Holiday run in Tasmania

It is, I’m sure, obvious that  I’m not participating in Janathon this year, I have just returned from a three week holiday in Australia where I spent the first 9 days of the year sitting in the sun, swimming in the pool, eating apricots, strawberries, peaches and raspberries still warm from the garden and visiting friends and family. Not much time for exercise and definitely no time for blogging.

Most of the holiday was spent in my childhood home in Launceston, Tasmania with my parents, brothers, sisters-in-law, nieces and nephews (only missing my London based sister and her family). It was wonderful, and when I had heard “I want a hippopotamus for Christmas” enough times I was able to escape to visit friends and cousins.
 

Tasmanian Devil at Tasmania Zoo

“Where’s my lunch? “

  

I have spent the last six months telling my colleagues here in Glasgow that hot weather is not guaranteed fo Christmas in Tasmania, but this year it most definitely delivered: Blue skies most days and lots of days in the high 20Cs and low 30Cs. Lovely weather for holidaying, not so enticing for running. Luckily my brother is hardier than me and he dragged me out for an early morning run on Christmas Eve. He sweetened it by offering to drive us somewhere flat so that we would not have to run back up the hill to our parents’ house.

After that it was easier to fit the runs in, and I braved leaving directly from the house. I got steadily stronger over the three weeks, managing a little bit further up each of the hills on each outing.  I even visited two parkruns, but will write about them separately.

I took my camera on my last run of the holiday, most of my runs involved a loop through the Cataract Gorge, just 10 minutes from my parents’ house to the start of the path. I was so fortunate to grow up here and it was lovely being home. 

   
  

A pademelon on the path

  

Proving I was really there!

    
  

There are 2 peacocks in the middle of the central tree!

 

The Last Day of Janathon 2015

The Run Director and volunteers at Victoria parkrun pulled out all the stops to ensure we got a run in today, despite quite a bit of ice on the paths. We had an altered course, our very own gritter, and volunteers to draw our attention to the unavoidable icy patches. The general advice was that it was not a day for PBs. I really hate the ice so I was happy to comply and to tiptoe cautiously through the worst bits and just manage what I could. In the end I was surprised to get a time of 29:29 minutes. In the first mile it was looking unlikely that I would get under 31 minutes! As usual I ran to parkrun and back for a total of 5.1 miles.

So Janathon has come to an end, and what have I achieved?

• 30 Blog posts
• Running: 84.6 miles
• Core-Strengthening: 7 sessions
• Yoga: 20 minutes (though I do yoga stretches most days which could probably be included)
• Walking: 3 lovely walks, out in the countryside, chatting to friends

I ran 19 more miles than I did in Janathon 2014 but have probably done less of everything else. However I was really struggling with motivation towards the end of last year: my core-strengthening/injury management stuff had dropped off entirely and heavy rain was always the perfect excuse for not going for a run. Janathon has, without a doubt, turned this around. There were so many horrendous days early in the month where, had it not been for Janathon, I would not have gone for a run.

So thank you Janathon and thank you fellow Janathoners! Now I just need to enter some races to keep the momentum going 🙂

Janathon the Penultimate

I get to finish a bit early on a Friday and today I met up with a friend and her toddler and baby. We went for a walk and collected sticks, poked the sticks in hedges, pointed at the moon, admired passing dogs and drew letters in what was left of the snow. I got an upper body workout by carrying the toddler up the hill. Then I got cuddles with the baby. I can’t think of any better way of spending a Friday afternoon.

When I got home I did half of my core-strengthening work out. Yes, I admit it, I chose the least hated half.

The temperature rose a bit this afternoon after a freezing start to the day and lots of the snow and ice has melted, so fingers crossed for parkrun tomorrow.  I have a couple of rubbish jobs to do this weekend so I’m hoping that parkrun will wake me up and get me motivated to make a start on them. I’m trying to think of other nice rewards to give myself at strategic points…rewards that don’t ALL involve chocolate and cake!

Happy Weekend!

Janathon Day 29 – Club Run on SNOW!

Back to running club this evening. With last night’s snow it all looked a bit icy and I was hoping that it would be cancelled. No such luck and as I was down to be Jog Leader for the Couch to 5K group I couldn’t just not turn up. In the end we were a very small group and it wasn’t necessary to have 3 jog leaders for the 5 C25K folk, so I joined the 5k group. It was a slow and cautious run. We went past the A&E department at the Glasgow Royal Infirmary twice, luckily we didn’t need to take anyone inside!

3.2 miles

Janathon:

• Running: 79.5 miles

Janathon Day 28 – SNOW (again)

Today’s Janathon effort was helping a friend move house in the sleet and snow. Thankfully the snow did not start to lie until after the last trip, so only the journey home from the pub had to be done with caution 😀
I suspect that tomorrow my arms will be visited by the evil DOMS.

