Two

I started behind, and behind I remain.  It's now the fourth of June and I'm just writing the blog post for the second.  Dearie me.  Not to worry, I am going to catch up now and will try to keep on top of things for the rest of the month.

So, on Monday 2nd June, I did two dog walks. We went to a different spot for our morning walk - we headed to Blackheath, near Shalford.  It's a lovely walk over the common there, and the dogs were quite excited to be somewhere that we usually only go to at weekends.  So that was all very jolly.

I had planned to go swimming in the evening, but unfortunately I got caught in a canine snuggle trap, which is near impossible to extricate oneself from.  

So just the two dog walks and that will have to do.

Onwards!

Zombie Hoof

Recently, we have been plagued on our morning walks.

It all started a few weeks back, with the unfortunate death of a young deer. We don't know how the deer died, only that our dogs discovered the carcass and found it irresistible. It may be the most exciting thing they have ever seen, smelt, eaten. To we mere humans, this carcass may appear unutterably disgusting, a foul, stench-ridden harbinger of doom. To our dogs; manna from heaven.

After a while, scavengers had pretty much taken the deer leaving only a few scraps. Which is where our problem began. When we were out in the woods early one morning, we called our dogs away from the area that we knew held the deer remains. They all came, but one was not alone. In her mouth, she held what become known as the highest prize of all. The Zombie Hoof. So called because despite our best efforts to dispose of the Hoof it keeps coming back. 

The Hoof has been thrown in a tree. A short while later it was back in a dog's mouth, being paraded about. 

The Hoof was buried in the woods, but sure enough, a while later there it was. Covered in dirt and dog slobber. The Hoof.  

Quite frankly, our nerves are shot.  I fully expect to be sat at my desk at work, only to suddenly hear a *tap tap tap* at the window. Zombie Hoof!  It's like that bit at the end of the horror movie where the monster JUST REFUSES TO DIE. Except it's already dead. 

It's affecting our lives.  We used to have such lovely conversations on our early walks.  Now they all go a little like this.

"I really liked that butterscotch tart it was totally GAH! Zombie Hoof!"

"Drop it"

"Drop it"

"DROP IT!!!!!"

"Good boy. Now leave it."

"Leave it"

"LEAVE IT".

and so on. 

And just when we thought that matters couldn't get any worse, one of the dogs found Zombie Skull this morning......

*sigh*

Happy New Year 2013

 

Wishing everyone a fantastic 2013 xxx

Scenes of Rural Devastation

Sometimes, we'll go out for a walk and it'll be lovely.  There'll be glorious sunshine, or we'll get to see the sun rise, or set. Sometimes there is mist and I'll see something truly beautiful, like the pictures below. It makes me feel so lucky to live in such a lovely part of the world and to have my dog, who gets me out of the door and into the countryside and the fresh air that it provides.

Natural Beauty

The sky's the limit!

Sometimes though, the weather is not kind. Like the lunchtime a couple of weeks ago where we got caught out in a hailstorm. You've never seen a dog so miserable. So like any caring, responsible dog owner, I videoed my poor dog's misery and am now sharing it across the internet. Should I report myself to the RSPCA?

In other news, the worst has finally happened.  The farmer has had the temerity to HARVEST HIS CORN. The look on poor Murdoch's face when he saw this scene of rural devastation.  He was utterly bereft.

Whaaaaaaaaat the f@%$& has happened here?!

YOU did this! How dare you!

My corn! My beautiful corn! GONE!

Found one!

Admitting defeat

Early morning Guildford skyline

Sometimes in life, you just have to admit defeat.  I'm in that place at the moment.  I have to admit that I've managed an epic fail on the Juneathon front, I haven't blogged for the last week and only just caught up with over two week's worth of activity logging on RunFree.  Which is an astonishingly hateful task if you don't do it as you go along.  I seem to have done a reasonable amount of exercise (totals below) but I've not done so well on the community front.  I've read blogs and commented on a few, but really I don't feel as though I've really been involved, which is probably reflected by the fact that for the most part, Juneathon participants haven't commented on mine, which have been (at best) sporadic.

