Catchup

Ok a little catch up, as clearly I seem to be struggling to get in the swing of Juneathon. Wednesday was ...erm, well it was Wednesday, I had a meeting just 4 miles from home, so I took my shorts & trainers with me, and figured I'd run commute home afterwards, added bonus, my mum works where the meeting was so I wouldn't have to run with the bag either. Whoops change of plan, my little brother (as in younger cos at over 6ft &17st+ he aint little) worked opposite where I was and finished work as my meeting finished. As it was his birthday the next day but I'd be unable to get to his meal, my run turned into a bus ride followed by a  pint, and then when I got home I ate, assisted with maths homework and then went out again to music practice at the church and so despite wearing my garmin all day I did nothing.
Then Thursday wasn't much better though I worked a 15hour shift (6-9) so it 10pm when I got home and so I wasn't going to run, as I discussed my poor Juneathon performance with my wife whilst standing in the kitchen I remembered that a certain someone claimed a push up against the bar was acceptable level of exercise, so I thought I'd push the boat out and do 10 push ups against the kitchen worktop.
Tonight I was going to a gentle 5km around the lakes, but once there, there were too many drinking 'fishermen' (not sure how much they were gonna catch with the amount of beer around) and there were too many midges, and although I'm not sure what the carb content, but even with a race in the morning I didn't want to over carb load with the amount I was swallowing as I ran round, so I cut it down to 3km and wen home again.

Running by myself is pretty much the norm, but not on a Tuesday. Tuesdays have been the savior of my running lately since I joined the Sweatshop Running Community Thanks to finding these guys just about 1.5km from my house and the route runs either side of my house I don't really have an excuse for not going out on a Tuesday, plus its a nice social and I now have a few more race companions too. Unfortunately this week, I finished work at the same time the run started, but as it was Tuesday and as I'd made my excuses on Facebook earlier and promised to run it anyway, that's what I did all be it at 10pm rather than 7 and on my own instead of between 30-50 others. None the less that's another 5km done for Juneathon, I need to do more though as I'm rapidly dropping down the leader board, I'm not generally competitive but I liked the look of being 3rd on the first day 

3rd of Juneathon

Today's run was round my original self made 5km route that I worked out when I started running almost 2 years ago, not sure why I chose it tonight, but I suppose it just set to default if I've no over plans. I'd said to myself that I wanted to do more than 5km each day, but struggled tonight (maybe a full day at work, maybe the heat, maybe doing more in the last 2 days than I've done in the last few weeks - I'll stop there, don't want to use too many excuses too early in the game), so once home I defaulted again to the ever faithful 8min Abs workout on Youtube, this is a necessity as the 23km on Saturday left me with what felt like bruising on my 'love handles' and round my belly, which I can only put down to excessive jiggling on the run. So with that rather attractive mental image I'll say Goodnight

Only day 2 & it's going wrong already.
Did the run at 8am a nice 7km along the canal. Then a quick shower, straight to church, on to family BBQ, then in the car for 180mile drive home, then into bed.
Dam I haven't logged or blogged, so this is the blog but the log will have to wait, cos I'm not firing up the laptop now.
Night All

Lessons Learnt Already

Here we are again, the 1st of Juneathon.
The 1st day of pushing myself to get out and run.
The first day of trying to get different systems to talk to each other (Garmin, Runtastic, runningfreeonline).
The first day of trying to find something interesting to say here.
So here goes.....

Today's run was easy to start as I was somewhere different to normal. Today I was staying at my sister in laws, in Newport, South Wales. The idea of a run somewhere new is always a good motivator, and when its a run to a run it's even better.
Generally I work on a Saturday ((joys of retail) but when off I always try to get to a parkrun, so as I'm on holiday and its Juneathon I thought I'd revisit the Newport parkrun. Last time I went, I was staying at my Mother in laws which was approx 4.5km away so I ran to it, ran it  ran back. This time I was about 9.3km away, but as I'm signed up to the NDR30km and so need to up my distances, I figured I would still run to and run back.
So a quick look showed that the Monmouthshire & Brecon Canal runs past the house and almost to Tredegar House, so I tried out plotting on my Garmin & off I went, and this are where the lesson began!

Lesson 1 - If it looks like a glorious day (even at 730am) then you are going to need water when you run

Lesson 2 - If you're going to use an electronic device to direct you somewhere & record your efforts - its a good idea to ensure it is charged enough to to last and not run out just when you start to have options as to which direction you can go!!

Lesson 3 - The running community are great - reasons to follow.

As you may of guessed from lesson 2 my Garmin died, just as the one direction footpath ran out and I reached the housing estate which meant I actually needed all the directional help going. I fortunately had a map app on my phone, but as I was opening that I noticed someone jogging down the hill to my left (first decision to make was - are they out for a run or just in a rush) I noticed they were heading in roughly the right direction for where I wanted to go, so started heading along behind them. I got level as we reached a road to cross,and she looked round and "Hi are you going to the parkrun?", "Yes I replied are you?", "Yes", "Great you can show me where I'm going then cos I'm lost!". So we carried on together, and made the start with 10min to spare, and as her friend hadn't appeared, she gave a spare bottle of water.
A trip to the Gents meant I lost my new acquaintance do to the 344 runners plus supporters meant there was quite a crowd. After the briefing and introducing of the pacers (yep pacers at a parkrun! - once a month apparently), we were off. I knew today was never going to be a pb, due to the run there and need to do the run home again. So a social was on the cards, a trailblazer tshirt started my first chat and then I found Carol again, who seems to be struggling with the heat, so I stuck with her until the end. A nice coffee, & hot choc and then Carol kindly walked me back to where she found me, gave me another bottle of water and off I went back long the canal to home, where a nice sausage sarnie was waiting. So a great morning and approx 23km to start Juneathon

23rd of Janathon

This evening I have mostly been sleeping on the sofa, I'm just going to bed, so did 10 tricep dips as I got up. Goodnight

22nd of Janathon

20 sit ups
10 push ups
1min plank
That's all the effort I had today & all I can be bothered to write