Pyro's Yard v2.0

(NB - this is not so much a poem as just a bit of a stream-of-consciousness ramble) Leave the office. Leave the car. Leave the city. Leave mobile reception.Leave the shirt and tie. Leave one world. Enter the thermals. Enter the drysuit. Enter the BA, spraydeck and helmet. Enter the boat. Enter the river. Enter another world. Suspend so-called 'normality' for a couple of hours. Reboot into normal-normality for a couple of hours. Get away from it all. Get away from the politics, from the emails, phone calls, meeting requests. Get away from the steady drone of information and misinformation that we call 'life'. Focus down to what's important now: There isn't enough room in this eddy for your emotional baggage: The important things here are the current, the rock, the eddy; body, boat and blade; rhythm, rate and flurry; the subconscious and the instinctive. It would be the same were this biking. It would be the same were this running. It would be the same...

Oops. Not done one of these in a while. Sorry about that. I'm a bit of a mixed-bag of thoughts today. After a mediocre season of training, and a fairly odd summer all round, I failed to complete at the Grand Raid des Pyrenees. I'm disappointed, but not surprised or annoyed, and while there's a multitude of reasons, they're exactly that - reasons not excuses. This post is maybe to try and state some of them, for my own cathartic benefit. Frankly, my training this year has been poor, and the GRP is not a race that someone like me can afford not to train properly for. I don't have any natural talent as a runner, so it has to be the hard work route, and that didn't happen. I've had a bunch of niggling, awkward, minor-but-sufficient-to-really-upset-things injuries since January: lower back and hip pain for most of Janathon; throat infection and breathing trouble at the Deerstalker; knee, ankle and IT niggles in June. Nothing huge, nothing fatalistic, just st...

Should probably get into the habit of doing this again, shouldn't I! Today's bimble - a little over 7km, 54mins. Tight calves and a sore right thigh - combination of sleeping funny and crashing on my bike yesterday. Ho hum!

Whoops. Should have blogged earlier, but what can I say, I got caught up with the whole 'life' thing. Sorry. Just getting the excuses part of an 'athon in early. Yes, I'm Juneathoning again. Same as January, not taking it as seriously as last year, not pushing so hard as I'm nursing some injuries and niggles and want to not break myself, since I'm going to the Grand Raid des Pyrenees again and can't really afford to be completely broken before I even get there! So Juneathon will once more be a mixed affair and we'll see what turns out. So far this 'athon, we've had Day 1 - 3.15km walk/jog. Well, jog from the Better Half's to Morrisons just before closing time, and jog-walk a slightly longer way back to make up distance. Day 2 - 3hrs climbing/bouldering. At Leeds Wall, after a day of driving up and down Yorkshire. Much needed. Day 3 - 4.78km run. From home, to the far end of Meanwood Park and the Ring Road, then back. Day 4 - ...

So, I must get better at updating this thing more regularly, huh? I've become a 'binge blogger', big spurts of activity during January and June (for the 'Athons, obviously enough) and naff-all between times. Oops. Sorry! So, for now, a short blog to let you know what I've been up to. I dropped out of Janathon, unfortunately. Just carrying too many niggling injuries and lacking any motivation. I've been known to have "off days" like most people, but honestly, January and February were "off months" - whether it was just Winter blues, the weather, living where I am, lack of natural light or what I don't know, but it took a while to shake off. Since then there's been a few things going on. I've got back into climbing a wee bit - only indoors, and nothing very serious, but once-a-week-ish sessions at the Leeds Wall have been awesome. I've started building the paddling back up as well, and while I'm still fighting some confide...

Blimey. Been a while since I did one of these isn't it! Let's try and catch up on where we've been and what we've been doing, shall we? For a start, Janathon isn't really going particularly well for me, hence the gap in blogging. We'll come to the specific reasons why in a bit, but it isn't going... well, it's not going the way Janathon '11 went, nor the way Juneathon '11 went. Maybe it's a change in perspective, a failure to take it as seriously this time, or just winter lethargy and SAD getting in the way, but hey. I'm still more active than average, but let's say I won't be racking up the yardage like I have done the last two 'athons. That doesn't mean I've given up, though. That ain't happening!!  We'd got up to Day 11, so I'm only a week behind. Oops. Let's start at 12 then! Janathon '12 - 12: The Horseshoe of Doom This was a 10km-ish lap from my place, along Meanwood Road and through to...

Odd little bimble tonight. One of my housemates was having a 'dinner and bridge' night, so i decided to vacate the premises early. As I hadn't eaten, picking up food en-route seemed like a good idea, so after phoning the Better Half to make sure she was actually in the house, I popped in to Sainsbury's in Headingley and jog-walked over to Kirkstall with a bag of muffins (Cheddar and black pepper ones, as cited in previous adventures) and a block of Emmental. Pause the tracker at 4.05km (including the lap of Sainsbury's) After a lovely stop at the Better Half's for a cup of tea and to toast my muffins (no, that isn't a euphemism, thank you very much...) I restarted the tracker and set off back the way I came, and returned home a little quicker and without the shopping to stop the tracker at 8.05km. Not bad for a short pootle of an evening! And proof that shopping must count as exercise (just for Maggie's evidence locker) as the extra 50m must have been...

No, not the title of a new Jane Austen parody. I decided after a relatively long run last night that I'd do a shorter one tonight. And I've been saying I needed to do some speedwork at some point. So I did. Try and run quite fast around the corner to the bottom of Moor Road, which has a little bit of an incline on it, pause and stretch out the sore calves, then five reps of walk-jog- sprint! up the road, with a steady jog back down and a little bit of stretching mixed in for good luck. Then a jog-walk back home I'm adding in a different image today, instead of my usual Memory Map map. I'm adding in the mini-map and pace graph from the Sport Tracker console, because I like the spiky bits in the graph where it shows me sprinting. It amused me greatly, did that. And now, to shower and bed. Night night!

