... and relax (#Janathon Day 31)

And so it's all over.

I'd like to say that I always knew I could do it, but when it's something you decide to do on a whim, something you've never done before and involves more exercise than you've ever done on consecutive days, there was always going to be the possibility you'd get to a day and go "stuff this, it's not worth the hassle".

Unfortunately, today was again going to be an unexciting day on the exercise bike. Stellian was at work until 4:00pm (quite impressive since she only rolled in from her Christmas night out at 3:15am!) and I had a meeting to go to in the evening. This only left a small window for me to fit some exercise in.

I'm definitely going to give my body a break over this weekend. (There isn't a great deal of choice in this regard as Stellian's off on a girly 80s weekend tomorrow and won't be back until Monday - Bognor, you have been warned!). I guess it might give me the opportunity to locate my padded cycling shorts, which are still AWOL so that if I do feel like using the exercise bike, I'll still be able to sit down afterwards!

Being a Thursday, it was also weigh in day. I was hopeful that I would have lost some weight this week, although I had treated myself to lunch at Baguette Du Monde today, which is certainly a higher calorie intake than I'd usually have at a lunchtime. OK, so they're not Biggest Loser scales, but they show I've lost 2lbs this week. I'm now less than 1.5lbs away from breaking the 200lbs mark - I'd love it to be next week, but any loss will do.

So I guess that brings me on to next targets... I'm not prepared to commit myself at the moment as the 'change taking place in the office' referred to in one of my earlier blogs will be happening in two stages over the next two weeks and I need to try and get my head around it all. The events that have provisionally caught my eye are:

•  Liverpool Spring 10k - Sunday 5 May 2013.
•  Birmingham Black Country Half Maraton - Sunday 6 July 2013
•  BUPA Great Birmingham Run - Sunday 20 October 2013.
•  Cover 2013 miles in 2013.

... and there's also the possibility of a Super Sprint Triathlon, but I'd need my front crawl to get stronger and have a bike to do that.

 I suspect that these are all actually pipe-dreams that will stay in my head as opposed to coming to fruition, but you never know. Right - I'm going for a shower...

Total today (Exercise Bike):
Distance - 11.5 miles
Time - 32m 30

Janathon:
Total Distance - 236.18 miles
Total Time - 34h 02m 49
Average Distance/day - 7.62 miles

At the time of writing, that puts me 10th in the Janathon list in terms of distance although that may change if people haven't logged all their exercise. http://www.runningfreeonline.com/Groups/Totals/GroupName/Janathon 

Janathon Breakdown:

Walking: 31.88 miles in 9 hours 27:48
Running: 43.22 miles in 8 hours 25:03
Cycling: 136.19 miles in 7 hours20:58
Cross Trainer (Elliptical): 11.88 miles in 2 hours 02:03
Rowing: 6.2 miles in 47 minutes 32
Swimming: 6.81 miles in 5 hours 03:25
Other (Wii): 56 minutes.

Created by MyFitnessPal - Nutrition Facts For Foods

 

Short & Sweet (#Janathon Day 30)

Stellian = Work's Christmas Party (don't ask!)
Kids = Bed
Tea = In Oven
Padded Cycling Shorts = Who knows - not seen this month!

Total today (Exercise Bike):
Distance - 10.6 miles
Time - 30m 00

Numb Bum - 1

Janathon:
Total Distance - 224.68 miles
Total Time - 33h 30m 19

#Janathon Day 29

Today probably saw my last trip to the gym this January. G had Brownies tonight, so it made sense to head off to the gym whilst she was there and pick her up afterwards.

I started by warming up on the treadmill, however it was clear that my legs were tired. Whether it's just a symptom of 29 consecutive days exercise or fatigue from work and another rubbish night's sleep I wasn't sure, so I decided that a little bit of time on several apparatus would be better than testing my muscles and my inclination on one for a longer period.

After the treadmill, I moved onto the rowing machine, where I took just over 10 second off my best time for 2,000 metres. Finally, I moved onto the exercise bike for 15 minutes.

I feel quite tired after all that lot, so an early night may be in order.


Running:
Distance - 2.03 miles
Time - 23m 26

Exercise Bike:
Distance - 4.42 miles
Time - 15m 00

Rowing Machine:
Distance - 1.24 miles
Time - 9m 11

Total today:
Distance - 7.69 miles
Time - 47m 37

Janathon:
Total Distance - 214.08 miles
Total Time - 33h 00m 19

Getting back on the horse (#Janathon day 28)

... well kind of!

A bit of a switcheroo this week saw my long day at work moving to a Monday (short days until the weekend - woo hoo!) I hadn't slept too well, so completely bottled the public transport and walking option in favour of the foot-connected-to-the-accelerator choice. I did, however, put some running kit in a bag and took it with me. At 7.30am on a Monday morning, running is the generally the last thing on my mind, however now the snow had gone, I decided that I'd be more miffed if I didn't take anything and got to lunchtime to find I was really in the mood to get some miles done.

To be honest, I'm not sure I was in the mood for a run when lunchtime arrived, but somehow I clicked into autopilot, got changed and headed out. It felt good... somehow easier than I expected for the first mile and a half or so. Small puddles were easily avoided and larger puddles didn't get my feet too wet, which was a bit of a result.

The canal looked odd today. The top of the water had ripples, but underneath, it was clear that the ice hadn't quite melted. Certainly the ducks weren't impressed as the did their 'walking on the water' trick and one poor bird came into land and skidded right into the small branch under which it had made its nest (fortunately it was unhurt, but it was on the side of the canal with no towpath so there wouldn't have been a lot I could have done about it anyway.)

