NEW YEAR

Yes, Happy New Year to all our readers and a new leaf has been turned here at Shunningrunning HQ.

OK, OK, there are plenty of those being turned at this time of year, but in order to get back on track and treadmill here at Shunningrunning we put a seasonal big freeze on just about everything on 1 January. The freeze in this instance has been put on alcohol, Diet Coke (sobbing and howling), sweet things (although a sprinkling of sugar in one cup of tea a day is allowed) and…erm…almost all other things – and a deprivational 1000-1200 calories a day have been instituted. Treats are those lovely easy-to-peel, seedless clementines from M&S and trying to avert self-harm due to culinary boredom. The idea is not really to try to make 100 calories look delicious and serve them on an ermine cushion encrusted with diamonds to distract attention from the foulness of the food. No – it is to forget about food for a while, use it as a functional must-do three times a day and otherwise just get on with it.

It is already 16 January and no falling off any wagon has been done. Pretty good already as, apparently, the average New Year’s resolution is broken within four hours… So – 2010 brings not a countdown to a half-marathon, but a countdown to retaking up running seriously again with less weight to run with. A tentative ‘date’ for resuming would be spring when at least 10 kg should have been removed from the Shunningrunning carcass. Things must now happen. They simply must!

ORBANA

No, not Obama or Climate Change or Nobel prizes or any other presidentially related thing. No, this is Orbana – sent to ShunningRunning by the lovely people at…well, Orbana.

Orbana is a healthy energy drink. Only you don’t receive it as a drink. It comes in small bottles with 40 g of powder in each. Just add water – and hey healthy presto! Now you may not think that that sounds particularly appetising and that it surely means lots of additives, but it doesn’t. This is a drink with no caffeine, sweeteners or preservatives. We put one little bottle through its paces in the ShunningRunning laboratory where it has been subject to the most rigorous preliminary testing. The flavour is orange, lemon and pineapple and it really does taste like all of those – with no nasty aftertaste or artificial zing to the palate. For best results, however, we feel it is essential to mix with very cold water.

The idea is not to drink this during running, but – so we are told on the bottle – for best results to mix and consume 30 minutes before exercise. We will be testing Orbana in the field next week so watch this space for results.

THIS IS IT

Yes, I admit it – things have been rather quiet on the surface here at ShunningRunning, but that does not mean that a lot of shunning of the old running has not been taking place. Oh no! I have been busy shunning running for more than six months – in fact after I took part in my first race and decided that I was decidedly NOT as good at running as I thought I was. My forte certainly is more the shunning than the running.

Ho-hum. Boston happened, but alas without me. I spent a much more fabulous time touring the coastline of Massachusetts and doing all things lobster.

Psychologically, of course, the whole ShunningRunning idiom and I were hit hard by The Gloved One’s demise. Will we ever be able to run to Smooth Criminal without thinking of Michael’s personal Dr Mengele standing over him with a yo-big syringe? Will we ever moonwalk and interfere with innocent young children in quite the same way again?

Stats

Nil by running shoe.

UP UP AND AWAY

BROLLY GOSH

So – this is the time when I should otherwise have been deep in training for Boston, just before a bit of tapering followed by a smidgen of feeling nervous and apprehensive about an 8-kilometre race through unknown and possibly deeply hostile territory. Instead, I’m wrapping up projects and looking forward in a grandiose way to an (albeit short) holiday when I will NOT be taking my laptop and NOT thinking about work and NOT thinking about running. Well, I probably will think about running and why I’m not doing much of it – although the friend (BBB) I am staying with has a treadmill in her house and as she’s the person who got me into this charade in the first place, I feel I will have to show some sort of enthusiasm and do some running under her roof in a hey-I’m-having-a-nice-day sort of way. But most of the time I hope I will be thinking happy thoughts about sightseeing and shopping and lots of exciting American things.

But I shall also try gently to reflect that although I’m not doing the half marathon, although I’m not doing the 5-mile race, although I failed miserably at the 5-kilometre ‘fun run’, the running this year so far has overall been a success. I have gone from running 30 seconds at a time (and that felt BAAAD – I remember looking at the stopwatch 20 seconds in and thinking I wasn’t going to make it…) to running 50 minutes at a time non-stop – and alcohol consumption has been reduced by about 95%. So it ain’t all a blitheringly gaumless debacle.

Stats

Pre-holiday busy-ness. It keeps raining in that rather depressing and indecisive on-off way so I couldn’t be bothered to go to the gym. I am also rabbit sitting at the moment which takes up so much brain space that I can’t possibly leave the house and think of anything else. Well, I can’t now as the rabbit refuses to go back in its hutch, has in fact hidden in a corner of the garden and will have to be chivvied out with a broomstick and lettuce leaf bribes. It cannot be left outside all night as the foxes may well make a stew of it before the morning and it would be a teensy bit awkward to explain to friends returning elated from their Greek island holiday that no, sorry, erm, the bunny is also a sort of…well, non-runner.

