Filed under: British Military Fitness, running, spinning | Tags: British Military Fitness, exercise, juneathon, running, spinning, strength and conditioning
JogBlog made it quite clear earlier today that Juneathoners had to run on the last day of Juneathon, so I donned my trainers when I got home from work and ran about two and a half miles around the block. Not exactly a world-beating time or distance, but I was already feeling a bit stiff after British Military Fitness.
For the uninitiated, Juneathon was established by JoggerBlogger and the rules are:
- Run or exercise every day for the month of June
- Blog about it
- Visit your fellow Juneathoners’ blogs and leave a comment in support
I had a bit of a false start, but here are the stats for my Juneathon:
- Running – around 30 miles over 6 runs including 2 races
- Walking – around 14.5 miles
- British Military Fitness – seven hours’ worth
- Strength & conditioning (no. of exercises: arms – 100; legs – 150; abs – 710; plus 7.5 minutes in the plank position)
- Spinning – 90 minutes over 2 sessions
- DIY circuits – 50 minutes
- Steps at Covent Garden – 193
- Rock climbing – about half an hour’s worth
- Days without any exercise due to legitimate excuse (giving blood) – 1
- Days withouth any exercise without good reason – 4 (3 of which were in the first week of June)
It’s made me think about how I can squeeze exercise into an otherwise busy day – although I’m not sure I’ll maintain an average of six units a week. I’ve also enjoyed reading other people’s Juneathon blogs – especially JogBlog’s and Highway Kind’s – and they’ve given me the inspiration to keep going with it. Roll on next year…
Filed under: British Military Fitness, running | Tags: binfield heath, British Military Fitness, hotel babylon, juneathon, running, shiplake, sonning, swiss ball, walk, white hart binfield heath
I’ve been having difficulty finding the time to write my Juneathon blogs as well as do the actual Juneathon exercise – or rather, last night I caught up on Hotel Babylon via the iPlayer, instead of updating my blog. That’s one of my few guilty TV secrets – quite a big one given that I look upon soap-addicts and Big Brother fans with complete distain. Mind, Nigel Harman isn’t a patch on Max Beesley, is he?
So, Saturday – bit of a pathetic attempt at Juneathon. Just five sets of 20 triceps and biceps exercises using the Swiss ball and some very light weights (I only have little 2kg ones – pink, natch) before going to meet four lovely girlfriends for pottery painting and a long, leisurely lunch in Woking.
Sunday was better: a double-bill featuring a run and a walk. The run was a nice plod along the normal Dinton Pastures/river route with an extension to Stanlake Vineyard – just over six miles I reckon. Was a bit hot and bothered by the end of it, but glad I went out. The circular walk started from Sonning, up the river to Shiplake then across to Binfield Heath, then back to Sonning – around 8.5 miles. We stopped off in Binfield Heath at The White Hart pub. I wouldn’t bother paying a vist, £8.20 for two pints of shandy and – in the absence of any crisps in the building – about six tinned olives and 20 peanuts. All served by two women who looked as though they’d been chewing wasps. No wonder the beer garden was completely empty at 4pm on a warm Sunday afternoon.
If it’s Monday, it must be British Military Fitness as I’m trying to get back into the habit of going religiously twice a week. A man called Craig arrived to take our group, and he must have been important as he turned up in a BMF van. Good sesh despite the heat, and I now know there are only three benches in the park and many trees.
So, today is the last day of Juneathon and JogBlog says it’s illegal not to run. It’s going to take all the willpower reserves I have in me to plod the pavement after work what with the day I’m having, but I shall try… :-/
Filed under: spinning | Tags: cleaning, juneathon, Michael Jackson, Pulse8, spinning
I did intend to do some Juneathon exercise yesterday evening, but failed – instead I cleared two months’ worth of paperwork and filled up a bin bag full of shredded bank statements . I think I’d rather have done the exercise actually. But it did need doing and, by the time I’d done that, it was way past my bedtime.
I repented for my sins this morning and went to a spinning class at Pulse8. Instructor was Monique and – although she’s reasonably good – her music is dreadful, with “No Limits” being the absolute low point. Mind you, it was Michael Jackson-free which was a blessing given the wall-to-wall radio, TV and internet coverage today.
If I can count cleaning the car as Juneathon exercise – then today was a double-bill, thereby making up for yesterday. In my favour, it was a fairly vigorous cleaning session to remove about 3,000 flies from the bonnet and bird shit from the boot, and I had to carry buckets of water back and forth (no hosepipe in a flat). On the other hand, I was drinking lager at the time – which means it probably doesn’t technically count as exercise.
