Finally

Today the One who (if not for turkey) might have been your Christmas dinner got up to put the finishing touches to something that started a few months ago - a little journey to keep fit as the months turned colder and darker. Thankfully, the heavens made it easier by removing much of the fog that had enveloped Hoghaven over the past few days, as well as pumping a bit more fahrenheit into the atmosphere. Unlike the previous day, where it had made the mistake of being more overwrapped than a trick present, this time the pig was lightly wrapped in a single layer of thermal foil, and simmered at 40F for 35:42 minutes and 5 miles.

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50 runs done before X'mas. The next phase of fitness for me will be from January to the end of March - I've subdivided it like this because it follows the academic term over here. I'm not going to worry so much about getting runs in, but pay a bit more attention to stretching and weights, particularly the former. From past experience I can get by from September to December with the most minimal of stretching, but it's from January to start of April that I'm likely to do something funny to myself that's largely due to tension in the back and hamstrings and lack of stretching. I also hope to run for longer - I've only gone past 5 miles once in the past few months - but I won't hesitate to substitute a run with some indoor workouts especially when it gets really cold.

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House-hunting has not been all that successful so far. We've not yet found the perfect compromise between location, size, and price. The line from most estate agents is that December is a quiet time of year, not many people are selling because they don't want to move before X'mas. But some agents have told us this is the busiest December ever, and they have had more queries and properties on sale than they've ever had. People will say anything.

Wifey likes to remind me on occasion that she gets weird reactions from people when using my surname than when she goes by her maiden name. Of course, this has resurfaced a fair bit these past few weeks while we've been on the phone with various estate agents. My surname is pretty rare - from where I came from, the number of people registered in the phone directory with that surname take up about half a column. Over in England, it's non-existent, even though it's a Chinese surname that - when Anglicized - becomes an English adjective. 95% of people I've met always ask me to spell my surname - as if they can't believe they heard correctly - and make some smart aleck comment about it. But my family name's cool. And there are actually worse - well, I think they are - Anglicized Chinese surnames than that. We counted.

1) Aw
2) Hee
3) Chin
4) Loo
5) Wee
6) Er
7) Hung
8) Fu
9) Low
10) Pok
11) Boo
12) Ho
13) Kok
14) Tit
15) Fok
16) Thong

I'm not making these up - these are real surnames. I wouldn't want to be Mr ______ (any of the last five). Which do you think are the worst?

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I'll see you on the other side of the year. Happy Christmas!

King of all ARIDs

We've had a few days of cold temperatures and fog. Flights at Heathrow have been grounded, and the dog walkers in the park have put blinking diodes on their dogs' collars in case they stray too far. The weather today isn't expected to go above freezing, and when I headed out the door this morning it was 30F. I was nicely trussed up with thermals and ready to test my Psolar mask.

The mask looks stupid, I'll admit to that, but at least it keeps you warm. The best thing I like about it is that it covers the area from the ears down to the neck, instead of covering the head and ears and leaving the neck area exposed. When I run with a hat, all the excess heat builds up and pretty soon I'm uncomfortable and have to take the hat off. The mask worked fine and very quickly there was a noticeable difference. The silly thing, though, was that I'd gone running with my glasses so all that hot air was condensing on the lenses. After five minutes I had to ditch the mask to be able to see where I was going.

Running in cold weather irritates me. My skin starts getting itchy and scratchy when I run. After ten minutes I wanted to stop - I was probably overdressed - but kept running, even though I couldn't wait to come back home. At least I got the minutes in. I should note in future that a thermal and a shirt are enough for 0C runs.

#49 down. One more to go.

P.S. How do I switch to this new Blogger stuff?

So this is why people do two-a-days

#47, #48 - both runs for about twenty minutes. In the morning I did the usual loop of 1.678m in 11:12 (hurrah!), then jogged for another mile to complete 2.678 in 19:25. In the afternoon I ran around the park, mainly for the sake of running; after about 15 minutes at about 7:30 pace I ran one last round. What usually took 5 minutes or so, I covered in 4:15, so it can't be all that bad.

Weather was too cold for my liking. I didn't even want to go out, and had to dress in two thermals. I don't think it's passed 45 today. You could see the vapour from people's mouths even during the warmest part of the day.

