Vital statistics

I’m rubbish at maths.  But I know the figures for my run didn’t add up this morning.  I checked my pace about fifteen minutes in and the Nike+ reported that I’d done 0.47 miles.  I’ve noticed that over my last couple of runs, the overly-medicated female voice has stopped telling me my stats – usually how far you’re run on a distance programme or long for a timed run, from what I remember.  Perhaps the sensor is moving about too much on my shoe.  I’ll keep a better eye on it for the next run.

When I came home I used the Google pedometer to calculate the distance and it came out at 2.72 miles – better but irritating because if I’d realised that was my true tally I’d have stayed out a little longer, to at least 3.5.

I decided to delete this run so as not to completely bugger up my averages (20 min mile – no thanks) and also deleted the Christmas Day walk.  So my totals are a little off but the average pace should be closer to what it really is.  And that’s what I need to work on reducing.

9  :: 31:64 :: 11:06

One of those days

I’m trying to keep up with the best of intentions and for the most part it’s working.  I’m getting a little more cautious about the distances – after some twinges, erring on side of caution and sticking to up to 4 miles at the moment, which is plenty for a newbie.  Tonight I wasn’t totally in the mood. Then I offered to cook dinner for a friend after the run and suddenly it was like a promise “got to run, got to cook’ and I did.  And it went really well.  It was one of those days when you feel immeasurably better for pounding your joints through three swimming-through-treacle miles and remember why you ever bothered to start running again.

Not loving running in the dark.  As I still rely on music to keep me going, and the Nike toy to log the run, I’ve taken to having one earphone in.  I know it’s still not totally safe.  Though I was surprised at the amount of runners that I passed – all solo – so come the spring nights, the park is going to be mobbed. (I run on pavements and roads at the moment – along bus routes where it’s busy and on the roads around my local park, if it’s early morning or winter night runs).

The other thing that I really should really get hold of is some Cram tags.  Or a plastic keyring with a contact number on it.  Well the ideal solution would be a running partner… I’m thinking that if I stick with this until the end of March I’ll try the local club again.

10 :: 34:85 :: 11:25

The Saturday Plan

What was the plan? I allowed some emotional stuff to get the better of me and didn’t feel like hauling myself out of bed on Wednesday morning and it was raining that evening.

Back on track yesterday?  Well I didn’t make the Pilates class but I did run.

Today I was a lazy arse and just did a Power Plate session at the gym.  Will this ever work? The mind boggles.

Run tomorrow.

Good news – up to silver level on my PruHealth vitality.  Cheaper gym membership, hurrah.  Now better make sure I use it.

8 :: 27:43 :: 11:39

I ask for resolution…

…and I get snow.

I was determined to stick to the nascent running schedule so hauled myself out of bed on Monday morning, intending to plod (using the run/walk i.e. don’t kill or cripple yourself method) 5k around the common by my house.  It was dark and miserable and cold but I put on the new gear and got out there.  Can’t give up on the first day.

It was only after I actually started to walk down the stairs from the flat that I realised it had bloody well snowed.  Yeah yeah, white prettiness even in not so rural Hackney.  However it meant that I couldn’t do the common run as all the paths were slippery.  Cue plodding around the streets instead.  Despite hat, gloves, base layer and fleece, lined running tights, and the blubber of a whale,  I wasn’t exactly overheating even when I got back in the house. But was happy I’d gone.  Tick one box.

Most of my colleagues are members of the same gym as me.  One mentioned yesterday morning that she’d gone to the gym before work and I thought ‘Ooh. I used to do that.’  Even though I’d been planning to do the lunchtime power plate class.  So when I got into the gym just before 8:00am I was kind of a loss at what to do. Lesson – stick to the plan.  I farted around doing some weights and then booked into the power plate class and went back at 1:00.

Wow. It was hell. And that was the beginner’s class. I was kind of horrified.  Ok, very much authentically genuinely horrified. But I’ve got to persevere if it’s going to work.  Cross training, Pilates and power plate,  weights primarily for upper body strength and toning, and running for cardio.  I’m taking advantage of the gym’s free personal training session to get my programme reset, using all the new machines that have appeared since my last session there.

But still sticking to the plan.  The plan is run tomorrow morning, then Pilates class on Thursday, run on Friday.

7 :: 23.28 :: 11.47

The latest toy

One of the running gadgets that I’ve acquired recently (as opposed to the rest of the stuff that was acquired a while ago and now needs replacing/battery changes/updating/is powered by clockwork ) is this useful little bit of kit:

Hidden beneath the Colinette Jitterbug is a Nike + iPod sensor.  I woudn’t wear Nike Shoes and besides I have a couple of pairs of Asics that are fine so had to find some way of attaching it to my shoe rather than popping it into the shoe’s sole as you would with a Nike shoe. I found this list of hacks and was inspired by Yarnagogo, though I used more stitches and knit a longer horizontal cosy rather than her more narrow vertical one. I threaded ribbon through the back and laced it up through the top lace holes and up through the shoe so that it stays secure and relatively horizontal – though someone else told me he sticks his sensor in his sock and it works fine – but I wear those silly girly cut-off trainer socks so that wouldn’t work. The other option would have been the fabric version from Web Goddess. If you do your own hack remember to make sure that the sensor is positioned with the logo upwards.  It only works with the iPod nano I think.

