Tag Archives: janathon

Janathon, Personal

Janathon 20. Running up that hill (and down again)

So it’s been quite a mixed day – up early to get a presentation finished off that I was doing at 10am. Then more meetings and back home by 1.

I’d woken up full of energy and ready to face the day, but by 2pm I was knackered. I’ve tracked my sleep for two nights since thinking it might give an insight into patterns and perhaps things that I can improve on. Eight hours sleep over two nights – six hours proper sleep – shows that there’s some room for improvement. So a hearty half hour snooze and pottering finishing some bits before heading to the school for a briefing about a school trip to York.

The briefings are surely a waste of time for everyone in the room. It lasted about 20 minutes and could have been summarised on a letter. In fact, I suspect that we’ll have all that information in a letter by the end of the week. We’re expected to turn up at 3:30pm despite many of the parents having a job during the day. Normally the children would have been in after school club until about 5 / 5:30, but I took them both home at 4. So my late afternoon was torpedoed by something that could have been put in a letter.

Oh, I’m not bitter. Not at all.

Anyway, Monday is also Cubs and Brownies night. Joel had his cub scout investiture this evening, which in my eyes makes him really grown up. The Beavers is just a dim memory these days. Lily’s Brownies sounded like it was fun – she got to show some girls around who made their Brownie promise this evening. They both seemed to enjoy their time out.

All this meant that it was about 8pm when I was getting out for my run. A four mile easy run which I wasn’t really looking forward to. Mixed messages from Facebook when I wondered out loud whether just sitting in and watching the telly might be a better option for one evening. But I got the right encouragement from the right places and I headed out.

My route took me down the A59 in a Liverpool direction this evening – compared to the Burscough / Preston direction last night. I went towards Aughton, then cut along Long Lane, back down Prescot Road and returning the way I came via County Road.

I’ve been avoiding this run for the past year, when I realised that it was a neat route – because of the hill up from the fire station roundabout to Long Lane. It’s about 120 feet up in a fairly short space. I know that there are hillier bits, but it felt like it just kept going, and it’s something I’d been reluctant to tackle in the past.

So I was really pleased when I completed the run in 47:12. I’ve been trying to keep under 12 minutes per mile for and this came in at 11:48 minutes per mile. I know that for some this is super-slow, but this makes me very happy. The splits for the last two miles were 11:22 each, so I was pretty consistent getting back home.

So my desire to stay at home and watch the telly had to be put back to shortly after 9pm when we put on The Bridge. Which we like, a lot. I can’t blog or do anything of any use when it’s on because of the subtitles – which makes it great for winding down to; despite the fact that it’s all murder and intrigue.

We did the usual thing of having to watch the next episode after the first ended… just because the cliffhanger was brilliant. Another couple of weeks and it’ll be done and we can have our Monday nights back again.

It’s tempting to put a Kate Bush video here, instead here’s Placebo’s version:

Janathon, Personal

19th of Janathon. Squeezing in a quick (slow) 5k

When I put together my January training plan the other week, I knew that this weekend was going to be difficult. I originally planned to try and get a quick run in this morning. However, that didn’t come to pass.

I had a wonderful evening last night going out for dinner in Solihull with Valerie, a good friend of the family and someone Jude has known since childhood (being Lorna’s mother). I was staying at the Holiday Inn nearby, and so it was a good opportunity to catch up.

I was back at the hotel at a reasonable time and I tried to get to sleep early. This didn’t quite work because my mind was still racing with all the information from the first day’s training. However, my alarm went off this morning at 4:30 to give me time to finish a chunk of work that I needed to do for tomorrow – which I’d meant to complete on Friday and ran out of time.

I was done by 7, and there was enough time for a shower, check-out and a quick breakfast roll before getting to the training session at 8:15.

It was another very interesting day. I found that people were talking a lot quieter, or the air conditioning was a lot louder. Either way, it meant that the bionic ears were not quite as useful as yesterday; but it was better than not having them in at all.

One thing that I’ve noticed with the hearing aids is that if I don’t talk for a long time – for example, if I’m listening to a long training session – then the sound of my own voice gets very weird, loud and robotic. This was very disconcerting when I came to ask a question. It’s fair to say that I was taken aback when I first started to speak.

The whole day was fascinating and the effect on some people was amazing. I was happy to come away with a bunch of strategies for working which I didn’t have at the start of the weekend. Some of which I’ve used already since getting home.

I got back home after 8pm still not having had the run that I’d hoped to do before breakfast. So in my loving caring fatherly way, having not seen the children or Jude for two days, I said hello to everyone, watched a youtube video that Joel had found and then headed straight out to try and squeeze a run in.

