Although blogging appears to have become a weekly thing...

I promise you that running isn't. This week, after my long run on Sunday, I have either run or been the the gym every day, except yesterday.

• Monday, I couldn't face a 'recovery run', so I went to the gym instead.
• Tuesday I was in the gym as well - 35 minutes hard work on the cross trainer, and then the incredible flying machine for 20 minutes, and three sets of ten on three weights machines.
• Wednesday, a 45-minute hard run. This was a real killer, as I went at 9.4 km/hour (according to my previously published scatter-chart, I would normally take a 45 minute run at 8.5 km/hour). I knew that chart would come in handy.
  
• Thursday, I couldn't face the weights machines, but I did 40 minutes hard work on the cross trainer.
• Friday, a 35-minute gentler run, at 8.7 km/hour.
• Saturday, takeaway food, looked around some cool second hand shops on the Mansfield Road, and went to the local borough fair, which featured wonderfully traditional produce-judging what-have-you (I'll get some pictures of the massive leeks digitised soon, I promise).
  
• Today, I wanted to protect my knee, which is now starting to hurt a bit, so instead of 90 minutes on the pavement, I did 90 minutes on the cross trainer at the gym. Since sports tracker would just give me a big blot on a single point of a map, I didn't turn it on, and accordingly I can't prove that I did this today. You'll just have to take my word for it.

Please consider donating to my charity, WaterAid. Just click on the button below to start the ball rolling. I'm doing a 10k run next weekend in Sheffield, and I need encouragement to go over 9.5 sports tracker km/hour! Verbal encouragement is also a great help. Thanks to Becca and all those who have commented here.

In other news, Ian and I have bought a Wii, which is proving to be a fantastic waste of time. My life of leisure is set to end pretty soon though. I'm off to Great Yarmouth tomorrow to prove to my future employers that I don't need the MMR jab, and then I will meet some of the team in Lowestoft. Two weeks 'till I start!

Back on track

I'm sitting with a beer in our backgarden, typing into a laptop, which is glaring back at me a reflection of myself: still a bit plump despite all these miles I've covered, and requiring a haircut. The next door neighbour is strimming her garden. I did mine yesterday. That is how bloody settled and grown up I am. I mean, I just bought bulbs for a hanging basket for goodness sake!

Our cat is being de-territorized by the neighbour cat, who I have to admit is nicer to stroke and is a bit more friendly (I hope Colin doesn't read this). It's reached the point now where Colin needs to be persuaded to step outside the back door to join us. He is a bundle of squauks and miaows, and very very needy. This may have something to do with me utterly pandering to his every whim. I currently let him wake me up at 5am, whereupon I feed him, falling asleep downstairs until he wakes me up, when I let him outside to perform his ablutions. I will then allow myself to be woken again less than 2 hours later to let him back in again. He sleeps soundly during the day, except on those days where I practise a similar style of sleep torture on him in a futile attempt to teach him a lesson. When I actually start my job, and I'm not around during the week, Ian informs me that Colin will lose all of these privileges.

And to think that when I start work in Children's Centres in Great Yarmouth I'll be part of a team that among other things is trying to improve people's parenting skills, such as learning how to say 'no' to your children.

This week I ran with Ian for the first time, and, notably this was my fastest ever run. I blamed Ian for starting out too quick, but I sustained this pace, and it was obviously a really unfriendly thing to do. He managed to keep with me though, and he even tried to pass me at the end. How dare he!

Then Ian and I joined the council gym scheme, for a one month taster thing, £25 each. This week I've been in twice, once for a swim, and then running on the treadmill for 40-odd minutes at a pretty good pace. I also did some weights, and spent 20 minutes on what my friend Caroline once unforgettably described as my 'incredible flying machine'.

Today's run really does mean that I'm back on track. 81 minutes, slightly faster than last week's long run, over the 10k barrier for the first time (actually over 11k). I feel like I will be more than able to do the Sheffield run in a few weeks time, but not at any kind of pace.

I will also admit here to having nipples, and that they are starting to chafe a bit. I would have bought Vaseline in Poundland today, but I couldn't cope with taking it to the till. Ian suggested that I use his Vaseline lip chapstick, which provided a humourous image.

And as James notes running is pretty dreadful. I stayed up to watch the marathon last night, and those guys were in advanced states of bodily distress. How is that a good thing? I cannot really say a good word for it. Like some kind of junkie, the endorphine high is harder to come by now. I guess in that way I can see how people start to work out harder and harder, although I can't help but think that heroin would be easier.

