and tends to provoke more grumbling, especially if initiated without prior consent.

Lovely boyfriend was very pleased with himself to find an article earlier in the week reviewing a bungee contraption that's supposed to make it easier for racing snakes and cake eaters to remain on speaking terms. Might be just the ticket. I'm sure we have some bungee cord in the shed somewhere; however, if you read all of the article, you'll find a video for an altogether more exciting use of a bungee and a bike:

No bungees featured in today's efforts sadly, but a chatty bike ride in the sun was followed by a quick shoe change and a laboured plod around the block to try out my new running shoes. I do believe this is known as a "brick session" in triathlon street lingo. Word.

Day 9 - Cycling (without bungee assistance)
Distance: 32.9 miles
Time: 2:23:00
Speed: 13.8 mph
Cake rating: 4/5 (completed with minimal grumbling - may or may not have involved cake)

Day 9 - Quick shoe change and 1 mile run
Distance: 1.1 miles
Time: 0:11:38
Pace: 10:52 min/mile
Cake rating: 2/5 (felt like a bungee had got caught on the back of my tights)

Cumulative Janathising: 36.8 miles running + 32.9 miles cycling

8) Dreamtweeting

2011-01-08T15:54:00.015Z

About 4 miles into my run today, I saw an abandoned bed plonked on the cycle path. Someone must've known I'd be doing my "long" run today and put it there to tempt me. The will was strong though and, with Ron's help, I carried on past, cursing myself for not bringing a camera. It reminded me that I'd not been sleeping quite so soundly since Janathon started and that I'd had a particularly odd dream earlier this week.

To set the scene, I was a bit nervous about the old "using Twitter" bit of signing up for Janathon. You see, I've never really understood it. I had a brief fling with it some months ago and made one short and meaningless tweet. I regretted it almost immediately and promised I'd save my tweeting for something more special. Then Janathon came along. My innocence may have been lost but my inexperience remained and I wondered if the Janathon tweeps would want anything to do with me; however, they have been pretty patient as I fumble about with hashtags, @ signs and panicked mis-typing of "your/you're".

To be honest, Twitter still mystifies me and it had clearly been playing on my mind because I woke up in the wee small hours on Tuesday morning having a twitter dream. I kid you not. I think Janathon might be taking its toll, folks. Reading the blogs of our cosy little Janathon community went someway to reassure me that I'm not the only one struggling to sleep; I've read more than one reference to hallucinatory haiku and JogBlog posted on Wednesday about her insomnious iambic pentameter. Since we're all friends now, I thought I'd share what it was that I was tweeting about in the land of nod:

Some time later...

I may not be a fully fledged tweeter but I am most definitely a twit.

Day 8 - Long, dreamy run
Distance: 8.5 miles
Time: 1:38:32
Pace: 11:34 min/mile
Cake rating: 5/5 (a bed, blue sky, white fluffy clouds and a little bit of sunshine)

Cumulative Janathising: 35.7 miles

7) SEVENNNNNNNN!

2011-01-07T17:53:00.016Z

Just did a very short run into the more "urby" bit of of suburbia and saw this sign at the petrol station. A man asked me what I was doing taking a picture, so I told him I was in a treasure hunt and ran off.

The telly is always rubbish in January and I wondered if this idea ought to be pitched to the BBC for a new primetime reality show:

Strictly No Parking is a celebrity parking extravaganza. Non-parking celebs, in the form of national treasures, former soap stars and disgraced politicians, attempt to learn a series of complicated manoeuvres, and bring them to a live Saturday afternoon showdown where they fight for spaces in a busy Ikea car park.

What do you reckon? Naturally I couldn't tell the man at the petrol station in case he stole my idea. Will e-mail BBC at once and let you know when I get a response.

In the meantime, well done to Janathoners on completing Day 7.

