AWESOME STUFF HAS HAPPENED!!
Yup, something amazing has happened!
Back in April I had my *ahem* 25th Birthday & my friend Kate got me a website.
Then real life got in the way and that was that.
Untill today!
check out
and if you have a chance subscribe or like me on Facebook & you’ll never miss another one of my fantastic posts!
love you!
I’m just a cliche…
I’m supposed to be on anti depressants, and I stopped taking them…
Genius, I know.Not only is that possibly the most unoriginal thing for me to have done, but it’s also the most self sabotaging thing I’ve done all year, including the regular eating of rubbish food & moaning about weight gain.
Let me clarify, I didn’t mean to stop, it was just one of those weeks where everything was a little too busy, and I never got to the Doctors appointment, and then I never got around to re booking it (because I was embarrassed about missing the 1st one) , and so one week became two, and then three and the next thing you know I’m crying at my husband for some silly pointless reason (again.)
Going to the Doctors…
It was my husband who booked me in, and the Doctors didn’t shout at me, although I was so nervous in the weighting room. The Doctor was, as you’d expect in this situation, quite understanding, but did make me a referral to the counselling service the surgery has, (although nearly 2 weeks later I have yet to hear from them. )
Mill, this is a running blog…
Has running or excersise helped me while I’ve been feeling miserably manic? Yes, parkrun has honestly been a reason to get up on a Saturday morning, not just for running 5k & beating my time from last week, but for the community there too. No one is bothered if I have or have not done whatever I’m currently stressing about, they’re just glad to see you run the course & welcome another runner to the parkrun cult.
Also I’ve been forcing myself to do Jillian Michael’s 30 Day Shred again. I’m 18 days into it now & it began as a reason to make sure I at least did something productive, but also become a reason that I made sure the kids helped tidy up the chaos in the living room, and a cleaner living room always makes it seem like the world won’t end in an explosion of lego, toy cars and stuffed animals. It’s also like one of those “Don’t Break The Chain!” things, I’ve done 18 days now, I can’t give up.
Back to real life now…
Two weeks back on my SSRIs & I’m starting to feel a lot better, it apparently takes up to 6 weeks for everything to get back up to strength, so I’m not yet getting the full benefits of the drugs, but I’m starting to feel more like me than the crazy mummy.
The moral of this story…
I’m not superwoman & I can’t do everything myself & my health is one of the most important things I have. I know it sounds like the end of one of those cheesy American TV programs where someone has gone on a life changing journey & learnt many life lessons. But now I’m not being the crazy ginger my husband has told me off a little.
“How can you raise to awesome children, if you’re not being awesome too?” One of the reasons I started running was so I’m not going to be an embarrassing unhealthy mummy at the school gates, but I’m just going to have to pay just as much attention to my mental health as well as my physical.
#Juneathon Day 11 – Thinking of Medals
- My Manchester 10k (2010 & 2011) & Liverpool Marathon 2011 Medals
Last night, I went for a walk then run, mostly because I hadn’t done much all day but eat & couldn’t be bothered to do lots of running. While I was walking, I was thinking, and somehow got on to thinking about the medals I’ve gotten from doing the (few) races.
There are only 4, but 2 of them live in the bowl we chuck our keys in & the other 2 have become “princess medals” that are worn by my daughter & her toys when playing the sort of pink & cute games that little 4 year old girls play.
Every time I chuck my keys into the bowl I always think “I *should* do something with them” and then I don’t because I think it would be showing off, or tacky or something like that, so they stay in the the key bowl & around Princess Aurora‘s neck.
So I asked Twitter what they all do with their medals;
@Jogblog “Mine are hung on a hook on the wall. The hook was already there, it’s just somewhere to bung them.”
@Rhalou ” I hang them up by the door to make me smile whenever I walk by :)”
@LongJogRoz “mine are hanging on the big mirror we have in the hall. Supposed to give me a little lift as i walk by…”
@KnittedPenguin ” Mine are all worn by a large PG Tips Monkey who we refer to as ‘medal monkey’…”
@MrsBedders “I have a special box for mine and I keep all my race numbers too.”
@DiscreetSecure “I made a nice display of all mine in a nice wooden ‘odds & sods’ tray that held them neatly.”
@JoSmith “my #VLM one is on my bedpost – a reminder of the fact I can do anything I put my mind to! “
And then I think this tweet trumped it for me
@Rhinomittens “i have a nice medal rack from allied steel for mine 🙂 lockerz.com/s/216363923”
Isn’t that awesome? I think I’ve just added another thing to my wish list, I’m going to be broke by the time I’ve bought EVERYTHING on the internet.
Also it’s possibly the most replies I’ve ever got to a single tweet! (So don’t I feel popular!)
Does anyone else do something amazing with their medals, or save their race numbers?
What about race shirts? I end up wearing mine to the gym, because most of them are hideous. (Although I like this years Great Manchester Run one)
(Oh, I ran 5k and walked for about an hour for Juneathon!)