I'm also admitting defeat on some other fronts too.  I've come to the realisation that you can't make people like you.  You just can't.  Not everyone on this planet is going to like you.  Sometimes, you're put in a situation where it's difficult for people to like you.  Sometimes your actions contribute to that situation and do not improve it.  But it is what it is.  And I'm finding it important to remember that I have lots of amazing friends who do like me.  So I should probably stop worrying about the people that don't.  It saps what little confidence that I have and makes me retreat into my introspective depression shell to hide, which isn't helpful to anyone, least of all me. 

Anyway, that's about all I have to say for myself for now.  I doff my cap to people like Lesley who has found something interesting say every single day this month and also to everyone who took part in the Longest Day Run event at the weekend - I logged 4 miles, which may not seem like much, but is the longest that I have managed to run this year on my injury comeback trail (yaaay!) 

Juneathon totals for the month so far:
Running: 23.3 miles
Walking: 109.8 miles
Swimming: 1k
Pilates: 4hrs
Bootcamp: 1hr

The Long Way Round

Juneathon the Twentieth.  In which we take an unexpectedly long walk, encountering poo swarms, cows and the very real possibility that we may never, ever be able to leave the field.  Ever.

Larger picture here

Well didn't we have a lovely walk this morning.  I decided to deviate from our usual route and go round a different field.  This was my first mistake.  My second mistake was not letting the enormous swarms of flies that were covering the cow pats lining the path put me off.  Seriously, they were everywhere.

The coup de grace came when I saw the herd of cows hiding over the brow of a hill in the corner of the field.  Right next to the stile that we needed to go over to get out of the field *sigh*

So we turned around and headed to a stile that took us into the next field.  From which there was no exit.  We went to each corner of the field in turn, desperately hoping for a stile, a gate, anything!!!!!! To no avail.  We walked (increasingly desperate) around the field until we were back pretty much where we started.  Right in the middle of the poo swarm.  Dagnammit.  I say "we" a lot, but really there were two distinct camps here.

1. Me.  "Oh God, there are no gates or stiles or any way of getting out of this damn field! This is awful.  Just awful!  WE MIGHT ACTUALLY DIE HERE!!" *flail*

2.  Murdoch (pootle) (sniff) (pootle)

Anyway, we made it home after adding an extra 1.35 miles onto our walk with this fiasco and just in time to jump into the car to take Murdoch for his annual boosters at the vet.

I also took Murdoch for another walk this afternoon - keeping to a well-established route this time - for a total of seven miles walked today.

In other news, I am aching like fool following yesterday's bootcamp effort.  Everything hurts.  I guess that shows that I worked pretty hard, unlike the two ladies next to me who chatted the whole time.  It's possible that they're much fitter than me, but then shouldn't they still be putting more effort in?

I had originally considered going for a run today but the sad state of my post-bootcamp body, combined with the fact that I have a run-date with my friend B first thing tomorrow morning have led me to cop out.

Longest Day Run

A much sunnier view at the weekend

Nearly an entire week has passed again and I've mostly been doing dog walking as my Juneathon effort.  Thankfully the weather has improved considerably and Misog has disappeared for a while.

I don't feel like I have masses to say and wouldn't be writing this blog at all if it weren't for Juneathon!  I have however read quite a few blogs over the past week, so feel a bit better about that.  This week I have the week off work.  I've decided that I'm going to try out a few classes at Charterhouse Club as well as getting a couple of runs in during the day.  

Then on Saturday I'm going to be taking part in the inaugural Longest Day Run event.  The idea is to run as far as possible between midday on Saturday 23rd and midday Sunday 24th.  In my case, I'm aiming for only five miles, which will be the farthest that I've run this year.  Check out the website and think about taking part - seems like a fun challenge to me.

PawPaw McGraw

Playing Catch Up (again)

Oh dear.  Once again I've been epically shit on the Juneathon front and haven't blogged since last week.  Nor have I had much time to read and comment on other people's blog.  I hereby declare that I will be chasing that elusive "negative split" and will do much better in the second half of the month.  If I fail at this, please feel free to come and do some monkey style poo flinging at my comments section.

