Filed under: food, Janathon, recipes | Tags: fairy cakes, food, Janathon, lurgy
Is there a Janathon lurgy doing the rounds? If so, I’ve succumbed to it too. Felt peaky on Wednesday, slightly worse on Thursday and awful on Friday morning. Decided to work from home yesterday to avoid the cold air and more germs, and didn’t leave the house all day. So, 28 January was the first day of Janathon that I didn’t do any form of activity that could be even vaguely classed as exercise (although I’m not 100% sure if my walking to work really counts either).
Instead, I had a surprisingly productive day working from home, and then made chocolate fairy cakes…
Luuuurrrrrve de cake
Source: http://www.old-picture.com
I had the luxury of a day off work on Monday, and was able to spend it exactly as I wanted. I spent two hours tidying the house, hoovered right through and even Cleaned The Bathroom. Given that I absolutely bloody hate cleaning, I felt quite saintly by the end of all that. Then, after all that bleach-fuelled exertion, I took myself off to the gym for a spinning class.
Daytime at the gym in the week is a very different beast to the weekend. Without putting too finer point on it, I was probably the youngest person there by some margin. As I scanned the room while setting up my bike, I wondered if my spinning class-mates got the message about it being an exercise session rather than a craft class.
As it happens, it was really good. The beauty of spinning is that you can make it as easy or as difficult as you like by decreasing or increasing the resistance. So I loaded on the resistance, and felt as though I’d had as good a workout as any other, despite it being a 35-minute session rather than the normal 45. And the instructor stayed on for another 10 minutes to guide everyone through some free weights.
And the silver-haired gym bunnies around me? Absolutely fine. If I’m still spinning at 60 or 70 years of age, I’ll be well pleased. Good on ‘em.
The rest of my day off was spent drinking tea, eating biscuits and doing a jigsaw puzzle with my 86-year-old Nan. She’s as bright as a button, cheeky to boot, and amazingly mobile. If this is what old age is like, bring on retirement….
Janathon activity: 35 mins spinning, 10 mins weights
Phil and I were up in Huddersfield this weekend, visiting a friend. We did a short 2.5-mile loop at 7am yesterday before getting on the train to The North, then the three of us did another run this morning. Two of the worst runs I’ve done in some time.
Saturday’s was short and lethargic, but I put it down to the early start as well as being hungry and slightly dehydrated. “I’ll feel better tomorrow,” I thought.
I didn’t.
The very first part of this morning’s 3.5-miler in Huddersfield took us up a staggeringly steep hill towards a ridge overlooking the town and I thought my lungs had collapsed by the time I heaved myself to the top. We proceeded along a diagonal path further uphill towards the ridge, with a severe camber, which aggravated last year’s ankle injury causing more pain than I have felt since I did it.
And then there was the humiliation of our “non-runner” friend having to wait for me to catch up. Several times.
I don’t want to talk about it any more.
Filed under: 5k, gym, Janathon, running, walking | Tags: 5k, commuting, Janathon, King's Cross, running, walking in London
I seem to have some catching up to do on the blog. It’s been a busy week, with trips to Staines, Warrington and Huddersfield. I know, the glamour…
However, in between times, I reckon I have mastered the art of efficient walking down busy streets in London and through a packed King’s Cross at rush hour. One must walk quickly and purposefully with eyes – and this bit is important – fixed on some unspecified point in the middle distance. One must not, under any circumstances, make eye contact with another commuter coming in the other direction. This is a sign of weakness and almost always results in having to change the course of one’s own trajectory, therefore reducing efficiency.
In other Janathon news, my vital statistics for the working week:
Monday – gym for around 50 minutes, incorporating 5k in 28:08 mins
Tuesday – three miles walking
Wednesday – four miles walking
Thursday – four miles walking + gym for 1 hour
Friday – four miles walking
But only at the Body Pump class and the candlelit swim session. Sadly, the Pump class was already underway when Phil and I arrived due to me getting muddled up with the timings, so we headed to the gym.
But someone had swiped all the girls, leaving a load of boys covered in tattoos, pumping iron in front of the mirror, and emitting more grunts than a week at Wimbledon. They’re a curious shape, these chaps – massive shoulders, bulging biceps and really teeny tiny legs. Like big inverted triangles.
Quite fascinating to observe though. So after my ten-minute warm-up on the cross-trainer, I decided to join them – no doubt irritating the hell out of them by putting the seats up as high as they would go and putting the weights down significantly lower. I followed that with a good abs session, and then had a wobble about on the Bosu.
Janathon activity: gym session (mainly weights)
Time: 45 minutes
The start of another week, and back to the walking commute, thankfully drier than Friday’s. One runner of note: a chap pushing really quite a small baby in a little pram, wearing a loose flappy singlet and a small pair of shorts (the runner not the baby). Did he miss the memo about winter?
