fairweatherrunner

running blog

Monthly Archives: January 2012


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Seven!

Janathon done!

As you can probably guess it had to be seven miles today to round-up to 155 miles or on average 5 miles a day.  I did, for a mad moment, contemplate 12 but that would have been excessive and killed my legs. And anyway it was far too cold for that.  I also have to be able to try to match my mileage come June afer all!

It was cold and trying to snow! But I had to get it done. The first run of the month where I wore 2 long-sleeved layers and my hat and gloves stayed on for most of the time.  A slow start, after a mile or so my calves were tight from running fast laps at BMF yesterday.  I was shuffling along slowly feeling sorry for myself and thinking maybe 2 miles was more appropriate for today.  Fortunately at the 2 mile point I was in the middle of Hyde Park with no oyster card or cash on me!  7 miles it was going to be! By 3 miles and a few repeats of ‘Spirits Having Flown’ by the Bee Gees my legs loosened up, I started to feel good and the rest of the run got better and better.  So much so that I finished with the last 2 miles at HM pace. Running past grid locked traffic always does make me feel good!

So Janathon day 31 done.

31 days run, 31 blogs,  155 miles.

Thank you Cathy and everyone for another great ‘Athon - you’ve all been brilliant.  I’m hoping to catch up with reading blogs over the next few days now I don’t have to blog myself!  Keep up the running and see you in June!


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Tired or not tired?

Janathon day 30 and I’ve now run 148 miles and I’m in a very strange state, a mixture of completely shattered and full of beans!

As usual I struggled to get out of bed this morning and get the boys up and out, but by the time I got to BMF I was wide awake. I had a great class. My legs felt good and I was keeping up a good pace. The janathon miles plus my half marathon training long runs are paying off and I’m getting back to my best speed and fitness from before my injury last year.

The energy however was lacking by this evening and I needed a bit of a boost and a nag from twitter to get my blog done. (Thanks guys!) The thing is you see that BMF classes can either be the stuff that good blogs are made of (mad and hilarious) or not. Today was not. Not that it wasn’t a good class, it was and I enjoyed it because I worked hard and took it seriously. (Boring blog). Also for the first half we were running fast laps in between exercises so there was no breath left for banter!

I then had to come up with some inspiration for todays Lego.

Um ah… I ran fast? I’m surprised how OK my legs are after 30 days? I discovered that the calorie calculation on Garmin 405cxs is way off? It’s day 30 and haven’t we all done brilliantly? I might even miss Janathon next week? Blogging is like running – It all comes together once you start!?…

So I asked my son who ignored me. So I bribed my son which started to work. A packet of Jaffa Cakes later he came up with this.

1 hour BMF class, 3.46 miles running.

http://connect.garmin.com/activity/145856415

1 day to go. I also notice that Iliketocount is also on 148! (Yay! looks like we will make it to 150!)

So how far will I run tomorrow? 2 miles or 7?


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Recovery run

I do like doing my long runs on Saturdays because it leaves me free to chill out, relax and enjoy a few glasses of wine on a Saturday evening and look forward to a lazy Sunday with no long run hanging over me.  So after yesterday’s long run I did chill out, have a good supper and enjoy watching a movie with a bottle of red!

After 14 miles yesterday I expected to have very achy legs today but  they were fine,  (I’ve had far worse problems walking down the stairs after a tough BMF class than I did today) but I did have  a thick head!  Normally I’d have a rest day after a long run but, “This is Janathon!” No rest allowed! I finally got going towards lunch time and decided to go for a short recovery run.  But what is my self-imposed minimum distance for Janathon?  I’ve logged 2.5 miles running for BMF classes and my shortest run distance so far this month has been 2.5 miles – so that’s what it had to be today.

I set off on my 2 mile local loop (which I ran a lot of in Juneathon) taking last nights DVD (The Hangover, rather appropriately) to drop into the post box back to Lovefilm. For the first mile my head hurt but my legs felt absolutely fine.  For the second mile my head had cleared and my legs felt absolutely knackered!  Can’t win. I added the extra half mile by a nip into Tesco and got an extra arm and shoulder workout running the last half mile carrying a bag of potatoes, clotted cream and a loaf of bread.