The first problem arose when I rounded a corner and saw barriers and fencing. This was well over 2 miles into my run and having to choose another route could have seen me be seriously late back after lunch. Luckily, they were just guarding a hole that the gas board had dug. The second problem explained why I'd thought my run was going so well to start with. As I came around the corner from the sheltered canal spur, the wind hit me. I'd obviously had the wind at my back pushing me on and now it was right in my face. Although the temperature had risen to around 8 or 9 degrees today the wind made it feel a lot colder and I was quite rosy cheeked by the time I got back to the office.

The combination of getting home after 6.30pm and having to write my annual review tonight (compounded by the 'not being allowed to e-mail it home' policy), will pretty much ensure I won't get anymore exercise done today. Still - 4 weeks down. Only three days left to go!

Total today (runing):
Distance - 3.91 miles
Time - 44m 31

Janathon:
Total Distance - 206.39 miles
Total Time - 32h 12m 42

An easy day (#Janathon Day 27)

After my efforts yesterday, today was going to be an easier one.

Of all the bits of exercise I've done this month, one of the things I'd like to keep doing is my Sunday morning swim.

This morning was a total of 50 laps at Tipton Swimming Centre, which makes a total of 1.1km. This afternoon I covered 6 miles on the exercise bike, but it was a very half-hearted effort and may have had something to do with trying to watch the car crash that was the Liverpool match on TV.

Still it brought my total for Janathon over 200 miles, which is probably the last milestone I'm going to reach - apart from completing it!

Exercise Bike:
Distance - 6 miles
Time - 21m 35

Swimming:
Distance - 0.68 miles
Time - 29m 24

Total today:
Distance - 6.68 miles
Time - 50m 59

Janathon:
Total Distance - 202.48 miles
Total Time - 31h 28m 11

In the mood to exercise (#Janathon Day 26)

Exercise for the day started off waving a spade around in the courtyard where the cars are parked trying to dislodge some ice so we could get the car out. After that, it was off to the gym.

When I got on the treadmill, I didn't start off with any particular plan in mind, I did a five minute warm up at 6kph and then pushed the speed up to 10.7kph - a little slower than usual, but since I was undecided as to what I was going to do, I was leaving my options open. As time passed, I wondered whether I could still run 5km without stopping for a break and if so, what would my time be. Admittedly at the 2.5km mark, I reduced the speed down to 9kph, but it soon started creeping back up again as that pace felt a little too slow.

A distraction arrived at the 3.5km mark as S's tennis teacher came into the gym to interrupt Stellian's workout as he was refusing to do as he was told (can't imagine where he gets that from!) I realised that I wasn't going to be able to do anything after the session on the treadmill so I pushed the speed back up to 10.7kph again and hit cooldown as soon as the 5km was up. So today, I've divided my time on the treadmill into two walking stages (my warm up and warm down) and the time I spent running, which I timed on a stopwatch as well. To say I'm chuffed, I think, an understatement. I'm not sure I've ever run 5km in under 30 minutes before - well I have now and it feels good!

After lunch, the kids were playing nicely in their room and Stellian had gone shopping, so I took the opportunity to jump on the exercise bike. Somedays, the kids will play nicely for ages at a time. Others, barely five minutes will pass without World War III erupting. I set the bike up for 6.5 miles (c10km), which I reckoned would take me about 20 minutes. Fortunately, the children played beautifully for the duration and longer, but that was enough for the moment.

Four hours of shopping later, Stellian returned home and I headed out to the swimming pool. Tipton didn't have a swimming session on, so I went to Smethwick baths instead. I'd driven past the baths many times, but hadn't been in. It's a traditional Victorian pool and slightly longer than Tipton at 33m so I had to start my swimming maths from scratch. It was a little strange to have an audience of people on treadmills and crosstrainers in the gym above the pool. In the end, I swam for 50 lengths, which just about tipped me over the mile mark.

I can now undo all my good work with beer, wine and/or whiskey!

Walking:
Distance - 0.65miles
Time - 10m 00

Running:
Distance - 3.11 miles (5km)
Time - 29m 19

Exercise Bike:
Distance - 6.5 miles
Time - 18m 58

Swimming:
Distance - 1.03 miles
Time - 40m 35

Total today:
Distance - 11.29 miles
Time - 1h 38m 52

Janathon:
Total Distance - 195.8 miles
Total Time - 30h 37m 12

Slippery When Icy (#Janathon Day 25)

A couple of days ago in my blog, I mentioned the "You might as well" part of my brain. The opposite part of my brain is "You've got time to". This part doesn't necessarily take everything into account when making a decision. For instance, "You've got time to stay in bed for another 5 minutes" or "You've got time to procrastinate on the computer for another 5 minutes". Both of these suggestions were duly accepted and turned my usual Walk/Train/Walk trip to work turned into drive.

As the snow has started to thaw, it has become compacted and icy. So much so that I couldn't get Stellian's car out of its parking space onto the road this morning without Stellian and a bit of pushing. She then decided she wouldn't make get my car out as well and let me take hers (She drives a Kia Picanto, I drive a Toyota Verso. I wouldn't have liked to have tried pushing that off an ice patch.)

There was absolutely no chance of me going running at lunchtime, but I wasn't going to stay in the office and out for a walk I went. It was very icy along the canal towpath and I very quickly decided to leave and do a bit of a road walk instead. The problem then became what route to take... so many options! I kind of worked out a route in my head, but I quickly realised that my pace due to the conditions under foot weren't enabling me to go at my usual walking pace and there was no way I was going to cover the route I had in mind in the time I had available. I therefore shortened my route and slid back towards the office.

I have pretty much lived in my walking boots this week due the weather. They were ideal when we climbed Snowdon in August (Stellian blogged about it here), but I think I've managed to get a blister on one of my toes. I can't wait for the ice to disappear so I can wear some different footwear outside besides walking boots and wellies.

