Juneathon - day 14 - parkrun pacing

3.1 miles (obviously!)

Proper blog after football!

Juneathon - day 13 - Lazy geocaching

My hip was a bit sore today so I had decided to cycle instead.

I walked to the school this afternoon to help out and decided to take a little detour to pick up this geocache.  

By the time I had helped with after school activities for reception and year one as well as having an extra two children round after school until 8:30, I really couldn't face going out again. 

Today's Juneathon is just the 1.5 mile walk!

Juneathon - day 12 - From countryside alpacas to seaside

Wasn't quite sure what to do with myself today but inspired by reading about Cathy seeing alpacas I decided to cycle out to see this lovely lot this afternoon.  My last few bike rides have all been along the seafront so thought the countryside would make a nice change. 

Obviously, as most journeys do, I still ended up by the beach :-)

8.5 miles at an average of 13.1 mph.  Happy with that as I also cycled about another 7.5 miles taking Olivia to/from school and later, to/from fencing which I didn't log. Add to that my usual whinge about it being too hot and it's not a bad day's work.

http://connect.garmin.com/activity/519123088

Olivia does fencing for her Juneathon activity!

Juneathon - day 11

Today's Juneathon was again not anything very interesting to write about! Beautiful photos but not much to say.

Olivia went to a friend's after school (about half a mile away!) so I cycled the long route along the sea wall to pick her up. 

Not quite as far as I thought and pretty slow but it was enjoyable and sometimes that's as important as progress.

4.2 miles @ 11.7mph

http://connect.garmin.com/activity/518691262

Juneathon - day 10 - Steps, hills and hard work!

This is a bit tricky to explain but I'll give it a go ... Might make sense when you look at the map. Maybe.

http://connect.garmin.com/activity/517727434

We ran down the hill, along the seafront, then up the stairs and along the top of the cliffs back to the hill. Down the hill, up the hill, along the cliffs, down the stairs, up the stairs, along the cliffs, down the hill then up the hill again!

I like round numbers. I'm often seen running backwards and forwards outside my house to be able to stop my Garmin on a 0 or 0.5.  A measure of just how difficult this run was is that we stopped at 3.89 miles. It was just too hot and we were too tired to manage that last 0.11!

Juneathon - day 9

Banging headache

Feel sick

Ran a mile.

Juneathon - day 8 - BTMK Fun Run

The weather forecast today had been very unpredictable - the two options were basically heatwave or torrential rain.  I had decided that I didn't want to run the Southend Half again this year so thought that maybe me and Olivia could do the  3K Fun Run but I decided to leave the decision until this morning.  When I woke up it was sunny and dry so I cycled down to the start at East Beach to register us both.  Olivia has watched me prepare for many races so was very excited to get her own timing chip. And obviously she needed a buff to wear, and can't use safety pins on her new Tshirt so needed to use my number clips, and had to wear my Garmin ... 

We were the last finishers, taking just over half an hour, but we had fun! Olivia walked/ran all the way and although she needed a little encouragement/bribery at times with the promise of an ice cream at the finish, she says she enjoyed herself. That's the most important thing - We had fun.  The support was fantastic and Olivia ran noticeably more on the sections where people were cheering her on and as we were right at the back we had fun chatting to the tail runner, Barbara, who recognised me from parkrun.

Today - 1.8 miles, my favourite ones of Juneathon so far

A very happy day tinged with sadness from the news that one of the men from my running group, Flyers Southend, died at the finish line. Thoughts are with all of his family as well as our friends who were with him.  Such a shock and a terrible loss. 

Juneathon - day 7 - parkrun!

parkrun day, hooray!

It was very hot this morning, that horrible sticky heat where there is no air. 

Despite that, I managed I finish ahead of people with PBs of around 20 minutes! OK, I was running and chatting to one of those, along with Becca and the others are resting before Southend half tomorrow but still, about the only time I will have a higher finish position!

We decided to just run to enjoy ourselves rather than with any particular aim ad although we aren't used to the heat yet, we did better than expect.  Official time of 32 minutes but that's ok, we did manage to get quicker than we started.  Always takes me a mile or so to get going so 5k really isn't my ideal distance!

http://connect.garmin.com/activity/515334475

Apologies if you get this far ... Very boring but I've been trying to study and all inspiration for interesting writing has gone!

Tomorrow's post will be more interesting, I am very excited about my plans for the morning!

Juneathon - day 6 - Cycling!

This was the view 2 miles into this morning's cycle ride ... I really wanted to stop here and not continue to the library!

I have an assignment due midday on Tuesday ... Nothing written this morning, no ideas.

I decided to cycle the 5 ish miles to the central library. The local one is too small and only open random hours.  I was hoping that a bit of exercise on the way would wake me up a bit and the atmosphere in the library would help me stop procrastinating. None of my usual excuses of having to put washing on/make a cuppa ... Although I did get unusually interested in titles of some genealogy books at my most bored points ...

Started off at a normal desk/chair ...

Had a break and discovered - 

Cosy beanbag area!

Juneathon today - 1,073 words written

Cycled - 11.57 miles

http://connect.garmin.com/activity/515012485

First bit much slower as had Olivia and had roads to cross ...