Two more to go. I'm getting fed up of the numbers game. Oh well, at least I'm not the one who has to run 50km by year end.

A quick post while I can

Christmas might have come early. My aim was (and still is) to reach 50 runs before Christmas Day, so I could have a little break from running over the Xmas to New year week, but I took an extra session off this week and had a bit of a lounge around. I feel a bit like the kid who peeks into his Xmas pressies under the tree, then wraps them back up again and pretends nothing's happened.

We've had family and friends over since the start of the week, and are also busy house-hunting. We've been where we are for a fair bit now, and it's time to move on. But property prices around here are pretty steep - they've risen by over 25% over the past 16 months, and will continue rising - and finding the correct place is a bit of a compromise between floor space and location. We've seen a place that was fairly okay, but just in a not-so-nice area. It's also near a busy shopping centre, and doesn't have any open spaces to run in. Places in nicer areas have less floor space. Places with nice big rooms are in less accessible areas. The hunt goes on. I don't know for how much longer, but I hope it ends soon.

Running-wise, I'm on #46 now. Today's fartlek was mainly in darkness for only about 20 minutes around the park. I ran the slower sections at what felt like a 7:30/7:40 pace, and interspersed them with a few sprints here and there - nothing fancy.

The week before Xmas is the week I really don't like. Tidying up loose ends at work, Christmas concerts to do, things like that. The Christmas concerts are the worse ones. They are on four days this week and sometimes there are up to three concerts in a day, which is really the pits - the day starts at about 10 and we don't get back until way after midnight or one o'clock.

I think it might be short runs all the way to #50. Rest might even be a greater priority.

#44, #45

Just a quick post while I can catch some blogging time. I have to put the run numbers in the title or else I'll lose count. I was wondering today what numbers I was on, that's what happens with a gap due to missed running.

Did 20-25 minutes of running yesterday; I didn't set out to achieve anything else because it was designated as a "back to running/take it easy" run. #44 ended up being 20-25 minutes around our local park.

This morning I scooted out while it was dark for #45. It gets light only at about 7:45 here in London; in other parts of the country further north it seems that time is later - one of my workplaces doesn't get light until about 8:00, 8:15. While it's getting light later here, the weather these past few days is still fairly mild, so I didn't have need for Le Mask below. And I was very pleased to do my 1.678 miles in 11:15 - I thought I'd never breach the 11:20 mark, so that's one mental hurdle cleared. 2700m in 11:15 is like running 3+3/8 sets of 800m consecutively in 3:20 per 800m. I jogged the rest of the way until 20-25 minutes.

Trying to run up to 50 by Xmas is getting to me a bit. While it's nothing compared to other streaks, it's becoming a bit too much of a mental distraction. Some days I'm running more for the sake of getting runs in than doing quality runs which I feel will help me run faster. I hope I get to 50 sooner than 50 gets to me!

Snotsville, Arizona

I've been nursing a slight cold and sore throat these past few days. Last Wednesday evening and Thursday my throat started to bother me a lot and I wondered what I had done to irritate it. Did I run too hard and gulp too much cold air? We've had colder, windier weather over on this side of the pond, even in the daytime, and maybe that's done it for me. I did get #43, a 4-miler, done on Friday in 28:24, but missed running on Sunday. Workouts have been limited to expunging snot (well, some weights too) and I hope to get back to running soon.

It's a busy week - clearing up things at work, families and friends visiting. I hope to be able to test out the new mask and see how effective it is.

Have a good week, folks!

Dressed to kill

4 miles yesterday - my lower back felt a bit tense, almost reminiscent of the time last year I sneezed and threw it out. For the first mile and a half or so I felt like I wasn't getting any power through the legs and back, and had to resign myself to just lifting my legs and moving. It felt better as I kept running, and I did eventually manage to run four 7:20 miles, but therein was a reminder to do more ab work and stretching.

The winds have picked up these past few days - but thankfully I now have some help in the cold-weather running department. I'm not sure what's worse - a bad haircut or looking like a South Park character. I suppose possessing both traits could be lethal.



I prefer to think of it as fighter-pilot cool.

