Thursday 9 June 2011

Where'd my go-go mojo go-go?

Bless me what an crappy couple of days of not much running at all! Below follows days 8 & 9 of juneathon 2011. Mainly because I couldn't be arsed to blog last night, but hey, in the words of Mr. Incredible, "I've still got time".

Day 8.
I was hoping that my legs would have recovered enough from the previous weeks efforts for me to bash out another 10 miler, but alas, 'twas a bollocks and not going to happen. Shame really as my work colleague came in to relieve me nice and early too so I still would have got home earlier than usual, but it was not to be. This I had decided just about as soon as I started running. Ah well, thinks me, perhaps I'll go for the 6 mile route instead. I had until the roundabout at the top of the road to decide. Nuts to it, my central governor says, just go straight home you big wuss, so I did. The nice little 3.6 miler straight back home, no piddling about. When I get to harwell, I find that RK stopped as soon as it started! Most likely my fault though, I think I pressed "start" before the gps had locked. I had a time registered but no route, so my Juneathon for yesterday was, according to RK, 0.0 miles covered in 32 minutes. Bah!
That depressed me a bit and I began thinking I may just not bother with the rest of this
running thing, but I sat down and watched and ep. of Game of Thrones and had a cup of Twinnings green tea and chilled out hoping tomorrow will bring shinier running.

Day 9
Tomorrow came this morning, which was far too soon as far as I was concerned.
My alarm was set for 5am in the hope I would get my lazy bummocks out of bed, into my still very loved shiny shoes and off out for a 10 mile Juneathon.
Lazy bummocks won over and I reset my alarm for 6am. Bastids! That one failed too as George woke up and started howling for no apparent reason so I got up before the alarm went off again. Then went back to bed at 5.45 like a burk, and got back up 15 mins later. Unfortunately toilet duties took far too long, and I found myself still needing to get dressed at 6.25. Shitter, going to be late again!! I REALLY didn't want to run this morning, just couldn't be bothered in the slightest, but as I had no other means of getting to work, off I bally well went. Had to get there in record time though if I was to avoid being late. Needless to say I didn't, and was still late. I did manage it in just over 27 mins though, which considering the previous couple of shitty days, so that was nice.
A couple of things happened which not only woke me up properly but has perked up my running again. 1 - I had to sprint across a roundabout to avoid being splattered by a very large lorry, that got the old hammer a-thumping a bit and I smiled at that.
2 - A teeny bit further down the road I saw either a stoat or weasel, I'm not sure which but it's the one with the black tip on it's tail. This cheered me up the most as I love seeing wildlife actually running around and moving about in general rather than it being flattened in the middle of the road.

All in all, my mojo has returned before it really buggered off, but it was a damn close call I can tell you, but I am looking forward to running at the weekend now, which is very spankingly jolly. I may see if I can squeeze out 6 miles tomorrow morning before I go to the gym or I may not. Pretty sure I won't get another chance to get my run in after that.
We'll see what the morn bringeth.

Toodlepip each and all.

Ninjabread.

Tuesday 7 June 2011

Wowee zowee, 1/4 through already!

Sounds like it's almost finished when you write it in fractions don't it? Until tomorrow that is when I won't have a clue what that would be as a fraction. Poss time to switch to percentages after today.

As promised yesterday, just another little tiddler of a run this morning, almost felt like not bothering with it, but that is just rubbish.
Legs were still stiff from the previous few days of running so I'm hoping these little short plods will fix my legs for the start of week number 2 tomorrow when I kick off with another 10 miler after work.
Not much to report on the run itself, just the standard shorty to work, the only problem was about 6 or 7 times,'I seriously thought I was going to crap myself, which is just not nice. Don't know why it happens but I'm pretty sure it something to do with my diet, poss not enough water and too many caffeine based energy and non-energy drinks again.
Anyway, just managed to get to work without doing a Radcliffe in just over 30 mins, so my total for Juneathon is 53.64 miles!
I have to make sure I'm not imagining that number there, no way when I started running last year did I think I would have the motivation and the stamina to be able to do that sort of distance in 1 week. Thankyou Juneathon, and the participants therein for pushing me this far. Awesome. Looking forward to writing about the 100 mile mark this same time next week!

Stu

Monday 6 June 2011

Legs.........getting.........tired!.........

Bah.
Thought it would take a little longer for tiredness to kick me in the leggies, but then I wasn't expecting to have covered this amount of milage already. By this time in Janathon I had only covered 17.4 miles, shyit.. I almost done that yesterday alone! I will put a lot of that down to the weather we had in Jan though.

