Road to London

As you know by now, Monday is rest day so not a lot to say running wise.

So, Monday will now become a window into my exciting life instead.

Woke up at 7:30, meet Graham at the gym for an 8am start.  Did about 45 mins of kettlebells and we bitched loads about all the people we  hate , I mean we talked about the interesting people we sometimes come across.

Then it was home, shower, cup of coffee and a day of massaging and digging my elbow into people's glutes.  I love digging my elbow into glutes and hamstrings and quads, it's a perk of the job I guess.

In the evening it was a North Shields Poly Trustee meeting, lots of talk of first aid training, defibs and laughing at Ben for his Hamsterley Half run at the weekend, if you see Ben ask him about it.

Actually don't bother, just laugh at him whilst muttering 'Hammsterley' under your breath and sniggering.

And calf muscles, I love digging my elbow deep into calf muscles.

And laughing at Ben, I particularly like laughing at Ben.

Tonight was traaaaaaaaaaacccccckkkkk!

I don't particularly like the track but needs must and it was Bondarenko's which is always 'fun'.  Now we don't do the full Bondarenko as its 12km and we'd have a revolution on our hands if we ever suggested it but one day, one day it's coming...

So, session started and the track was a little slippy so first 400 was steady, then rest of the set picked up and hit pace.  Second set started and Jason and Paddy at the front meant this was going to be a little brisk, these old bones and muscles started to warm up and I weaved my way to the front.

Then as we walked to the start line for the final set we found ourselves alongside 'A' team, now this is never a good sign.  If it was the actual A-team it would be amazing as I loved Murdock as a kid but as we know the A-team are currently on the run in America for crimes they did not commit and they'd have to fly across to Newcastle with fake passports and as everyone knows B.A Baracus "ain't getting on no plane fool".

So instead I found myself alongside Paddy with our version of the 'A' team, I muttered to Paddy something about us being in the wrong group and he replied with "let's see how long we can hang on".  Now that's not really what I wanted to hear but we were off and I was c.linging on.

It certainly wasn't pretty, it was all flailing arms, heavy breathing and no doubt a lot of drooling but set 3 with the 'A' team done.  

I like to think Hannibal would have been proud of me, Murdock would have been off being a bit weird and probably wearing a dress as that's the kind of thing crazy people did in the 80's, Face would be off having sex with some 80's permed beauty or at least trying his damned best and B.A would have given me a disapproving look.

I love the A-team, ours and the 80's one.

I love the 80's one more, much, much more.

Wednesday is easy run day, 4-5 miles at around 9:00-9:30 mile pace along the coast, it was cold, damn, damn cold.

Decided to try out the new trainers today, a very bright pair of Alphafly 2's that Evri lost and found again.

I hate Evri.

This is my in depth review of Alphafly's.  They feel weird, they feel very soft and weird, they feel very bouncy and weird, they look weird, they are a weird shoe.

I kinda liked them, not absolutely convinced but the softness and bounciness I can see will be beneficial when im 20 miles in at the marathon so I will persevere with them on a few more runs, plus they are bright orange and so bloody bright and I love bright trainers.

Oh and because it's Wednesday I watched an episode of Wednesday.

It was pretty good but Christina Ricci is the best Wednesday and she was brilliant in Sleepy Hollow and in my research for this blog I discovered she was also in a film called Black Snake Moan with Samuel L Jackson where the tag line is "everything is HOTTER down south".  I'll not go into the storyline here, you'll have to google it yourself but it ain't hard to work out.

It looks awful.

I like awful films.

I'll probably watch it this week.

Run session in the morning with Nicola doing out and backs, very cold but a great session and a good leg stretcher.

Thursday was supposed to be threshold day but due to being busy and having to actually work for a living I switched threshold Thursday to threshold Friday and easy Friday to easy Thursday.  Plan was to jog along to Cullercoats with the group on an easy 6 miles and do a few hill sprints, the snow and black ice cancelled that plan and instead we did an impromptu track session.