So, after a weekend off, how to ease back into Janathon as we know it? Frankly, I'd had a rubbish day on Monday. Not bad bad, just drained, tired, short on ability to focus and high on propensity for mind to wander. I got home at half five feeling, quite honestly, like going straight to bed. But no, there's this small matter of running to do. Hmmm... One of the day's small joys was, as is often the case for me, and Excel spreadsheet. Yes, I have a small, sad, slightly odd life. But this was an important spreadsheet, for it brought a little moment of hope into an otherwise fairly 'meh' day. This was the little spreadsheet that contains a record of all of my Janathon and Juneathon runs, from 2011 and 2012. And this little spreadsheet also simplifies all of the big numbers and silly pace calculations and shows me a little graph of how far I ran in Janathon and Juneathon 2011 and how far I've run in Janathon 2012. "Simples", as a furry rodent of the ge...

Okay, so I failed. Frankly, if I could have fit in a run this weekend I would have. But in between other stuff, I just never got round to it... I, the plaintiff, do hereby plead 'guilty' to the offence of 'not running'. In my defence I would like to submit the following as mitigating circumstances: On Saturday, January 7th, I did wilfully, and with malice aforethought, mountain bike 38km around the 'Beast' trail at Coed-y-Brenin forest. While for this I have numerous witness, they are also complicit in the same deed and therefore may not necessarily be deemed by the court to be competent / of sound mind. On Sunday, January 8th, I did once again wilfully and with malice aforethought attend Coed-y-Brenin forest, and this time made a mischief of myself in the company of others around 20km of the 'Tarw' trail. I throw myself at the kangaroo court's mercy, and plead loudly that "I was doing exercise! I must 've been, my legs wouldn't fe...

Okay, so I'm very behind with these things, I know, I know. But I've been away from the world to a place where there was naff all phone reception and no computer and frankly, it's been rather lovely. So there! Day 6 was a short pair of runs, to and from work. The route's quite nice, similar to the route I bike but actually a bit easier on foot (no hauling bike up steep muddy " not a snowball in hell's chance " unrideable slope), though the long-ish drag up and round the ring road is, well, a drag. 4-and-a-bit km either way, so a decent haul for the day, but slow and a bit sore. Next post covers and entire weekend. Spoiler, I know, but hey. What can you do?!

So, map of yesterday's shambles of a jaunt first. It was cold, wet and miserable and I'd really rather not have any more like that, if that's okay with you? Thank you Today couldn't have been any less like yesterday if it had been upside-down. This morning was still pretty horrible, but come lunchtime the wind had dropped, the clouds had cleared and the sky was blue! I even got home this evening to find the power on and the heating fixed! Wonders will never cease... So, for once I actually felt like I wanted  to go for a run. And slow, short and shambolic as it was, I did! Lots of stops to do stretching-y stuff because my calves are still a bit wrecked and I never warm down properly (slaps self on wrist....) but a nice steady 6-and -a-bit km potter on a rather pleasant evening, for once! And so, to bed. I'll do some adding up some other time. For now, sleep!

Well, that was fairly horrible. Wet and windy plodding around a similar, but not quite the same, loop as yesterday. Bit shorter, since the weather here is, frankly, minging. And I set off without a waterproof and got caught in a bloody great downpour... Ah well, these are the days that make the rest of the month seem pleasant by comparison. Not worked out distance yet, but was out about 45 mins. Well confirm and log when I get a chance to charge my phone (due to current weather conditions, house has no electric and no heating. Typing this on an old phone from under a duvet) and download the tracker file. It's just been one of those days...

...and I really didn't feel like running. But I dragged my somewhat Frankensteinian carcass out anyway. Slow jog/walk to warm up on the flat section along Meanwood Road, harder effort up the long climb to Hyde Park, gentler around the back of the park and then steady with short efforts to Headingley then simply concentrate on trying not to fall over from the traffic lights down Grove Lane and back home... ...to a house with no heating, admittedly, but at least the hot water still works. Thank heavens for small mercies. And now, to bed! Night night.

Today was a bit of a bit-part day. Feeling pretty sore after yesterday (maybe I shouldn't have started on a nearly-10-miler) and with the weather looking cold and grotty, I abandoned the half-formed plan of doing the Back o' Skiddaw run that I've been saying I'd do for ages  and went out for a brief walk with my parents. They're doing their own Janathon, walking and/or cycling every day, so it was nice to be out with them. Unfortunately my hips, thighs and calves were telling me to behave myself, so we had a nice (if chilly and windy) 5km-and-a-bit wander round by Harby Brow and over the fields, as shown below: Part one - Over the fields and far away... Unfortunately, I'm still playing by the rules of "If there isn't any running involved, it doesn't count", so once I'd got back to Leeds, I still needed to go for a run. My legs were still wanting me to behave, to sit down and immerse myself in the sofa, but my head decided it wasn'...

So, last Janathon I marked the first day of the new year with a 2.5km wobble, narrowly avoiding emesis on the way, having worked the bar in Torpenhow village hall for the New Years party the night before. This year, same precedents, albeit with a much lower alcohol consumption (only 4.5 pints of beer, 1 pint of water and a cup of Rooibos tea), and I made it out on a lovely, sunny, scenic bimble around the 'homerun'. Couple of hours, just shy of ten miles, and very enjoyable. Happy Janathon to everyone. I've started as I mean (but probably won't manage) to go on, I hope you all have as well. Distance: 15.2km Time: 2.04.09 Pictures taken: 11 "Happy New Year" 's to strangers: 4 Lumpy yawns: 0