Total today (Walking): http://runkeeper.com/user/plockplock/activity/144408730?&tripIdBase36=2dz6hm
Distance - 2.71 miles
Time - 46m 31

Janathon:
Total Distance - 184.51 miles
Total Time - 28h 58m20

Double 'Just' (#Janathon Day 24)

Stellian wasn't due to fly back from Bonnie Scotland until 6.45pm so my workout for the day was going to be on the exercise bike. But first, it was time to brave the scales. I must say I wasn't confident, but I was pleasantly surprised by the result.

I consider any loss to be a result and this week, I've just scraped in with a half pound loss.

In the absence of any alternatives, I needed a challenge - Yesterday on the exercise bike, I covered 10 miles in 30m 36. My target was to beat that time. I tried to remember the resistance settings as best as I could, but I honestly couldn't say it was a like for like ride. In the end I stopped the clock after 10 miles in a time of.... 29m 52 - a little over half a minute better than my previous time. I'd done it.... just!

Total today (Exercise Bike):
Distance - 10 miles
Time - 29m 52

Janathon:
Total Distance - 181.8 miles
Total Time - 28h 11m09

Created by MyFitnessPal - Free Calorie Counter

Home Alone and Pigged Out (#Janathon Day 23)

If I don't lose weight this week, I've only myself to blame. Last night, Stellian was supposed to be going out for a curry with a friend, but this got postponed due to some unspecified metereological event. Instead, our evening meal involved a Chinese Takeaway, including vegetarian Yuk Sung, which we've never had before and was on top of what we usually have. Needless to say it was delicious. On top of that, there was wine and chocolate. I can hear the scales complaining already!

Home alone isn't strictly true, but Stellian has been sent north of the border with work so I'm still in the Black Country with the kids (albeit they're now in bed). The only exercise option available to me today was therefore the exercise bike downstairs. Initially, I just thought I'd go to match my previous time which was 7 miles in 21m 24. I ended up little bit slower than that, and started to warm down. For some reason, my head then started to play a game of - you might as well... This started with "if you're going to end up doing about 27 minutes, you might as well do 30 minutes, through a couple of stages of can I do x miles in the time" and then, as I was over 9.5 miles as the half hour approached, finished with "You might as well keep going to the 10 mile mark". I suspect I had the resistance set lower than I have done previously to be able to accomplish that, but hopefully it shows I'm getting fitter.

So tonight my evening meal is an entirely healthier affair - a ready meal. We have a Sainsbury's Local underneath the office, and in their fridge there was a range of meals I hadn't seen before. A couple of years ago, Dragon's Den featured a Northern lass who had developed her own range of frozen desserts for her little boy who must have had every food allergy known! (the desserts were dairy, sugar, gluten, soya, egg AND nut free). It looks like she's diversified into other food as well ( http://kirstys.co.uk/freedom ) so tonight's Spanish chicken with brown rice is only 372 calories. I just hope that doesn't mean I'm going to be peckish later!

Total today (Exercise Bike):
Distance - 10 miles
Time - 30m 36

Janathon:
Total Distance - 171.8 miles
Total Time - 27h 41m 57

Meh! (#Janathon Day 22)

I'd planned to go to the gym whilst G was at Brownies, however the snow is continuing to be a pain and Brownies was cancelled. I went to the gym anyway, but as I pulled up, I knew my heart wasn't really in it.

Did a little bit of a workout on various machines - enough to work up a sweat on each. Feel good for having done it and not let the day go past without having exercised. Too close to the end of Janathon to give in now!

Running:
Distance - 2.06 miles
Time - 26m 16

Exercise Bike:
Distance - 4.11 miles
Time - 14m 06

Cross Trainer (Elliptical) :
Distance - 1.27 miles
Time - 13m 08

Total today:
Distance - 7.44 miles
Time - 53m 30

Janathon:
Total Distance - 161.8 miles
Total Time - 27h 11m 21

Signal failure and waterproof trousers (#Janathon day 21)

About 8pm last night, it was confirmed. The kids had another snow day. A quick discussion with Stellian and I was texting my boss to see if I could get in and leave earlier so Stellian could get some work done at home.

I'd already decided that I wasn't going to drive into Birmingham as although I don't have a problem driving in snowy/icy weather, the idea of being stuck in a rush hour traffic jam like on Friday did not appeal.

The problem arose shortly after I woke up when I checked to see how the trains were running. A signal had failed between Birmingham and Wolverhampton with delays anticipated of up to 45 minutes. Dudley Port is a dinky little station with no facilities whatsoever, so the thought of being on the platform for three quarters of an hour.

The next most sensible plan was to walk to Black Lake to get a tram - Early morning Janathon exercise, result! I dug out my waterproof trousers that had been such a lifesaver when I was 'studying' in Moscow and set off. I just missed a tram as I arrived and the next one was absolutely rammed. In a moment of irritation, I decided to walk to the next stop, completely forgetting to see how long the next tram would be. I hadn't got 100 far when I looked back, to see another tram already there. Even a quick jog wasn't enough for me to get back to the metro stop before the driver pulled off. Fortunately, another tram was only 3 minutes behind, but this delay had scuppered any chance of getting into work earlier than usual.


On a whim, I decided to get off the tram a Jewellery Quarter to save fighting my way through the city centre. In total, this morning's walk was about 3 miles. On the way back, the weather was quite pleasant so I chose a different route at both ends, which enabled me to take some photos. I initially thought that this afternoon's walk was four miles, however when I looked at the GPS trace on runkeeper, it had me dancing around Oozell's Square. After editing the route, it became 3.94 miles and felt nice to be able to do nearly 7 miles on foot without needing the gym or a treadmill. And so three weeks of Janathon are complete. Todays milage takes me over 25 hours of exercies and 150 miles and to cap it all, G made me a cup of tea when I got in.

