Today started well as my mate Hamish posted this on my Facebook wall with the comment “Just because”:
Yeah, that’s a good way to start the day, though he also pointed out that Fear of a Punk Planet is 21 years old. In America it can legally drink. Mind you, this year Suffer will turn 27.
I wonder which albums and artists I’m listening to these days will still make me smile in a couple of decades time? Probably this:
~ We sing with our heroes, thirty-three rounds per minute… ~
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Distance: 8.90km
Time taken: 00:47:49
Average/Max Speed : 11.17/17.05 kph
Average/Min Pace : 00:05:22/00:03:31
Calories: 629
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It’s strange how several ideas can come along at once. I haven’t had a non-work programming project for a long time, and now I’m putting one out to beta test, I’ve got idea for at least two more that I’m putting together to help out a non-programmer and while on the train home tonight I messaged another friend with an idea which he deemed to be interesting. It’s a good thing I’m not filling my free time with something like running, eh!
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Distance: 9.14km
Time taken: 00:49:48
Average/Max Speed : 11.01/15.15 kph
Average/Min Pace : 00:05:27/00:03:57
Calories: 648
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I’ll be honest, I could have done with a less eventful drive home.
A lot of the time I’m a cyclist and for those hours that I am I try to make life safe and stress-free for drivers. Why? Because I’m not a dick. I’m not a road warrior who’s hell-bent on proving something. I’ll take the long way around if it avoids busy, narrow streets. I’ll wait at lights and go when I’m supposed to. At roundabouts, I’ll take the lane and signal very visibly with my hands. You may take a few extra seconds to get around the roundabout but you’ll not wonder what I’m going to do next.
What I don’t do is mount an HID light to the front of my bike and set it to full beam and strobe settings. That’s just stupid. It’s not so much an exercise in visibility as causing blindness and seizures in drivers. I also cycle in a straight line. I don’t always cycle right next to the kerb cos there’s a lot of shit in the drains, but I also don’t come out of my seat and wiggle the bike from side to side like I’m completing a TDF hill stage.
All the gear. No idea. Two of them. They were an embarrassment to the well lit, reflective cyclist with a pannier who was doing everything right in front of them. So trying to get by those idiots was interesting.
Then we got the bridge and, again, not being a dick I let a car in from the slip road in that nice way that happens when two streams of traffic merge like a zip. It was a boy racer car which had clearly been lowered. There was even a sticker on the back saying so. The exhaust was very low. And moving. Low and moving about. And a bit more. Then it was off and bouncing down the tarmac towards me. With traffic in the other lane and up behind me there was nothing to do but try to avoid it as best I could which is, of course, impossible when the thing is half as wide as the lane and moving.
I suppose I should be thankful that I managed to hit it with a wheel and thus drove over it, rather than it going up and into my wind shield. I should also be grateful that there’s only very minor, superficial damage to the car. I hope everyone else behind me got away as lightly.
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Distance: 7.46km
Time taken: 00:42:55
Average/Max Speed : 10.43/16.80 kph
Average/Min Pace : 00:05:45/00:03:34
Calories: 524
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I think I’m out. Out of the distance race, that is. After reading Gary’s blog post this morning, I was struck by one particular phrase: If you prefer your running “improvement free”, you should probably look away now. That’s pretty much a good way of describing my running; improvement free.
I’ve never sat down with a plan for keeping fit other than keeping it regular, so I’ll plod away on the same old routes and never really push myself to do anything other than push on for an extra couple of kilometres. So, instead, I’m going to start varying how I run and try to improve rather than just go for distance.
To that end, I repeated a regular route today, one that takes me uphill and when I got to base of the hill I started running rather than shuffling. Turns out I’m really not all that good at running uphill at speed. I had to break it into chunks with walking in between and my legs were hurting in ways I’m not normally used to. All of that is great though, as it moved the run from being just something I had to do to keep my hand in, to something that highlighted a weak spot in my training.
So, from now on, it’s not distance I need to concentrate on, it’s fitness.
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Distance: 8.47km
Time taken: 00:50:19
Average/Max Speed : 10.09/16.78 kph
Average/Min Pace : 00:05:57/00:03:34
Calories: 589
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Remember those pictures of the fallen tree I posted a few days ago? I’m off to help cut it up into little pieces with the aid of chainsaws so it was just a morning dash for me today.
****** Distance: 5.96km Time taken: 00:33:08 Average/Max Speed : 10.79/13.18 kph Average/Min Pace : 00:05:34/00:04:33 Calories: 424 ******
I finished Juneathon by running up Arthur’s Seat and so I’m doing the same with Janathon! What? It’s not over yet? But my legs are starting to hurt! However, they still managed to take me part way up Arthur’s Seat and then down the other side into yet another howling wind.