Misog

So what have I been up to in the past week?  Mainly lots of dog walking.   In the rain.  You know it's got bad when on arrival at the park, the first thing Murdoch does when you let him off the lead is glance back at the entrance to the park, wondering if he could make a dash back to the flat before I could catch him.  I swear the only reason he (grudgingly) followed me into the park was because I don't let him have his own front door key.  In fact I have temporarily renamed him.  His current name is Misog because he is such a damp and grumpy misery dog. Anyway, where was I?  Oh yes.  So Misog and I have been doing lots of walking, sometimes clad in the Wrong Trousers, sometimes braving it in mere walking trousers (am I brave or foolhardy? I'll catch my death etc etc).

The view from the Gibbet. On a clear day you can see Canary Wharf

On Saturday morning I headed to the Devil's Punchbowl to do the Saturday morning run out with the lovely HBAC folk.  I particularly enjoy this session, as it always ends up in the café having a nice spot of breakfast.  Super.  It's really lovely at the Punchbowl.  Well it always was, but since the Hindhead tunnel opened, the Punchbowl and the Gibbet are no longer bisected by the A3 and it's now just wonderful.  Must take Misog down there for a walk.  At the end of the session, we were told that we must come next week as one of the coaches has something special in store for our little back to running group.  This has struck fear into my heart, mainly because Julia's idea of fun is running repeatedly up and down very steep hills.  She's lovely, but y'know, that's just madness.  Anyway, I'll find out what that is on Saturday, and if I survive, I'll tell you all about it.  

On Sunday morning I did a Pilates class at Charterhouse Club.  I really love this class, partly because I'm much better at it than I thought I'd be!  It's a great change of pace and I always leave after the class feeling energised.

Anyway, that's probably more than enough from me, I'll finish by giving you my Juneathon grand totals so far (*drum roll*):

Walking: 56 miles

Running: 14 miles (is anyone else having trouble getting RunningFree to speak to Nike+? They have clearly had a falling out and are standing on opposite sides of the room sulking.)

Pilates: 0 miles (1hr)

June-bilee Shenanigans

Oh God.  I'm playing catch up again.  It's just been so busy, these past few days. Enough ado, let's get stuck in.

Monday 4th June.  Got up, walking the dog, 3.2 miles done.  Trousers got soaked in the long grass again, wished I'd worn my waterproof trousers.

On Monday afternoon it was time for the inaugural Godalming Jubilee 5k (presumably they will rename it next year!).  There was also a 10k option, but I decided to stick to the 5k, with a 20 minute walk into Godalming as my warm up.  It was my first race since my return from injury and I was planning to take it easy, get round the course and just enjoy the day.  

Excited at the start with Leila

That plan lasted till the gun went off, I got caught up in the excitement and legged it round at full pelt.  The course was great, a great mix of traffic-free road running combined with an utter bitch of a hill that came as a bit of a surprise!  Ended up getting round in 27:29, which is a pretty respectable time for me and I was 19th woman home.  That probably says more about the depth of the field than it does about my performance!  It was well staged, particularly for a first time out and apparently the 10k was great too, with another couple of killer hills thrown in for good measure.

After hanging around the finish area for a bit with Leila, I walked home to Farncombe and took Murdoch for a walk - another 2.5 miles in the bag.  When I got home, I nearly fell asleep on the sofa, but managed to drag myself back to Godalming for an evening of Jubilee festivities.  At this point I should probably mention that my poor sad PF heels were giving me serious cause for worry.  Not only had I gone out pretty hard, but it was mostly on road, whereas my training since injury has been mostly off-road to minimise impact.  As a result, I'm afraid I spent most of the evening in a bit of a grump, and wasn't drinking as I wanted to be able to drive home. Reh reh reh.

On Tuesday I awoke to a miracle.  My heels didn't hurt!  I think this may have been because I had done quite a bit of stretching and had massaged my legs quite a bit.  Huzzah!  This was excellent news and I joyfully set off to walk the dog.  Trousers got soaked in the long grass again, wished I'd worn my waterproof trousers.

