Janathon 27/31 – in which we relocate our adventure to Blackpool

Once a year, Ginge and I venture to Blackpool for a rugby dinner. Usually it is one night of fairly predictable (see Janathon 2011 for a full itinerary) but generally enjoyable entertainment. By generally enjoyable, I mean soundly alcohol fuelled.

This year we are doing not one but two nights. I’m not sure what the end result of this will be. Those of you who know the potent combination of beer and rugby league fans will understand my concern. These days both my liver function and ‘am-I-making-a-tit-of-myself-ometer’ are calibrated to a much lower tolerance and I may survive to finish Janathon with my 100% record intact.

As it is, we spent ages sitting in the car waiting for the torrential rain to pass…

Before long my bladder won and we had to venture out into the cold and wet of Stanley Park. After nipping to the loos, we stood in the lashing sleet debating the merits of postponing the run by a few hours, before deciding I was already cold and wet so I might as well do some running. I left Ginge on the AstroTurf (well I never expected that brand to be in the predictive text) practising his rookie quarterback drills and hacked out w very cold and very wet 2 and a bit miles.

Tomorrow promises subzero temperatures and a hangover the size of Fleetwood

Janathon 26/31 – in which I read the paper and survive another morning run.

Last night’s yoga class was one of those where I lose what little spatial awareness I have and I end up being rendered unable to differentiate between left or right, foot or knee. Chaotic would best describe my style last night. Well until it we did the relaxation at the end where ‘asleep’ would best describe it. Not only did I manage to drop off during the relaxation, but also in the few minutes we spend wriggling our extremities in an attempt to gently return our consciousness to the room. Ah well.

This all lead me to suspect that an early run would be challenging to say the least. I was right. However, I did manage to drag myself out of bed before six (just) and clattered out some Audiofuel intervals before returning home and narrowly avoiding a major porridge disaster (excess milk leading to a near miss porridge volcano).

I accompanied my porridge with last weekend’s Observer Food Monthly which veered from ‘what do Olympic athletes eat’ to ‘what happens if I live off only food advertised on the telly for a month’. The first did that thing of wide-eyed amazement that athletes eat, whisper it, actual food (albeit in bizarre quantities/timings) and most of the athletes concluded that if they eat the wrong stuff, their performance is affected. The second article continued was similar ground breaking research – food manufacturers advertise processed food and if you just eat processed food for a month, you start to feel a bit ropey. Who’d have thunk?

Both articles feature pizza. Nutritionist John Briffa was predictably horrified at the concept, talking “of compounds called gluteomorphins in the wheaty dough and casomorphins in the cheese, both of which “basically have a drug-like effect on the brain”. I suspect that he doesn’t mean that in a good way. However, I intend to take the advice of hurdler Dai Greene who recalls “after I won, the first thing I did was order pizza – now that’s the food of champions!”

Janathon 25/31 – in which there is light at the end of the tunnel

There is indeed light at the end of the tunnel. It’s not just that we are now in the final week of this folly, but this as I set of this morning the birds were singing and the sky seemed just a touch brighter and the promise of spring seemed a little closer.  On the subject of darkness, over Christmas I read an incredibly spooky ghost story called Dark Matter. It tells the tale of a 1930s expedition taking place in the endless darkness of an Arctic winter and quite honestly scared me half to death in places (admittedly this may have been my own fault for choosing it as reading matter when I was having trouble  sleeping. Idiot).

Heartily recommended

The kit that they took on these jaunts was absolutely incredible (Scott took a printing press and a piano to the Antarctic – I learned this on honeymoon courtesy of Kelly Tarlton’s Antarctic Encounter and Underwater World, or as we call it Kelly Tarlton’s World of Fish) and always makes me feel slightly better when I worry about excessive packing for a weekend away.

For any NZ penguins (hello H!) enjoying Frozen Planet at the moment

Tonight is yoga night and it’s another early one tomorrow.

Janathon 24/31 – in which I can only apologise for quite a dull post

Ah, it was like last night never happened. Tonight I wanted to run, I looked forward to running and (despite the slightly grizzly knees) I enjoyed running.

Despite my enthusiasm, I’ve reached that point where I’m a little bit bored of my evening run routes. I ummed and ahhed about a route, until the conversation went, “well what about that one” “but that’s hilly” “yes I know” until Ginge chased me out of the house with a water pistol.

Although hilly, I managed a pace that I would have been happy with on a flatter route and before I knew it, I was back at home and ready for our slightly premature haggis.

Janathon 23/31 – in which I resort to desperate tactics

Shhhhhhh.

Can you hear that? It’s a sort of scrabbling, clawing, scraping sound…

It is in fact the sound of me clinging on to the Janathon wagon in a desperate attempt to avoid falling off.

Tonight I came home from work and seemed to be juggling all sorts of priorities in my head, feeling tired and trying to ignore all of the niggling aches that have been creeping up on me (I squatted down on my haunches at work today and there was an almighty CRACK like a branch snapping). I don’t want to get injured and more importantly, they’ve affected my enjoyment of my last couple of outings.

I consulted the oracle. Ginge reckoned that if I did give up at this late stage, he would have a sulky missus in the morning. His suggestion was a thing of genius. An Athon is not an Athon without me doing at least one run home from Tesco. I say ‘home from Tesco’, what actually happens is that Ginge just pulls over and throws me out of the car at the side of the road (sometimes I can hear him shouting “so long sucker…..” as he drives away). Normally this happens three miles away. Today it was one.

One paltry mile. Enough to keep me on board.

PS. Thank you to Adele over at Fit Artist for tweeting me the best motivational poster ever.

This woman has had no experience with pie.