Today's run was always just going to be a short recovery run no matter what. Turned out nice though in an OCD type way. Although I'd forgotten my running pants (they're like base layer style compression pants), my running shorts (which are in fact Killerspin TT shorts) AND probably most important of all, my contact lenses, I couldn't let any of that put me off Juneathoning today, noooo way. So, kitted out in my crappy old very well worn adidas 3/4 shorts with my normal pants on (underneath obviously - I aint Superman y'know!), and my extremely non-running designed Animal glasses perched on my beak, off I set from work - vveeerryyyy ssslllooowwwlllllyyyyy indeed. Couldn't go fast, legs wouldn't let me. The glasses lasted all of 15 seconds on my face before they got stuffed in my pocket. Couldn't cope with them bouncing up and down on my face so I decided to chance it and run blind.                                                          
I couldn't tell you if there was anything interesting to see on the run, mainly because I couldn't see, I think you can rest assured I didn't miss anything.
                      
Anyway, like I say, it was a short rec run home from work, only 3.59 miles. The OCD thing I mentioned, well, that pissy little 3.59 miles took my Juneathon total so far to EXACTLY 50 miles. I like that. If I can hit the 100 mile mark by the 15th, I will probably wet myself with happy.

Run distance 3.59 miles
Run time 32:34

P.S. Please forgive any spelling mistakes, spell check seems to have fucked off somewhere, which annoys me. And I can't be arsed to read through and check my own spelling. Ta.

Sunday 5 June 2011

Hydration? Pah to hydration I say.

Yes yes I do! Well, I have done for the last 5 days of running anyway.
Don't quite know how I've managed it but I have taken on no fluid at all during any of my Juneathons so far, I have just simply not felt like it at all, even on day 2 when it was red hot, and that was also the feeling today. I don't know why but I think this is a good thing.

To the run.
I had sort of planned today's run but I had no accurate idea of the distance it would cover, I guessed at around 15 miles, and I wasn't far out. If you want to see the map and stats - click me now. I am aware this is the first time I've linked a run on my blog so far this month, this is because this is the first time I've blogged on the computer.
The run itself started out as my previous 10 mile efforts, and I have to say, at the 10 mile mark I was considering cutting it short and going straight home from there. I don't want to be that wussy quitter boy that I was at school anymore so the increasingly soggy man suit was zipped up to the neck and I just got on with it.
Running along the bypass was incredibly boring, and not a little noisy due to the traffic, but I hadn't run along here before so I didn't mind too much, plus, I was accompanied by Matthew Syed's Bounce accompanying me today.
The main reason for choosing this particular route was the hill over the last few miles. Looking at the stats it turns out that it's a 200(ish) climb over the last 3 miles. Click the link if you haven't already, the altitude and pacing charts are towards the bottom of the page.
There was a massive highlight for me, as I was climbing the hill I saw a Kestrel (I think) flying alongside me with some grub in its claws. It stopped on a post just a little ahead of me and started scoffing. Just as I caught up to it, it flew off to the next post, and so on until it had eaten all it's food. It then flew up, hovered just above me for a few seconds, squawked, and flew off to look for some more grub. MAGIC!! I seriously love birds of prey.


Well, that's enough from me. Hopefully the legs will have recovered enough for me to do a nice short run home from work tomorrow night.

Run distance 16.63 miles
Run time 2:26:00
Weather Wet and windy but quite warm to start with.


See you tomorrow night m'ducks.

Saturday 4 June 2011

Up at dawns crack!

No I wasn't being unfaithful, and I suppose it wasn't really THAT early, but 5:15 on a weekend is early enough to warrant being called stupid o'clock.
As it was, it was the only chance I would get to log number 4/30 seeing as I would be stuck at work till possibly 10pm!

So, offski I trotted out the flat at just 10 mins after slithering from the pit in which wifey was still a-kip along with a still quite poorly #brucethecat.
I didn't bother plugging in to any book or choonz this morning as I prefer to hear the birdies and other wildlife that is abound at that time in the morning when the traffic is minimal.
I chuckled watching the Housemartins fly around and screeching at each other, mainly the screeching though, as they tend to do it either sitting in their little nests or in the drainpipes. "But why the mirth?" I hear you enquire. Well it is mainly because they are proper noisy little bastards when they get going (as I'm sure some of you know) and people don't like that noise at 5 in the morning, especially people who live in top floor flats! I'm a grumpy sod, who lives in a ground floor flat, and I don't like many, if at all any, of our neighbours, so HARR HARR HARR TO YOU and huzzy to the housemartins.

That was the highlight of my run really, apart from the run itself of course. Bagged myself a
Nice little 6 miler in a touch over 50 mins. I was surprisingly tired after this run and I found it quite difficult to comprehend that I could happily take 5 mins off that time if I went for it. But there we go, Juneathon 4 jogged, logged and now blogged. This takes my total so far to 30 miles. Tomorrow I have a route planned which is looking to be around the 15 mile mark, this will be my longest run ever and I can't wait to give it a go, it's all to help my marathon prep. Think I may have to do a wee bit of housework and that type of thing first though so it's looking like it might be an afternoon jobby, so nice and toasty.