Hoping to get to 50 without mishap

At about this time every year we get a period of uncertain weather. It usually begins with the emergence of strong winds, rattling the leaves off trees, then periods of rain, drenching the remaining leaves before they are to be baked in the sun. Then more strong winds and rain, like interval repeats. This has been going on for a bit now, leaving our trees now fully bare. The ones leading to the high streets (that equivalent of "malls" for you across the pond) were naked like Adam, and have now been spruced up, warmed by newly-adorned artificial lights. They look to me like ladies with feather boas. There was a tree with a single string of blue neon lights - obviously whoever had put up the lights had run out halfway - and that immediately made me think "Zsa Zsa Gabor".

The rain is messing up my running a bit. While I like rolling around in the mud, I am not so keen on anything less dilute, and gravity-bound. (That includes pigeon droppings.) I know my body best, and my body is weak - I catch colds all too easily after running in the rain. It's also a bit cold in the evenings when I run (about 50F, Massoman) so I am a bit careful about doing too much fast running and gulping air. I am very thankful to have survived this long without catching anything, although I'm on the verge of getting an iffy cold.

Today I had the opportunity to dep(utize) for a different teacher at two different schools, and while it was a welcome change from nine-year-olds teaching me to spell "V-E-G" on the piano, in terms of student discipline, it was pretty much the substandard same - the way schools are, I suppose. But enough education ranting.

This week's plans:

Today: 4 miles
Wednesday: weights, stretching
Thursday: 4/5 miles
Friday: 4/5 miles
Saturday: pretending to stretch, lazing about.

Meg raised a question on her blog that got my interest. What nutritional stuff do you go for? Personally, I don't have anything special for running - no gels, no special drinks, or stuff like that. I occasionally have the big bowl of oats before a long run and that's it. One thing I do ascribe too, though, is protein supplements from time to time. I find that just boosting my protein intake every half week or so helps muscle repair. Of course, I'm partly saying that because I haven't taken that for a week now, which is probably why the sniffles are creeping up on me.

I'm off for my 4 miles now. Rain, hail, whatever - I have 4 miles to tick off and just have to deal with it. Adios!

Getting one in

It's forecast to be a rainy Sunday tomorrow - so I got my weekend run in while I could. I ran at an effort rating of 6 or 6.5 out of 10 for most of the run, only sprinting the last 400m. The time? 53:30 for 7 miles. 7:30 mins/mile would have been nice, but 7:39 isn't all that bad either, when you consider I wasn't really trying too hard, or hadn't run anything past 5 miles in the last 5 or 6 months (I think). I did the first 5 miles at 7:30 pace, and as you can probably work out by now, it was between miles 5 to 7, the untested territory for me for a long while, that I started to lose speed.

The next mark I'm trying to aim for is to hold 7:30 for 6 miles. To help me get there, I'm going to try to do 5.5 miles at slightly faster than that pace, possibly 7:20s, and also squeeze in a couple of 4 milers on back to back days, rather than on every other day. For someone who runs as little as I do, I think running on a day's less rest will help add a slightly higher degree of intensity compared to running once every 2 days. It's still three days of running a week though - I'm on the lines of a "longer" (5.5 to 6 miles) run on day 1, then shorter ones on day 3 and 4, or 4 and 5. That's all I can afford, but maybe when we get closer to the end of term I might be able to run a bit more.

I've run a bit more that 13.1 miles this week, but that's been a pretty rare occurrence. Still, capping the number of miles I run each week has generally been a positive experience. I have a few ARIDs every now and again, but on the whole I still enjoy running - can't argue with that!

Words just rolling off me tongue

#40. A day late, but I managed it. I was supposed to go running yesterday, but a myriad of excuses meant I ended up postponing it. Did just about 20-30 minutes of running today because my knee was funny, it was running, and I wanted to save my mileage coupons and run for slightly longer on Sunday.

Since it's Friday today and I'm wearing my English teacher hat, I shall leave you with this little gem. (Not mine, unfortunately - I'm not that clever.)


Previous week's English Grammar question: By the time I arrived, Tom (use the correct verb form here) his dinner.

James: By the time I arrived, Tom had his dinner. (wrong)
John: By the time I arrived, Tom had had his dinner. (correct)


Can you stomach this?

John - where James had had "had" - had had "had had"; "had had" had had their teacher's approval.

Have have have a good weekend and happy running!

P.S. How about Buffalo?