I also had a Skype appointment booked for 9pm to try and get another project moving forward and so I only had about 45 minutes max to get ready and out, so my plan was to run down the main road for 15 minutes, turn around and head back for a 30-ish minute run.

Screen Shot 2014-01-20 at 00.29.24As it turned out, I was feeling a lot more comfortable in my run that I have done for ages. At 15 minutes I was nearing 1.5 miles and so I decided to go that little bit extra and go for 5k. When I got to two miles I was still averaging less than 11 minutes per mile, which for me is excellent and is better than I was doing last year.

It’s very slightly uphill on the way back and my pace dropped a little, but I still got in the three miles in 33:36 minutes and the 5.1km in 35:16, which is amongst my best times. I think that there was a problem with runkeeper on my old Android phone last year, because some days I was getting times of 10:30 per mile and there’s no way that I can imagine how or why I was getting them. When I reviewed the GPS tracks they had me zig zagging around the roads and I think that all those miscalculated positions made the times look better than they were. It’s definitely the fastest that I’ve run in the past six months.

The main point is that it felt quite easy. I think that I could have gone a bit quicker both ways, but I was more interested in just getting the run in rather than doing anything quick. Given the day that I’d had I just wanted to finish the run.

Because then I had a Skype call while scoffing some re-heated chinese from yesterday evening’s mega sleep-over, which I unfortunately missed. Followed by putting together a powerpoint presentation and of course some blogging. So 20 hours in on the day, I’m going to sign off this blog. As far as I can see, there aren’t any more long long days where it will be difficult to fit in a run or some exercise. Hopefully this means that we’re on the last stretch to the end of the month.

Fingers crossed nothing gets hurt in the last 11 days.

Oh, and here’s the “Beautiful Day” video. We heard a lot of this at the training this weekend. It might be a cliché to use it at training, but I still like the song a lot, so I’m not complaining.

Janathon, Personal

18th of Janathon. Weights and Learning.

Today has been the first of two days at the “will to act” training. The main purpose is for me to get better at planning, goals, putting aside time to do stuff and around the blocks that stop me from doing things.

I’ve spent the last three years trying to batter some of the sharper edges of my cynicism out of myself. Sometimes it works, sometimes I still feel like the most crusty cynical bloke in the world, but occasionally I can be open minded. So far in this course my cynicism hasn’t been tested too much. But speaking to some of the attendees at the end of the day, that feeling isn’t universally held.

One of my happy revelations has been how amazing the hearing aids are in a group situation like today. There were about 45 people in the room, and I could hear everyone who was talking. I don’t think that I’ve ever been able to hear everyone in a room like that. I remember it being a problem at university and I’m sure that it was before then as well. I appreciate that the ability to hear clearly is nothing spectacular, but for me it’s amazing. I think I was smiling like a maniac for the first 60 minutes until I got used to it.

I was also pleased with my Janathon exercising as well. I spent half an hour this morning using the resistance bands to do some lifting exercises in the hotel room. The hotel gym only opened at 7:30 and the training started at 8:15 so I had to bring the bands and find a different way to do the exercises. On top of that, I was going to get the train from Solihull to Olton where the offices were. When I got to the train station it turned out that the next train was at 8:15. Turns out that I’d checked a Monday to Friday timetable. Google maps said that I could get there by walking and be a minute or two late, so I did that. Half an hour later I was there in good time and felt better for the two and a bit mile brisk walk immediately after the weights. I’m counting both as my exercise for the day.

Tomorrow will be harder. Unless I’m getting up at 5am, I can’t see how I might get everything done. Still, I’ll try. For now I’m in the hotel bar again and looking forward to a pleasant evening.

Janathon, Personal

Janathon day 17, Holiday Inn Gym

Today I’ve been mostly looking at systems for staff inductions and also still checking the fingerprint recognition system that is being developed. Both things moved forward, but I feel that I need to get quite a bit more done for the inductions before Monday.

I’m writing this from the bar of the Solihull Holiday inn. I’m down here for some business training tomorrow and Sunday. I’m quite looking forward to it – it’s all about implementation and getting things done. I really need a bit of that. I feel like I get quite a lot done, but a lot of other stuff slips, so this should be interesting

So I’m sat in the hotel bar, rocking my swanky new hearing aids and realising that there are some noisy old buggers at the bar. There’s one bloke telling a visiting American with pride that he’s never really travelled much and that Britain is far too overcrowded. I may take a moment to turn them off and enjoy the silence.

