… And Juneathoners go out in the mid day sun.
Yes it was mid summer’s day today so I decided to go out running. At midday. It was hot. I ran slowly. I took photos.
And when I got back home, I looked like this :-
So finally, at the two thirds point of Juneathon, I nearly gave up. It had been a long hot day and a run just hadn’t happened. It was nearly 11pm by the time I gave myself a kick up the backside and opened up the e-mail entitled “Welcome to the Thirty day Challenge”. I’d signed up to a free 30 day regime of stretches and exercises by Kinetic Revolution that promised to make me a better runner (who could resist!)
I started following the instructions and watching the videos showing how to do the exercises. We have very slow broadband here, and the time for the opening title sequence to load at the start of each new exercise (in a new video) was nearly enough to make me give up. The website promised 10 – 15 minutes a day, but I spent nearly 30 minutes by the time the videos had loaded. I also think the instruction for the very first stretch is wrong. It says to do three lots of twenty stretches, each held for 20 seconds, on each leg. 3 x 20 x 20 x 2 = 2,400 seconds which is 40 minutes. I presumed the ‘three reps’ bit was an error and ignored it.
So, it was quite dull, but I did it and at least it wasn’t a plank!
Shopping? I hear you cry. How on earth is she going to justify that as a Juneathon activity?
Apart from obvious activities such as running, or a long bike ride, or a yoga session I like to think Juneathon is a chance to exercise when you would usually take an easier option. So cycling up to the allotment rather than going in the car counts in my book. Also (here we get to the point) does dropping the car off at the garage, not having a courtesy car or a lift but walking into town to go shopping.
To make it a more official Juneathon activity I even wore my Garmin, and so can report I walked 3.43 miles. It was good to walk, as it means I spotted this flower bed, in the Railway Village in Swindon.
After my epic rant earlier, I thought I’d better write a calmer post about the day’s Juneathon activity.
I’d put my running gear on first thing hoping to sneak out before any of the day’s deliveries, but as I waved the children off to school my son shouted “there’s a big lorry coming up the lane!” I made the newly arrived scaffolder a cup of tea, rang the builders to say he was already here, and went and got changed back out of my running kit. A hectic day followed, with many deliveries (including nearly two tonnes of steel), lots of people, much noise, and a great deal of tea and coffee made.
When they’d all finally left, I felt the need to escape. I put my running kit back on and speed of for a 5K blast. Despite the heat I was delighted to receive a new Course Record on Strava for the route and I believe it was the fastest I’ve ever run it.
Who knew builders could make you run faster?
Be warned. This post is a rant. Maybe not as heated as the great brushetta* rant of 2011 which is still spoken of in hushed tones on the shores of Lake Garda, but a rant never the less. It is also a rant in three parts, so are you sitting comfortably? Then I’ll begin.
Part One. Once I got into running and started buying ‘proper’ running kit (rather than shuffling along in old trainers and jeans hoping anyone seeing me wouldn’t realise I was trying to run) I quickly realised that many companies seem to believe that if a product is designed specifically for Women, it has to be Pink. Pink running tops, pink shorts, pink head bands, pink water bottles, even pink running shoes. When I got home with my latest pair of unfortunately pink Brooks I immediately found a muddy path to run along to try and tone them down.
Now don’t get me wrong, I know there are plenty of women who don’t mind pink, and plenty who adore it and the colour alone will sway their purchasing decisions. I would just like sports companies to appreciate that not ALL women want to dress like an overgrown Barbie doll each time they step outside to run.
And so to part two of my rant – cycling. I have been impressed when looking at all types of cycling gear that companies producing the goods haven’t had the “all women want pink” brain washing. Hooray! I thought – a sport where women are treated seriously as sportspeople and consumers!
Then I found SportsPursuit selling a range of ladies bibshorts made by Italian firm Giordana.
After tweeting tbem, Sport Pursuit told me they were only using the product images supplied by the manufacturer, but after posting the above screen shot on Twitter I know from the responses I got that I wasn’t the only one who was shocked and disappointed.
“I’m a red-blooded hetro male and I’m appalled. How is women’s cycling ever going to be taken seriously with ads like that?!”
“that’s pretty poor. And totally unnecessary. Also not appealing to target market!”
“Is this really how women (let alone women in sport) are seen?”
“Jaw-drop moment! Utterly amazed.”
“Oh wow. That’s not right.”
” So insulting to your female customers. Try telling them that’s not acceptable in the UK”
You get the general idea of the tone of the tweets I received. We were ranting in unison. As you might have guessed, I didn’t buy that particular brand of shorts, but instead a fantastically comfortable pair in black with blue stitching, although the padding inside was still PINK. Sigh.
And so to part three, my new bike. Having tried my husband’s bike I was interested ina bike designed more for the female anatomy (our body length to leg length ratio are different, and women are generally narrower across the shoulders). I was delighted that of the two women’s bikes I looked at, neither of them had any pink on them. Both were full of the same technical features as the men’s version, both were light, and the man in the shop assured me I would be fast on them. We eventually chose a Trek Lexa SL, in white with green ‘go faster’ strips on.