At around lunchtime I headed down to Liphook where there was a Jubilee street party in my parents' road.  Had a nice time chatting to the neighbours, even though it was PISSING it down.  After a couple of hours of British stiff upper lip, we gave up and went inside.  Had a nice cup of tea to warm up, then headed home to walk the dog.  There is a reason why I rarely crack out the waterproof trousers, despite wet leg misery.  This is because they make me look like Wallace wearing the Wrong Trousers.  Judge for yourselves.  

The Wrong Trousers. More tea Gromit?

But I did get them out for the second dog walk of the day - it was peeing it down, after all.

Got up this morning and immediately knew that something was amiss.  Aaaw hell, I'm going to have to go back to work.  Hurumph.  At least I had a dog walk first to cheer me up.  Did the usual route with the dog walkers, left Murdoch there for the day and headed up to London.  Did a good day's work and then got my running kit on.  Our offices are near Tower Hill and I decided that it would be lovely to run back to Waterloo along the South Bank.  

Last time I ran over Tower Bridge I was in the middle of a marathon!

And very lovely it was too - had to do quite a bit of tourist dodging and had a very scary moment near the OXO tower when I realised that my rucksack had suddenly got lighter than it should have been.  Turned around to see a male runner coming towards me carrying my jacket, a shoe and my purse.  Apparently a girl had seen them fall out of my bag (which had come open) and he offered to run them up to me.  I was enormously grateful - I've no idea how I would have got back from London without my purse, which contained all of my money, cards and my train ticket.  Disaster very narrowly averted and faith in humanity restored!  The slight downside to my day is that I missed my train home and as I got home quite late, it was easier to leave Murdoch overnight rather than do a late pick up.  I miss that little guy.  The flat seems very empty without him!

So now you're up to date again, are you as exhausted reading this as I was writing it? :)

Two for the price of one

Good morning to you all.  So early in June and already playing catch up on the blogging, this post is a once in a lifetime never to be repeated buy one, get one free offer (probably to be repeated as the month goes on). So where to start?  Oh yes, Saturday....

I woke up on Saturday morning and quickly realised two things:

1.  Sometimes I can be astonishingly stupid

2.  Isn't it lucky that I live in a quiet and safe neighbourhood?

The trigger for these exciting revelations?  I got up, got dressed and could not find my front door key.  Eventually located it...... in the door.  Oops.  But no-one came in and murdered me in my sleep / stole my tv / nicked the wine out of the fridge, so I'm counting that as a WIN.  Buoyed by this feeling of invincibility, I took Murdoch for a lovely walk around our local haunt, for about 70 minutes.  I just mapped it out on Mapometer and it looks like it's about 3.2 miles.  I love doing this walk, it's a brilliant mix of walking around the fields and then up through the woods, some of it is a bit scrambly as there are some really steep and slippery bits.  Our second walk of the day was at Blackheath, a social walk with our dog walking company.  It's a lovely chatty walk, and Murdoch gets to hurtle about with his doggy friends.  So Saturday, in a nutshell was all about the walking.

Yesterday, I got up, found the door key on the shelf where it belongs and took Murdoch out for that same 3.2 mile loop.  It was very rainy - a real contrast to yesterday's walk and my walking trousers were soaked within minutes.  Our walk takes us through very long grass so I was soaked right up to my thighs.  Found a huge tick on Murdoch's neck and had to remove it *yeeeeeeeeuuurrrgh* After our walk I went to meet a couple of friends for brunch at a local restaurant which I heartily recommend.  I always have scrambled egg with lovely big bits of Lincolnshire sausage chopped up in it. Delicious.

After brunch, I headed home and then it was time to don my running kit and head out to an event that I was quite excited about.  Some people that I had met through Twitter were coming towards the end of quite an impressive challenge.  They were running the entire 108 mile length of the Greensand Way, from Hamstreet in Kent to Haslemere in Surrey over the course of four days.  This challenge was unsupported, so these guys were running with hefty rucksacks on their backs.  Yesterday was the last day of the challenge and the team had invited us to join them for three miles of the run, from the White Horse in Hascombe to the Merry Harriers in Hambledon.  

