Archive for June, 2007
June 28, 2007 at 9:19 pm · Filed under Running
Thanks Tanya for sending me this rather fine collection of legs to choose from in case my own shoddy examples aren’t on form for this Sundays British 10k. So far I haven’t resorted to leg transplantation as I have other options…
No Wetsuit Girl has recommended EPO which seems to be de-riguer for all us professional affyletes. I’ve been on eBay but all to no avail, EPO is just not that easy to source in a hurry. I’m volunteering at the Tour de France prologue on the 7th July which is bound to be swimming in the stuff, but thats a week too late. Looks like I’m gonna have to be a pure 100% me naturlly slow shuffler for the big day.
I’m not going to give up too easily though as it looks like I may have a little secret weapon….
Typically I would say that music just doesn’t touch me. I’ve spent hours tweaking playlists according to bpm measurements in an attempt to increase my running cadence but I have remained deaf to the beat. Finally though, I seem to have found the genre that speaks my body’s language, on my last run a merengue track popped out of nowhere onto my iPod playlist and my legs went into overdrive. Admittedly it does leave me with a rather odd running style but it has the benefit of a desirably fast leg twitch, I just need to skip the backwards footsteps and I’ll be winning.
Popularity: 10% [?]
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Tags: Swimming
June 24, 2007 at 11:33 pm · Filed under Running
I’m not in fine running fettle at the moment. My legs are misbehaving a little, they seem to have forgotten that they belong to a runner now and are firmly set in the slobbing out in front of the telly mode. The legs managed an 8.5 k circuit of Richmond Park today but I’m not too happy about their lack lustre attitude and they had better develop a spring in their step before next Sunday’s London 10k or I’ll have to have words with them.
This reminds me of one of Oliver Sacks’ patients from The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat, this guy felt that one of his legs had been replaced by a strangers amputated leg. He didn’t take to it at all and kept throwing himself out of the bed, leg first as he tried to remove himself from the imposter attached to his body. Note to legs – take this as a warning!
Popularity: 7% [?]
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June 20, 2007 at 11:51 pm · Filed under Running
This was a pitiful hobble masquerading as a running commute. I feel fit to quit running today. Throughout the tiny distance I managed to keep moving, I was sulking and stropping like a four year old.
Not that anyone noticed.
This time round I was looking at the garmin for permission to quit after just 423m. The Pussycat Dolls spurred me on for another 206m before I slowed to a walk and polished off my entire water bottle, thereby leaving me high and dry for another 20 odd kilometres. I did a few more yards of running to Akon’s Bellydancer, then gave up again.
The next few kilometres were too painful to go into, I ran a bit but was dragging my feet so much I was tripping over discarded daisy chains and other assorted crud. At one point I stopped at the sight of juicy red cherries tempting me from the roadside. I saw a European couple picking these yesterday and I thought to warn them off as I thought ornamental cherries were toxic. I didn’t bother though and today I wondered if they knew something I didn’t. Popped one in my gob and immediately felt poisoned by the bitter fruit. I then imagined my throat going into spasm so opened my mouth to gasp in a bit more oxygen. A fly promptly shot in and impacted on the back of my throat. My run was cut short again as I started dry retching in the hedgerow.
The moment I reached the A4 and signs of a public transport system, the run was over. I’d previously ignored the first bus stop because the destinations didn’t appeal to me but I decided not to be such a snob today and just let it carry me a little way down the A4 til I could pick up with more familiar routes. I checked the route and it said it was heading down Western Rd, another name for the A4 is the Great Western rd so I assumed they were just saving space on the lamppost by missing out the word Great. I am such a transport vigin! Within 10m of getting on the bus it turned off the A40 and headed back the way I came. ***!**!!!
After an hour of the most miserable run of my life I end up back outside my place of work ready to start the whole commute again. Only this time I’m crying like a baby and swearing never to run this route again. Someone seemed to have messed with my iPod today as well, there was nothing I liked on it except Celia Cruz singing I Will Survive in Spanish, and that appeared too late to save me.
Popularity: 8% [?]
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Tags: commute, Garmin
June 17, 2007 at 11:55 pm · Filed under Running
I’ve just got back in from my run – it was a tough one. I’d meant to go out for a run with Shakti this morning but certain events, like the title of this blog post and then a rather large steak conspired to thwart me.
I’ve been going stir crazy most of the day and so despite having just eaten a large plate of chilli prawns and drunk most of a half bottle of ruby cabernet, I decided to push myself out for a run before bed. I don’t like running at dusk, its always light enough when I set off for me to think the river route would be a good plan but when I get to the other side it gets all dark and spooky. I kept feeling the presence of someone behind me, pushing me to a panic fuelled sprint towards the safety of the bridge. I had a stitch and was nearly sick by the time I got there. I felt sure that I must be on for a record time for the course but sporttracks doesn’t seem to be playing fair today, I was apparently a whole 2 minutes slower than yesterdays time. Mind you, no one ever claimed large volumes of red wine to be a performance enhancer.