It was good to get some different terrain under my feet than the Water of Leith cyclepath. As much as I enjoy those routes, some soft grass and slidey mud is just that little bit more interesting. It’s also good to run past the tourists who are struggling to walk up the slopes. I’m not saying I was sprinting up, but I gave it some effort. Not a lot. But some.
Distance: 10.87km
Time taken: 01:05:02
Average/Max Speed : 10.03/42.36 kph
Average/Min Pace : 00:05:59/00:01:24
Calories: 767
It was another day in Scotland that could best be described as being “a bit breezy”. It wasn’t quite up to the standards of either Bawbag or Son of… but it definitely had a kick all of its own. Still, feeling inspired by the thought that Ben’s seeping leg might attract some of those French dogs he loves so much, I set off into a howling gale.
So, by now, I’m sure all of you have mentioned to loved ones, friends and colleagues that you’re taking part in this great escapade of ours. When describing it to someone who hasn’t heard of it I’ll wager you get this one response: “You’re mad!” I’m not knocking anyone for using the phrase (and to be fair, I described a friend as “a fucking mentalist” when he cycled to work on Tuesday (the joke’s on me there as that’s a completely erroneous use of the word)), I just find it funny since I find Janathon to be lacking in madness. Oh sure, it’s hard, but mad? Nah.
Last year I did the Scottish Coast to Coast event for the second time. In the first year I did it in a pair over two days, but for the repeat I tackled it in one day and solo. No matter the distance, I think people find a single day event to be easier to cope with; you go somewhere, you run, you come back. You don’t structure your work and home life around going out no matter what the weather or your state of mind (no, still not mad). However, there was a moment of clarity for me on that race about the different ways of thinking.
The second-to-last stage of the race is a 21km run along the West Highland Way. Keep in mind that this is after a previous 10km of running and an intervening 125km on a bike. I get to the transition point in Fort William and bump into my friend Marty who’s working at the race. Marty’s a seasoned racer and he was helping my addled brain make decisions about what equipment to dump and what to take with me. And so, after a slow transition, I waved goodbye and set off on the road, a drink of water in one hand and some kind of food in the other.
I set off on the road with numbers going round my head. 21km to go. Three and a half hours to the kayak cut-off, let’s call it three to be safe. That means 7km/hour. 8.5min/km should do it. And then it hit me; ordinary people would do this one part of the event as an event in itself. What I saw as just another step, a point at which to change my shoes and change the sport setting on my GPS, this was a whole day out. And a tiring one at that.
I never made it to the kayak in the end as I completely crumbled. However, I got to help out another racer who was suffering from an ankle that was, and I think this is the medical term, utterly goosed, and we were then whisked across the loch in a rib. I’ve done the kayak before, but not a rib. Made my race.
Not mad. Just differently mental.
Distance: 10.43km
Time taken: 01:04:21
Average/Max Speed : 9.72/15.39 kph
Average/Min Pace : 00:06:10/00:03:53
Calories: 750
I honestly thought my Janathon might be over today; over before it had even begun. That’s right, the Bawbag was back for round two and while there are plenty of pictures on the Beeb, here’s one that’s a little closer to home for me.
That’s my parents’ house and the one I grew up in. That tree was the basis of a lot of climbing and fun in my youth but no, I’m not going to get all maudlin over a tree. I’m just glad it fell the way it did as it managed to avoid the house, the neighbour’s cars, other trees and the phone lines. In fact, the only casualty was a willow dome which is quite, quite flat now. I’m told there’s going to be a chainsaw and chipper party at the weekend so I’ll be going to see the folks on Sunday.
But anyway, the running. By the time I got home the wind gone with barely a breeze to worry about. It is, however, finally getting a bit cold and this is the first time I’ve been out running with gloves for a while. It’s also the first time I’ve been out running with Stephen for a while so it was great to catch up.
7.78km in the end which takes me into my first half marathon of the session which is great. However, joints are already starting to feel it but they’ll be told to MTFU instead of complaining. As will the soft tissues on my feet that insist on blistering. Or maybe it’s just their way of telling me that they’d like a late Christmas present of new socks. My X-Socks have been great, so maybe it’s time to treat myself. Yeah, sounds about right.
I got a bit of a ribbing for my poor distance yesterday so I decided to pick things up a bit.
Distance: 10.03km. Time taken: 00:56:04. Calories: 708.
Nothing special, but it’s a bigger number than yesterday so hopefully that’ll go some way towards satisfying the Welsho-Franc that is Ben Thomas (don’t worry, folks. This is the same fake competition I had with Pyro last year, unless I start winning).
I’d love to say that many wonderful, enthralling topics were running through my mind as I ran through the streets but it’s simply not the case. Most likely that’s because it was a morning (well, pre-breakfast) run so my poor wee brain was still struggling with the concept of having to keep me from falling over.
So, in place of something mind-boggling, here’s a short film I watched yesterday:
