Filed under: British Military Fitness, Juneathon | Tags: British Military Fitness, dancing shoes, DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince, Juneathon 2010, Rick Astley, Summetime, Wham
The turnaround between work and play was even shorter on Friday night: just 20 minutes to get myself clean and changed before heading out to the comedy club in Reading for a British Military Fitness social, so there wasn’t even time for a five-minute abs workout. Instead, I donned my dancing shoes after the comedy finished for an energetic hour or so of Rick Astley, Wham and DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince. “Summer- summer- summertime, summertime”, oh yeah.
The exercise quota was upped unintentionally on the way back from the club when the cabbie had to stop some way from my flat due to a accident involving four cars. Happily no one seemed to be injured thanks to some significant airbag action, but it stopped my cab from going any further. So, out I jumped, thinking I’d walk the last bit home. Only in my Stella-induced slightly squiffy state, I failed to realise it was about a mile and a half back home and I was wearing high heeled fuchsia pink platform clogs. Very suitable for the dance floor and distinctly unsuitable for a 1am march home.
Juneathon day 4 summary: dancing and stomping home / 1 hour and 35 mins (ish)
Filed under: British Military Fitness, Juneathon, running | Tags: British Military Fitness, juneathon, running
So far, so good; I went off to the park for British Military Fitness after work today. Having spent all day inside, it was good to run around in the warm air. The summer brings more people out, and there is normally another outdoor fitness group, numerous gaggles of boys playing football and a few people sitting around watching the world go by. Today’s spectators included two gents who sat on one of the benches, staring at us. Whether this was in shock, horror, amusement or fascination was difficult to tell, as we weren’t close enough to find out. We were also heckled by a group of six-year-old boys, who yelled: “Run like the wind…suckers!” as we puffed our way to the top of the hill to do a set of burpees.
Admittedly, we must look a bit of a sight – at the rough end of the hour, a group of mostly 30-somethings, covered in dust and sweat, labouring our way towards the pub with no possibility of actually going in for a pint. Last week, a chap who quite evidentally had been inside the pub for a fair amount of the afternoon and evening, came staggering down the hill in a wavy fashion as we powered up it. “Bunch of f**king idiots…” he slurred. Quite.
Juneathon day 2 summary: British Military Fitness class / 1 hour
Tomorrow might prove to be a challenge. I’m due in the office well before 8am, and have to go out for the evening for the boss’s birthday. I’m going to need to leave on the dot of 5.30 in order to squeeze in a run…
Filed under: British Military Fitness, Juneathon, running, walking | Tags: blogging, British Military Fitness, camping, JogBlog, Juneathon 2010, running, walking
Fancy logo
Well done to Cathy over at JogBlog, who has been rallying the troops to participate in the fourth Juneathon. This year, she’s has a fancy new logo, sponsors and everything.
For the uninitiated, Juneathon involves running (or at least some form of exercise), then blogging/tweeting/Facebooking about it every day throughout the month of June. The winner, as chosen by JogBlog will get a pair of Vibram Five Finger Classics (no, that’s not a variation on a KitKat, sadly, but a pair of shoes designed to replicate the barefoot running experience) courtesy of the lovely chaps at Fitness Footwear. The runner-up gets four compilations from the other lovely people at AudioFuel.
I signed up quite enthusiastically, thinking my running and my blog could do with some attention. I even attempted some training last week – putting myself through a triple-bill of British Military Fitness. Though by the third day, I opted for an “easier” session with the blues and lower reds, because my legs would no longer do what I want them to do. Also did a bit of walking this weekend – something in the region of 15 miles on the first day, and five or six on the second. As for the blog, I would only have to write two more posts this month to beat May’s efforts…
Now that 1 June has arrived, however, I feel slightly less than enthusiastic – probably because it’s my birthday, and I’ve been eating sausages and cake and drinking beer all weekend during a camping trip in the Cotswolds. However, run I must…and at least make some semblance of effort to beat last year’s stats…
British Military Fitness has been tough of late. I thought it was just because I’d had eight weeks off, but everyone else seems to be feeling it too, judging by the amount of wincing the day after a session. And the green/upper red group is shrinking before my eyes.
I have a theory.
I reckon the instructors have got together to create some sort of points system. They get 5 if someone drops out halfway through a class, 10 if Leigh stops talking, 25 if someone vomits and 50 for a death.
Really. I think I might be right.
Filed under: British Military Fitness, injuries, running | Tags: British Military Fitness, crunches, press-up, sprained ankle, sprint
After a 30-minute run at the gym on Thursday and spinning class on Friday, without feeling a twinge in my ankle, I decided to have a bash at a British Military Fitness class this morning.
Last time I went, it was still mid-winter. I was dressed in leggings, a fleecy top, jacket, hat and gloves. Today, I didn’t have a clue what to wear. I plumped for leggings (largely because I hadn’t shaved my legs for days), a long-sleeved lightweight top and Windstopper gilet.
Instructor Reg from Brighton had come to visit. He’s not a chap I’ve met before, but was terribly nice about my ankle, so I liked him immediately. He told me to be very careful, drop out if I needed to and to lace up my trainers a bit more tightly. I did as I was told. Mainly because he was unloading some heavy-looking “body bars” from his BMF van, and I didn’t dare argue.
It was jolly nice to see a few friendly faces – though not many. Just 14 turned up today, which does rather reinforce the case for cancelling Sunday sessions in the summer and replacing them with Tuesday evening sessions (which happens as of 4 May). Anyway, we all took a body bar – a weighted bar about the size of the dumbells you find at the gym but without the plates on the end – and jogged off to warm up.
And warm up, we did. It felt fantastic to feel the sun on my face, but the wintery kit was a mistake. Within ten minutes, I was boiling and had to peel off the gilet. I actually could have done with wearing shorts and a t-shirt.
I felt some very minor twinges in my ankle during the warm-up, but nothing too serious. I was pretty careful about changing direction; the ground has hardened up considerably in nearly eight weeks and isn’t very forgiving on the joints.
Into the main session – we used the body bars to do some nasty 20- 25- or 30-second shoulder press reps, followed by similar sets of crunches. Then some particularly evil “Roman chair” static squats, followed by sprints. Flipping heck, I knew I’d missed a few weeks after those. Mind you, everyone else looked almost as bad, and two newbies looked as though they didn’t know what had hit them.
After a water break, we headed over to the hill for some sprints, interspersed with “spider” press-ups – a cross between a normal press-up and plank, but with wide-apart feet and hands. You have to hold the abs, glutes and quads just to retain your balance, then dip in and out of the press-up. It was just as hard as it sounds.
All in all, a brilliant class to come back to. Reg was a great instructor and the weather was just beautiful. Long may it last.
Filed under: British Military Fitness, injuries, Reading Half Marathon, running
Thank you for the kind messages following the ankle incident before I went on holiday. It’s an awful lot better than it was, though it ruled me out of today’s Reading Half-Marathon and probably next week’s Hambledon Horseplay event in Henley. Shame really, as I was quite looking forward to the fancy dress element of the latter. Though I was thinking more tweed-lady-with-headscarf than the clobber that Phil seems to have in mind…
I haven’t sought any professional advice: I didn’t want someone to tell me I shouldn’t ski before I went to La Thuile, and haven’t got around to it since I got back. The other BMFer who sprained her ankle the same evening has suggested a few exercises to help with the rehab – one-legged squats, standing on a wobble board – but I have to accept that it’s going to take a few weeks before I’m back at British Military Fitness or running any sort of distance. Pretty annoying really, now it’s finally starting to warm up and get lighter after the longest winter in living memory.
So it’s back to the gym for cross-training, spinning and maybe a few weights. I miss the fresh air and my mates at BMF. I hate the smell of sweat combined with cleaning products and the bitching in the changing room. But it’s still better than sitting around doing nothing and getting fat!
Filed under: British Military Fitness, injuries | Tags: British Military Fitness, Ibuprofen, ice, sprained ankle
Headed out to British Military Fitness last night, after a week and a half of doing absolutely nothing due to a chesty cough and head cold. The cough has all but gone, and I felt really good as we jogged out for the warm-up. The temperature was a tropical 8°C – positively balmy after the last few weeks of sub-zero sessions, and a shandy at the pub after the session beckoned.
Twenty minutes in, I was still feeling good. My muscles felt fresh after a week and a half of doing nothing more strenuous than a short walk, and my chest was clear. Instructor Dan was delivering a good varied session and everyone was in banter mode as we jogged off to touch five trees before coming back to him. I ran off, touched one tree…two trees…three trees….then WHAM! – I went over in the long grass on my right ankle, and fell down like a sack of spuds.
“That hurt a bit”, I thought, before picking myself up and limping back to the group. It was bloody sore, but it wasn’t the first time I’ve gone over on it by any means – it’s been happening a lot recently – so I carried on and finished the rest of the session with the others (apart from the right-legged hop up the hill, which I decided to sit out). Leigh suffered an almost identical fall towards the end, snared by a water-filled pothole on the path near the carpark and looked quite a lot worse than I had felt. So, off I pottered to the pub with a handful of the others, where we discussed all manner of things, including the forthcoming outing to the pie shop, Sweeney Todd’s; bike racks; farting iPhones; cars and Instructor Dan’s peculiar diary-keeping habits.