So back to this morning….
I was in the middle of a dream when I was stirred by the sound of my door buzzer ringing repeatedly. I dragged myself out of bed keeping both eyes firmly shut. T’was Shakti so I released the door and went straight back to bed while she made her way up. It was 7.30 and I couldn’t fathom out why she’d decided to come round for our run quite so early. I hoped she’d just settle down quietly and let me finish off my dream in peace.
When she got in she was puffing like crazy so I rolled over and gave her one eyeball, my interest was stirred and I opened both eyes, then I sat bolt upright – all memories of my dream wiped out – don’t you hate it when that happens? Anyway, the vision in front of me is a woman in a skimpy t-shirt (no undergarment) and a pair of pants, thats pants in the knicker sense and not the trouser sense – there were no trousers! There were also no socks and no shoes. What the …?
Apparently Shakti had taken it upon herself to sweep her front garden and she decided it was perfectly acceptable to do this in a pair of high waisted pants. Of course, this is only going to end one way – the front door decides to slam shut and she found herself outside, completely exposed without phone, keys or clothes.
At this point I would have dug a waist high hole in my front garden and waited for a friendly visitor. Shakti decided she would sprint for a set of spare keys, thats a barefoot, bra-less 1 mile run through suburbia passing a busy bus route and the bus terminus. Good thing is, she decided she rather likes running, but only if she can do it barefoot and reckons she could even manage a marathon if someone swipd her trousers first.
Popularity: 27% [?]
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Tags: Sporttracks, t-shirt
June 14, 2007 at 10:48 pm · Filed under Running
I’ve been getting seriously bored with my daily cycle into work, it takes so long and the route is ugly, but for some reason I thought running home would add the spice missing from life. So today marks the inaugral boring running commute. I was mistaken in thinking that running the route at a sedate 5mph would be more exciting than cycling at 16mph with homicidal car drivers thrown in.
I’m getting ahead of myself, before I could run home I had to brave plebian transport again. Uugh! Firstly it cost me £8 for my ticket – why would people pay that? Why isn’t everyone cycling to work and living it up in Waitrose with the mammoth saving? Then I had to allow two trains pass me because they were full. They arrived at the platform full but I stood mesmerised as 50 odd people managed to cram themselves into tiny crevices. The driver had to walk up and down the platform pushing bulging arses out of the gaps in the door so he could set off. If I ever do that again I’m gonna take a video of it, its quite amazing.
Eventually a nice quiet train arrived and I was counting my blessings and thinking that I’d only end up being about 2 mins late for work which isn’t bad at all and only half an hour slower than cycling, when I noticed that the train had just whizzed past my stop. Then it whizzed past the next two stops and I began to feel a little less lucky and a lot more pissed off. It finally spewed me out into Slough which I suppose has to be better than Reading. Back I trogged to West Drayton vowing never to leave the bike at home again.
Set off running home, again for some reason carrying my umbrella and this time a couple of grapefruit. Starting flagging and looked at the garmin to see if I’d gone far enough to quit, decided 1.14 km was probably not sufficient. By 8 km I had cheered up considerably and thought I could probably run for ever. At 9 km I spotted a bus heading to Hammersmith and chased it down to the next stop where I hopped on. Here I had a 10 min breather while it shunted me along the A40 – a heck of a lot of people vacated after I climbed on board. Got off near Brentford and picked up the latter half of my old familiar running commute and managed a little stretch along the river.
No gels, gu’s or even a solero ice-cream, I was running on the promise of a cool Stella. Today I am trialling out Joggerbloggers drinkabitathon rules and as the weather brightens I may try out Jogblogs version.
In total I ran 15 km in 1:58:00. Admittedly I had a breather in the middle but I’m really chuffed with that, and it looks like my target of 2 hrs for the Cabbage Patch 10 is feasible.
Popularity: 11% [?]
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Tags: commute, Garmin, OGB, Stella
June 10, 2007 at 10:29 pm · Filed under Running
I was out running the other day when a nutter nice gentleman blocked my path and after consulting with Mr Invisible behind his right shoulder, informed me “You’ll die soon!”. He then waited just long enough for me to think “oh bugger” before continuing his sentence, which in its entirety went something like “You’ll die soon…. if you speak to me”. I stifled a laugh as he’d just given me a great get out clause. I can’t say I had been falling over myself to spark up a conversation with him anyway but I still had to bite my tongue not to tell him so.