Day 7 - Strictly slow runnning
Distance: 1.6 miles
Time: 0:18:00
Pace: 11:27 min/mile
Cake rating: 3/5 (Nice posture and good arm position but overall the run lacked energy)

Cumulative Janathising: 27.2 miles

6) Janathon Next Generation

2011-01-06T09:50:00.009Z

This post is coming to you live from my freezing classroom (working in the holidays is frowned upon and punished appropriately). Good job I have run here and am now glowing magenta; I am trying to trap the heat by cowering within an igloo of exercise books and attempting to mark work in an energetic fashion. This gem was lurking inside a little boy's Science book:

Q: Suggest 3 things you would do to protect an endangered species.

If I was trying to protect an endangered species I would give it a nice habitat with shelter and near food. I would also put up signs around its habitat to warn people that they are endangered, and to ask people not to hunt or attack that animal. Finally I would raise awareness by organising a fun run.

He has clearly read the question and asked, "What would Ron do?". A+. My job is awesome.

In other news today, I woke up to find this in the fridge. Either we have time-travelled, or someone has eaten the pie chart.

Day 6 - Endangered-animal-saving fun run
Distance: 3.9 miles [1 mile warm up; 2 miles steady; ~1 mile cool down]
Time: 0:42:03 [2 mile @ 20:45]
Pace: 10:55 min/mile
Cake rating: 4/5 (many animals saved e.g. smiled at a dog and didn't step on any snails)

Cumulative Janathising: 25.6 miles

5) Degrees of optimism

2011-01-05T10:32:00.016Z

Today's post is brought to you through the medium of hardcore statistical analysis. You may wish to take a seat.

The Random Number Generating Department were up all night to bring you this piece of analysis and, at Day 5, I can now conclude that we have completed this much of Janathon:

These data are a bit humbling, no? A humbling pie chart no less. Let's try to put some spin on this.

If this were an actual pie, you would have only eaten this much:

Look at how much pie remains to be enjoyed!

You would be very excited to come home from running to find that in your fridge, wouldn't you? Go on, admit it.

Day 5 - Very slow run home via Co-op to buy pie
Distance: 4.5 miles (final 0.8 miles carrying pie)
Time: 0:54:36
Pace: 12:07 min/mile
Cake rating: 3/5 (low point: tedious uphill run home from work; high point: eating 58° of pie for completing Janathon Day 5)

Cumulative Janathising: 21.7 miles

4) Instructions

2011-01-04T12:53:00.013Z

I was wondering if I could assemble the other chair today so I looked online for some instructions. Just imagine my astonishment when I found this. Ron moves in mysterious ways:

So I asked myself "What would Rön do?" and I thought that he'd probably forget about the chair for a while and look at his marathon training programme to find out what to do instead. This is what the training programme said:

Hmm seemed a bit long for intervals. Maybe Interväls were something different.

They are. They're horrible. Ow.

Day 4 - Interväls (running)
Distance: 5.5 miles [1 mile warm up; 2 x 1.5 mile "fast" (i.e. less slow) + 0.25 mile recoveries; 1 mile cool down]
Time: 0:58:55 [1.5 mile times: 1@ 15:01, 2@ 15:03]
Pace: Av 10:42min/mile
Cake rating: 3/5 (OMFG that hurt)

Cumulative Janathising: 17.2 miles

3) Get Ronning

2011-01-03T17:17:00.015Z

Waking up at my folks' place with a Bank Holiday stretching ahead this morning, lovely boyfriend and I discussed possibilities for a day of fun:

"Shall we go to Ikea 'on our way' home?" I asked.

"OK then. We could get those nice chairs we've been looking at," ~~I pretended he'd said as his face contorted in a look of absolute horror~~ he replied.

So off we merrily went to Bristol, adding a mere 57 miles to our journey home. It was only on the second lap of the car park that lovely boyfriend started to look a little like he'd gone off my idea for a day of fun.

"Just to let you know, I think this is a s*** idea. In fact, this is the worst f****** idea you've ever had," he said looking adoringly at me from the driver's seat.

His face was a picture of joy when we finally found a parking space, especially when we discovered that there was steam billowing from the engine.

"Look on the bright side," I said, "we might meet some interesting people."

"Rrrhghgnnnghhhhhhhffffffffff****!" he replied cheerily.