There’s more information here about how the thing works.  You upload your stats from each run back to Nikeplus.com and can plan training schedules and log your mileage.  You can compile playlists and run by distance, calorie expenditure, or time, or just keep going until you fall over. It seems relatively accurate so far and I’m working on running 50 miles in January.  (Average run is about 3 miles every other day so should be just about doable).  My average pace is between 11 and 12 minutes at the moment.  Gulp.

Another year, another mental challenge

So last year it was learning to rock climb (I should have known that would end in tears) and it soon became ‘the goal that would never be’.

As detailed below, I was hoping to run the London Marathon for one of the breast cancer charities (ideally Macmillan as it has now merged with the charity that was most helpful to a friend who passed away from cancer last year) but it wasn’t to be.  The FLM entries have long closed and all the charities’ Gold Bond places were hotly contested and three rejections meant that it simply wasn’t going to happen.

However…

When I was home at Christmas a friend mentioned that he’d just run the Dublin Marathon for the second time.  “Oh yeah,’ he chirped, “you can enter up to like a month before.”  That’s right folks, you just pays your money and takes your chances…  then he did go on to tell me how it was much harder than the previous one he’d one, he didn’t hit the time he was going for and he felt every single step but now we’re not going to dwell on that sort of thing, are we?

So I have a bed at his house that weekend and the cheerleading squad already has members lined up.  It’s over the (Irish) Bank Holiday weekend at the end of October – so lots of time to get ready; and training can take place over the summer autumn rather than in the fricking blistering cold at the moment. I can raise cash for any charity I choose.

More on the training later, and yes it has started (iron-hot-striking) and it’s also going in tandem with a big effort to reduce my bulk considerably so there isn’t quite so much of me striking the pavement each time my foot hits.  First goal – no alcohol for a month.  That’s for starters.

Have a big G&T ready for Feb.

Madness loves company!

Thank you! For the comments, the encouragement, the lack of open ridicule. Things seem to coming together nicely. Here’s the progress so far

• the entry forms go off tomorrow – eek!
• fundraising ideas are coming together – which include selling craft items in the run up to Christmas; mates from my former life in publishing are offering to chase up signed books for sale/auction; and cake club – of course, the first rule of cake club is…
• I’ve approached some crafty friends who teach, and they have very generously volunteered to donate their time – teaching workshops to raise cash for the fund. More details to follow soon
• people are putting themselves forward to be my running partner for those long treks in the last stages – thanks
• I’ve got a schedule worked out for the 29 weeks, to get me around safely and with my toenails intact, now just need to start making the iPod playlists

The 29 week program starts tomorrow…

A lot of steps will be required…

In memory of a lovely lady, and to support recently diagnosed friends, I am aiming to run the London Marathon next year to fundraise for research into breast cancer. I’m applying for a Golden Bond charity place, which means that I am committing to raise a minimum amount of money, at least £2,000, ideally or more.

I’ve run FLM before, but it was a long time ago. It was a long distance, a long time ago. Afterwards I don’t think I realised how much of an achievement it was, I was more worried about the fact that my little toes had turned into kalamata olives and the nail on my big toe was imitating a trapdoor, about to flap open (I remember phoning my mother and asking what she thought would be underneath – luckily it was a new nail – phew!). The greatest weapons in my comparatively small arsenal in April 2000 were my friends in my little running club, that I was reasonably fit, and the fact that I had absolutely no idea what running 26.2 miles would be like. Everyone who’s ever run a marathon will tell you that the .2 is very important.

So this time around it’s all the scarier. The very first hurdle is getting a place. The second hurdle is raising the sponsorship target. Next we – should you stick around – have six months of no chocolate and lots of interval training to get into shape before the actual run (let’s not call it a race. Its not like I will be aiming to place.) I don’t have the same running club for support. I know precisely what I am letting myself in for. I know that every step along this path will be a big challenge but I’m a plodder, and that’s ok. I get there in the end.

And I am determined to get to the end – because I can. I can get up and run – which hell knows, I’ll have to – and I can go to work, and see friends, and call my mother to ask her about toenails or anything else for that matter and others aren’t so lucky. I’m no Paula but I do have one thing going for me – I am stubborn as the day is long (now my mother is nodding). I know that I can do whatever I put my mind to, and I have a mind to do this. As for not having a running club right now – well there’s the lovely ladies down in east London to run with, and then there’s all of you to spur me on. I’ll promise to keep you up to date, and you can harangue spur me on.

There may be an auction or two of craft items to try to raise cash towards the total. There will be a JustGiving page so that contributors in the UK can take advantage of lovely Gift Aid. There will be considerable pressure applied to nearby corporate arms to ‘leverage’ the company’s promise to contribute to charity this year, with matched giving. There will be cajoling, entreating and outright asking for cash.

Tell me I’m crazy, I won’t disagree. But also tell me that you will support me and that’s a fair trade off. I can’t make any promises, apart from no unasterisked profanity, you don’t have to give up chocolate, and absolutely no photos of any trapdoor toenails – at least not until after April. So what do you think?