One of the strangest points in the evening occurred when I was having a bit of a misty eyed reminisce about rugby do’s past and I found myself thinking “yes, but what I really want these days is the feeling of doing a good 10 miler”. At this point I  began to suspect that I wasn’t as sober as I had first thought.

However, as I’ve managed to get through today without my usual after-Blackpool nap and I had the pleasure of listening to Pilgrim (Radio Four’s afternoon play on Thursday and for the next three Thursdays), I set off for a very enjoyable run on an extendable 7 mile loop. I felt happy and strong and comfortable, so I added on a half mile and another and another until I had done 11 miles. I suspect that I may hurt in the morning and my eyes are becoming scratchy, but for now I am happy.

Outside the Tower is the Comedy Carpet featuring the gags and catchphrases of 1000 comedians. As a tribute to those people featuring Jokeathons on their blogs, this is one of my favourites from Billy Connolly.

Tonight is where things will become potentially messier. Everyone will buff up their shiniest shoes, comb their best toupees and check their ties for last year’s gravy stains before heading down for a night of stand up bingo, after dinner speaking and possibly the naffest mobile disco in Lancashire. Wish me luck for tomorrow…

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

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!”

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.

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.

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.

It took a certain amount of procrastination before I ventured out for my six miles and while I was out there, I decided to focus on whatever brightness I might stumble on.

Despite the bleakness of the bare trees against the grey skies, the grass in the fields was a lush emerald green and seemed even brighter next to the black churned up mud that cuts through them.

The winds had taken their toll on local umbrellas – this was the third and certainly the most colourful broken skeleton that I spotted on my run.

At home, I had a bit more of a splash of colour in the form of this week’s creation from the Book of Dan (lemon and poppy seed cake).

Anyway. I’m on a train because Ginge and I have had a day off together and have ventured off to Lancaster for the day. I love Lancaster. It’s a smallish university city in a quite old fashioned way. There’s a healthy mix of free range vegan yoghurt knitting (the best business card I spotted was advertising a practitioner of ‘hypnobirth’. Yes. Hypnobirth, I’ll just leave that one hanging there shall I?), proper academic types and middle class socialist workers as well as everybody else. The academic bias makes for a lot of students, which depending on your point of view can be either a good or bad thing. Personally, I enjoy spotting the plethora of university society hoodies (although today’s favourite marked its owner as an participant of Ultimate Frisbee, which I’m sure doesn’t warrant crested leisure wear) and may make my own I-spy book for our next visit.

If you’re ever up in Lancaster, you’re spoilt for choice with where to eat. We lunched at Soupanova, which opened when I was a student and provided me with most of my soup ideas at that time (without them I never would have made half the varieties that I have cobbled together over the years, but in particular I have to thank them for cauliflower and butterbean). Today Ginge indulged in onion, leek and blue cheese and I had ham and mushroom soup with a hunk of poppy seed bread and butter. I am always happy when I return to Lancaster and see that Soupanova is still going strong, it really does deserve to.

Soupanova - yum (with croutons)

The main reason for us heading north for the afternoon was to restock the beverage cupboard. Ginge is a late arrival to the world of coffee, but has progressed rapidly to exploring the world of coffee producers and grinding his own beans, which are now drunk black and sugarless. As such, we make a regular visit to Atkinsons, the home of the best coffee in the North West, if not much, much further afield. It’s a bloody marvellous place – especially if you go on a roasting day when the scent of freshly roasted beans wafts down China Street. On a cold day like today, it was lovely to sidle up to the stove while Ginge sorted out his purchases. Personally, I am a resolute tea drinker and was more than happy to leave with a big bag of pure Assam and a smaller bag of ginger tea to see me through the rest until spring when I will restart on the Blue Sky blend.

Some of Atkinson's finest. I was too shy to take a photo of the gorgeous old jars behind the counter.

It was then on to the Robert Gillow, a pub that we’ve passed many times but never been in, for a spot of pub knitting, a Lancaster blonde in The Sun and tea (and pint of Doom Bar) in the White Cross. Unfortunately, it was then pointed out that Lancaster appears to close its borders at nine so rather than risk a ten hour journey home (I presume that a lot of that would be spent lurking on Preston station), we went for the half eight train. At the station we learned that beverages were not provided after seven and so despite a shared urge for cake, we were left circling the vending machines (mint Aero – good, Caramac – work of the devil, raisin and biscuit Yorkie – given to a sad crying girl who looked absolutely heartbroken) until the train came and I developed an irrational hatred of the bouffant young man sat behind us.

Beer, knitting. Knitting, beer. My idea of utter contentment.

Oh, and to enable all this to happen without too much of the day being taken up with Janathon, I raced Miles again. The outcome was poor. In fact the outcome was worse than last week, but I will point out that Miles doesn’t have headwinds and overenthusiastic morning bowels to deal with. I swear I’ll get him one day.

Miles shows off his wind AND waterproof case and satellite docking station.

Procrastination didn’t help me to avoid the weather tonight, but the rain wasn’t as bad as it sounded from the cosiness of the house and it was strangely refreshing to be out in it. What was less refreshing was the shock of plunging my right foot into something that turned out to be less of a puddle and more of a perfectly foot-sized well.

Somewhat squelchily, I finished a three mile out and back and scampered home for my tea. After taunting myself with the Perfect Egg Fried Rice for most of Thursday, I was looking forward to our version. We seemed to be developing a Friday habit of making homemade takeaway teas, which aren’t necessarily über-healthy, but are probably better for us than the many takeaways I endure running past on a nightly basis.

Carb-tastic

Tomorrow I take on Miles with our weekly mile challenge and have the incentive of a day out in Lancaster to get me round even quicker.