Now, Ikea is a marvelous place for one participating in a challenge such as Janathon, since you have to walk so far to find anything you might possibly want. Too bad that I couldn't get GPS signal in the big blue pleasuredome, for I estimate that we may have walked up to 14 miles looking for the chair cushions we were after. There was a bit of cross-training thrown in as we tried to pack our purchases creatively into the car. Good job we drive a Popemobile (if you look carefully, there's actually space at the sides for a few martini glasses and some plastic lampshades):
Finally home, tired from our adventure and aching from the weekend, I started to wonder if I really wanted to go out running this evening. I looked on Running Free but was disappointed not to discover a "Shopping - Whining" option and opted to read some Janathon blogs instead. I started reading Lazy Girl Running's blog, which has some excellent tips today for new runners, and scrolled down to find her post about running legend, Ron Hill. I too listened to his interview on Radio 4's You and Yours last week and was amazed to read about his non-stop stretch of training days since 20th December, 1964. He even ran a mile the day after he broke his sternum in a car accident (he had already run on the morning of the accident) and carried on doing a mile a day until he was well enough to up the distance again. So, pondering our day of retail purgatory, I thought to myself (in Haiku, of course):

What would Ron Hill do
If legs were aching so soon?
Go and run a mile!

And so I ran a mile. And a little bit.

If you are fighting a weak will in the face of strong temptation and need a reminder of your belief in a moral imperative to act in a manner that would demonstrate your love of Janathon, just ask yourself:

"What would Ron do?"

Lovely boyfriend has just walked into the room with a fully assembled chair. See, he did enjoy it really. I wonder if Ron Hill likes Ikea.

Day 3 - 1 mile Ronning Run
Distance: 1.3 miles
Time: 0:13:35
Pace: 10:26 min/mile
Cake rating: 4/5 (Ron Hill's inspiration saved the day)

Cumulative Janathising: 11.7 miles

2) BMD

2011-01-02T15:43:00.005Z

Yesterday's efforts were celebrated appropriately with curry, cheesecake, chocolate cake and a good slosh of red wine at my brother's house last night. Consequently, I tricked my body into action today by disguising the run as a trip to recover the abandoned car. Following the race, I fully expected to ache a lot more today; however, the only truly painful part of my body appeared to be my tummy. I think about 50% of the calories I burned yesterday were used by my poor stomach muscles (or what remains of them) trying to hinder my post-Christmas Belly of Mass Destruction's chances of global destruction.

I've just logged my run on Running Free and thought how fitting the option "Running - Carrying Weight" is.

Day 2 - Vehicle recovery run
Distance: 4.2 miles
Time: 0:48:28
Pace: 11:32 min/mile
Cake rating: 4/5 (bellycentric aching distracting slightly from pretty Herefordshire roads today)

Cumulative Janathising: 10.4 miles

1) The smell of a new year

2011-01-01T14:46:00.011Z

"Daddy, what's that smell?" asked the little girl.

"Embrocation," replied her daddy.

And so it came to pass that the little girl filed this fancy word away in her mind's dictionary to mean:

em·bro·ca·tion (em-bruh-kay-shuhn)
n.
The combined stench of muscle rub, coffee, Strongbow, B.O., fart and dread.

On January 1st 1984, my dad organised Hereford's first New Year's Day 10K. Too small to run (my brothers did, but it appears the line was drawn at 11 years old in the 80s), I spent nine New Year's Day mornings altogether perfecting the art of fastening safety pins into groups of 4 and handing them to the runners with as a cute smile as I could muster. I often wonder now why there aren't more infants enlisted to help with this task at races. My dad tells me great stories of the first couple of runs: people still tiddly from the night before having to make a New Year's Heave before the start (such fun) and a team from the local hostelry pushing a full barrel of cider around the course for charity. The event became more and more popular and he handed over organisation to a local running club in the early 90s. The event, now organised by Wye Valley Runners, had its 27th airing this morning and, in the spirit of Janathon, I thought it was about time I actually got off my bum and ran it.