Filed under: British Military Fitness | Tags: British Military Fitness, juneathon
How nice is this weather? The sun arrives at my office window at 4pm, and from then on I just want to escape for the evening, to the point that I’ve taken to getting up uber-early to get a couple of hours work in at home in order to gain some sense of control over my to-do list without working late into the evening.
It makes Juneathon a bit easier too – I’m more than thankful to founder JoggerBlogger that it’s not Januaryathon.
British Military Fitness class tonight – chickened out of the fitness test again, and joined Johnny for a good sesh with a mixture of blues, reds and greens. It’s good to work with a larger group once in a while – there’s a slightly lesser chance of me coming last. In scorching temperatures, we blasted our way up and down the park and even got two water breaks for our hard work on a hot evening. Lucky us.
Oh, and my little blog has been rumbled by a fellow BMFer, who was apparently idly searching for blogs about British Military Fitness in Reading – as you do when you’re bored at work and don’t want to throw sheep around on Facebook. So “hello” to other BMFers who might have stopped by to discover that I’m actually an accident-prone, food-obsessed individual in real-life and not the finely tuned athlete you thought I was. Oh, hang on…you didn’t?
Anyway, feel free to post comments, abuse or just take the mickey out of my pathetic attempts at sprinting. 
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: abdominals, chunky kitkat, juneathon, leaves, water softener
Does sweeping last year’s leaves away from the front of my garage door and lugging salt across the carpark to fill up my water softener count as Juneathon exercise? No, thought not. But after sweeping the leaves away (next door’s garage is always suspiciously bereft of leaves, yet they mysteriously pile up in a big heap against mine) and hoofing the big bag of salt pellets into my flat, I was hungry so had a bowl of pasta and a yogurt and half a Chunky KitKat. It took a big pile of ironing before my dinner went down enough to do some abdominal exercises:
- Straight crunches (2 sets of 20) – 40 in total
- Oblique crunches (20 each side) – 40
- Reverse leg curls (2 x 20) – 40
- Side plank (45 seconds on each side ) – 90 sec
- Plank – 60 sec
- Back extensions on the Swiss ball (2 x20) – 40
- Forward ball roll (2 x 20) – 40
- Spinal/hip flexion on the ball (2 x 20) – 40
Juneathon…rock and roll.
Filed under: British Military Fitness | Tags: British Military Fitness, juneathon
A new female instructor arrived at British Military Fitness tonight. She looked quite harmless – slim, blonde, pretty – and deferred to Steve initially. Then took us for the latter half of the class.
My god, she was mean. After scrambling along the ground on all fours and sprinting up multiple hills, we did several nasty sets of abs, press-ups, burpees and star jumps – with absolutely no respite.
The female of the species is definitely more deadly than the male.
Filed under: 10k, running | Tags: breathing problems, golder's green, hampstead heath, hampstead midsummer 10k, hill, juneathon, run, running
I’d previously ruled out doing the Hampstead Midsummer 10k, local to Phil, on the basis that it was a three-lap course around a residential area. I don’t much enjoy laps, especially ones that contain a massive big hill; and it seemed a shame to run around the roads when the Heath itself is gorgeously green and lush at the moment.
However, my little brother was keen to give it a go – and it is Juneathon after all – so the three of us turned up on Sunday morning and entered on the spot.
The good:
- Cheap to enter (£8 in advance, £10 on the day)
- Parking available on the start line. I mean literally *on* the start line – next to the lampost that said “start” on it.
- Friendly bunch – despite being a club-run organised by London Heathside, it didn’t have the elitist feel of other club runs we’ve done, such as the Hardwick X-Stream. By that I mean we didn’t come anywhere near last.
- A nice little melamine mug momento for all finishers – brilliant for camping
The bad (but not as bad as I thought)
- The laps – the course loops around the Hampstead Heath extension, just east of Golder’s Green station. Laps are inherently lacking in variety, but it wasn’t actually that bad. The marshalls were rather lovely, a single water stop served us three times, we were within sight of green grass and trees for the whole route, and the terrain was sufficiently uppy-downy to feel like you weren’t just slogging along a boring flat road.
- The hill – at least a kilometre in length, a long gradual slog. Psychologically not bad at all first time around (i.e. I was expecting worse), significantly harder the second time (once I knew what I was up against), and then not so bad again the third time (almost on the home straight, all downhill from there).