I’ve missed a few interesting events over the last few days and in light of my close shave with an untimely end I have to wonder if I’d be devastated if I never got the opportunity to take part in them again. Yesterday was the World Naked Bike Ride day, how do I keep managing to miss this? Today was the 20k Octopus Run in Richmond Park and the t-shirts alone are worth hanging around another year for. T’other day was the Crisis Square Mile run of which I’ve heard great reviews and I’m going to do my best to escape work early enough to squeeze this one in next year (nutters permitting).
The one event that I don’t think I’ll miss is the marathon monks deathly challenge. These guys run 2 marathons every day for 1000 days, wearing white robes and bamboo sandals. Pretty tough, but they also have to carry a shovel, a rope and a sword on their journey, just so they can despatch with themselves if they become unable to finish the task. No opportunity for cutting the route short with a little bus ride mid run.
I believe that the latest monk to complete this task has been in training for 7 years and his schedule will be of interest to any endurance runner, but is not for the feint hearted.
This morning I managed a measley 3.5 km around Richmond Park wincing on every step as my bruised nail beds were forced against the top of my shoes. After that I went to some back street herbalist for my first acupuncture session. I didn’t mention my poorly toes for fear that I’d have pins shoved under my nails, instead the doctor concentrated on my patellar tendon and my tight ITB. Interesting process, it felt like I had 15 needles stuck along my leg but it’s not as drastic as disembowling myself for wimping out.
Popularity: 10% [?]
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Tags: commute, OGB, t-shirt
June 8, 2007 at 11:30 pm · Filed under Running
My regular running commute has been on the back burner for a while. I started at my new placement a few weeks ago which has pushed the required running distance to 13 miles, part of which covers a portion of the West’s very own murder mile, or in fact murder 12 miles. Needless to say I haven’t been rushing to try it out. Today I was based at the Royal College of Psychiatrists in Aldgate and it just so happens to make a far more scenic 13 mile commute.
When I left the house this morning, the forecast was still for horrendous thunder storms over London, so I packed my running clobber and a little umbrella. I was impressed that my asics running pack has a special slot for an umbrella, but really, did I actually intend to run with one? Seems I did. Crappy forecast though – it was a scorcher.
I started running from Tower Bridge and then proceeded to weave myself in and out of all the hot and sticky tourists on the south bank.
I’d drained my water bottle by Westminster Bridge and was wondering if I should have considered Gu’s or gels for my impromptu half marathon attempt. I didn’t have any so I compromised with a Solero Exotic ice cream and a bottle of water – shocking £2.50 down the drain but I bet those sachets of slime aren’t cheap either.
Resisted meeting the OGB slacker for a pint at St Thomas’ and picked up a few partner yoga tips instead.
Now then, given my previous max mileage was something like 10.67 km, it would have been foolish to jump straight up to a 13 mile (20 km) run and I have to say that I didn’t really intend to run the whole way home. Trouble is I didn’t have that many alternatives sorted out – there aren’t that many tubes near the river and I never look or smell my best after a 10k run in the heat so I’d probably be blocked from entering by the sniffer dogs.
I got up to my 10k barrier and started walking a bit and then started running a bit and then I started to notice that my toenails were peeling away from the nail bed and my shins were hurting and my hip was hurting and….
You get the picture, I was in moaning minnie phase and it continued until I got to Hammersmith and decided to fish out the oyster card and hop on the bus that takes me to my local chippy. I managed a final little hobble trying to get my feast home before it got too steamy in the bag. Finished the day jolly satisfied with my can of cold stella and a whopping plate of fish and chips.
Total non bus assisted distance (dotted line) was 16 km or 10 miles. Quite a long bloody way but I have some work to do before the Cabbage Patch 10 in October.
Popularity: 20% [?]
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Tags: asics, backpack, commute, OGB, Stella
June 3, 2007 at 9:56 pm · Filed under Running
Somehow I managed to miss my invite to the Juneathon challenge, neither XFR Bear, Jogblog or Jogger blogger saw fit to let me know of the great event before it was too late and I was too pissed to join in.
On the 1st, I managed an unexpected sprint home from the pub, as my weekend guest seemed to think her visitor status gave her the automatic right to use the bathroom first – wrong! Yesterday was a bit slack on the running front, I think I may have broken into a little jog down the steps of the Millenium bridge, and I thought about chasing the little sh**s tearing round the cinema at the end of Spiderman 3 – does that count?
Today however, Rach dragged me out of bed at 8.30 and started to hum the theme tune to Rocky – the running was back on. I found myself melting in the middle of Richmond Park with a support team of two, yelling me on to greater and greater distances. Shame Rach lives in Nottingham, I’d definately recruit her as a regular personal trainer.
Here are my two motivators enjoying the view at the midpoint of the run.
Not much time allowed for photo snapping before the whip was cracked again and we went back into the park for a smartish run in search of sizzling sausages. Found these pretty foxgloves first though, and my heart was racing so much by this point that I was tempted to have a little nibble.
Popularity: 8% [?]
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Tags: OGB