Janathon activity: 4-mile walking commute
Time: 1 hour
Dear me – is anyone else struggling with the daily blogging? I apologise for the complete lack of anything interesting to say. It’s late, and I’m rubbish.
Filed under: 10k, gym, half marathon training, Janathon, running | Tags: 10k, gym, Janathon, running, treadmill
Cold and gloomy again Saturday morning, so sought sanctuary in the gym. Thought I might reinstate the 5k and 10k challenges, and completed 10k in 59:02. Some way to go to break that two-hour mark at the Reading half marathon, but at least I’m building up my mileage.
Janathon activity: 10k run
Time: 59:02
Filed under: food, Janathon, walking | Tags: AudioFuel, commute, food, Janathon, London Underground, walking, wine
Didn’t get around to blogging yesterday evening; I was drinking wine and eating curry. Was also feeling quite weary – mentally after all of four days of work; and physically after the onslaught of exercise that my poor body is not really used to.
Nevertheless, I had extended my very wet walking commute with another walk at lunchtime – from the office down to Strand, along to Covent Garden and back via Holborn, which I estimate being another two miles, at a reasonable lick. The novelty of working in central London hasn’t worn off yet, and I’m always surprised at how close together everything is. In fact, I am reminded of Audiofuel’s Underground Calorie Map which gives you some indication of the relative distances involved, if not the actual distances:
Janathon activity: 6 miles (walking)
Time: approximate 90 minutes in total
Filed under: gym, Janathon | Tags: Gosling, Janathon, kickboxing, Rocky, Sylvester Stallone
Source: www.dvdverdict.com
It was seeing half the class taking their shoes off that gave me – metaphorically speaking – cold feet about trying kickboxing for the first time. As they all peeled off their socks and the instructor started winding tape round his hands and wrists, Phil and I inched back towards the door. Several other people (still wearing shoes) appeared to do the same thing.
The blokes looked hard; the girls looked even worse – the type that did rugby at University, who could probably flatten someone like me with slap in the face. I didn’t fancy my chances.
Anyway, we didn’t quite manage to escape before the warm up – so off we went, jogging up and down the hall, then did some sets of press-ups, crunches and burpees (thank goodness for British Military Fitness, as I was the only girl doing full rather than half-box press-ups).
I partnered with Phil, and he started off with the gloves and me with the pads you strap onto your hands. We did various sequences – jabs, hooks, rolls, front kicks, roundhouse kicks and a peculiar move that involved lifting the knee almost in a semi-circle, before kicking with the outside of the foot. I felt like my hips were being dislocated, and probably looked as if they were too. However, Mr Instructor told me I had a “nice little (roundhouse) kick”. Check me out.
Holding the body pads was a little more tricky – the first time Phil hit it, I almost winded myself, so there must be a knack to it that I wasn’t aware of. And he wasn’t even trying that hard – some of the guys and gals in the room would have absolutely floored me. Best not go together after we’ve had a row, that’s for sure.
The time went really quickly – the 55-minute class ended up being more like 70 minutes, and we didn’t even do a proper warm-down. I was sweating profusely by the end, and I reckon I’ll feel muscles I didn’t know I had in my shoulders and groin tomorrow. Would definitely go again!
Janathon activity: four miles (walking commute) & kickboxing class
Time: just over two hours in total
Filed under: Janathon, walking | Tags: commuting, iPhone, Janathon, walking
Back to work this morning. Thankfully, this morning’s train ran like clockwork, though it did seem to be shrouded in a blanket of depression as everyone reluctantly headed into their offices after the lovely long relaxing break.
Between you and me, I’m still aching after that personal training session on Sunday involving the TRX contraption. So I wasn’t going to attempt another run, deciding instead to count my commuter miles towards the Janathon effort. I walk a mile to the station from home, then a mile from King’s Cross to my office – and back again at the end of the day. Four miles in total, striding purposefully, which takes me about an hour in all. I do, at least, wear my running shoes to do it.
In turn horrifying, amusing, annoying and guilt-inducing, today I observed:
- A heavily pregnant woman lighting up a king-sized fag opposite King’s Cross. Nice.
- A girl wearing a bright purple, shiny, polyester tracksuit, with a side pony-tail, gigantic gold hoop earrings and a blingy bag. Chav-tastic.
- At least nine people wearing ridiculous headgear.
- Three iPhone zombies – people who wander along like farts in the breeze, tap-tap-tapping their blinking phones and not looking where they’re going, so you have to dodge past them. Grrr.
- Six runners – three going at quite a lick on my last leg towards the house this evening.
Tomorrow will be the acid test for the gym membership. Phil and I have booked ourselves into the kickboxing class at 20:15, so I’ll need to stomp home, grab a snack, pick up my stuff and head out into the cold again when I could be curled up on the sofa, after a nice meal, with a book and what’s left of the tin of Cadbury Heroes. Difficult, non?
Distance: four miles (walking)
Time: 1 hour