I got here lateish, after 8pm, so I checked in and immediately went down to the gym. This is a whole new world for me, previously an evening at a hotel would consist of mostly staying in the bar for the evening. Instead the first hour was spent in the gym, only getting to the bar at 10. Shocking behaviour, I know.

I did four miles in 46 minutes. It’s about a minute better than I was doing at the start of the week, and I’m rubbish on a treadmill. So I was quite pleased. Running outside, whenever possible, is much much better. It was just so convenient with the gym, given that I don’t know the town that well. And it was dark. And I’d just driven for two hours.

So it’s another weekend away, and I’m feeling a bit bad about leaving Jude with the children again. Next week I’m at home (there’s a family birthday do on the Saturday night), then away again for two weekends. I’m very conscious that I need to pull my weight during the week.

Janathon, Personal

Janathon, 16 days in. More weights.

We’re over half way through Janathon (phew!)

This evening I’ve done another round of weights, as set out on the schedule.

When I did this workout last week, I’d increased the weights and it still felt reasonably good. Increased them again today, and it felt more like I was trying hard. I’ll do two more of these through January.

Today’s fun consisted of:

  • Deadlift. I used the resistance bands rather than the dumbbells. It felt tricky to get the length right to feel like a deadlift, but I was using the 23lb band. Whatever that means (!) 2 x 15 lifts. Felt ok.
  • Step ups. 2 x 15 steps on each leg. The only suitable step that I can find is one upstairs between the stairs and the bathroom. I used the dumbbells with all their weights on. This comes to 21lb per arm. I hadn’t totted it up beforehand, and the bathroom scales said 1 stone 8lb. I guess that the difference is the weight of the bar. Regardless, I hadn’t realised it’s three stone, it seems like a lot. It didn’t feel that heavy, but I guess I’m lugging around quite a bit of weight normally. Next week, I’ll try using something to increase the height of the step.
  • Dumbbell one-arm shoulder press. 2×15 on each arm. I didn’t bother taking any weight off the dumbbells this week. This felt hard at the end of the second set of reps on each arm, but still possible.
  • Close grip lat pulldowns. I basically do the same as in the video below. Except I don’t look quite as elegant when I’m doing it. Used a 23lb and 5lb resistance band to do this. I felt that, but I’d previously tried 18 and 21lb and they both felt ok.

  • Reverse crunches. 2×20 of ’em. This is a tricky exercise when you’ve got a lovely round belly, but I give it a good go. The last couple of the second set were hard.

I’m really enjoying doing the lifting and resistance exercises. There’s something quite satisfying about them, in a completely different way to the running. I’ve noticed a definite improvement with my arms and upper body when running too. Especially later in a run when I’m trying to keep going.

il_570xN.534251096_iys1

Over the weekend I’m going to be in Solihull for some business related training – staying at the Holiday Inn. I’m going to take the resistance bands with me with the intention of doing some upper body exercises on the Saturday and will try and get a run in early on Sunday. I’m not sure how I’ll get a 7 miler in before breakfast and before a day’s work, but I’ll see what I can do.

Oh, and the muppet image is from an Etsy item, here.

Janathon, Personal

Day fifteen. Four mile run – difficult

So by the end of yesterday I was feeling pretty low. The ear hearing aids were sore and I was rather stupidly feeling sorry for myself.

Of course, this passed.

Today has been much better. Putting them in in the morning was weird. It felt a bit like putting on a helmet – every noise in my head was amplified and I could hear my breathing, my jaw move, my hair move. Again, it passed within about half an hour.

Today has been much better. The hearing aids haven’t hurt so much; the itchy scratchiness has subsided, and there are moments when I forget that they’re in.

The day has been mostly spent trying to get to the bottom of why some fingerprint recognition software hasn’t been working. There is supposed to be a demo on Friday – the day after tomorrow – and the key bit of software, that everything hangs off, doesn’t work. It’s frustrating because I had a working version that I’d hacked together at the start of December. Still, we have to rely on others some time – plus I can’t get my hands on the code any more, so I’m a bit helpless.

Ho hum.

Jude was at knit night tonight, so I had to run on the treadmill. I’m increasingly of the opinion that it’s just horrible hard work on the treadmill. I think I need to buy a fan.

The intention was to run four miles with some faster bits, so I tried running at a steady 5mph and then upped it to 6 and then 7mph for a few minutes. I was knackered. So the rest of the run consisted of some running at about 5mph for a few minutes, speeding up and then slowly recovering from feeling shattered again. It might be that that’s the way it should go, but in the end it was looking like I’d be a few seconds over 48 minutes, so I upped the pace for the last 1/4 mile and came in bang on 48 minutes.

