A week of weakness

Viceathon is the latest scheme from @jogblog. If Janathon is the “little brother” of Junathon; then Viceathon must be Junathon’s eccentric 2nd cousin (you know: the one everyone avoids mentioning). The rules are very much self-selected. Participants nominate their vice and decide how much exercise to pay as a forfeit for each indulgence in that vice throughout the month of April. It doesn’t matter if you fall behind or get ahead, you just have to be in credit at the end of the month.

To get the low down on Viceathon visit Jogblog’s blog: http://www.jog-blog.co.uk/category/viceathon/

My nominated vice is consumption of sugary snacks & fizzy drinks. For each infraction I planned to balance out with either 1 mile of running or 3 miles of cycling. We are well into day 7 and so far my stats stack up as:

Snacks: 3
Cokes: 8
Run miles = 27
Ride miles / 3 = 21.2
Score : 37 In Credit

Which makes it sound as though I chose forfeits that are too low. I’m considering raising the stakes to maybe: 3 run miles or 9 ride miles per snack. That could make for some interesting choices when the chocolate eggs come out tomorrow.

Across the line

Well I made it. I ran every day in January. All of the runs were at least 5 miles, all of them were outdoors and the majority of them were in the dark.

According to the Janathon Totals page, I came 12th in the league with 173 miles and I did just manage to stay ahead of Fleet (@keith_jenkins ‘s dog)

Thank you to Cathy – @jogblog for organising Janathon and keeping us all on track. Thanks also to all those who have commented, liked etc on the blog, on twitter & on runningfreeonline.

I will still be running in Feb, but I will definitely schedule at least 1 rest day every week to allow for some recovery. I’m also planning to take part in an online challenge in Feb to see how fast I can row 2K on an erg (indoor rowing thingummy-bob). The challenge is organised by the GB rowing squad. I’ll post a link and some more detail later in the week.

Today in a nutshell: sore

Penultimate

Five more miles in the bank today. Working at home, meant that I could fit in a lunchtime run and enjoy some daylight. I deliberately set a comfortable pace and it was pleasing to find that this was still 6 minutes quicker than I managed at the beginning of the month.

My legs are quite stiff this evening, hopefully they will recover in time for a pre-work run tomorrow morning. Then I am definitely having a rest day on Wednesday.

Today in a nutshell: ready for a rest

No wheels on my wagon

While the running side of Janathon seems to be going well I have rather fallen off the wagon on the blogging side.

Today’s run didn’t get under way until mid afternoon and by the time I finished it was nearly dusk. In theory I should have plenty of opportunity to run in daylight on a Sunday but by the time I have performed my Dad-Taxi duties ferrying the boy to athletics club in Tonbridge & the girl to hockey in Sevenoks and then reversing the process it is just about lunchtime. After lunch I needed to visit & spend some time with my mum; today being the 1 year anniversary of dad’s death.

Once I did get out, it was decidedly chilly and that plus the fading light motivated me to push the pace. 5.0 miles in 46:38 = 9.33 min/mile a modest pace for many, but real progress for me.

Today in a nutshell: chilled.

Worth 1000

Have I or Haven’t I ?

Tonight’s run was just over 5 miles. Once again, I didn’t get out until late in the evening so it was another adventure on very dark, un-lit roads with no pavement & an un-even surface.

When I logged the miles on the freerunning Janathon site my total came up as 100 miles but according to my personal log I’m only on 99.2. I think this means I haven’t yet broken the One Ton barrier, but hopefully I will be able to celebrate this tomorrow lunch-time.

Today in a nutshell : close, so very close

Smashed it

At the start of this year’s Janathon I set myself a target of 75 miles for the month. Today’s run was my first off-road run of the year and it was a tough slog through some very sticky mud. It did however take me to 82 miles which means the target is in the bag.

I went over this bridge early on in the run (although the photo was taken yesterday) before the real mud began.

Today in a nutshell: shoe-sucking mud

Baby steps

Well something had to give. Trying to keep up with my Flickr projects, work, family stuff & Janathon all at the same time was leaving me with not enough hours for sleeping. I missed out the blog part of the Janathon for the last few days & I suspect I will miss several more before the end of the month. I was hiding a song reference in each blog post, with the intention of revealing the full list at the end of the month – I’m dropping that idea as it was too time consuming.

The good news is that I have jogged & logged every day do far and the monthly running total has today broken though the 60 mile mark.

I am on a course all this week which ends with an exam on Friday and hopefully leads to a professional qualification. This means that I’m back to doing the London commute for a week and is putting even more pressure on the time available for training. Tomorrow I want to fit in a game of squash in the evening so I’ll either have to be out the door in running kit by 05:30 or I’ll have to take the risk of not starting the run until around 22:30.

Today in a nutshell: optimistic to pass exam with merit

Head Games

I could have done with a rest day today. Physically I was fine but mentally, my head wasn’t in the game. I found an almost endless variety of reasons for not training today. Eventually at about 4 in the afternoon I kitted-up and slogged out 7 miles in 74 minutes around the roads.

Today in a nutshell: wasted opportunity

Slice of Pie

Week 1 of janathon is complete and I have banked 86 miles of activity, including 38 miles of running, plus a further 2.5 hours of non-distance activity (squash, circuits etc).

And I knew if I had my chance
That I could make those people dance
And maybe they’d be happy for a while

Today was a good day, in addition to being my birthday:

• The sun was shining for most of the morning
• I got my first proper (outdoors) bike ride of the year done
• My son took part in the Kent County Cross Country Championships (alliteration over-load) and finished a very creditable 11th in the U17 age-groups. Had he been in the top 8 he would have stood a good chance of being selected for the nationals but he is more than pleased with his result
• Even after a belly-full of Chicken Madras, I still had the motivation to get out for an evening run

If my legs are feeling good tomorrow, I may try for a slightly longer run of 8 miles or so. I hope everyone else is enjoying Janathon as much as I am. Once this is posted I’m going to read through some of the other blogs.

Today in a nutshell: Proud of my boy