See y'all on Monday eve.

Friday 3 June 2011

The idleness of a Juneathoner.

Not all Juneathoners I might add, just me!

I was hoping to put a few more miles in this morning to make up for me chickening out of doing 2 or 3 extra last night, but my lazy head woke up on my neck this morning rather than my running head. This lazy head of mine is a bit of a git when it comes to alarms going off and me getting my sweaty carcas out of bed. And so it proved this morning. Snooze button followed by snooze button followed by alarm reset followed by the turning off of the alarm and falling back asleep all resulted in me not getting up till 6:10. SHITTER!
I'm supposed to start at 7 by the way in case you didn't know, and I live just over 3.5 miles away from work. I don't drive, bus had already gone and my bike was at work. The only mode of transport I had was my shiny shiny Mizuno Wave Prophecy's. As spankingly wondrous as they are they ain't going to get me to work on time, once I'd sorted myself out and abluted appropriately of course.
Again, this was proved to be the case. I left home at 6:40 knowing I was going to be late and had told the night officer this.
I didn't feel to bad at the start, just a wee bit tight from the previous 2 days of running, one is not used to running 20 miles in 2 days, but I soon realised the tightness was not going to shift for anything and let it just keep me struggling.
Anyway, got to work at 7:10, so not to bad, but I did feel a bit mean as Sarwar had turned up at 6 the previous evening. He didn't seem to bothered about it though, which is just as well really.
Day 3 distance - 3.7 miles
Day 3 time - 30:25

Not sure what I'm doing about tomorrows effort yet - it's all a big surprise, even to me.

See you all again on the morrow m'ducks.

Thursday 2 June 2011

Juneathonday2quickquicknotime!!!

Gotta get it done sharpish! Nearly the end of the day.

Well my deary-oh's, I decided to go the same route as yesterday - but in reverse - and no, I didn't do it backwards. Maybe I should?
It was a beautiful evening with but a smidge wind blowing in some random direction, thankfully not at my face. I had to run topless too as I only had my longsleeve running top with me, and I was not going to wear that on such a shiny evening hell no!
So off I went, cheapy tesco earphones in my head listening to the new James Bond novel. Earphones were removed around 2.5 miles because they kept falling out of my holes.
Not much else to report on the run apart from noticing the increasing numbers of Red Kites in the area, I'm not complaining about them, I love watching the fly.
My iPhone did lose GPS around the 6 mile mark which is quite annoying as it means I have to edit the map when I get home. And I almost got run over too, yay me.
Anyway, 9.94 miles done today in 1:28:36. Next run will be an early morning effer, depending on the legs, I'm tempted to do the same run again!

Night each.

Wednesday 1 June 2011

On the 1st day of Juneathon, my true love said to me........

ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ...........

Yep, it's true, she did. Well, it was 5 in the am when I got out of bed! Don't blame her really, and she did have George to snuggle up to.
I should point out here that George is our 2 1/2 year old son, not a random gimp we keep strapped to the bed at all times.

Hey ho, the 'bi-yearly challenge of seeing which of us can injure ourselves first through excessive amounts of running' is upon us all again, and I was still undecided as to how far I would run on this first day.
As whichever route I took started the same, there were 3 points at which I could chicken out and take a shorter one.
Firstly, into Didcot - shall I turn left at the bookshop, thereby taking the shortest route possible? Nah, sod that. That would mean me getting to work at 6am, so I carried on.
Secondly, round behind the power station - shall I go straight on thereby touching just over 6 miles and getting to work at a sensible 6:30am? Nah, knickers, done 6 miles a couple of weeks ago, I'mah keep going!
Third and lastly - into Sutton Courtenay - shall I turn left at the roundabout instead of right and waste the chance of hitting a poss 10 miler? Nah, come on Stu, HARDCORE RAAAAAHHHH!

So I turned right at that tiny wee roundabout, scuttled my way along Milton Road, through Milton Park Trading Estate and along the Power Station road before turning left at the lights and into work.....5 mins late! Ha ha, don't care.
Total distance 10.01 miles (according to RunKeeper) RESULT!
Total time - an ok 1:28:07, but then I wasn't racing, just bimbling.

It was beautiful weather this morning when I set out, and I only wish it will carry on for the whole of June, doubt it though. Let us see what tomorrow brings in the way of running based activity. I'm at the gym in the morning so it all really depends on the state of my increasingly achey legs as to the distance I will be covering, unfortunately, you won't know till I do!
Don't forget to click the link that appears on fb or twitter, it'll be around 7pm.

Toodle pip m'dears.