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.

LOOK WHAT THE IPOD PIXIE BROUGHT!

At last something that costs £100, but doesn’t mangle your feet… Notice nifty Nike armband and colour of iPod – I’ve always wanted a red iPod… I almost bought the Nike + iPod Sport Kit gadget-in-shoe combo, but realised that it involved having to buy a pair of Nikes. I feared the possibility of having viciously to execute the Nike gnome at some point if the trainers weren’t up to scratch so I settled on the iPod + armband combo for an easy life.

DONNER UND BLITZEN

Notice, please, the reduction of rest days between sessions. I last went to the gym on Sunday and today is only Tuesday. The gym scores again. I am now staring down the barrel of the Mauser that is Week 9. Lunchtime saw the same subdued selection of dutiful gurlie students in tandem on the treadmill and side by side on the exercise bikes. One brought a magazine – which I suppose is a step in the right direction from the book of last week. The gurlies didn’t seem to be enjoying themselves very much. In fact, they looked really glum. But the bright young things of today have obviously wised up and are doing it all the right way round. If only I’d thought of doing things like fitness and concentrating on my course back then and waiting till now to worry myself sick about having a boyfriend, I’d be a hell of a lot stronger on the genitive plural and nowadays I wouldn’t give a toss about the boyfriend angle. Ha! Anyway, that’s Week 8 hit firmly on the head in a painless sort of way and done in the space of a real calendar week – not my usual 10-day running week due to achy ankles and mangled metatarsals.

I loaded some new tyoones onto my iPod and funnily enough ‘Greased Lightning’ has exactly the right beat for a pace of 6.7 kph. You’ve got to be careful, though, when the track slows down at the end or you might see yourself flying off the back of the treadmill in a not very cool way. Notice, please, the six point SEVEN and not six point SIX kph of last session. I’m just forging ahead here. To give some counterweight to the US-dominated running tracks, I went Euro with ‘Von hier an blind’ and ‘Gekommen um zu bleiben’ by Wir sind Helden. Nena’s ’99 Luftballons’ isn’t bad either. This sounds incredibly pretentious. I admit that I wouldn’t have known these tracks from an alpenhorn had they not been recommended to me during a trip to Frankfurt and environs.

Hair of the blog

Last night, purely for forensic reasons, I had to test my new wineglass with the little hand-painted coloured stars. Now some people may think that that sounds just a teensy bit tacky, but in fact it’s an excellent wine glass and what a shame Christmas has just been and gone as a festive goblet it is indeed. I work in the basement so a large wine glass is essential (this one holds probably about half a bottle) so that too many trips up the stairs for refills are avoided. I’m not ready for that kind of hill work yet. Anyway, the forensic tests went off successfully and by the end of the evening everything was twinkling.

Blog’s bollocks

Week 8 of 13. 1 minute walk. 5 minutes run. 54 minutes. Session 3 of 3. Walk pace: 4.5 km/h. Run pace: 6.7 km/h.

THAT SYNCING FEELING

When iTunes says ‘iPod syncing. Do not disconnect. Everything is fine. All the tracks you have just selected for ‘Running’ are now being meticulously synced to your iPod’ what it actually means is ‘Fuck all has been done’, but of course I didn’t realise this until I was in the park yesterday into my first 10 minutes and suddenly thought, hey, the syncing has done fuck all. I was so annoyed that despite the fine sunny weather and having paid for parking and having plodded on for another 5 minutes desperately shuffling through the same old tired tracks in the hope that something, anything, had been synced in some forgotten corner of iPod hell, I abandoned the run/walk charade and drove home in a miffed state.

So this morning was another grey morning in Greenwich Park, but the iPod had now actually synced and Week 6 has been completed to some fine tyoones which means that I’m just about half way through this 13-week programme – not due to poor mathematical skills, but simply because I’ve done and redone weeks and now finally actual progress is noticeable…and…and so it’s half, right?

Alcohol-free programme – pending new counting method

Alcohol consumption remains reduced.

Running Progress

Week 6 of 13. 2 minutes walk. 3 minutes run. 60 minutes (with an 11-minute run at the end – yo! – although don’t know if I should be doing this as it’s not part of THE PLAN). Session 3 of 3.

IT’S OFFICIAL!

Yes, I am now running MORE than walking! Started down on Southwark Park Road on account of having been driven to the bank there, headed down Dunton Road and back on to the Old Kent Road. Legs a bit unhappy for most of the 55 minutes and serious iPod malfunction as the tracks I was sure I had wiped off for good were still damn well there and the only new track I could find was that Scottish tyoone ‘I would walk 500 miles’ – or in my case: ‘I would walk 500 miles, but attempt to run at least three of them’.

A wholly unremarkable session in dropping temperatures.

Alcohol-free Day 30 minus 2

The lapsometer wobbled slightly from a couple of G&Ts last night, but did not hit the red zone.

Running Progress

Week 6 of 13. 2 minutes walk. 3 minutes run. 55 minutes. Session 1 of 3.