Second half slow as I was cycling into really strong wind all the way home 

And I cycled uphill!!

http://connect.garmin.com/activity/515012485

 

Juneathon - day 5 - where Olivia does all the work!

Another uninteresting run and blog today, I'm afraid!

http://connect.garmin.com/activity/514442382

Just one mile again and not very fast either. 

I've decided that from tomorrow, I'll mix up the running every day with some cycling.  I've loved my 2 previous run every day athons but it just isn't right for me at the moment.  Last year I needed the easy focus of just running more and more.  No effort, no thinking, just welcome distraction. That would be good this year too but I think that long term, I'll feel better for achieving something by improving my running.  If it all goes wrong I'll do Novemberathon running every day or something!

Olivia had her second fencing class today and once we got home we went out together - she cycled along with me while I ran :-)

Juneathon - day 4 - PB!!

A day of rain, children, study, procrastinating, rain, children, extra children, a bit more rain ... Oh, and a record breaking run!

As on Monday, didn't have much time or inclination so went for the "one mile but make it good" option.

Mission well and truly accomplished.  I was impressed with 8:40 on Monday and  thought I would be a little slower today but as so often happens, those runs with the least expectations often end up the best.  Must be something about the first few days of Juneathon - My previous mile PB was 08:17 on 3rd June last year.

I'm aiming for a pace of 09:21 for my 10k so probably towards the end of next week when my study nightmare is over I'll try some further fast runs but I'm pretty happy with this for now :-)

http://connect.garmin.com/activity/513755029

Juneathon - day 3 - run with Becca

Today's run was a bit of a strange one. Originally intended to be a 10k but Becca unexpectedly got asked to work so we were short on time and had many changes of plans.

First idea was to do a one mile warm up and then an "as fast as we can" 5k.  We got onto the seafront and it was so windy we decided we couldn't run that far wry fast after all so we decided to alternate slow and fast miles.  

Mile 1 - 10:10

Mile 2 - 09:13

Mile 3 - 09:52

Then ... Mile 4 - 09:39.  Not quite as quick but we were hot and knackered. And still talking too much!

http://connect.garmin.com/activity/512923068

Average moving pace was 09:43 though so not at all disappointing when you consider that's about a minute/mile faster than we usually end up doing and we have some better ideas for next time. 

Juneathon - day 2

I almost gave up today! That's early even for me to give up .... I didn't get to sleep until around 4am and then woke several times between then and alarm at 7 so have been tired and grumpy all day. 

Olivia has been super clingy as she wants to stay at home tomorrow and not go to school, I've been worrying about all sorts, especially my final assignment for my current Open University course which is due next week (and in usual form, not started yet) .... Juneathon is about exercise and excuses, yes?

Decided to save the excuses for another day - I needed to take Ben to a Dr appointment for some X-ray results so decided I would run to meet him there.  It's only just over a mile but I figured that was better than nothing .... Especially if I put some effort in.  I very rarely out any effort in but if I want to achieve my target 10k time at the end of the month I need to stop being lazy.

 

Only a mile ... But a super speedy for me one. 

Generally I bimble along, never usually under ten minutes a mile, often closer to twelve for an off road wander and chat! It wasn't easy, I was very happy to stop and I probably looked terrible but I didn't feel too bad. I've a long way to go but it felt like a good start.  

http://connect.garmin.com/activity/512493886

Juneathon - day 1

Olivia joined me on my Juneathon activity today. She cycled, I ran, from our house to my Mum's, stopping briefly en route so Olivia could have an ice cream!

It's a very nice route, about a mile and a half to the seafront cycle path and then a straight four miles along the seafront, up in the lift and then a little bit round the streets to Mum's.

I am loving being able to have her come along with me, so much fun chatting away as we go - she only learned to ride with no stabilisers a few weeks back and is doing brilliantly. Am very excited about all our new adventures.  

It was *really* hot today so I'm pretty happy with how I did. Obviously a way to go on getting quicker but it's only the first day!

We did an hour's activity and covered 5.67 miles. Pretty good going for a 4 year old and her lazy, overweight, undertrained Mum!

http://connect.garmin.com/activity/511746887

Juneathon.

After a lot of dithering, I have decided to Juneathon again.  I wasn't up to Janathon this year, giving up after a week as it was just one thing too many to cope with but I think I need to make myself do this.  It will hopefully be the incentive I need to deal with this month, to stop sitting about feeling sorry for myself, to lose some weight and get running more again. 

I got a bit obsessed by mileage last year but I'm not setting a target like that as I don't want to push myself too far and get injured again. I had awful plantar fasciitis a few months back which has been fine lately but I don't want to risk any more problems.  This year's aim is to try and get a bit quicker - I got very lazy marathon training and enjoying really long runs while just chatting and not actually putting any effort in.  I have a 10k on the last day of Juneathon that I want to hopefully do under an hour. My PB on that course was exactly an hour the year before last, last year was slower! I think I preferred the challenge of doing loads of miles - I'm going to have to actually really try to get faster as I'm naturally a very slow, lazy runner but I'm concentrating on how good I'll feel if I can do it!