I arrived at the White Horse at 1pm and had a lovely chat while we waited for the team to arrive, which was about half an hour later.  Frankly, they looked a lot better than I had expected - I was expecting to see four zombies stagger into the car park.  They stopped long enough to devour some much needed salty crisps and then we were off along the trail.  It was a lovely run - I think that seeing us really raised the spirits of the team and we had a great time hearing about some of their adventures so it felt like we got to the Merry Harriers in no time. 2.7 miles done and in the bag.  We then went into the pub while the team refuelled.  After lunch we saw them on their way, along with the very brave Lidia, who decided on the spur of the moment to keep going with the team to the end of the run, which meant that she ran 15 miles yesterday, without any training or preparation.  I later headed to Haslemere to see them finish - around 8pm last night, to rapturous applause from those of us waiting.  I hope those guys slept well in their own beds last night and are not too full of aches and pains this morning.  I left them to celebrate, headed home and took Murdoch out for a short half hour walk around the block and that was me done for the day.  

That's your lot for now, I'm hungry and ready to eat some breakfast!

Rubbish

Today has been rubbish.  I woke up to a text from my dog walker which led to us cancelling our scheduled walk this morning.  I planned to walk Murdoch near home but instead I fell back asleep and woke up with just enough time to get ready for work. Disaster!

Busy times at work continued today and instead of steadily working my way through my ever expanding list of things to do, I spent an enormous amount of time doing task avoidance and worrying about the amount of work I had to do. Which clearly isn't the most helpful use of time and effort and will certainly come back to bite me in the arse tomorrow.

To further compound my misery, a lethal combination of being outrageously fat and wearing some very tired leggings led to me spending the entire day hoiking up said leggings. Very annoying, although I've had the last laugh there, as the leggings are now in the bin. On the downside, I'm still astonishingly fat, but you can't win 'em all.

I went home in my lunch break to walk Murdoch.  Usually at lunchtime I drag him around the streets on his lead as we don't have much time, but I rushed around like a madwoman and managed to squeeze some extra time for our walk so he could have a run around.  As we walked around some local fields I had a sudden moment of enlightenment.  Instead of walking over to the place where Murdoch can run offlead, I could drive there and he'd have more time to run around while I enjoy a nice walk around the fields instead of the mean streets of Farncombe.  How is it possible that this never occurred to me before?

So my Janathon activity for today was a nice lunchtime walk.

Where does the time go?

Where does it go?  It feels like yesterday that I was writing my last blog post feeling all pleased with myself for running two miles.  And then it all kicked off at work.  January is our busiest month at the office - we do regular monthly, quarterly, bi-annual and annual reporting and of course they all fall due in January. On top of that I'm working on some ad-hoc projects so it's been pretty crazy. I've been walking the dog each day, but that's all I've had time for because I've been working evenings and pretty much all of this weekend.  The good news is that it should start to die down a little after the next couple of days so I'll have more time to fit some exercise in.

Anyhow, I've spent more than enough time this weekend glued to my laptop so I am outta here!

The Darkness

My Janathon activity on Monday and Tuesday this week was limited to dog walking.  First thing in the morning. In the dark.  So today I felt that it was time to kick it up a notch on the running front.  I still took Murdoch for a walk (in the dark), but after I'd left him with his daycare people I headed straight to the playing field to do a few laps.  

My phone camera doesn't have a flash, but it's ok, neither do my eyes

My aim for today was to build on the 20 minutes that I have managed so far and to keep a (slow) steady pace without walking. Misson accomplished!  I trotted around for 25 minutes and did 2.04 miles - the first time I've exceeded the 2 mile mark since I started my post-injury comeback.  It started to rain as I did the last couple of laps.  I'd forgotten how good it feels to run and feel the rain on your face, so it was a really great start to the day.

Weekend Update

I had originally planned to go for a short run with my friend B on Friday night.  This was in addition to my gym trip that morning. Cooking on gas. However, B was not able to make it on Friday evening and asked me whether I'd be able to go at 7.15 on Saturday morning instead.  Gulp. That's kinda early. Which is why 7.05 on Saturday morning saw me send B a text "I've changed my mind. Want to stay in bed :(". The response was quick and brutal. "Too late. I'm up, move yourself!". God bless that woman.

We walked over to the playing fields for as many laps as 20 minutes could achieve.  This is not as many laps as you might think, as I lumber my way slowly along the post-injury comeback trail.  The playing fields did not look particularly inviting.