I’m not completely sure if that’s how it should go, but it was hard work and I really wanted to stop at three miles, but plugged on to get the four miles in. I’m quite pleased about that.

Janathon, Personal

Janathon day 14. Weights and new ears.

Today started relatively early, a 0515ish start to try and get some work done before Jude and the children get up at 7. On Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays I pick the children up at 1530 and so to all practical purposes, my day finishes at 1500.

The other reason for getting up early and getting some work done was that I was due at the hospital at 1100 to have some hearing aids fitted. For me this feels like a Big Thing. I know that it isn’t and that it’s a really common thing, but having a hearing test was something that I put off for years.

eartrumpetSo actually getting to the day when they were fitted, and then pottering around trying to get used to them has had me get more and more fed up through the day.

Part of the problem has been that everything is now really very loud. Well, obviously not everything. They’re programmed like a super complex graphic equaliser. Janet, the audiologist, was lovely and showed how she was fitting the amplification to the hearing test graph. However, my hearing loss is right in the mid-range frequencies and it turns out that there is a *lot* of noise in that range. The cat is really very loud – her miaow now sounds ferocious.

Internal sounds are louder and feel odd as well. My voice is loud and different, my breathing is louder (especially when exercising) and there is a curious resonance when I whistle a single note that makes it sound like a 60’s science fiction special effect. If you see someone walking down the street, whistling a single note and chuckling to himself – it’s probably me.

The price for hearing everything loud and crisp is that my ears are a bit sore. I’m told that I’ll get used to having the ear pieces in, but it might be down to some waxiness and I probably need to make sure everything is completely clear to avoid any uncomfortable chaffing.

As the day wore on, every ear-piercing pin drop was starting to grind me down. The children sounded like they were playing at volume 11, and the soreness in the ears all added up to make me feel a bit old, a bit not-working and a bit low. At the heart of it, I’m only feeling sorry for myself and I’m sure it’ll pass after a couple of days.

They didn’t stop me getting my janathoning in. I was down for a New Rules Of Lifting workout. Last week it had felt a bit easier, so I upped the resistance and weights a little. All felt fine, but difficult at the end of the reps. Which I suppose is how it’s supposed to be.

We’re going to catch up with the Sherlock episode tonight. For the first time in a long long time I’ve asked for the TV to be turned down. It’s a whole new world.

Janathon, Personal

Janathon day thirteen, four mile easy run

Nothing too exciting to report on the non-running front. Trying to get some projects moved forward and trying to kick off some new ones. Will be busy over the next couple of days, but that’s all good.

It got to about lunchtime today and I thought that it would be wise to get out before having some lunch which would then probably sit heavy on my stomach. It didn’t feel like that long since I’d had breakfast. The weather looked glorious too.

It turned out that the weather may have looked delightful, but it was blooming cold. It took a mile or so to warm up.

The route is one that I’d meant to try a week ago, around the back down Narrow Moss Lane, then back along Pippin Street and High Lane (the long mile). 

20140113-190747.jpgThe route is ideal, comes in at just over 4 miles, so it should be fine for this point in the training schedule. The only problem is that it is essentially downhill for half the run and then uphill for the return. The decision being whether to have a gentle uphill run, or a steeper one. I chose the gentle, clockwise route.

The training plan said four miles easy. Given my recent times at that distance I thought that it would be in the 50-odd minute range. I was made up when I got to two miles at 22 minutes. The uphill half took its toll and it was 46 minutes in total, but I’m very happy with that. It didn’t seem to be too hard and I didn’t get out of breath which is my usual problem.

Onwards and upwards, I’d say.

The other surprise was that I seem to have lost 10lbs somewhere along the way. This is in the last week. Given my parmo and beer consumption over the weekend, this is a bit of a surprise. I weighed myself on three different occasions through the day and I’m confident that it’s right. Just a bit of a surprise. Probably a function of the longer runs and properly doing the weights. Half of that was put on over Christmas, so I’m in a better place than I was a month ago. This is good.

Janathon, Personal

Day twelve, parmo hangovers, late starts

Me and a parmo and beer.
Me and a parmo and beer.
This is likely to be written in three stages. Right now it’s the morning after a big night out enjoying the beers of Middlesbrough and Stokesley, along with the culinary delights. The “parmisan” is a local delicacy, which I enjoyed in all it’s majesty at The Mill. To be fair, I think that the parmo is ideally be presented in a cardboard pizza box, but let’s not quibble. It was a thing of foody goodness. A slab of chicken covered with bechamel sauce and cheese. There are variants with different toppings, much like pizza, but we stuck with a fairly standard one for the evening.