Walk #1: http://runkeeper.com/user/plockplock/activity/143528437?&tripIdBase36=2dgb91

Distance - 3.01 miles
Time - 48m 25

Walk #2 : http://runkeeper.com/user/plockplock/activity/143589670

Distance - 4.94 miles
Time - 1h 08m 42


Total today:
Distance - 6.95 miles
Time - 1h 57m 07

Janathon:
Total Distance - 154.36 miles
Total Time - 26h 17m 51

Photo - One way - a frozen lock on the Fazeley canal...

 
 Photo: ...whilst the other way is flowing freely.

  Photo: Bridge and towpath covered, but the canal is unaffected.

  Photo: Approaching Old Turn Junction from the Fazeley Canal

   Photo: Past Brindleyplace and ICC towards the Broad Street Tunnel

Photo: Oozell's Square - "The water feature must not freeze under any circumstances"

 Photo: Oozell's Square -a drunken snowman outside Thai Edge (not made by me)

 Photo: Closer to home - Eight Locks, Great Bridge

 Photo: Cracking up!

#Janathon day 20

We don't set an alarm at weekends so I was a little surprised to hear "First Steps" by Elbow coming from somewhere near my head at 7.30am this morning. After a moment or two, I remembered that I'd set it last Saturday night to ensure I got up for a swim. It's therefore just as well the alarm went off, or I may not have made it to the pool at all. (The choice of music was left over from our day trip to Lindon last August that Stellian blogged about here).

Exercise today was going to serve multiple purposes, to get fit and to burn off last night's food. (A chippy tea was followed by the last tin of chocolate biscuits from Christmas).

On leaving the house, I was pleased to see that no new snow had fallen and the car didn't need to be defrosted, which meant the roads were still clear as well. I was the second person into the pool, so I was able to use a variety of strokes before the pool started to fill up and I switched to breast stroke so I could play dodgems as necessary.

For once, my maths was good enough to work out how far I'd swum. 116 lengths saw me just pass the 2.5km mark in a touch under 70 minutes.

On leaving the pool, I found that it had started to snow again and after freshening up at home, it was time for a walk to church. I pretty much slid onto the canal towpath even though I had my walking boots on. I was running a little late so I didn't stop to take any photos (there was an upside down trolley that had been frozen into the canal with just its wheels showing that I thought could have made an arty shot). By the time the service had finished, the snow was even heavier so I accepted a lift part of the way home. Even so, it's still exercise I wouldn't usually have done so it all counts!

Swimming:
Distance - 1.58 miles
Time - 1h 09m 39

Walking:
Distance - 2.09 mile
Time - 34m 18

Total today:
Distance - 3.67 miles
Time - 1h 43m 57

Janathon:
Total Distance - 147.41 miles
Total Time - 24h 20m 44

Snowy Saturday (#Janathon Day 19)

There didn't appear to be a significant amount of snow that had fallen overnight, however as the Sports Academy had closed early yesterday, it wasn't clear that the kids were going to get their tennis lesson (and therefore we wouldn't have been able to use the gym). In the end, we didn't need to worry as everything was open as usual.

Prior to leaving the house, I bought one of the council's leisure cards, so I now have free access to the gyms and the swimming pools across the borough. I just need to make sure I use it enough to justify the monthly fee now - oh well, at least there's no contract if it turns out that by July, Janathon is a distant memory with exercise having been my latest fad.

I was late getting going as the Sports Academy processed my membership and there were many layers that needed to be removed before I could start my warm up. Otherwise, the session was uneventful.

Running:
Distance - 1.75 miles
Time - 18m 56

Rowing Machine:
Distance - 1.24 mile
Time - 9m 24

Cross Trainer (Elliptical) :
Distance - 1.4 miles
Time - 14m 13

Total today:
Distance - 4.39 miles
Time - 42m 33

Janathon:
Total Distance - 143.47 miles
Total Time - 22h 36m 47


Bet Usain Bolt's never had to turn up for training in wellies! (Even if he did, he'd make it look cool - unlike me!).

Walking in a Winter Wonderland (#Janathon day 18)

It was always going to be difficult to fit exercise in today.

In principle, the plan would have been drive to work, run at lunch, drive home, load car, drive to Liverpool for nice weekend with the in-laws.

There was a reasonable covering of snow on the ground before I left for work and it was falling lightly. I thought that, apart from the run at lunchtime (which I downgraded to a walk), everything was still going to plan. Just as I was leaving the house, the school announced it was closed, which gave the kids a snow day with Stellian.

When I started my walk at lunchtime, even though the snow was falling heavier, it was actually quite pleasant. For the first mile, my route traced where I would have run. The towpath looks so much bigger because of the snow as you can't tell which bit is the path and which bit is the verge!

The first thing that surprised me was that the canal in Birmingham wasn't frozen. For the past 2-3 days whenever I've driven over a canal bridge near home, the canal has been pretty solid. As I left the city centre, I realised they must have had an icebreaker keep it clear as there was suddenly a straight line across the canal where it became ice.

After the first mile, I crossed the canal and started to walk back on the other side... and that's when it hit me... the wind that is. I'd obviously had the wind at my back on the outbound trip and now it was bitterly cold in my face!

I'd been taking some photos on my walk and I continued past my start point so I could see how the Gas Street basin looked in the snow. In the end I covered three miles, which I was quite pleased about.

I got back to the office to find that they were starting to send people home who lived outside the Birmingham area. Looking out of the window towards Broad Street, I could see a line of stationary traffic. At this point, I remembered that Sandwell council (where I live) are quite good at clearing their roads, but Birmingham City council aren't (IMHO). I also got a text from Stellian saying we weren't going to Liverpool due to the weather, which was probably the right decision.

In the end, they decided to close the office at 3.00pm, however the unexpected bonus of getting out of the office early was quickly countered by having to pay full price in the car park as I hadn't been parked there long enough! It also took me around 40 minutes to drive 1 mile as the roads out of the city centre were pretty gridlocked. Driving slowly, I was quite happy to use some of the smaller, ungritted, roads I knew to avoid some of the traffic and the rest of the journey was completed without incident.