My husband also has a Trek bike and has been extremely happy with it. When he was out in the garage ‘fettling’ the other day, he called me out and said “Have you seen underneath your bike?”
Best Friends Forever? BEST FRIENDS FOREVER?!! What is this – a ‘Hello Kitty’ bike? Does Jens Voigt** have a bike with “BFF” on? I doubt it. I suspect his bike has the phrase that is on my husband’s Trek bike “Power Transfer Construction“. Slightly more grown up.
Give me a minute to calm down again.
And breathe. I’m in my happy place. It’s not pink in here.
So – rant over. in fact, 3 rants all rolled up into one. Why can’t sports manufacturers & companies treat women like sports people. Like athletes. In the same way that they treat men. We’re not children, we’re not simple, our bike is NOT necessarily our best friend, we have brains. We also have wallets and credit cards so ladies, let’s use our consumer power to show these companies what we want, and what we won’t put up with.
If you have any more examples of how women are treated different to men when buying sporting products, please do share with me and feel free to join in my rant!
* “It’s just stuff on toast!!! Why does it take 45 minutes to produce stuff on toast” is a precis of what was a very long rant on a hot and hungry day.
** My all-time favourite pro-cyclist who coined the phrase “Shut up, legs!”, who goes geocaching, who has 6 children, who tweeted my son after his arm breaking bike crash saying he hoped he healed quickly, and who just seems like an all-round good guy. He currently rides for the pro team Trek Factory Racing. I need to ask him what is written on his bike.
Tuesday night is cycling at Castle Combe circuit night. Me and the boy have been going since April, gradually building up our laps and mileage. I’ve enjoyed the traffic free smooth tarmac whilst getting used to my new bike, and he lost any nerves at getting back on his bike after coming off and breaking his arm last year.
Last night was slightly different. It was the annual Midsummer Bike Ride which is open to any cyclist, young and old. The aim of the evening is to beat last year’s total number laps, oh and to raise money for the Wiltshire Search and Rescue
For a change I cycled up to the circuit and was a little embarrassed to find it’s only about 3 1/2 miles (I always thought it was further than that). Husband changed down a few gears and cycled with me. Son was feeling tired so we left him at home which was a shame, but meant I could go a little faster than I usually do.
We signed in and set off for four laps of the track at what was an easy pace (for Mr B&T) or a good pace (for me).
Then because we could, we stopped for some mid-ride refuelling.
I did manage another 4 laps after that, then I set off for home and left Mr B&T clocking up some more miles. 21.92 Miles in total which is very annoying – wish I’d gone up the lane and back again to round it up!
A proper run was needed today, so I set off through the village, onto a busy lane, turned into a quiet lane and headed down to the main A4.
The verge alongside the A4 was very overgrown and to stop myself fallling into the path of a lorry I tiptoed along here looking for the start of the bridleway. I failed dismally, reached the roundabout and had to turn around and backtrack.
The start of the bridleway was also overgrown, so I didn’t run as much as battle my way through.
It was whilst fighting through the undergrowth whilst not being able to see your feet I realised I’d discovered a new running style -The Shuffle*. Not so much running, more shuffling your feet ahead of you to make sure you have a stable footing. Not speedy, but effective.
A little further I reached a patch of eye level grasses I had to get through. It was here I developed my second new running style “The Rocky”. This one has you running along with your hands held in fists, alternately punching the plants out of the way before they swipe you on the face.
If you try either of these two methods on your runs, please do let me know!
* Whilst doing The Shuffle it is compulsory to hum the 70s hit “The Hustle” changing the words as appropriate.
A busy weekend for my mouth. A weekend of eating, chatting, kissing hello, kissing goodbye, laughing, much laughing, more eating, stinging from chillis, smiling.
Finally back home again to a fantastic end to the weekend – taking my mouth out for 17 minutes of puffing and panting. A beautiful if short evening run which my whole body (and mind) enjoyed. 1.9 miles in 17:09 minutes – that pace brought another smile to my mouth!
Another late night post, a huge family gathering – I bet you think I’m about to start making excuses.
No! I knew it was going to be a busy day, so when a change in plans meant I unexpectedly had to make sandwiches for 9 people I seized my chance and leapt on my bike to dash up to the allotment. Two baby cucumbers were picked way before their time, but their sacrifice meant we had tasty sandwiches and I managed a mile and a half’s cycle ride for Juneathon.
Does seven hours talking to a large amount of family also count as exercise?
Technology beat me today, along with builders and telecoms engineers. My exercise for today was therefore my secret weapon -pelvic floor exercises. Apparently you can do these any time, any place, any where but I’m pretty sure the concentration required means I pull some pretty strange faces. Definitely not one for public places!
