Today I spent four and a half hours working on my abs. Shall we leave it at that???
Curses. You want proof. Okay, here it is:-
This is me and my very lovely lovely friend who emigrated to Canada 6 years ago. She is briefly back in the UK and we managed to meet up today for many cups of tea, some lunch, and basically four and a half hours of laughing.
If that doesn’t count as abs exercises for Juneathon then I’m giving up now.
An Ode to My Legs the day after a 42 mile bike ride.
My legs were refusing to run
“We did more than enough on the bike“.
I’ve told them it IS Juneathon
And we don’t have to go on a hike.
They said “Okay,
Have it your way,
We’ll just do a short plod today”.
So before they could bay
Or even say “nay!”
We snuck out for 3 muddy miles and I had a lovely time.
In the village next to us there is a milestone that shows ‘Hyde Park Corner 97 miles’. For several years keen cyclists of the village have organised a ride going the ‘wrong way’ from Hyde Park back to the village.
To try and tempt more people, and especially families, to join in this year they organised a 19 mile loop starting and finishing at the village pub. The idea being to ride 5 loops (and a bit) for the full distance, or any number of loops for your own personal challenge.
Whilst my husband is a very keen cyclist, who no longer finds 100 mile rides a challenge, it’s a different story for myself and our son.
Our longest ride to date has been 25 miles which included a fantastic lunch stop. Son was happy he could manage one lap, and I was hoping if we had a good lunch he could be tempted out for a second.
Our first lap was mostly uneventful. Son managed to ride into the edge of a high verge, legs flailing as he trimmed the long grass and filled his bike with it. Miraculously he stayed upright. A little further down the road I wasn’t so lucky, managing a huge wobble as I tried to tuck in when another cyclist overtook us. Fortunately it was a grassy verge I fell onto, so it was mainly just my pride that was hurt.
As we reached the end of the loop our thoughts were turning to chips and coke, and the pub did not disappoint. We even found a friend of son’s who was happy to ride another loop with us and his Dad.This second loop was slower, but without any cyclist-verge incidents. However it seemed to pass quicker, I guess because we knew the route by now. As we arrived back at the pub, we were announced by one of the organisers and received a round of applause.
A swift half, and then we pedalled the final 2 and a bit miles home. In total the boy and I had cycled 42 miles on a beautifully warm and sunny Sunday. My legs didn’t feel too bad, but my neck and shoulders (and just to lower the tone, my backside) might not be speaking to me later on.
Still – forty two miles!
The first week of Juneathon has been great. Lots of energy, lots of exercise, lots of smugness. Weekends are always my downfall. My first lie-in for weeks with no cats or kids crashing in meant that park run was a no-no.
We had to go to a local pub to help a friend celebrate his birthday, and what with one thing and another I didn’t have time to walk down. Well, not the whole way. On the drive down I got my husband to drop me off and I gently jogged the last 5 minutes. Yes it was only 5 minutes, yes it was downhill, and yes it was in jeans with my handbag tucked under my arm. However it was something I wouldn’t have bothered doing if it wasn’t Juneathon so I’ll take that for today.
Warning – this post contains builders. If you’ve never had any experience of dealing with builders then please feel free to skip to the middle of this post, the “I went for a run” part. If you’ve ever had any building work done on your house, or if you’ve watched Grand Designs and are currently contemplating it, then read on. Friday has always been my long run day. However I knew it wouldn’t happen today because the builders were coming. We are just about to start our loft conversion and needed the Building Inspector to come and look into a hole dug outside our kitchen, and at two holes above windows.
The builders arrived just before 9 o’clock to wait for the inspector (apparently we were first on his list) and we took the time to discuss various complicated details of steel beams and purlins. We drank tea. We ended up deep in village gossip and still the inspector hadn’t arrived. After an hour and a half they went off to do other things. Inspector finally arrived around twelve. I rang the builders who came back and the inspector duly* gazed into holes, passed judgement, and left. Builders filled in the hole, chatted some more and went at about 1pm, promising to return around three when the Roofer was coming to discuss scaffolding.
I looked in the fridge to see if there was anything inspiring for lunch, found there wasn’t, and decided to pop out for a short run instead whilst the coast was clear. I got into my running gear, strapped on my Garmin and had just shoved my hair off my face with a hairband when the doorbell went. Guess who? It was the builders of course. They were off to price some steel up and could I just photocopy the specs… They left, again, AND I WENT FOR A RUN! It was just three miles, it was slow, but it was a chance to stretch out my stiff hamstrings and enjoy the sunshine. It was wonderful.
It is now three o’clock. I’ve run, showered, my running kit is in the washing machine and I’ve had my lunch. Guess what I’m doing now – I’m waiting for the builders to come back.
* my predictive text auto corrected this to ‘dully gazed into holes’ which is much funnier
Standing shivering on a start line isn’t new for me, but last night was different. For a start my husband was stood next to me in his club cycling gear. For another I was wearing a fleece jacket (still covered in mud from the day’s allotmenteering) with a baggy waterproof over the top whilst we were surrounded by extremely fit looking people in tri-suits, compression socks and not much else. What on earth was going on?
