Smile! All time is Relative...

Phew! I have just punished myself, and enjoyed it, what does that make me?
A sadist?
A lunatic?
An Opus Dei Member?
A runner?  (In mind if not, quite yet, the body?)

The punishment wasn't quite beating myself with willow branches or that spiky thing Paul Bethany wears around his leg in The Da Vinci Code. No I did my 1st ever night of Speed Drills...
2 sets; 10 minutes of 1min running as fast as I could, & 1 minute slow to recover.
As crazy as it sounds the 15 minutes gentle jog in between the 2 sets was the hardest part of the whole night.
Seriously, the time flew by when doing the drills, and the voice through my headphones seemed to say "GOFAST... ok slow" but when it came to the "endurance jog" it's like he switched his stop watch off, went for a brew & had his evening meal + a short nap or something! It couldn't have been only 3 minutes since he last spoke, I'd been jogging for a week already...  An so I have proved all time is relative & Mr Einstein wasn't just a mental librarian.

There were 2 high points during my run (well 3 if you count twittering the run)
1) passing another runner going the other way, who was clearly out on one of her 1st few jogs. Like me she's overweight & was sweaty red, she was running with a bloke (quite a nice looking one) who seemed to be there for moral support & as we passed we smiled at each other. Not in a nudge nudge kind of way. But in a "I feel your PAIN" kind of way, and it only made me smile more, a full on kiddie grin that lasted a good few minutes. (In fact it brings a smile to my face as I type now)
2) the bit at the end where the voice goes, "that was a great work out well done!" I nearly cried tears of joy! I made it, and I didn't cheat, or slack off, stop or any naughty stuff! I FUCKING KICKED ASS! I ROCKED! I was indeed on fiya!

And then when I found I'd acually covered just a little over 5km during the run, well I was just a little bit chuffed as you can see from my twitter post...

Thanks to everyone who Shouted for me there and then!
@carlautte 
@lottabottle2
@rosa_rocks_uk
@sheri3004

And my time for the 5k was 49min 54 sec, ok we're not talking rocket speed, yet, it's not a PB (37:20), but I'm FUCKING stoked about doing it without realising! I accidently ran 5k. 10 days ago ask me to run 5k & you could watch me have some sort of breakdown in the living room, amongst my fizzy pop & M&S chocolate biscuits!

And I know I normaly post my total distance in Miles, but this just rounds my run off nicely.

30km in 9 days, EXACTLY! couldn't have done that on purpose if I'd tried!

 VIVA LA #JANATHON!

Running for the Catharsis

Catharsis or katharsis (Ancient Greek: κάθαρσις) is a Greek word meaning "cleansing" or "purging". It is derived from the verb καθαίρειν, kathairein, "to purify, purge," and it is related to the adjective καθαρός, katharos, "pure or clean."


I've been slightly melancholy over the past few days, in early January '96 my Mother was killed, and obviously it's January now, so it's abit on my mind, as it is every January.
I'm also planning a wedding, for this May. Yipee! But, right now, it always comes back to the fact that my Mother as a dress maker should be making my wedding dress. That was written in stone at age 10 or 12 when girls realise that weddings & stuff happen and it's a day you can plan to dress up like an actual princess & people on the high street won't laugh.

So while today was a rather Lazy 2 mile run, I certainly did use it to pound out the stress & headaches out.

My husband to be has obviously noted the melancholy as there are Gu cookies on the counter in the kitchen.

Spot the Difference & Proof the voices just aren't in my head & Who to blame...



So that was the 1st Seven Days of Janathon! Phew, my shins have begun & ended their protests about it. Hopefully that's the most I'll have to put up with. (Please no one say "famous last words")

I have a game to play today. Spot the Difference;

Aside from my in ability to crop them to reasonably the same size, and that one is of my feet stood up & one of my feet sitting down, can you spot the difference between my new trainers?

Yes the bloody English crappy weather has made my feet all soggy, and made my beautiful white trainers all black & mushy. *SULK* Well, what should I have expected? Really, this is England, in January.

It was a cold wet run & more like one of those assault courses where you have to put your foot in each tyre as you run through them, trying to avoid the deep cold puddles & the sadistic drivers trying to soak me. This must be a good form for me as I ran my quickest mile.

And through the magic of technology I can share the "Attaboy" (yes that really is what Nike call these audio clips) BTW - they don't start talking until 3 or 4 seconds in...

(yes yes I wrote Paul instead of Paula, my fingers were cold!)

oh & while were at it this is the Crazy Loud American shouting FIYA!

So whilst out allegedly running, I was got to wondering who to blame for this soggy situation, and I gave this thought my full undivided attention, missed the turn back home & it was a full 3 minutes before I properly looked around and realised my error.

Using this extra time to curse & swear I remembered the Tweet that started this horrible chain of events for me...

Yeah, back in November it might have seemed great, but with all this extra weight & cold & wet & snow, I'm not inclined to agree with my former self or this Tweet.

So here's the last bit of embedding into this blog, and another Nike ad that I like..

.

I hope this blog post makes sence, but I've just eaten a whole packet of Oreos, and fear I may be entering some kind of sugar coma.

Total Miles at End of Week One

PS - Mr Virtual Runner, Thanks, honestly, I'd not have started this and once I've warmed up & dried out I'm certain I'll love Janathon again.

PPS - Cathy, extra thanks for doing this for us. Love you!

Day 6 - Lance Armstrong has moved in.

I'm Lance Armstrong, Well Done! You just beat your longest run!

It must be getting tight for space inside my phone, Lance, Paula & Loud American guy.




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Janathon day 5

Really quick run today & a really quick blog post. I'm ravenous, so is my Son, who I'm breastfeeding. There's chillie on the table, it's calling my name!
No podcast tonight just a few powersongs. Shortest run MTD.



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Janathon Day 4? Make it So!

Not quite a triumphant as yesterday, but I ran.
Today I listened to the 5k101 podcast from Running mate.


A little different in the run/walk splits than the previous podcasts.
2min run 3 walking, if I'd have tried this back when I started I probably wouldn't have ran ever again, and this time round I think I just took it super slowly so as not to be totally dead at the end of the 2 min. Coupled with the plugs for both their Facebook page / website & their app, I didn't enjoy this one so much, I think I might be very annoyed with Tod the narrator if I had to listen to this 2 more times.
So not impressed with the week one podcast.

I was impressed to come home & see Captain Picard reading the CBBies bedtime story!



But he didn't say "Make it so" at any point & I had to explain to my daughter why I was shouting it at the TV.

Oh here's a bunny I saw in a church yard on my run.



It was very dark, hope this shows up ok.




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"All this has happened before - All this will happen again"

There we go broke the 2 mile mark on Day 3 of Janathon! W00T!

Todays run was brought to me via the NHS Choices C25K podcast!

I didn't want to listen to the same podcast 3 days in a row, and a quick search in iTunes threw up this as one of my alternative options for Week One.

During the run you're prompted by the lively sounding Laura, who encourages & counts you up to each change of pace, and tells you that she'll have you running 5k, or for 30 min, with the next 9 weeks (3 weeks quicker that Robert Ullrey.) The music is quite generic, but they've obviously choosen the tracks to match a BPM for the pace of the walk/run.

No shout out from Paula Radcliffe in the Nike+ app today, she must be having a day off, just some random american guy telling me "You're on FIYA" (well that's my attempt at how to write the way he shouts "fire" down my head phones)

Oh & this Nike add, accuratly sums up how I feel abour running at the moment...