#Juneathon Days 9 & 10
I’m a little behind with my blogging & certainly behind with my logging (Because I haven’t one any yet) and we already know I’m behind with the actual exercise.
But the weekend did have excersise in.
Saturday was parkrun, a wet & damp 5k, managed it in 38min, but learnt that I should not try to run up The Hill on the 1st lap unless I want a horrible stitch for the rest of the run. Still for all my internal moaning, 38 min is an alright time.
Sunday I went to the gym for the usual stuff, and I think I just plowed through the motions, as I found it all very boring. But at least the gym was quiet and I didn’t have to wait for any of the equipment to become free.
Today I do plan to do something, either go for a run or head back to the gym, but I’m in such a grumpy mood, I might just settle for making everyone around me miserable…
#Juneathon Day 8
Today I didn’t run, I’m saving myself for parkrun in the morning.
I did;
Lots of weighty things,
30 min cycle
30 min cross trainer
And ate a giant bar of chocolate. And now I’m drinking Crabbie’s ginger beer.
When you hear me moan about not loosing weight this week, remind me of this post!
#Juneathon day 7 (but really only day 3)
Ok, so I did’t run, but I did do;
20 second plank
10 half press ups
10 squats
10 lunges
10 leg lifts
And also
Cleaned poo off my son & our couch after my son decided to shove his hands down his nappy at exactly the wrong time, and break up 20 or so sibling fights.
I hate rainy days!
#WeighInWed, with some #Juneathon too
[EDIT: this is a very long post, in the interests of your #Juneathon reading time the TLDR version is like this;Ate too much while the Queen had a party, joined Slimkicker, did some excersises at home, went for a short run ’cause its #Juneathon]
Was it just me or did the 4 days of the Jubilee mean an extra few pounds (LBS & £££) of bad food choices every day? God Bless the Queen & all that jazz, but please can we celebrate the 65th by having salad & fruit? (Fruit in Pimms may count & celery & tomato juice in Bloody Marys could coun twice) That way I won’t think that
Tough Mudder logo (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
the Jubilee is a justified reason to buy a bag of haribo every day, eat a giant bag of Revels in one night, and consume vast amounts of BBQ’d meat and croissants for breakfast.
So is it any wonder that I had to unfreeze my BeeMinder Graph this morning?! and I’m just writing off all of May, and counting the 23 weeks till Tough Mudder and checking the calendar for any other Event Excuses to stop me getting in shape & getting less fat.
I’ve also found a app/site that fuels my need for points/gold stars/level ups that’s also a diet/nutrition tracker. (Good grief there’s an awe full lot of slashes in that sentence!) It’s called Slimkicker, and I think it’s still in Beta stages, there’s no where for me to find out how many people are using the site, but I think it’s around a thousand or so. It’s a little clunky on the app, and adding food is not as quick & easy as on other apps (like with MFP for example) but it does have two mechanics that make me think it should be a little more motivating.
Firstly, it’s like Fitocracy but for food!
Everything you log into your tracker gets you points, good things, like servings of fruit or healthy fats, get more points than others, I don’t think there’s a food that won’t give you any points. The points all add up & eventually you level up, and if the glow you get when you move from level one up to level two isn’t enough, you can also set rewards. When I reach Level Five I will reward myself with a trip to the Urban Decay counter, but I’m still only level Three, so I have a few weeks to go.
Secondly, there are challenges.
Yes, yes, this also sounds like Fitocracy too, but there are slight differences. You have to join the challenges, Slimkicker isn’t going to automatically give you the points if you log things, so there’s no accidently scoring points for something you aim to do, and the challenges aren’t all about food. They’re split into 4 categories;
- willpower – e.g “No Snacks After 3pm”
- fitness – e.g “20 Push Ups a Day”
- emotional – e.g “Daily Gratitude Prayer”
- nutrition – e.g “A Salad A Day”
These are just one of the challenges in each area, and if you can’t find one that grabs you, there’s the option to create your own. I’m currently in 5 challenges;
- Loose 10lbs in 30 days
- 10 Push Ups a Day (for 7 days)
- 10 Wall Squats a Day (for 7 days)
- 10 Normal Squats a Day (for 7 days)
- 10 Lunges a Day (for 7 days) – this is one I created, if I’m squatting I might as well do some lunges too.
So you check in everyday, and get a little bonus boost to your points, keeping you focused on the tasks in hand & keeping you accountable, but if you fail or fall off the wagon, then there’s also a restart option, requiring you to stay honest with yourself. I restarted the “No snacking after 7pm” challenge several times, this weekend, and now I’ve given up on that, as it currently seems impossible.
The downside of it all is the current size & it’s American base, I find myself having to create a lot of foods, compared with the more established trackers out there, it’s a little tedious to do. The app isn’t as nice as the website, but it seems that the developers are listening & they seem to pay attention to the post put on the forums, so suggestions go a long way.
Anyway… #Juneathon!