Farncombe playing fields. Murky

We got started and towards the end of the first lap I felt quite puffed out and decided to have a little walk.  I think this is partly down to my loss of fitness and partly due to the fact that it was bloody FREEZING. The air seemed to freeze as it went into my lungs and made them feel really heavy.  We continued to puff around and managed 1.5 miles in 20 minutes.  By the end of the run, my fringe was actually frozen.  Jumped straight into a hot shower when I got home.  Brrrr. 

Blackheath Common - a lovely place to walk

Had just about reached normal body temperature by the time Murdoch and I left for our Saturday afternoon social walk.  I love doing this walk.  For a start it's lovely at Blackheath (Surrey, not London). But mostly because it's a really nice bunch of people to walk with.  We're all there because our dogs have suffered behavioural problems of one sort or another, so we understand each other quite well.  We walked for an hour and then it was time to head home.  I was supposed to be heading out for a first wedding anniversary party, but I felt really tired and grotty - still haven't managed to shift the cold, so I stayed at home instead, with my Murdoch my only company and vapour rub my only comfort.

The sun coming up over Farncombe

Sunday dawned and I went out just after 8 o'clock to walk Murdoch. What a glorious day - frosty and clear with bright sunshine.  It was the kind of day that makes me feel really grateful to live where I do among such lovely countryside.  The rest of the day was taken up with housework - does hoovering count as cross training?  

Murdoch enjoying the frost

Goals

Image: pixtawan / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

I was catching up on several weeks of the MarathonTalk podcast while I was on holiday and there was a great section about setting goals.  The context was putting together a five year plan, but for now, given that I'm still on the injury bench, I've decided to be a bit more short term about it and set some goals up to the end of this year.

So here we go:

Next three weeks

To increase my calf stretch to 10cm on each leg.  This is the shortest stretch measurement of normal range of movement.  There are a couple of reasons that this is my initial goal,  Firstly because my physio has told me that if we can't get rid of the pain (my heel still hurts) then I'll need to think about going for scans etc.  My next physio appointment is on 10th October and I want to do everything possible to get my calf muscles stretched out by then.  If it's still not good, then at least I'll know that I've made every effort and will let the NHS do its thing.  The other (secret) reason for achieving this goal is because I'm (secretly) convinced that my physio will tell me that I can run again if I do it.

In order to achieve this I need to do as much stretching as possible (hourly!) and also need to do my strengthening exercises (2 x 15 reps three times daily).  I also now have some Superfeet orthotics which should help support my arches and take the pressure off my heel.  Keep your fingers crossed everyone!

To end of 2011

My main goal is to hit my interim goal weight of 11st5lb.  This is the top end of a healthy BMI for my height.  Not sure that I agree with BMI as a measurement, but it'll do for now, as I've got to aim for something.  This means that I need to lose an average of 1.6lb per week between now and the end of the year.  I think that this is challenging, but possible.  There are a few obvious reasons for this goal.  Firstly because I've been banging on about it for ages.  But also because the less I weigh (within normal healthy limits of course!) the less impact will go through my heel whenever I run.  There's no doubt that the fact that I'm overweight has been a contributory factor in my injury, so I need to get this sorted out if I want to continue running long term.

In order to achieve this weight loss, I've put a little exercise plan together.  Essentially I'll be swimming Monday, Wednesday & Friday in the mornings (after dog walking and before work) and going to the gym those same evenings straight from work.  This fits in well with my dog care on those days.  Tuesday and Thursday I look after Murdoch, so they'll be rest days, with dog walking as some gentle exercise.  On Saturday the plan is to rest up and maybe have a little fun! Sunday is a longer gym session.

I will also be taking more care with my food intake - no use exercising if you're going to go home and stuff yourself full of crisps. Or wine. Or chocolate.  Or pie. Mmmmmmmm pie....... *ahem* sorry drifted off for a moment there.

My other (secret) goal is to have started running again by the end of the year. Don't care about distance or speed, just want to be able to run!  Especially as in a couple of weeks I'll know whether I got lucky in the London Marathon ballot.............