My great friend Emily ensured I was in tip-top condition by filling my belly with cheesecake and champagne last night and sent me off on my bicyle at 1 am to go and sort out my kit bag. Following a 2 hour drive and a cup of tea, I met my brother and sister-in-law, traded excuses and collected our numbers this morning. I don't know, perhaps it was an insufficient warm-up or maybe that I didn't wear my lucky pants, but I have to admit that I didn't feel quite at the top of my game in the first 1 km or so. Thank goodness then that the views were so stunning (I love Hereford, even on a grey January morning) and the marshalls were so incredibly cheery (they were seriously awesome). I finished in a very pedestrian 1:04:44, 199th place, a little less green and very chuffed that I'd finally got around to running the NYD 10K - a great little event if you're looking for a Janathon starter next year...

Day 1 - NYD Run
Distance: 10K (6.2 miles)
Time: 1:04:44
Postition: 199 (out of not many more than 199 participants)
Pace: 10:25 min/mile
Cake rating: 5/5 (lovely event on home turf + smug points gained overshadowed poor performance and general feelings of queasiness).

Cheers!

2010-12-31T17:59:00.009Z

If you set a goal for yourself and are able to achieve it, you have won your race. Your goal can be to come in first, to improve your performance, or just finish the race. It's up to you.

(Dave Scott, American tri-athlete and six-time Ironman World Champion. Via Runner's World Daily Kick in the Butt)

Happy New Year and good luck for Janathon!

Here's to 2011 - whatever your goal.

Bright ideas

2010-12-27T18:05:00.011Z

Some of my best ideas come into my little brain whilst running. If I'm struggling to plan a lesson then a little jog can be one of the most productive things I can do to get thoughts straight in my head (too bad I need so much reminding of this). How frustrating it can be that there's rarely a way of jotting these ideas down when shuffling around a run. Conversely, it's very rare that a truly top-notch idea will find its way into my head after pickling in 5 pints of London Pride at the pub. Funny then that laptops and wireless interwebs make it all too easy to record (and, worse, publicise) my musings in this state. Let's take this Christmas Eve, for example, whereupon merrily falling through the door, I opened not only my laptop but also the massive tub of Celebrations we'd been saving for Christmas. I discovered the true extent of my brain activity on Christmas morning when I found a smooshed up Galaxy Truffle on my keyboard (of course I went for the good ones first) and a mysterious badge on my blog. It seems that in my infinite and inebriated wisdom, I thought it an entirely magnificent idea to sign up for the Janathon, an 'annual festival of activity and excuses' organised by Cathy at JogBlog.

I started this little blog in June - exactly 16 weeks before the marathon I was planning on running in October. Today puts me back in the same place with 16 weeks to go until London 2011. I went out for a slow 3 miler today with my friend and we decided that it probably won't be particularly easy to run every single day for 31 days; however, given that I've made fewer than 20 posts in 6 months, it looks like the truly tricky bit might be blogging about it. I just hope all the running will inspire some creative thinking - if not, I'll have to go to the pub more often.

Permanent innuendo

2010-12-23T18:54:00.014Z

I love a good innuendo. Double the entredre, double the fun, I say. My childish sense of humour loves to turn the most innocent of phrases into a work of smut. In fact, my similarly juvenile friend has ruined the idea of a "chocolate fountain" for me and don't even get me started on the need for a "fiscal stimulus" in these times of austerity.

This childish streak leaves me nervous of clumsy mistakes at the hairdresser and I dread the day I ask for much more than a "cut and blow dry" during an otherwise routine appointment. Imagine my nerves this week then when I took myself to London Village to a salon that advertises the wondrous "permanent blow dry" treatment. I pictured pervs lined up down the street having misread the advert. They'd be in for disappointment, that's for sure, since the only steaminess they were promised during this hour was permitted by the relief of my poor, distressed hair follicles as the kind lady ran her styling instruments over my parched, gasping locks. After some intensive treatment, the lady insisted that she would need to straighten my hair, to ensure that the shaft (*fnar*) remained regimented and proud as the conditioner penetrated (*snigger*) and conditioned the cuticles. Any of the pervs who'd got this far has better bloomin' make sure that they put their hood up on their flasher mac when they leave, or else they may run this risk of their barnets being rendered brambled and bush-like by the slightest whiff of moisture (*gah*) in the air. I left the place with silky, yet sticky, tresses, ready for anything the next 3 months could throw at me.