It was -6 degrees with the wind chill, it was black ice everywhere and we still had about 50 people turn up including a few new members, runners are insane.

The track was busy and I had already ran so did a bit of crowd management during the session, this involved me standing, pointing and shouting and getting very cold so after 20 mins I started running to keep warm and tick off another couple of miles.

Then home to stand in the shower for half an hour to try and warm up and then stuck Black Snake Moan on the telly.

Switched Black Snake Moan  off.

Watched the IT Crowd instead.

Thursday threshold on a Friday, all the cool kids are doing it.

Planned to do this along the coast but the black ice outside the house curtailed this plan and I headed to the track instead hoping it was still okay and just a little frosty.

Session was a a 20 min warm up followed by some threshold intervals, so this is where I have to fess up.  In Part 1 of my blog I did a threshold of 12 mins, 10 mins and 12 mins and said I had managed it, well the session was supposed to be 12, 10, 12 , 10 but I bailed on the final 10 as I was knackered and today it was the same session.  I apologise profusely for misleading you all but truth be told I'm a lazy bugger.

So today, would I bail and skip the final 10 mins or get it done ? 

Track was a little slippy but today I was getting it done.  Stuck on the tunes, Carter The Unstoppable Sex Machine naturally, a bit of Young Fathers, Orbital and The Fall and knocked out the session perfectly.

A good day, home, shower and a day of massaging.

When I say I knocked the session out perfectly, I obviously ran the final rep way too fast but that's an inbuilt reaction developed from 15 years at the Poly.

Parkrun day, the plan today was absolutely smash out a sub 20 parkrun .

Without a doubt I would have nailed it, probably a PB, top 10 finish easy,

Ah man, what! Black ice, ah man you're kidding me, cancelled you say, ah man I'm gutted.

Probably would have been a course PB.

So instead a day in the Metrocentre with Mrs J and the kids and then home to cook tea and a bottle of red in the evening watching The Taking of Pelham 123 whilst thinking ahead to Sunday's 16 miles.

I know, I'll just drink half a bottle and save half for Sunday night as that makes sense and don't eat too much, just sensible.

I cooked way too much food, the usual 5 of us plus L and S's partners to make it a house of 7.

I cooked enough food for 17 people for 3 days, we ate all of it,

I drunk all the wine.

I thought about having more wine.

There was no more wine.

Gail walked in the living room with one of my Toblerone's, it was a big Toblerone.

I had one triangle.

Today was a 16 miler at 8:20 mile pace, now I don't really run long distances any more as I've mentioned before I'm a bit of a lazy bugger.  I'm starting to think a marathon maybe isn't the best thing for me to do.

Woke up a little hungover, got dressed, set my watch for 8:20-8:30 pace as I really couldn't face the session and decided a 10 second buffer would come in handy.

First couple of miles were tricky, paths were slippy and thought about heading for the track instead but the idea of 16 miles on the track was a non starter so stuck with it.

Mile 1 was 8:43, mile 2 was 8:24 and felt good so settled into it and sung along to some tunes.  I have a running playlist that is constantly evolving, its around 5 hours long and starts with We Are Scientists and ends with The Velvet Underground whilst taking a detour through Nick Cave, Damian Marley, Rick James, Le Tigre and of course Carter the Unstoppable Sex Machine.  By now you've all been on Spotify and listenend to 1992: The Love Album and realised its a work of 1990's genius, no doubt you've all googled Fruitbat punching Phillip Schofield and Brian Harvey running over his own head.

16 miles done in 2:11, averaging 8:11 mile pace

Spent the next few hours fixing the bath overflow and then headed to the pub with Mrs J and the kids for a couple of glasses of red.

A good week and week 3 done.

Gym tomorrow with Graham, going to talk him through my run mile by mile, he's gonna love it.

Probably sing some Carter songs to him.

All previous blogs are available to read HERE