As the council had closed the leisure centres for the rest of the day, the only other exercise I could do is on the exercise bike downstairs, but as I'm not in the mood for that at the moment, I'll leave you with my stats and some of the pictures I've taken today.

Total for today (Walking):
Distance - 3.00 miles
Time - 53m 23

Janathon:
Total Distance - 139.35 miles
Total Time - 21h 54m14

Photo: Brindleyplace, by the National Sea Life Centre looking down the Birmingham Main Line Canal in the direction of Wolverhampton.

Photo below: Old Turn junction, looking towards the City Centre. The bridge to the left is the Birmingham and Fazeley canal. Round to the right goes past the ICC, through to Gas Street Basin through the tunnel under Broad Street. The photo is taken from under the bridge, which goes over the Birmingham Main Line Canal connecting Brindleyplace with the National Indoor Arena (NIA).

Photo below: The towpath, running in between the Birmingham Main Line Canal and the West Coast Mainline.

Photo below: The 1-mile point of my walk, looking back towards Birmingham - I'd walked down the towpath on the left and was crossing to return on the right-hand path.

Photo below: Gas Street Basin, Birmingham. This is where the Birmingham Main Line and Worcester Canals meet. Historically, the small channel running under the bridge didn't exist and cargo had to be unloaded from one boat, passed across the 'Worcester Bar' and reloaded. This was because the Birmingham Main Line and Worcester canals were owned by different companies and one didn't want the other to benefit from their water! (History lesson over).

Photo below: Ducks 'enjoying' the snow at Gas Street Basin.

#Janathon Day 17

When I went to bed last night, my legs were aching. "That's alright", I thought, "They'll be OK in the morning". I was wrong. Whilst they were a little better, I certainly knew they'd been busy. When I was training for the Sport Relief run, I would only exercise for three days a week tops, but at the moment I'm working out every day. I don't want to injure myself and end up not bring able to complete Janathon, especially since I've successfully passed the half-way point.

Today, was weigh-in day. At the start of the day, I was quite looking forward to it, given the amount of exercise I've done. I also got a compliment off one of the girls at work about how much weight I've lost so the weigh-loss must be starting to show. Even so, as the hour approached I did start to think, "What if I haven't lost anything - what if all this work-out isn't work-ing?" I don't know what it is, but I always feel fat standing on the scales. Fortunately, they were kind again as I've lost another 1.5lbs. That puts my BMI below 27 and I'm only 0.5lb away from the lightest weight I achieved before Christmas.

And so to the exercise part of the day. I had already decided that I didn't want to use the gym today as my legs needed to do something different. It was just as well really as a Facebook update told me that Tipton Sports Academy had suffered a power cut. (Had visions of people on treadmills that suddenly stopped when the power went off and glad I wasn't one of them).

So the decision was made to head off to the swimming pool. Swim class finished at 6.30pm, so I aimed to arrive just before. Given the weather forecast, I hoped that a lot of people wouldn't want to venture out and so it would be pretty clear for me to get a decent amount of distance in.

Fortunately, the pool was already clear by the time I'd changed and I managed to get a good 20 lengths in, but then it started to fill up. After that, it was a bit of a case of dodgems, but in total I managed 90 laps. (If I'd have though about it before I stopped, I'd have done 91, which would have taken me over the 2km mark, but hey ho, each swim is a little further [is it further or farther, or does it not make a difference in this case?]

I haven't yet made plans as to what exercise I'm going to do over the next three days as it'll depend on the weather.

Total for today (Swimming):
Distance - 1.23 miles
Time - 56m 13




Weight lost since last week - 1.5lbs


Janathon:
Total Distance - 136.35 miles
Total Time - 21h 00m 51

Bit nippy out there (#Janathon Day 16)

Oh the weather outside is frightful
But the fire is so delightful
And since we've no place to go
Let It Sn... Oh wait - I haven't done any exercise yet!

The temperature hasn't been above freezing all day and the canal is still frozen over. I did think that going for a run along the towpath would be nice as at least I'd be able to get some nice photos, but I then remembered that I couldn't go out until Stellian got home from work, at which time it'd be dark. This being the case, I decided to head off gym. Not before having an argument with iTunes though. I thought I'd put some new music onto my iPhone to work out to... except it wouldn't transfer from my computer, even after I'd disconnected it and reconnected it a couple of times. I removed the whole playlist. The computer said that was fine, my phone didn't. I deleted the playlist from my phone, so the computer deleted the whole playlist and I had to start all over again. If that wasn't enough, the kids decided they were going to have one of their silly evenings

Fortunately, it wasn't too busy at the gym and I worked up quite a bit of a sweat during my session. I was particularly pleased that I beat my best time for rowing 2 kilometres by almost 20 seconds.

An article was retweeted into my twitter timeline this afternoon entitled "Running, resolutions and reality". It makes for a good read - so take a look!


Running:
Distance - 2.19 miles
Time - 26m48

Rowing Machine:
Distance - 1.24 mile
Time - 9m 23


Exercise Bike:
Distance - 4.79 miles
Time - 16m 42


Total today:
Distance - 8.22 miles
Time - 52m 53

Janathon:
Total Distance - 135.12 miles
Total Time - 20h 04m 38

Half time (#Janathon day 15)

Trying to fit in time for exercise today was always going to be a challenge as there wasn't a lot of time between Stellian coming home and having to take G to Brownies, so the only thing to do was to go on the exercise bike. S played nicely on his DS (Super Mario Bros by the sound of it) whilst I got on with a quick 20-minute (ish) workout.