Milestone run

Although I didn't manage the '85 minutes, easy pace' that was programmed for today, I did set out this morning to push myself beyond the limit, a la Paula Radcliffe, except without the crying and sneaky roadside poos, and anyway I think I did okay with my 69 minute run - the above-mentioned milestone being, confusingly, the hour-mark.

Feel free to study my imaginative route, which took in a total of 4 parks.


Please see the table below. Please don't ask me to explain why I made this table - what a waste of time.


Aside from running, I can report that Ian and I have had our first visitors here in Notts - Angela and Lisa visited from now-local Lincoln, and we had a bit of a troll around town. We love guests! Robin's coming this weekend.

Tomorrow - 20 minute recovery run

What on earth is a recovery run? What sort of ailment could a recovery run successfully treat? Today I feel awful, having run myself rather ragged trying to keep up with my schedule, and now that I come to look at said schedule, I find I'm due a 'recovery run' tomorrow. I really don't think running more is going to help.

My phone died half way round my run today. It would be a perfect opportunity to lie and say that I did manage the full 45 minutes, but I didn't at all. I think I went off a bit too fast, 10 minutes in I had a stitch, and 20 minutes in I was feeling really sick. I'm quite a way off pace. Anyway, I'm three weeks away from the Sheffield 10k run, which will probably take me about 80 to 90 minutes running. I'm up to 55, so this is very achievable.

In other news, I have put a picture up in our hall, cooked a few dinners, and spent plenty of time reassuring the cat.

A month

Fear not, Martin, Glenn and the silent majority, I am still running, although slightly, although slightly less than I ought to, sportsfans.

Instead of presenting here a grinding, all-encompassing narrative, sure to bore you to submission, I will break my descriptions into easy-to-skip chunks, with each detailing one of the three primary excuses I have for not running enough during this period, and with the whole constituting a description of my activities over said interim.

Excuse #1 - job interviews and associated spiral of depression
I am pleased to announce that the cycle of train journey-interview-heartbreaking telephone rejection has come to an end, and not before time - I was starting to get really bitter. No more absurd and contradictory feedback for me, for now I have a job as a speech therapist at the end of the earth [Great Yarmouth].

I never did get to Ricky's the night of my last post - I ended up in Hackney, smoking, not running. Ian and I did find a property in Nottingham, and I did meet up with Paul. The night before my interview we went sea-fishing at his sea-house in Sea Palling, where we stayed before my interview (and where I'll be lodging for my forthcoming working weeks), and I didn't sleep until nearing 3am. Obviously I hadn't been exhausted enough during my previous interviews, and what they were actually looking for was an entirely robotic performance.

I can see now that I was totally dispirited from my seemingly hopeless situation, and the negative feedback I got from North Tyneside, and I blame that for me not going for a run until the 20th, which roughly corresponds with when I found out about the Great Yarmouth job.

Excuse #2 - moving house
Ian's job ended in Middlesborough on the 25th of July, we moved on the 29th, and his new job began on the 6th of August. I tracked 19.7km between the 20th and the 26th of July, so I was doing very well for a while.

We had forgotten how awful moving house is. We ended up taking loads of stuff to the charity shops - I would estimate one and a half Ford Fiestas full. We also have boxes of stuff for ebay, when we get round to it. We'd been in that flat for two and a half years, and we were getting really good at storing things there. We needed a move.

And now me, Ian and Colin are in this amazing house in a slightly debatable part of Nottingham. We have the double edged sword of being obscenely close to a massive Sainsburys. We back on an amazing park where real families come to have fun at the aviary, the sensory garden, the pond and/or the skatepark. We even have the slightly unnecessary added security of backing onto a fire station and the council offices.

We have inherited someone's life. Our landlord - it seems he couldn't afford to live here, in the current climate, and so he's moved to live with his family, leaving his furniture, his telly, his incredible mattress, his lawnmower. He even left his washing powder, and now our clothes smell great. It's like a total life upgrade, and it feels good but weird.

But why, then, has it taken me so long between moving here and going for my first run (7th of August)?

Excuse #3 - manflu
As soon as we starting unpacking, I started to feel ill. I manfully carried on with the work of settling in though, despite aching fingers and a horrible sore throat. It turned into a proper chest infection, and it took a good week to get over. All this and no internet to console me!

I have now done two runs, with today's being my longest and furthest run ever. The schedule, which I've only just looked at, the first time in ages, expected me to do an 80 minute run. I managed a 53.5 minute run, covering nearly 7.5 sportstracker kilometers (roughly 6.8km in reality). Although I'm behind where I should be, I feel as though I'm on target for the 10k run in Sheffield, and I'm now getting back into it. I will go for a run tomorrow. Please sponsor me - I need support to get me back into the regular training schedule.