For an event that was called the ‘Mega Manic Midsummer Midweek Duathlon’ it was surprisingly wintery last night. The rain from the day continued on into the evening, the temperature dipped and the wind got up. Having seen the race on husband’s cycling club’s Facebook page where they suggested teaming up with a runner and entering as a relay team, we thought it would be great to enter a race together for a change. The duathalon wasa two mile run, followed by a ten mile cycle, finishing off with a final two mile run. It was fairly manic getting organised to get out for the race as I left everything until my husband arrived home on the faint hope he’d chicken out and we wouldn’t have to go. Curses – he was made of sterner stuff – so off we went.
At the sound of the air horn the race started, the whole field shot off and I trailed behind running at what was around my 5k pace. I overtook one person and then sooner than expected I was heading towards the transition area and my waiting husband. I quickly unstrapped the two timing chips from my ankles and swapped them for my faithful jackets. Then husband was off, clip clopping out of transition towards the track (it’s very hard to run in cycling shoes).
Now it was my turn to wait whilst he did his stuff. It was cold and wet standing around, and I’d been right to asume this would be the hardest bit.
I counted him around his 5 laps of Castle Combe circuit, jogging up and down to keep warm, then stripped off my jackets ready to go again. Again we managed to switch the timing chips between our legsoff his legs, and then I was away.
When I had finished my first run I think there were 2 people behind me. When my husband finished his 10 miles there were still quite a few people on the track so I knew he’d made up some time for us. As I ran I could hear people coming up behind me, and sadly two people did overtake me. However two miles is not very far to run and I was soon heading for the finish line.
It was a relief to finish, and after a couple of minutes I was very glad to put my jackets back on again. The running was good fun, it was amazing to see just how fast people can run, but the waiting in the middle was as cold and wet as I thought it would be. Would we do it again? Possibly. Husband had been reading that he could take minutes off his time if he had a proper time trial bike. However since that isn’t going to happen maybe I’d better try and speed up instead!
After all this activity yesterday (don’t forget I also worked on my allotment for two hours in the rain), my thighs were stiff. So today’s Juneathon activity was to go back up to the allotment, but on my bike when my legs were crying out for me to go in the car.
This morning it was drizzling, yet I cycled up to the allotment, worked for 2 hours in the steadily increasing rain, and cycled home again.
Was that myJuneathon activity for today? It has been in previous years (and may be later this month) but not today. Oh no, today I have something much more exciting* planned. I’m doing a duathalon. I know I’ve been enjoying cycling on my new bike but the plan is that I just do the running and my husband will do the cycling. It was sounding like such a great plan, and a way for us to enter something together. Then we saw the weather forecast for today. And then he foolishly Googled the results of the last duathalon event. It’s a 2 mile run, followed by a 10 mile cycle, finished off with another 2 miles of running. It’s at Castle Combe circuit again, so it’s flat and traffic free. It’s also fast, and looking at the times for the runs I’ll be last by a few minutes. Sigh.
Anyway. I must get ready now, so I’ll let you know how it goes … tomorrow. Wish me luck.
* i.e. terrifying
Despite this bring a blog about running, it’s not an athletics track I’m talking about. We live very close to Castle Combe Motor Racing circuit and every Tuesday Chippenham Wheelers (the local cycling club that we’re family members of) organise a cycling night. The chance to cycle on smooth traffic free tarmac, with coaching available, isn’t one to be passed up.
Mr B&T took the opportunity to ride in a fast group, whilst me and my boy rode together at our own pace. In total we managed 10 laps, 18.8 miles, in 1 hour 23 minutes. We’re in training for a big ride on Sunday – but more about that later.
A lovely 5 mile run this morning. I kept the pace up in case the builders were planning on arriving, but not so fast that I’d be a sweaty mess if they were waiting on the drive for me when I got back. As it turns out they’re not coming until next Monday – so expect a very similar run /post in a week’s time.
As I stood on the drive waiting for my Garmin to find some satellites I became aware of the hedge next to me. It was buzzing -swarming with bees. I tried to film them but the microphone isn’t great on my phone.
After this I was alert to all the sounds around me. I was listening to the birds as I ran through the village, and could notice when the noise from the bypass on the very edge of town began to impose on my consciousness. The bridge over the bypass has a Strava segment running over it which is a tempting reason to run that way.
The view from the top showed the tractor I’d heard cutting the grass, leaving stripes even my Dad would be proud of.
There is another buzzing you can hear here, but sadly is not more bees, just the powerlines on the nearby pylon.
The run back home was uneventful, but I felt pretty good, fit and positive. You can tell it’s only day 2 of Juneathon!
June dawned, bright and sunny. As I seem to have done more cycling than running recently I decided I’d better start Juneathon off with a run. Just a short run, only 5K, but along a route I haven’t been down for a few months. It’s an out and back route, with a short but steep dip in the middle. A few years ago I decided I wanted to break 30 minutes for 5K, so I ran along this lane regularly until I finally managed it.
Today I ran it in 29 minutes 40, so not a world record but at least it was still under 30 minutes. I was wondering how low I could get this time, when I realised that should be my aim for Juneathon – to see how much time I can take off this route. Roll on the rest of the month!
