I’ve not run or exercised at all for nearly 2 weeks.  I’ve also eaten and drunk a bit too much over Christmas.  I’m now feeling a little stir crazy, sluggish not to mention heavy! Desperately in need of some fresh air and vigorous exercise.

The first round of excuses were the snow and ice.  Last week we were in Exeter at my parents and the morning after we arrived we woke up to 9 inches of snow.  The temperature then didn’t rise above freezing and the snow and ice was still  lying on the roads and pavements 7 days later.  Even a walk to the pub was dicey! So no running and I was disappointed not to get the chance to explore the Exeter City circular walk route.

Oh well I thought, we’re off to Isle of Wight, where its milder, I can run there.

Second set of excuses…. First morning I crawl out from under my warm duvet into cold running gear and find fog.  My route uses narrow country lanes/roads, so common sense says no road running until the fog clears unless I fix fog lights to my backside!

Here’s hoping for better running weather by 1/1/11 for Janathon.  Some of us participants think blogging will be the most challenging part.  I’m beginning to think the hardest part will be coping with the weather conditions in January.

Looking on the bright side, I don’t know why I’m apologetically reporting my couch potato and over indulgent habits of the last 2 weeks.  I should be bragging about this extra preparedness for Janathon!

My legs are fully rested and I am carbo, fat, protein, etc… loaded for January 1st!

Bring it on…

No runs to report or blog about this week.  I’ve been living up to my name and haven’t made it out the door.  At the start of the week my motto was ‘I’ll run tomorrow’, in the middle I was a little hung over and by Friday it was snow and ice!  Oops will have to try harder next month!

Exercise I can report.

2 BMF classes and a couple of snowy walks to the supermarket.

Frosty morning at the Serpentine

I’m not a great lover of treadmills and in the past have been scathing of gyms, adamant that I was an outside exerciser.  However, recent snow and ice and my desire to get into the routine of daily running had me rethinking.  Surely when the temperatures hit zero the place for a fair weather runner was indoors on the treadmill? Maybe I will actually do all those runs I plan to/want to but never do if I run indoors? As long as I could get myself to the gym that is. 

Anyway,  I dusted off my gym membership (joined last year to practice my swimming) and decided to squeeze a little value from my membership at last.  It took me a while to find my treadmill legs and work out a reasonable speed so that I actually ran the odd mile but didn’t fall off the back!  luckily the Nike plus gps app works ok indoors, using the accelerometer, so I can have spoken feedback of distance and time whilst listening to music and not have to stare endlessly at the clock.  On my second run I did the audiofuel 180 intervals, (brilliant),  and discovered the secret of making 20 plus minutes on the treadmill appear to go quite quickly. 

Treadmill running sorted.   Holy Grail?  I don’t think so. I guess it’s not really about running outside, on treadmills  nor the weather for me.  It’s the novelty and variety that’s important.  Roll on the start of Janathon! I will then have to get creative mid January and book up some more races for 2011. 

I planned to get running/exercising 5 or 6 times a week. In fact I’ve run less since my last blog due to all sorts of excuses: resting a painful Achilles Tendon, sore throat, christmas preparations and the odd late night…

Totals: 5K treadmill run, 3 BMF classes, one 2.3mile evening jaunt (with son on scooter) testing link from Garmin connect to Runningfreeonline.