Because I’m a complete nerd, I decided to add up my totals for this summer’s ‘thon. Because I’m also a geek I put it in a spreadsheet which I present to you below:-
Overall I’m happy with my ‘athon. Obviously if I’d been more organised I would have done my sums earlier and managed a little more effort to up my miles and hours to more pleasingly round numbers. Notwithstanding this, I’m happy. Roll on Janathon!
The final stretch! Day 22 was my usual Tuesday cycle commute of 5.59 miles. Beautiful weather for it, but my legs always complain after a day of standing up.
Day 23 – hours tai chi lesson. Still haven’t managed to do the complete form with needing a prompt from our teacher. One more week …
Day 24 – a day trip to Oxford to take the in-laws to visit their granddaughter. Forgot to start my Garmin so I didn’t measure it, but we walked for a fair few miles (and ate some lovely vegan food along the way!).
Day 25 – 5.59 mile cycle commute again.
Day 26 – Walk of 0.98 miles (how annoying!) near the highest hill in Wiltshire, spotting more orchids and then at least another mile around Avebury.
Day 27 – a 3 mile walk around the village in the rain.
Day 28 – 3.77 mile run with my run buddy
Day 29 – 5.59 mile cycle commute again for me today.
Day 30 – made it to the final day! To end with a flourish I finally managed (once) to get through the complete form in my tai chi lesson on my own with no prompts. As an encore, I cycled into town for a bonus 9.3 mile ride.
I had to collect a parcel, so merrily set off with my trusted panniers* on my bike confident in my load carrying capabilities. The nice man in the office found my parcel, and handed over a massive box (which I knew only contained a few, small items). Wielding all the charm I could muster, I persuaded him to let me open the box, take out the contents (which fitted easily into my panniers) and then hand back the empty box for him to recycle. Result!
I cycled on into town and made it a practice “Coffeeneuring” ride.
*Technically they’re my husband’s trusty panniers, but they’re on my bike now so, possession … 9/10ths of the law etc.
And so the month, and the weekly pattern, continue.
June 14 – 5 mile hot run. It’s amazing what grows in the woods near here …
June 15 – 5.59 mile commute on the bike
June 16 – an hour of tai chi
June 17 – an hour’s off road run with a diversion to have a look at the orchids. 4.7 miles.
June 18 – 5.6 mile commute on the bike again.
June 19 – short walk of 2 miles through a miserable wet wood, which smelt really bad (like fetid water bad). Got home and had to immediately wash my trousers and trainers to get the smell out. Wish I hadn’t bothered, but hey – Juneathon!
June 20 – ran out of time, so decided to attempt a proper, full press up. Started in the plank position, started slowing lowering myself to the floor, reached the floor to the relief of my trembling arms, and then was stuck. Not enough strength to raise myself back up, so managed to roll over and do 30 sit-ups instead.
June 21 – 3.8 mile run with my running buddy. Apparently, according to Strava, we’re still “trending faster”. I’ll take that.
Whoops – knew I’d forgotten to do something! A quick catch up of my Juneathon activities from the last week.
Monday 7th June – work, so a round trip bike commute of 5.5 miles.
Tuesday 8th June – run with my friend of 3.75 miles (although Garmin had a blip and reckons it was 3.94 miles).
Wednesday 9th June – an hours tai chi lesson.
Thursday 10th June – running again – just over 7 hot, hilly, mainly off road miles. Within the first mile I met overly-interested cows and decided to retreat, retrace my footsteps, and go round by the road. Not a great start, but the rest of the route was bovine-free and enjoyable despite the heat and hills.
Friday 11th June was back to work, and so another cycle-commute.
Saturday 12th June I nearly ran out of time but just managed to squeak in 20 minutes of tai chi practice before midnight.
Sunday 13th June – knowing this day was bound to go the same as yesterday, I enthusiastically took myself off for a short walk before going out for the day. As I left the shady shelter of the trees I realised I should have applied sun cream and worn at least my sun glasses, if not a sun hat as well. 2 1/4 miles walked down and up a hill in 40 minutes.
A lovely, sunny Sunday stretched ahead me and before I could slope off and simply potter the day away I decided to go for a run. As a change from my usual plods I thought I’d see how close I could get to a 30 minute 5K (just in case parkrun ever returns).
Despite stopping to take photos along the way, I was impressed that my “moving” time was 30:29. Much faster than I’d hoped.
One of my running club colleagues, Frank, was taking part today in an Ultra race, the Suffolk backyard ultra. In this unique race, entrants have to run 4.16 miles every hour as many times as they can. Winner is the last runner still going. The course record is 41 laps – do the maths! Why 4.16 miles? Well it’s the distance to cover every hour in order to complete 100 miles in 24 hours. The day was warm and humid, and I was tired after 5K but in a nod of appreciation to Frank’s amazing challenge I decided to run on a bit further. I ran past my house, and ran another 1.2 miles (I had mis-remembered the distance).
Frank did so well, and finally stopped after 116 miles. He had struggled with the temperature, and eating and drinking. To think I was tired after 1 lap!
I always knew weekends were going to be a challenge for this year’s Juneathon, because I have exercise scheduled for every other day (which you will see repeated throughout the month).
After a leisurely start to the day, I then spent hours pottering around the garden. As the afternoon wore on, I debated talking up the amount of activity I’d just done and calling that my Juneathon day. However, as we know, slacking is not an option (certainly not in the first week!) so I put my walking shoes on and set off for a wander down to the woods.
I haven’t walked this way for a few weeks, and I was shocked at how both tall everything has grown (grass, stinging nettles etc) and how flat the freshly ploughed part of the field was.
Stopping to empty grit and dust out of my shoes whilst standing on one leg at a time in a field should be a Juneathon activity itself. However just in case it doesn’t count, my walk was 3.2 miles and was beautiful. I was glad I’d made the effort- thank you Juneathon!
Another cycle commute today, 5.5 miles on the bike. 7 1/2 hours standing at work (not trying to claim that as a Juneathon activity, just seeking sympathy). In case that wasn’t enough, I also walked down to a friend’s house to deliver a birthday card and present.
We had a a lovely chat and a glass of wine, then I walked back up as the sun set. Another 3 1/2 mile, and a very chilled start to the weekend.
At last – a run! Nothing too adventurous as my running buddy has a sore knee which hurts going uphill. She lives down the valley from me, so we currently start every run with her run/walking up the hill to mine, and then we run round and back down another hill to take her home.
Today we did well, and after I’d dropped her off at home I struggled back up the steep hill (running all the way) and then realised I was trotting along again quite nicely – the hill hadn’t finished me off.
Pleased with this, I ran past my house (we all know how difficult that is!) and added on a little loop across the fields.
In all about 5.5 miles (watch didn’t start at the start), and it was my first run in shorts of the year. Very pleasant!
After several lockdowns, furloughed, with time to fill, I now have an array of pre-arranges activities throughout the week. In lockdown these were the only things that marked the passing of time, and I was extremely grateful for them. You will see which ones they are over the course of Juneathon’s blogs.
Wednesday is Tai Chi day. Over Zoom still, and as I am working on the days the classes are held in person this will continue for the time being. At least I’m the only person in the house on Wednesday mornings now, and I can have all of the meagre WiFi
Even so, I’ve still never managed to remember the entire form all the way through. Maybe by the end of Juneathon…
And suddenly, it was June! Equally surprisingly, it was Juneathon. After my success in completing the Mad March Mile of course I’m motivated for this year’s Juneathon.
So day 1, which I would have forgotten about, is fortunately covered by cycling to and from work. 5.5 mile round trip is just far enough, thank you, especially on the way home after a day on my feet.