Felt a bit stiff as I got out of the car at home, and peeled off my trainers once indoors. At which point, my ankle almost visibly swelled outwards and started to throb most painfully.
This was what it looked like last night.
Today it looks similar, though is quite a lot more varied in colour… I think it’s probably a little sprain as I’m a bit slow today, but I can walk on it with the aid of lots of ice and Ibuprofen. Next step is to see if I can get it into a ski boot before the weekend. Think I’ll wait ’til tomorrow before I try that.
So, what lesson was learned? Well, it’s obvious really. Keep OUT of the rough. CLEAR?
Filed under: British Military Fitness, running, Uncategorized | Tags: British Military Fitness, Garmin, iPad, MacBook Pro, porn, running
Despite having worked in technology PR for more than ten years, I think of myself as a reluctant geek. I can’t get myself too excited over the Windows 7 launch or the protracted unveiling of the sanitary-sounding iPad.
That said, this blogging malarky has teased out a glimmer of inner geek, the bit that loves all the blog stats – how many people have visited today? where did they come from? where did they go next? And I do love my pretty new MacBook Pro with its lighty-uppy keyboard and beautiful clear screen.
Now Lee B, a British Military Fitness buddy, has created the equivalent of geek porn in partnership with his Garmin; and even I’m excited. Check out his visual representation of last Wednesday’s BMF class. Click on the “Player” button to view our circular warm-up, run across to the path down the centre of the park, ziz-zag across it, run further down, do various activities there, followed by a water break, then across to the other side of the park for hill sprints near the pub, before heading back to the south end of the path for a final fartlek sesh back up towards the carpark. 3.38 miles completed in almost 59 minutes, burning 428 calories. I confess to being slightly disappointed with calorie data – would have assumed it to be more – but guess the Garmin wouldn’t be counting the calories burned when stationary, even if you were doing sit-ups, press-ups, burpees, etc. at the time. Can’t wait for the next installment…
Filed under: British Military Fitness | Tags: Borneo, British Military Fitness, spread the word
If you’ve read my blog in the past and wondered whether to have a go at British Military Fitness but never got around to it – now’s the time to sign up! That’s because I want a BMF t-shirt and the chance of winning a free trip to Borneo with the BMF crew.
I shall explain: the lovely chaps at British Military Fitness are running an incentive programme this month – Spread The Word – to encourage existing members to introduce new members. There at t-shirts, places for BMF events, free membership for a year and a Kinabalu Challenge trip up for grabs. Despite the fact that I’ve been spreading the word for months on my little blog, I don’t qualify for a t-shirt until I introduce a new triallist…so roll up (and quote “Jo at irunbecauseilovefood” on your application form…)
Here are a few good reasons for signing up:
- The first class is free, so you’ve got nothing to lose.
- It’s brilliant exercise – you’ll work muscles you literally never knew you had and tone up all over.
- You will burn on average 640 calories per class.
- Membership is cheaper than the average gym membership.
- And it’s much more fun than the gym.
- You’ll meet a bunch of like-minded people, and have a laugh while you do it.
- It’s a very inclusive and supportive environment, despite the scary-looking instructors in their combats and boots (they’re all pussycats really).
If you’re thinking about it even a tiny bit, click on these links for more info:
- Overview for new members on the official website
- A write-up of my first ever class
- How to survive a winter class
- And if you’re still with me, here’s a little vid of a beginner’s class…
Now…sign up!
Filed under: British Military Fitness, running, walking | Tags: British Military Fitness, Little Miss Sunshine, running, sense of humour
More than 24 hours after Riotrunner, you’d have thought that my sense of humour might have returned. Not so last Monday evening at British Military Fitness. Surprisingly, I didn’t ache too much during the day, even after the beating that my ankles and knees took on the frozen sand at Borden (sand, it may have been, but it took on the properties of concrete in the cold), so decided to give it a bash.
It was an inky black night in Prospect Park – perfectly clear with hundreds of stars, and no moon. But I wasn’t happy. Especially when Instructor Steve made us run up and down the rugby pitch about 100 times, with only a few 85 barstardoes (squat thrust, press-up, squat thrust, jump) to break the monotony. My legs decided quite quickly that they did actually hurt rather a lot. And my sense of humour went firmly AWOL.
Happily for Steve and my fellow BMF-ers, it had returned by Wednesday evening, when we had a more varied session involving running round the football pitch and doing lots of different exercises on each corner.
Unhappily for Phil, the GSOH did another disappearing act on Saturday morning, when we tried to do an eight-miler. My left hip was seriously playing up, I felt very old all of a sudden, and I walked/limped/grumbled my way home.
Gave it a rest yesterday, and am planning on another BMF session tonight. Let’s hope Little Miss Grumpy becomes Little Miss Sunshine. Even if it is cold and damp.