It turns out that The Spread Eagle serves a pork parmo, apparently the original and superior meaty base. Next time I’m here we should try it.

Great to see Phil again after so many years. We were in two slightly different groups of friends when at University, but with a common friend in a Steve Cameron, who has been away in Oz for more years than I can remember now. So it was good to hear how everyone has moved on over the past twenty years or so.

It was a late night, though, and so things are quiet this morning. I’m promised a tasty Thai Sunday lunch before I head back to the relative normality of Ormskirk again. I doubt that I’ll be home before six or seven, so my long run might take a bIt of a hit.

The plan is supposed to be five or six miles today, with three 4M runs in the week. This feels like a step up from the 3 mile runs of the past couple of weeks, but isn’t looking that appealing just at this moment.

— later…

The feeling this morning reminded me of a Guardian blog article that I saw last week about marathon running. The author wrote about the marathon being something that forced him to consider his diet, what he drinks and how he exercises. I’m pretty much in the boat that he describes at the beginning, or at least I was at the start of last year. A lot of things have been brought into line, but I think that the regime needed to be able to run a marathon would mean that I’d have to change many aspects of my life. This is something to think about, but after the other day’s comment about a marathon in 2015, I’m seriously wondering if I should look at one towards the end of 2014.

— and finally…

I got home at nearly 8pm. I had to get a long run in 5-6M the plan said. I’d noticed that Lorna, who I’m running the half marathon with, had run approximately 5.3 miles in an hour, so I had a target. I wasn’t sure that I could do an hour given the late night last night, but I shot for 5.4 mph since I had a feeling I could keep that up for a while. Unfortunately I lasted about half an hour at 5.4 and dropped to 5.3 for the second half hour. Also I had a couple of times when the safety line came out – after about 15 minutes, and again after about 35 minutes. Joel came through and started asking about buying apps for his tablet at around 45 minutes. I stopped the clock on each occasion, and they were breaks of less than a minute, but they were unscheduled breaks.

I think I would have been fine for the 60 minutes without the stops. There was about 3 minutes to the hour, and so I put on Reflektor – which always works well as a pick-me-up. It got me through to about 1 hour 5 minutes. As it was an approximation, I’m saying 1 hour at 5.3 mph (but it was a little faster and a little longer).

I felt surprisingly good, it could have been the unscheduled breaks, but I thought that I’d feel rougher after the late night and the excess of last night. Now for some The Bridge and a bit of a relax. I’ll sleep like a baby tonight.

Janathon, Personal

Janathon, ten days in, and marathon thoughts for 2015

It’s been a good week in terms of meetings and generally getting things done. Plenty to do with everyone wanting to catch up after the holidays.

The work at the Wigan Youth Zone is moving to a conclusion, which is a relief. Other development has been signed off, and another couple of projects look like they’re starting up. It all keeps me busy and off the streets.

So it’s mostly been meetings today, through to a Skype call late this evening getting someone signed up for some coding work next week. It feels like it’s been a good week.

Off to North Yorkshire to catch up with a friend who I haven’t seen since Leeds – that’s a long time. But I’m really looking forward to it. It’s a good long train journey too, four hours, so I’ll get a chance to read, listen to some stuff and prep the new coder about the project next week.

Today’s Janathoning was supposed to be a three mile run. However, Friday is Pizza Night. This is a recent thing, where we get a couple of pizzas from Dominos and watch a children’s film. Jude was likely to be late, stuck on the M6, so I had 30 minutes to run and then had to go out and pick up the nosh that she was due to get.

So I did 2.6 miles in 30 minutes on the treadmill. Couldn’t go outside because I was looking after the children. Then, dripping with sweat and still in my running gear, we jumped in the car and headed into town to get dinner. It turned out that Jude got to Ormskirk a bit quicker than expected and I could have grabbed a well earned shower. Oh well. As it was, I felt fine during the run and it feels like I’m gaining strength. This is all good.

Then I read this article about marathon running after it was posted by a friend on Facebook. This was basically talking to me, directly. The resolution, therefore, is a marathon some time in 2015. Not sure which one yet, but that’s the plan.

Phil, who I’m visiting tomorrow, has just signed up for the Edinburgh marathon later this year. So I’ll be picking his brains about what to do.