"WTF does this have to do with running?" I'm sure you're asking. Well, precisely nothing is the accurate answer, especially as I'm not allowed to wash my hair for 3 days, unless I wish to risk looking like Sideshow Bob from now until the forseeable...

Yes, this is the ultimate excuse to miss training. You heard it here first. It had better frikkin' be worth it.

Flattery

2010-12-07T17:25:00.001Z

From a 12-year old today,

"Are you having a baby?"

Training clearly not going quite as well as I thought. Should be warm for the winter though.

iFaff

2010-10-17T14:32:00.016+01:00

Getting an iPod revolutionised my running a few years ago and it's got me through the boredom of many a long run, not to mention some of the darker moments of one or two marathons. I filled up my gadget with 5 hours of motivational tunes and happidly plodded away to an eclectic mix of 70s funk and noughties pap. Then I added a GPS gizmo to my amoury, allowing me to scrutinise the data for every session and providing cold, hard evidence that I'd been deluding myself about the actual distance of my runs.

However, once you've factored in the sports bras, the vaseline and the double-layer blister-proof socks, getting kitted up with all this gear turned a training run into more of a space mission than the liberating, faff-free sport that people make out.

Recently, I've been too disorganised to charge the gadgets (not sure I even know where the chargers are), so the faff-factor has been reduced considerably (although the sports bra remains a staple, you'll be relieved to know). This meant that I arrived at Blenheim 10K this morning ready to run without the usual paraphernalia once again.

As I shuffled around the grounds, I overheard two friends, both with earphones in, SHOUTING AT EACH OTHER:

Lady 1: "HOW ARE YOU FEELING?"
Lady 2: "YES, IT'S NICE ISN'T IT?"
Lady 1: "IS THE PACE OK?"
Lady 2: "I THOUGHT IT WOULD RAIN!"
Lady 1: "SHALL WE GO A BIT FASTER?"
Lady 2: "THE SUN'S EVEN COMING OUT NOW!"

Lady 1 then sprinted off ahead, presumably happy in the knowledge that her friend was in agreement.

It's not the first time I've pondered the pros and cons of iPods whilst running. It only took a few races of having my toes trodden on by other auditorily-overloaded athletes for me to realise that perhaps it wasn't necessarily the best idea in a crowd of moving people and some race organisers have recognised this and made attempts to ban MP3 players on safety grounds. There was also one occasion when I trumped so loudly I heard it over the shouts and screams of James Brown in my ears.

There must have been plenty of studies on the effect of music on physical performance and it doesn't take a genius to figure that a fast, upbeat tune is more likely to keep your pecker up than a gentle, instrumental arrangement of muzak. The right tune at the right time can be like rocket fuel, but the wrong tune and the wrong time is entirely different... memories of the late, great Isaac Hayes' Hyperbolicsyllabicsesquedalymistic playing whilst peripheral vision started to wane at mile 17 in Amsterdam marathon is enough evidence of that for me.

Last week though, my friend ran Henley Half Marathon, all the time tracking his progress with RunKeeper on his iPhone. Nowthatiscool.com. You can take photos of the route along the way and it takes spectating to a whole new level of ease; in fact, I followed his entire effort from the comfort of my living room, whilst also watching the Commonwealth Games on TV. He also ran today, much faster than me, but he couldn't hear me shouting to him on the loop back, probably because he was humming along to Mr Blue Sky at full volume.

I've tried to run two marathons without listening to my trusty iPod, but I've taken it with me as a safety blanket - both times, I've ended up listening to it. I'd like to think I'll be able to run London without it and soak up the atmosphere instead. I guess I'll have to wait and see. The GPS, I suspect, will have to make a reappearance but I'll have to find the wretched charger first.