Janathon Day 27 – Naked Run

The plan for this evening was an interval session. On the way home from work I tried to come up with reasons to cancel/delay/avoid the run but failed to think of anything convincing so just had to do it. I set the intervals on my Garmin before heading outside: 1 x minute sprint, 30 x second recovery, repeated 8 times. But when I tried to press the go button once outside I discovered that the stupid watch had frozen. It refused to respond to anything. Bah!

I briefly considered it a good excuse to go back inside and forget all about it. Then I considered just going for an easy run. But eventually I came up with using streetlights. So I did 8 reps of sprinting between 2 or 3 streetlights (some were closer than others) followed by walking one. Repeated 8 times.

It has been 5:20 for the past 2 hours!

Total distance 4.1 miles

So not a naked-no-clothes-on run (sorry) but a naked-no-stupid-Garmin run.

Jonathan Day 26 – Happy Australia Day!

I have a busy week so will have to apologise now for short blog posts, token exercise efforts and lack of comments on your efforts!

After running on each of the last 5 days, today I had a break and went through my core- strengthening routine.

Now I’m off to book group. We’ve just read The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot. I enjoyed it!

Janathon Day 25 – Happy Burns Night!

To get a long run in today and still go to running club I decided to run to the meeting point in town and home again, with club run in the middle. I got passed in the first mile by some club mates who offered me a lift but I turned them down and carried on, arriving just in time with 3.7 miles on my Garmin.

I joined the 5 to 7 k group and quickly discovered that I was completely knackered. We ran back into the west end and around Kelvingrove Park. My aim was to run a total of 9 miles, so when I hit 7 miles on my watch, part way back to our starting place I decided to head for home instead, timing it perfectly for a 9.15 mile run.

Today is Burns Night and I was asked to a Burns Supper (lunchtime version) this afternoon with friends. I decided to make one of my mother’s caramel slices (tray bake) to take along. Mum gave me the recipe over the phone (key ingredients: rich tea biscuits, condensed milk, butter and brown sugar) and I put it together last night. It looked wrong. I made more caramel and poured it over the top. It still looked wrong. I decided to throw it away and take a packet of chocolate biscuits instead.

Today though, I thought I should sample it before throwing it out.  It was yummy so I quickly melted the chocolate for the top. There were no complaints from my friends and I brought home an empty plate 🙂

Janathon:

• Running: 72.15 miles

Janathon Day 24 – Step, Step, Slide

Today is of course parkrun day. The forecast was for 5C and rain, which is back to normal Janathon conditions in Glasgow so I got up at my usual parkrun time, had breakfast, read my book, got dressed and was a couple of minutes early so thought I would check Twitter: Victoria, Springburn, Pollok parkruns all cancelled due to black ice. Oh.

I looked out the window. It wasn’t raining, the pavements I could see looked ok, I decided to go for a run, maybe following the ice-free route I had used on Wednesday night. I walked the length of the block while I waited for my watch to pick up a signal. I broke into a run and 4 steps later my foot slid. Eeek! Another few steps and I slid again. The ice was almost impossible to see so I headed to the middle of the gritted road and ran to the end of the street. At the next street I had to return to the pavement but I thought I would be ok as it was a busier street.

Step, step, slide. Eeek!

A few more repeats of this and I gave up and went home, walking gingerly up the middle of the street. It turns out that the parkrun marshals are wise, wise souls.

The ice was mostly gone when I walked to the letter box at midday to post a birthday card (that will, as usual, be late) but I couldn’t fit a run in until just before 5pm, when I managed 4, ice-free, rain-free miles. So I got there in the end!

Janathon Day 23 – 2015 Goals and Races

If you’ve read the heading of this post and therefore arrived expecting a carefully planned list of races that I have entered, booked accommodation for and designated as Goal Race, B Race, Training Race, you may be disappointed (I suggest you come back in six months. Or perhaps ten). I have entered nothing.

In fact I feel completely uninspired about races this year: The races I liked best in the first half of last year – The Great Edinburgh 10 mile and EMF Half Marathon – I have ruled myself out of by inadvertently planning other (non running) things. I would sort of like to work on bringing down my 10k and half marathon times and I would like to do more trail running. These are goals. I suppose!

I have to admit that I’m a bit reluctant to enter another marathon. I had such a great experience at the Loch Ness Marathon, except for the vomiting afterwards, that I’m scared that the next experience can only be a complete disaster. “Better not to risk it”, says my risk-averse inner voice. A trail marathon somewhere stunning might tempt me…might, I’m not making any promises.

What is your favourite race? Are you planning lots of races for this year?

For the 23rd of Janathon I ran two miles on ice free, rain free pavements. It made me happy 🙂

Janathon:

• Running: 58.8 miles