Total today (all on Exercise Bike):
Distance - 7 miles
Time - 21m 24


Janathon:
Total Distance - 126.90 miles
Total Time - 19h 11m 45

So here's a breakdown of my Janathon total at the half-way mark, (which I have now keyed into runningfreeonline)

Walking: 16.48 miles in 5 hours 06:29
Running: 28.17 miles in 5 hours 35:47
Cycling: 68.27 miles in 3 hours 51:39
Cross Trainer (Elliptical): 9.21 miles in 1 hour 34:42
Rowing: 2.48 miles in 19 minutes 34
Swimming: 2.29 miles in 1 hour 47:34
Other (Wii): 56 minutes.

I anticipate the second half of Janathon to be harder than the first as my body gets tireder from exercise already done plus being at work as well, but I'm determined I'm going to get there!

Motivation - #Janathon Day 14

It snowed overnight. Usually, I don't mind the snow, but the snow we had was a bit rubbish.

A light dusting that covers everything makes everything look nice. A deeper snow enables snowballs, snowmen and snow angels. This was somewhere inbetween. It had settled on the grass and on the cars, but it had stubbornly forgotten to cover the paths or the roads. My warning to the kids to be careful when walking as it would be slippery was barely out before I slipped on some ice and only just managed to keep myself from falling over.

By the time the afternoon school run came round, it was no longer snowing. After a long period of being dry and sunny, whilst I was in the office it was time for the rain to fall. This was not good for my motivation since it was dark outside and I find myself motivated to exercise best when I'm forced to leave the house. If I use the bike at home, there's the guilt factor involved in being able to hear the children misbehaving and Stellian getting stressed and thinking I should do something to help instead of carrying on cycling. (They're not bad kids, they just have their moments and I think they're still settling back into their school routine at the moment).

If I go out running, then once you go out somewhere, you've got to get yourself back, so you might as well push yourself and if you're using the gym or the pool, you're spending money so want to be good value for what you've spend. And so I took myself off to the gym even though I wasn't sure what kind of mood I was in activity-wise.

The gym was extremely busy when I got there and so my workout was pretty much dictated by what was free, so much so, that I spent quite a bit of time looking around thinking 'if I get off this (insert apparatus here) what can I go on. It was clear other people had similar ideas as I'd no sooner got off the treadmill than someone else had jumped on. Otherwise, there's not much to say about my workout really - I got sweaty and worked hard.

Two weeks of Janathon have now been completed (yay!) I'm sorely tempted to treat myself to one of the council's gold leisure cards when I get paid at the weekend, which'll save me money for the rest of Janathon. I'm just worried that I won't use it as much once February comes around (especially since Stellian's got a girly weekend booked in).


Running:
Distance -2.49 miles
Time - 28m 42


Cross Trainer (Elliptical):
Distance - 2.52 miles
Time - 25m 52

Exercise Bike:
Distance - 7.82 miles
Time - 26m 11


Total today:
Distance - 12.83 miles
Time - 1h 20m 45

Janathon:
Total Distance - 119.90 miles
Total Time - 18h 50m 21
Miles remaining - 5.1

Early morning swim (#Janathon Day 13)

I don't think I have ever got up solely because I wanted to do some exercise.

Today looked like it was going to be a busy day and so I wasn't entirely sure when I was going to be able to fit some exercise in.

Inspired by Stellian getting out of bed yesterday to go swimming as it opened, I decided this was a good idea.

On stepping outside, however there was a thick layer of frost on the neighbours cars so I was glad I'd put the windscreen protector on Stellian's car when I parked it last night. Otherwise, I'd have lost a good proportion of my exercise time defrosting the window.

To say I got to the pool at the schedule opening time, I was surprised to see that there were some people already in the water. Anyone who gets there early obviously wants to swim and everyone was doing lengths, however as time passed the pool started to fill up.

I had originally thought about doing blocks of strokes and did 20 lengths breast stroke quite happily before moving onto backstroke. Three laps into that, however, I encountered a problem. Although I was swimming in a straight line and was sure my way was clear when I started the length, I managed to hit two different swimmers who were slowly doing breast stroke. After a quick apology, I went back to breast stroke myself so I could play dodgems if I needed to.

Mmmm - pies!

I wanted to get out of the pool about 9 to enable me to get home and changed. As I got close, I was around 61/62 laps. I knew I was well over a kilometre and was hoping to complete a mile. I worked out that 70 laps wouldn't be enough, but 80 would take me over both in distance and time-wise. Unfortunately, I was unable to work out which lap would take me over the mile mark. I therefore stopped at 70, got dried off and worked it out. 73 was the magic number, but that'll have to wait for next time.

Usually, I'm pretty good with my food. Stellian is doing weightwatchers so cooks decent food to help us lose weight. (Yesterday she made home-made pies from the Hairy Dieter's cookbook and they were delicious)!

However, today I was hungry. When our church does Messy or Cafe church, food is provided and today it was sausage baps. They were too good to resist and I demolished 3! I fear that's undone all my good work this morning!

From there it was onto the delights of a warehouse which contains one of the local soft play areas. You'd have thought that exercise followed by a warm church, eating hot sausage sandwiches and mugs of tea would have warmed me up. It was freezing! I took my coat off as I sat down and had to put it back on again within a couple of minutes!

I love soft play areas, they're a great way for kids to blow off steam, particularly when the weather's rubbish. Anyone who wanted to go on Fun House but never got the chance can now enjoy 'helping' their little darlings around a particularly tricky part of the play area (making sure you take the longest way in and out for maximum enjoyment).

A whole lot of fun, but no prizes to be won

I also hate soft play areas, especially when they get overcrowded. It makes it very difficult to keep an eye on the children. OK so the front door is monitored so they can't get out, and they'll find you if they want something (drink, loo or TLC because a ball has hit them on the nose). But I've lost count of the amount of times I've had to extract them from a birthday party they haven't been invited to (luckily always before they've started eating!)