Dangerously close

2010-10-01T13:33:00.006+01:00

It's been a little quiet around here again, hasn't it? Can only mean one thing - I'm abandoning the Good Ship Effing Marathon once again. I've known this a little while but it's never nice to say out loud. I can now run on my sausage-esque toe but it hasn't been quite the same since I tried to do an Evel Knievel in the summer (crunchy isn't really an adjective that should describe ones digits). So I don't really have the miles in for a marathon in a fortnight's time. A pie marathon maybe, but not an actual marathon, with people in flappy shorts and bleepy watches.

This rather shamefully puts the scores on the doors to:

K 4 - DNS 3

In other news, I started a new job at the beginning of the month, which has kept me off the streets for the majority of time I spend awake; however, work is now much closer to home and allows me to commute by bike or foot - result!

Last night, I heard Hugh Preece-Williams speak about his 50 in 50 challenge earlier this year. Think Eddie Izzard, only more marathons and less eye-liner. Inspiring stuff indeed. Made me think I should HTFU really.

Lucky then that I got home to find a mysterious red cellophane envelope waiting on my doormat.

Now, I've been watching the post like a hawk for the past week or so because, year after year, I have entered the London ballot and, year after year, I have received the "Get Lost, Sucker" edition of the magazine and a "Ha! In Your Face, Loser!" fleece (the reason for the fleece has always baffled me: are you supposed to wear it so that people stop and say "Oh have you run London?"?. That would just make you feel bad. Unless you're a bit of a turd and just lie. Hmmm. See? Baffling).

This funny red plastic bag seemed different this year, so I hurriedly tore it to shreds to find I have the "Hey you! Come and run our great big flippin' marathon!" magazine and a nice acceptance letter, where they had my date of birth wrong (7 days too old. Tsk).

I've always thought these magazines were the stuff of legends, an urban myth, like alligators in sewers and scuba divers in trees. But no, I am in receipt of one this year, like Charlie and his golden ticket (only he can probably run faster and I eat more chocolate). And inside? It's pretty much the blummin' same as the rejection mag. Hey ho, I'm in.

Now I just have to find away of making sure that the nasty DNS doesn't score an equaliser.

The hamster wheel

2010-09-01T08:41:00.003+01:00

Some time ago, I subscribed to the Runner's World Daily Kick in the Butt. Each day, I am supposed to receive an inspiring quote via e-mail that'll get me out of the house and running like Forrest Gump. Like I said, this was some time ago and I've received many of these pearls since then (and the impact on my training has been.....?..... let's not talk about that).

Occasionally, one will strike a chord and I'll agree with the sentiment, but today's was just plain bonkers. See if you can't make head nor tail of this priceless gem:

"Like a hamster, I enjoy only the illusion of freedom, but unlike a hamster, I can put on running shorts and break through the tube walls."

I'm off back to work this week; the analogies with rodents and illusions of freedom stop there.

So far, toe good

2010-08-31T19:22:00.004+01:00

After four weeks of hobbling, swimming, prodding, moaning and ugly shoes (apart from one ill-advised attempt to wear heels for an evening, which lasted about an hour and resulted in a black toe nail the following day), I have just been for a run! Only 2 miles, but it's better than nothing. It felt so rough, but so good at the same time. Fingers (and toes) crossed I can get some shoes on in the morning, eh?

Pork, dust and swimming

2010-08-09T09:20:00.011+01:00

One week on and the toe looks less like a big German Blutwurst but more of a cheeky Spanish chorizo now. It turns out there are a number of things that are tricky to do with a foot resembling a selection of charcuterie though:

1. Wear fab shoes (the trusty Kayano's are still favoured).
2. Do press-ups.
3. Go running.

I'm sure there are more but it turns out number 3 is a particular pig (or pork-derived delicacy) when there's a marathon in fewer than 10 weeks. In which case, I suppose I could add:

4. Write a blog about training for a marathon.

(Cue painful sausage puns: “What’s the wurst that could happen?”, “It's not the wurst-case scenario”, “There’s a wurst time for everything”, “Oh this has really brat the wurst out in me” etc, etc.)