By the time I got home my head and legs felt fine, so recovery run it really was! I attribute my happy legs to the fact that I’ve run most of the time in compression tights and wore my long pair after my run yesterday.

2.5 miles, (2.5kg of potatoes, clotted cream and a loaf of bread), 25.01 mins.

145 miles run  2 days to go.


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Longrun doodle

Today I ran 14 miles, my longest run ever (by a mile!) and I did a bit of run-doodling which together with listening to Tony Blackburn count down the top 30 from 1980 (sad Radio 2 listener I know! But some great songs to plod along to and I was delighted to find that number 16 was my favorite Bee Gees track, Spirits Having Flown.) made the time go quickly.  As you can see I now know Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens even better than I did already!

An uneventlful run, other than having to detour to the loo twice ( I know… Too much information!) and I did not appreciate having to queue either!  Oh yes, and I also found a Lego mini figure lying lost on a path so she came home to join the others

14.12 miles in 2.20.13

142 miles in Janathon, 3 days to go.

New blog feature:  Arabliz’s Saturday night movie quote.

If you guess the line you get a virtual cookie!


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BMF mileage

So far during Janathon I have logged 2.5 miles running for BMF classes based on a class I recorded last year plus manually trying to calculate the total of runs and shuttle sprints. Today I asked the instructors if I could wear my garmin for British Military Fitness to record the class and make sure I haven’t been cheating the table of doom by logging too much mileage.  I haven’t!  (Garmin connect link).

The last few classes I’ve done this month I’ve felt weary, have perfected the art of going backwards while running forwards and not been able to put in 100% effort because of aching legs.  Today was different and I felt good, I don’t know if it was the novelty effect of wearing my garmin and seeing pace numbers with 7′s and 6′s in on the screen which gave me a boost, the need to give a good class as it was being recorded or if all my recent  janathon mileage is paying off.

During the 1 hour class we were moving for 34 minutes.  In between (when my garmin was paused) we continued to work at the same intensity with on the spot sprints, step-ups and jumping jacks plus 2 min stretches of push ups, squat thrusts, situps, plank (facing downhill) and the like. The instructors said next time I need to wear my heart rate monitor so I can fully track the class and show that a high heart rate is maintained throughout and get a real indication of calories burned and not just a calculation taken from mileage.

We got back to the van at the end of the class for stretches and I announced we had run 3.93 miles.  Yes,  we added another quick run to round it off to 4 miles!

1 hour BMF class  4.03 miles.

128 miles run,  last year’s total (125 miles) beaten!

4 days to go…

I had no original ideas for Lego today, fortunately my son did.


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Multi-tasking

I was a little more lively today (once I’d had some breakfast and two coffees) and learned that doing things a little differently was just what I needed to give me new energy.

I was enjoying listening to the radio this morning. I couldn’t delay my run today so worked out how to use the radio on my iPod and set of for a planned 5 miles continuing to listen instead of plugging in the Bee Gees.  I also had the forethought to take some cash with me so I could get some haggis in M&S on my way home.   (We didn’t have Haggis yesterday because my husband was away and didn’t want to miss out!).

Whilst cutting across Hyde Park on my run, to the loo, the criss-cross paths made me think about having a first attempt at runart. (Click on runart blog link to see some of the good examples!)

As you can see its more like rundoodle!  But we all have to start somewhere and I had an enjoyable time running round and round listening to the radio on what turned out to be a beautiful day.  So much so, I was over 5 miles before I realised and still had to run home. I am now determined to go back and try to be more systematic and cover most of those paths and start to think about drawing a picture!  Might add interest to my long run this weekend instead of 3 circuits of the park on the same old paths.

I paused to buy my haggis on the way home so shopping was also completed and the last mile of my run was with a bag of haggis in tow!

7.63 miles in 1.13.56

124 miles run  5 days to go…


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Another 6 miles ticked off

Another 6 miles ticked off today towards my target – thanks for all the encouragement.  Legs, glutes, hip flexors, achilles….. willing, I’m going for it!