FRESH START

Well, enough of all this maudlin mopery. While wallowing in self-pity has its obvious attractions, there comes a time when one must stop believing one was the victim of a cruel conspiracy of events, the prey of pitiless fate and the sufferer of general sorcery and simply get on with it. So I have put away my tools of self-harm. I have placed the gin bottles reluctantly back in the cupboard. I have dusted myself down, hiked up my pantaloons and jolly well got back in the saddle. Onwards and upwards. Oh yes!

I obviously made the classic mistake of doing too much too soon, not preparing sufficiently well, overreaching myself, training erroneously, picking a distance that did not suit me… Yeah, right. Or maybe I’m just shit at running. Luckily, John Bingham (of No Need for Speed fame – see posts passim) has advice for people like me in a sweet little thought bubble called An Exercise in Joy on p 127: “The first time you must stop a run early, drop out of a race, skip a race altogether or end up finishing much more slowly than ever before, consider it a victory. You’re evolving as a runner. Take it in your stride – even boast about it“. So ha! Yay, people! Look at me! I’m shit!

Anyway, I ambled back to the gym today. I did 5 kilometres because that’s the arsing distance I was supposed to do on Saturday and I am actually capable of doing it – as long as it is under controlled laboratory conditions in hermetically sealed environments with only the radio tuned crassly to Kiss 100 blasting away for company. My legs still seemed to be slightly worse for wear from Saturday’s hard surfaces and nasty, nasty nature so I had a modest walking break in the middle today, but then did a sprint at the end which sort of weighed it up. Obviously, ’sprint’ has been redefined here at ShunningRunning as meaning slightly faster than I would normally run and probably a whole lot slower than most other people move during their cool-down.

Stats

Post-race recovery. Distance: 5 km. Run pace: 6.8 km/h. Time: Forgot to look.

I HATE RUNNING

DULWICH PARK CHARADE REPORT

The day was perfect – sunshine, no wind, relatively cool. The park was in full bloom and looked wonderful. The atmosphere was friendly and upbeat. Only the result was grey and dismal as the whole charade was exposed right down to its elite dri-fit socks. Modest, but steady progress at the gym does NOT translate IN ANY WAY WHATSOEVER into running ability on hard surfaces when you haven’t run on hard surfaces for months – no matter how excellent your socks are. After a great run in the gym on Friday which produced confidence and a real sense of moving forward, I thought the park run would be within easy-ish reach. It wasn’t. It was hard, it was demoralising and I didn’t enjoy it at all. Not one bit.

My 14-year-old running mate who hadn’t done any training whatsoever and hadn’t even bothered to put on a real pair of running shoes finished the three laps of the park in record time.

Halfway through the race, I was approached by two people with clipboards asking if I’d like to participate in a survey. When I explained to them that I was actually racing, they looked at me oddly and quickly backed away, relieved that they had narrowly avoided getting embroiled with some dangerously deluded loony who was obviously just sauntering aimlessly around the park.

This whole experience has thrown the running, its objectives, nay, the very tagline of this blog into turmoil and confusion. What now? What next? Can I take any more hilarity and humiliation? Can I be overtaken by Batman and people walking and still retain a shred of credibility as a ‘runner’? Tune in next week when I’ve probably topped myself.

Charade result: 2 laps out of 3. No goody bag or medal for me.

SOCK TIP OF THE DAY

Two pairs of Nike Elite (c’est moi!) Dri-Fit Running Socks arrived yesterday and were tested in a forensic way by my personal team of sock experts* this afternoon.

These socks are fabulous. The Dri-Fit fabric is very efficient and the socks came out as pristinely white (and orange and grey) as they went in. But more importantly, the footstrike cushioning (patent pending) works really well. Comfort all the way. Well done, Nike.

* The opinions expressed by my sock team are entirely their own based on independent empirical evidence and they are in no way in the employ of Nike or any other corporate entity. The socks were bought by ShunningRunning’s own Procurement Department.

SUBSTITUTES

This was my view during my run this evening. Gym wall. I wonder if I’ve got the colour quite right? A sort of off-green magnolia idea. I forgot about not going to the gym in the evenings and MY treadmill – the last non-wall treadmill left when I arrived – was snatched right in front of me by a nimble young person who did not need to be anywhere near a treadmill. Anyway, the wall seemed to focus the mind and I did 5.5 km comfortably.

My replacement Nike+ iPod sensor arrived this morning and I await the device that will attach it firmly to my shoe with quite astonishing excitement. I need it for Saturday.

Stats

Dulwich Park fun run training. Distance: 5.5 km. Run pace: 6.8 km/h. Time: About 48 mins.