In other news, four burly builders have just turned up to start our kitchen work. We thought things would start at a fairly pedestrian pace this morning... cup of tea, shaking of heads, another cup of tea, sucking air through front teeth, biscuit, one last cup of tea...

We seriously underestimated the efficiency of these fellows. At just gone 9, a whirlwind started in the house. Windows are being torn out and the water’s off already. I feel suddenly motivated to get out training again. Not because the builders look like this* but because the house looks like this:

So I’m off for a swim, the wurst of many this summer I suspect.

*In case you were wondering, they don't, by the way.

Kit testing

2010-08-03T16:31:00.010+01:00

Home for the weekend, my brother asked me if I'd like to go mountain biking yesterday. Ever happy to embrace cross-training opportunities and rarely one to let a lack of appropriate kit be a burden, I set about establishing a series of comedy compromises, the three most significant of which being:

1. Borrowing my mum's bike.
2. Realising in the car park that said bike has slick tyres on it.
3. Attiring my feet in my trusty Asics Gel Kayano running shoes.

These shoes have been fantastic. I've had the 13 and 14 models and they are a great stability shoe. Lots of cushioning around the heel and, most importantly, my latest ones are GOOOOOOLD. Surely they'd be fine for an evening pootle round the woods on my (or at least my mum's) bike... what could possible go wrong?

Long story short and an oh-so-glad-that-no-one-had-a-video-or-that-would-have-been-on-you-tube-faster-than-you-can-say-face-plant moment later, I can now enlighten the world with the knowledge that that the humble Kayano makes a particularly ineffective biking shoe.

On a more positive note, they are proving to be the most comfortable thing to wear on a busted up big toe today.

Yoof of today

2010-08-01T14:33:00.006+01:00

I did an easy-ish plod of 3 miles or so this morning, to fit in with a drive back to my folks' place for the weekend. Running around where I live can often be interesting but by and large the people are nice. I do often wince a little though when I can see myself approaching anyone a little... er... "unsavoury" looking... shall we say? I guess it's just self-preservation for a girly out running alone.

This morning, such citizens came in the shape of two adolescent boys, masking themselves with hoods, despite the sticky weather, and swaggering proudly up the road. I bravely upped the pace and tried shuffle stealthily past; however, I didn't go unnoticed and they thought themselves very amusing to start making noises reminiscent of Pepé Le Pew trying to impress that poor kitty cat, only lacking the flattering sentiments.

I never know quite what to do in these situations, so I plumped for the first thing that came into my head: flick them the finger and run for it*.

At least I could be certain of one thing - there was no way they could chase after me. They'd chosen to wear their trousers at half mast as only yooves (plural of yoof, surely?) know how. These bad boys were so precariously low slung, they were approaching their ankles - even the slightest of jogs and gravity would have put a stop to the pursuit. Phew.

*(Aren't I the upstanding member of the community?!)

Did totally too

2010-07-26T10:42:00.005+01:00

The Tour de France is over for another year. Sad face. I thought I'd mark it with the advert that's kept me amused throughout.

Wrestling is for girls.

Good value

2010-07-25T16:02:00.011+01:00

Oh the neglect. Of the blog. Of the training!

All the good intentions in the world... enough said. In my defense, the end of this term was a particularly fraught one, with the end of the academic year and the end of my time at this school. The last week was a heady mix of cake, tears and snot. Although I was proud that I did cycle into work once.

Anyway, excuses excuses. Time for action again as the summer holidays stretch ahead and a perfect opportunity for some binge training. I haven't exactly stuck rigidly to the marathon plan (although I did get a cheeky 7 miler in the bag before the snot-fest ensued); however, The Plan dictated a 10K today. Knowing this in advance, I got organised and entered the Elmbridge 10K. If nothing else, having paid money upfront is a good way to get me out of bed and committed to a run (although not surefire as I've explained before).

It was good to smell the intoxicating scent of Deep Heat as I walked sheepishly into the race HQ to collect my number this morning. Ah I remember that. I was surrounded my a curious mixture of veteran club runners and tanned glamazons in full make-up and I wondered where I'd fit in. Had it really been that long since my last race? I queued up to collect my number and overheard a three-way conversation between some gnarly looking vets in vests each claiming they were out for a "easy" run today. Somehow I suspected that this was a slight fabrication of the truth. They seemed to reassure each other though.

The man on the PA system was offering £100 to the first person to break the course record today. With the women's record standing at a skimpy 33 minutes, I felt fairly certain that that needn't concern me and set myself the target of arriving back within double that time. I was strangely calm on the start line, I'd decided to leave the GPS and iPod at home (actually that sounds more deliberate than it was really) and I wondered how necessary the technology really was. Ever the conformist though, I started my stopwatch as the gun went, just to look the part.

It was then I remembered how I used to hate 10Ks - it's short enough that fit people can really go for it and this unnerves the less well-conditioned at the back of pack, causing mayhem at the start. It took mere minutes to spit me out of the main field, where I found myself shuffling along with the laughing boys. I wasn't there to worry about things like that though. This was strictly a training run, so knuckled down into a steady pace.

It took about 4km for me to remember two things: 1) there is always someone less prepared than you; and 2) the aforementioned mayhem will take its toll on these people eventually. I was thrilled as I started to pass people, giving me renewed energy each time this happened. I started to hold my head higher and enjoy my run. OK, I was only passing octogenarians and rugby players with hangovers, but it was a start. With 2km to go, the demographic suddenly began to change and slowly but surely I was catching SKINNY PEOPLE! I sucked in my tummy, lengthened my stride and tried to stifle the heavy breathing. How impressed I am sure these people were! Ahem.

I finished in a rather pedestrian 1 hour 04 minutes - a full 17 minutes slower than my PB (in fact, quite possibly a PW) but a time that, I'm sure you'll agree, represents excellent value for money on my £12 entry fee.

Buddies

2010-06-30T19:03:00.006+01:00

The training buddy is a super source of motivation, especially when your will to train is weaker than your desire to eat/sleep/generally procrastinate etc.

I managed a near 2 hour bike ride, whilst putting the world to rights, with my friend last night. Barely noticed the hill she insisted we ride up at the end.

My running chum texted me yesterday too. "Oh no, I'm double booked!" I thought. Only to open his message and discover he wasn't trying to arrange a run, but was announcing the birth of his new baby son instead. Hooray! Congratulations! Let us celebrate with cake!

All hail the training buddy!

Training before cake

2010-06-28T18:24:00.006+01:00

I cycled to work today, much to the bemusement of my class of 8 year olds. If I can hope to have taught them anything this year then it is to ask lots of questions and they are an inquisitive bunch.

"What on earth did you do that for, Miss K?"

Good question.

The reasons were threefold:
1) It was a glorious day and I wanted to make the most of sunshine.
2) It was Sports Day today and didn't have to lug in the usual truck load of paperwork.
3) I've just entered my 5th marathon and the day of reckoning is 16 weeks away now.

Training. Must. Begin.

Truth be told, I've just entered my 7th marathon, but I failed to turn up for two last year. Oh the shame. There are a couple of things I could try to blame this on: an over-training injury a couple of years ago and subsequent loss of mojo; or a career change that has left me struggling to establish any kind of work/life balance.

But there's another thing I've been harping on about to my little charges since September - "take responsibility for your actions". So I must do the same.

I've been a lazy toad. Not when it comes to work but definitely when it comes to physical exertion. A lazy toad who likes cake. OhmanIlovethecake. I've made excuses not to go training and I've got to a place where it's OK to bail on a race that I've spent money on entering. I don't like that.

I need some motivation but I'm currently watching a piece on the news about how the government is pulling the cash for those pesky public info films*. You know the ones that make you look shamefully at your second plate of cheese and biscuits from the comfort of the sofa. So I'm looking to the blogosphere for that kick up the butt.

I can't promise this little blog will be particularly witty or intelligent. In fact, I find it unlikely that anyone will actually read it. But if I say here and now that I'm going to get fit again and run this marathon then I have to do it. Right?

The cake will stay. But from now it must be Training Before Cake.

p.s. not all public info films are pesky. Charlie says so.