We were there as S had been invited to a friend's birthday party. Despite a couple of protests when he claimed to be full, he did eat most of his lunch. Getting S to eat is not normally a problem, but I caught him sneaking another Sausage bap at Messy Church after I'd told him "No more" so I was worried he wouldn't be able to eat anything.

The afternoon wasn't as hectic as the morning had been and Stellian took herself off to the gym for a bit. This made me feel that perhaps I hadn't done enough exercise for the day, so when she got back, I took myself down to the bike. My heart wasn't in it to tell you the truth and I didn't set out with either a time or distance goal in mind nor did I set any resistance. In the end, I covered 5 miles in a 16 and a half minutes, but that definitely is it for today now.

Swimming:
Distance - 0.96 miles
Time - 44m 08

Freezing Play Areas: 1
Sausage Baps: 3

Swimming:
Distance - 5.00 miles
Time - 16m 30

Total today:
Distance - 5.96 miles
Time - 1h 00m 38

Janathon:
Total Distance - 107.07 miles
Total Time - 17h 29m 36
Miles remaining - 17.93

Standard Saturday #Janathon Day 12

Getting back on track (graph produced by runkeeper)

I meant to tell you yesterday how I'd got on weighing in. Well, I lost 3.5lbs, which is pretty much where I was before Christmas and I thought I'd have a look at a graph to see how I'd done in 2012. In the main, pretty good, however my lowest weight was at the end of November at 203lbs (14st 7lb), so I still have a couple of lbs to go to get back down to that level. Part of the problem (aside from the build up to Christmas) was that when you only put a little on, and you know you've not been as good as you should, you can think you've got away with it and that's OK. Accepting that result week after week is how it can start to go against you again and I've no desire to be 17 stone again trying to squeeze into trousers with a 40" waist to avoid buying 42".

I was woken this morning by Stellian opening the curtains and telling me it was snowing. She promptly took herself off to the swimming pool and by the time I came downstairs S was dancing around singing about the snow and asking if we could make snowballs! Unfortunately, the snow was just light flakes swirling around but not sticking and even this had finished before it was time for their tennis lesson.

Like last week, Kids + tennis = adults + gym. I decided a 10 minute stint on quite a few pieces of equipment would be the best way to exercise today (excluding warm up and warm down). I decided to revisit the rowing machine for only the second time this month. It was a big rocky as I couldn't find somewhere comfortable for my iPhone to sit. In the end, I took it off. Exercising without music felt very strange as it didn't really feel like I got into a rhythm. Although I was slower than last time, I still completed 2k in under 10 minutes.

Today's exercise takes me over 100 miles for the month - almost feels like it's a new achievement every day. Hopefully taking my weight under 200lbs isn't that far away.

Running:
Distance -1.45 miles
Time - 16m 20

Rowing Machine:
Distance - 1.24 mile
Time - 9m 52

Cross Trainer (Elliptical):
Distance - 1.00 mile
Time - 9m 55

Exercise Bike:
Distance - 4.24 miles
Time - 15m 10


Total today:
Distance - 7.93 miles
Time - 51m 17

Janathon:
Total Distance - 101.11 miles!
Total Time - 16h 28m 58
Miles remaining - 23.89

A late lunch and a pair of wet socks - #Janthon Day 11

The picturesque walk to work

Apologies if you've seen half a blog today. I started writing it on the train this morning and hit publish as opposed to save as a draft.

At work, I do four short days (Monday-Thursday) so I can do the school run and a long day on a Friday. Even before Christmas, I had started to take my running gear with me on a Friday so I could take some time out of the office during my lunch break. Bleary eyed, I duly packed up my running stuff and set off for the station.

When do you start to write your blog posts? For some reason, my brain wants to try and compose my random ramblings at the point when I'm least able to record them - when I'm actually exercising! Today, although I was half asleep, my brain was starting to blog on the walk to the train (which explains the cock up on the train).

Gas Street Basin

The walking elements of my exercise today consist of my journey to and from the station. If you were watching Great British Railway Journeys yesterday, you would have seen Michael Portillo standing on Dudley Port station looking at his Bradshaw diary, no doubt trying to film in between the regular Virgin Trains that hammer past the very small station which is essentially a slab of concrete in between the two tracks. Despite my tiredness, I did remember to turn RunKeeper OFF before I got on the train (I have forgotten before only to be reminded a couple of hundred yards down the line when you get the audio update of your split times through your headphones).

On arrival at Birmingham New Street, it's a short walk to Brindleyplace where the office is located. My preferred route is through The Mailbox and along the canal towpath (surprise surprise). It's just nice to get that extra bit of peace and quiet before rejoining the hustle and bustle of city and office life.

You can never tell how busy you're going to be when you come back into the office after Christmas - not helped by a couple of colleagues hinting on facebook that a decision had been made they weren't happy about. On arriving at the office, I found there were only going to be about 6 people on my team (usually there are at least 10), so I knew it was going to be a busy one. The 'decision' was unexpected, but is at least logical and there's nothing to do but make the best of it. At least no job losses are required. For 2013, I'm adopting and modifying slightly the prayer of serenity as far as work is concerned:

"God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change;
courage to change the things I can; and wisdom to know the difference." In the absence of wisdom keep your gob shut - or at least think before you speak!

Usually, I try and take lunch around 12pm, however with staffing levels and meetings, this was impossible, so I grabbed a bite to eat and then went to lunch at 2.15pm. It was quite a nice day outside and I had completely forgotten that it had rained recently. The towpath around the National Indoor Arena is nice and solid, however as you start to make your way out of the city, the surface is uneven enough to make lots of frequent puddles. In my dozy state this morning, I hadn't picked up a spare pair of socks so I was really trying to avoid puddles. At one point I wondered whether I was running, skipping or dancing as my stride was so uneven. Unfortunately, as hard as I tried, around the 1.75 mile mark, there were a couple of muddy puddles that were simply unavoidable so I was destined to spend the afternoon at my desk with wet socks.