The ugly
- My breathing. Honestly, I don’t know what to do about it. OK, I’m a long way off being super-fit but, during an average week, I’ll do a couple of British Military Fitness/circuits sessions incorporating hills and sprinting; a spinning class; and a couple of steady runs (one of about 30mins, one 45 mins-1 hour). That’s a fairly significant improvement on where I was a year ago and should be generating a real improvement in my fitness levels. And it’s true that my core feels stronger, the hills somewhat easier, and my times over five or six miles are improving. And yet, every time I up the pace a little bit or tackle a hill – I start panting like it’s the first time I’ve run in ten years, almost wheezing with the effort of it, gasping for air. My breathing returns to normal very quickly once I reach a flatter stretch (i.e. within a couple of minutes – Phil was timing it yesterday, so I think he may have been slightly worried) which I think is a good sign, but I’d love to know what I could do to feel a little more comfortable and push myself to go faster still.
Anyway, we completed the run in 58:24 – not bad for a hilly 10k – and went for coffee at David’s Deli – then sausage sandwiches at the flat. Yum.
Filed under: circuits | Tags: Business, Clothing, Easter, Fashion, Fashion week, London, Sainsbury, Vivienne Westwood
Haven’t been to the gym in ages what with the weather being so nice, but I decided to go yesterday morning before work for a spinning class – good to do something different with my legs, especially given that I haven’t been out on my bike since the Barmouth-Yarmouth ride at Easter. Was cross that I forgot my swimsuit for the sauna afterwards though – that’s normally my reward for getting up early.
This morning, I’m back in London for the weekend. Phil and I had a night out with friends, thanks to TopTable, at The Winter Garden restaurant at The Landmark in Marylebone. Beautiful building, lots of people-watching (we were open-mouthed at the sight of a Vivienne Westwood lookalike wafting around in lots of pink, lace and trowelled-on make-up – accompanied by four perfectly normal-looking individuals wearing jeans and t-shirts), nice food (three courses including half a bottle of wine for £30 a head). The only downer was paying £9.50 for two bottles of water. It just didn’t look like the sort of place you would order tap water, but I should have done as the bottled stuff left a rather nasty aftertaste.
Anyway, this morning we were rudely awaken at 9.30 by the Sainsbury’s delivery man, and managed to procrastinate over tea and toast for quite some time before strapping on the running shoes and jogging up to the park for a DIY circuits session. The football made another appearance, and I was given some lessons on how to kick the ball while some teenagers doing community service stared lethargically at my pathetic attempts to get the ball off the ground, instead of painting their fence. I narrowly avoided a confrontation myself when I accidentally kicked the ball directly at a buggy containing a small child. Luckily the little hood was up, so the child didn’t actually get hit, and its Dad seemed fairly unperturbed. It did make me wonder though if he would have reacted differently if it had been one of the hoodies nearby that had been responsible for the direct hit, rather than middle-class me.
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Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: covent garden, Icebreaker, juneathon, Snow and Rock
I was in Newbury first thing today, then in London for another meeting this afternoon. Knowing that I was likely to be a bit knackered by the time I got home, I decided to walk from Fenchurch Street to Liverpool Street instead of jumping on the tube at Aldgate. It was a sort-of “S” shaped route as well, because I didn’t really know where I was going.
Then I remembered it’s Father’s Day on Sunday and I really ought to get my Dad a pressie as he’s The Best Dad in the World, so I stopped off in Covent Garden to go to Snow and Rock. And when I got to Covent Garden, there was a massive queue for the lifts and – because it was Juneathon – I thought, I’ll walk up the steps. But there are 193 steps and I was sweating profusely by the time I got to the shop and the lady behind the counter looked at me a bit odd. As if to say, you should be completely kitted out in Icebreaker stuff like I am. So, as well as my Dad’s present, I bought another Icebreaker top with the money that the Premium Bond people sent me yesterday. It’s pink and lovely.
Filed under: British Military Fitness | Tags: British Military Fitness, juneathon
It’s rare that I don’t really enjoy a British Military Fitness class, but there is one duff instructor and he took my group last night. He has a rather irritating habit of treating us all like children (”don’t forget to tie your shoelaces. Make sure it’s a DOUBLE bow. CLEAR?”, “don’t fall over – it causes too much paperwork. CLEAR?”, “stay out of the rough, it’s dangerous. Too much paperwork”, “will you stay in LINE people? How many times do I have to tell you? etc.)
Of course, it has the effect of making grown adults behave like children – deliberately running the wrong way around the tree (”I said LEFT of the tree. CLEAR? For goodness sake people…”) not doing our press-ups properly and giggling the whole time as though we’re in a school playground. Especially when he kept calling his rucksack a “bergen”. What the hell is a bergen, and how is it different from a rucksack? It looked like a rucksack.
Johnny had taken the blue group, and asked how it went when we got back to the car. I said I hoped he would take us again next week. Which is saying something, because he always makes us sprint up and down the hill.