We are into the final week of Janathon and there has been a bit of talk on blogs about supportive and patient families enabling us to participate in our mad and fun challenges and reluctant dogs being dragged out of their beds for pre-dawn dog-jogs.  My family are coping prettty well (there are benefits, runing keeps me sweet and less naggy/shouty) although recently there have been a few coments about my failure to keep up with the shopping.  Such as,

We’re out of butter…. a few days won’t hurt, might do you good…

We’re out of Jaffa Cakes…. (Tough one), but ditto…

We’re out of loo roll….   Oh alright I’ll go shopping!

A similar run to yesterday but damp grey and miserable (but there were a few puddles to jump in!)  I ran the top route of my Hyde Park and Serpentine loop (compared to the bottom part I ran yesterday).  I was feeling pretty tired at the  start but after 3 miles and with ‘Footloose’, ‘It’s raining men’ and ’Pump it’ in a row on my ipod I was happily going along without being aware I was running.

I stopped my Garmin half a mile from home at Tesco so I could grab a bit of shopping on the way home!

6.1 miles in  59.51 mins

113 miles run.  7 days to go…


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Return of the table of doom

I seem to have acquired a target.

The table of doom has reared its ugly head with 8 days left of Janathon. On Saturday somewhere among the finishing of my long run, refueling, stretching, having a bath, eating a big dinner, having a glass (or three) of wine… I had a conversation on Facebook with Shaun (Iliketocount) about our similar mileage and the fact that each time he ran he came back to the table to find I had gone that extra mile!  Ha ha! I said yes, we’re playing leap-frog a bit and then I casually asked him if our poor old achy legs would make it to 150 by the end of the month. Me and my big mouth… I was really just wondering out loud if I could do it myself in the warm afterglow from a long run and a glass of vino… (I ran 125 miles last year and would like to beat that, but what goal?)

So it turns out that I’d thrown down the gauntlet! Shaun trotted out 7 plus miles on Sunday, moving ahead again and blogged about the new target.  Oops looks like we’re on… 150 miles or bust! (aka spending a ton of money at the Physio!).

It wasn’t because of this that I didn’t go to BMF today (about 2.5 miles running) but went out later for a (longer) run.  I really did have to get some work finished today so made myself stay home until I had finished.  That worked, I knuckled down and got finished leaving time for an hours run this afternoon before my sons got home.

Running in Kensington Garden’s and seeing all the perfectly groomed well dressed Mums walking home with their small children also made me think about what Shaun had said about thinking it looked odd, a middle-aged man, in need of a hair cut, running around in tights!  There was me, a middle-aged women in lycra running circles in Kensington Gardens chasing ’the table of doom’ in a running challenge looking equally odd  I decided I didn’t care because the alternatives (fat middle-aged woman eating cake or no cake!) were worse than a few odd looks.

I had a good run with the Bee Gees strutting my stuff around the serpentine feeling surprisingly good.  If anything being a bit tired is probably due to recent  late nights (going out, finishing accounts, watching Schindler’s List on DVD) and not the miles run and so far fingers crossed, touch wood, I only have mild niggles in my hip and Achilles.

6.7 miles in 64 mins.

107 miles run and 8 days to go…

Ambitious target… Can I do it?


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3 weeks, 100 miles. Can I sleep now?

Yesterday we got to the end of 3 weeks of Janathon and my long run brought my total miles to 97.  After running 12 miles yesterday I was going to treat today as a rest day and maybe just do a token mile, but, yes you guessed it, it had to be 3 miles! 

I planned a short local plod and to keep going back and forward until I reached 3 miles.  Husband had other ideas, declaring it a fabulous day so we must get outside and went and got his bike.  Pyjama clad sons scurried back to their dens and cyber worlds.  The trouble was that a run with him on his bike would mean the local road loop which is 3.8 miles and I didn’t know if my little leggies would forgive the extra bit!

I did suggest on the way that we take the short cut up the big steep hill to ‘get my own back’ after yesterday (that hill is bad enough to stagger up on foot but deadly on a bike! Tee hee). However I was informed that the shorter route would be under 3 miles, Boo Hoo.  I took it gently and apart from the (other) hilly bits my legs didn’t feel too bad nor grumble.  I’m now going to have a glass of red (sports recovery drink) and a big dinner.

3.8 miles in 38.34

Yesterday’s trail took me past my roast dinner in its natural state!

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