Towards the end of my run, I realised that I was going to be a little short of 4 miles, so a quick change of route and a lap of Oozells Square completed my run and cleared my head for the afternoon. That's 15 hours of exercise done in Janathon so far and my 110 mile target looks like it should be easily met as I only need to average 0.84 of a mile each day. So I'm upping the target to 125 miles in total - something new to aim for!

Walking:
Distance - 2.67 miles
Time - 44m 25

Running: http://runkeeper.com/user/plockplock/activity/141309965
Distance - 4.02 miles
Time - 48m 45

Total today:
Distance - 6.69 miles
Time - 1h 33m 10

Janathon:
Total Distance - 93.18 miles
Total Time - 15h 37m41
Miles remaining - 31.82

 

They think it's all over... it is now (#Janathon day 10)

Tipton Swimming Centre

Tipton Swimming Centre - Interior

You'll be pleased to know that I'm talking about my holiday as opposed to quitting Janathon. My body is obviously getting ready to go back to work as I managed to sleep through the 06:00am and 07:00am alarms! (To be fair, I heard the one at 6, thought "That's loud" and went back to sleep again). If I don't get out of bed until 07.30am tomorrow like I did today I'm in trouble as I'll miss my train!

In sticking with my plan not to use the gym today, I checked the times for the swimming pool and was pleased to see that public swimming was 07:15am until 11:00am. Stellian was due to work from home today, so I convinced her, it would be a good start to the day to take a dip. She cleared it with her boss beforehand, but said that an hour would be the maximum she would be able to do without taking the mickey.

The plan was to drop the kids at school and then head straight to the pool, however Stellian got an urgent e-mail at just the wrong moment, which meant I dropped the kids off and then came back for her. It was pretty cold outside and I was suddenly questioning the wisdom of going swimming as the pool building is quite old and the changing rooms can get quite cold.

We arrived at 09:00am to be told that the swimming session would finish at 09:30am as there was a school group coming in to use the pool. This posed a dilemma as it was nowhere near the length of time we wanted, but I decided to go in anyway.

Yesterday, I had mentioned to Stellian that I could run home if I wanted to stay longer than she did. The temperature this morning, led me to question the wisdom of this decision, however I made sure I had all my running gear with me to keep my options open. The decision was promptly made for me when Stellian decided that 30 minutes wasn't really going to be a benefit and that she was taking the car home to get on with some work.

With only half an hour to play with, I decided to go for it - as many laps as I could get in within the allotted time. The pool felt busier than the other day and there were a fair amount of side-to-side-ers, which made doing lengths quite tricky. Every so often I'd come across a mobile chicane as the person in my way wasn't there when I started the length. Doing breast stroke, I looked at my watch as I passed 19 laps (the 400m that I did as a part of the triathlon swim the other day) and the time was showing roughly 11 and a half minutes, which is faster than I did last time. I decided to see how close I could get to 50 laps in half an hour. When I reached 32 lengths, it was looking distinctly unlikely, but fortunately, the pool was clearing. This gave me the opportunity to switch to front crawl. This was quite tiring, but was getting me closer to my target. At the end of every other length I'd check the clock and glance at the lifeguard to see whether I'd be told time was up. When they didn't, I'd set off again, giving backstroke a go to try and preserve some energy. As I reached the end of my 48th lap, my luck ran out and was asked to leave. (In the end, it was just as well as a class full of hyperactive boys came barrelling into the changing rooms just as I finished getting changed).

At Tipton, the new and old Birmingham mainline canals meet. This provides a variety of opportunities with regards to routes home, ranging from 1.3 miles to 2.98 miles. My iPhone was quoting the temperature outside at a balmy 1°C, so given I still had wet hair, I decided that the shortest distance would probably be best. It wasn't the most comfortable run I've done (which is clear from my pace - 13:10/mile), but it served its purpose (I got home)!

As a reward (and to warm me up), I nipped out to McDonalds to buy a couple of coffees. I swear she took her time to take my order at the drive through to give me enough time to look through the breakfast menu. I was good and resisted the urge to order a sausage and egg mcmuffin meal, remembering that Thursday evening is my weigh-in day. I'm just hoping to have lost weight this week given I put on last week.

The walking total may increase later if I decided to track this afternoon's pick up from school, but in case I don't I've still done over 2 miles today. Depending on how things go, I may need a new total mileage goal for Janathon as I've got less than 25 miles left and we're not halfway through the month yet!

15:33 Edited to add:
I had been looking at some of the local pubs online, but none of their menus were highlighting what healthy food they were service. We thought we'd try The Village in Dudley as we hadn't been for a while, but the prices were much higher than we wanted to pay for a lunch. In the end, we settled on Pizza Hut, which would be our main meal of the day. We both went for a Pizzetta (which was only 460 calories) and helped ourself to the salad bar whilst we were waiting. The unexpected bonus was that Stellian found an offer through Vouchercloud to get both our meals for the price of one. Result!

I was feeling rather full after that so the extra mile walking to get the kids from school both contributes to my Janathon total and starts to work off a delicious lunch. Hopefully the scales will be kind later!

Walking:
Distance - 1.38 miles
Time - 24m 27

Running: 
Distance -1.3 miles
Time - 17m 11

Swimming:
Distance - 0.65 miles
Time - 29m 04

Total today:
Distance - 3.33 miles
Time - 1h 10m 42

Janathon:
Total Distance - 86.49 miles
Total Time - 14h 04m 31
Miles remaining - 23.51

Acknowledgement:
Photograph of the interior of Tipton Swimming Centre taken from http://www.slt-leisure.co.uk/leisure-centre/tipton-swimming-centre