Aside from the parkrun I did at the weekend I haven’t honestly done much excersise or running for Juneathon, but today I will commit & start doing something everyday & writing shorter blogs about it too! What did I do today;
- Planks (20sec, 25 sec
- Wall Push Ups ( 2 sets of 10 reps)
- Body Weight Squats (2 sets of 10 reps)
- Body Weight Lunges (2 sets of 5 reps)
- Wall Squats (2 sets of 5, holding for 5 secs each)
- Leg Lifts (2 sets of 10)
- Running 7.18km (58 min)
… But I was too late to be in the starters photo!
Yep, true to form I was late for the start, but I still ran, and my friend Kate ran with me.
It was great fun & it’s true the hill was a killer, and we walked it for lap 2 & 3. (THREE hills in a 5k run, that’s just mean!) We started about 5 minutes after everyone else, and walked a few times too, and still managed a 40 minute time. A few months ago, I was “Running” a whole 5k in 40 min, never mind run / walking it in that time, so there’s been leaps & bounds in the terms of my general fitness. Running parkrun was more fun than volunteering, but only just. Even though we were the final two runners through the finish we got a good round of applause, and not the sort of factitious slow clap, but genuine “well done, you’re awesome” claps, and not one person was bothered by us coming in after the back marker, (because we arrived late, but no one minded that we started late either)
It was a lovely morning, and also the start of the Jubilee weekend and there were several people running in Union Flag shorts & the baked bean T shirt was my personal favorite.
Unfortunately, this parkrun is the sum total of my #Juneathon effort! and that was 2 days ago. So I’m not winning any prizes, but then I guess that’s what Juneathon isn’t about!
I’m thinking I’ll possibly going to get to go to the gym / running on Tuesday & will start from there. Honest.
(If you’re not part of parkrun JOIN US also if you’re not on the Juneathon list JOIN US!)
Here comes #Juneathon…
You have to sing that title like it’s the Beatles song Here comes the Sun
It starts on Friday, and lasts the whole of June. So expect a whole heap of moaning, or some suspicious shameful silence.
How I’m going to manage over the bank holiday weekend I don’t know, we have friends visiting & I never manage to go out & run. Hopefully inviting some of them to come run Preston parkrun will keep me a little on the straight & narrow, and I suppose I could always blog from my phone.
Hmm I wonder if I could blog from my phone whilst running…
NO! There will be no stupidity during my #Juneathon, just boringly simple “Jogging, Logging & Blogging”
That’s all I’m blogging now, in a effort to save word for when I’m too exhausted fromrunning to think coherently.
I still haven’t ran @Prestonparkrun…
Photo taken by Lynn Brown
But I have volunteered!
It was a gloriously hot morning on Saturday, and I’m secretly glad I didn’t run, but I will say that arriving at the park Pavilion at about 8:30 am I was a little nervous. Having only spoken with people in email & not too sure just what I’d be doing, I was a little worried that I’d end up with a deadly serious task & fail miserably.
Photo taken by Lynn Brown
But after a quick chat with Michael (the gent who stepped up & organised parkRun Preston), Lynn (who took all the lovely photos on this post) & some of the other volunteers, I discovered 3 things.
1) There aren’t really any difficult jobs when volunteering for parkRun
2) You can do as much or as little as you like, so if a job sounds too much, there’s always a job to suit
3) Even if you do, some how, mess everything up, there’s always a way around it & at the end of the day, it’s just a Saturday 5k run, not LOCOG.
So armed with a high vis vest & 300 place tokens, I was the numbers lady.
My biggest worry was keeping the tokens in order & not dropping them all over the park. I have to admit it was a little exciting, especially after a swift bit of maths made us realise that the 23rd finisher today would be the 200th finisher since Preston parkRun began. After only 3 runs I think that’s an awesome start to the Preston run, and it’s only going to get bigger.
It was good fun seeing all the runners cross the finish line, and really did prove that runers come in all shapes and sizes, and also that parkRun isn’t just about sprinting around the park as fast as possible.
It was also great to see the support of all the other runners for every
Photo taken by Lynn Brown
one running, from the amazement & well done for the 18:26 winner, and the applause for the runner who’s gotten a PB every week but quite happily sits further down the pack. It was brilliant to see kids racing each other & young and old running together, and everyone moan about “The Hill!”
I’d also say that volunteering would be a great way to dip your toes into parkRun, especially if you’re nervous about running in front / with others (as I know some ladies are) or just nervous about turning up on a Saturday morning to a load of strangers. It will give you some faces & names to remember next time & there’s time for a chat with the others whilst waiting for the 1st runners to come through.
But it really was a great morning & I honestly had a laugh whilst handing out place tokens to the runners, and would suggest everyone gets their name down to volunteer, especially while the weather is nice.
I’ve obviously been going on at home about how brilliant parkrun is, as now my daughter wants to come run with me. She’s only 4 and after a short run on Sunday evening, I don’t think she has the attention span to run 5k, but I think in a few months she’ll be ready for a run, and hopefully she’ll enjoy it!
If you fancy volunteering for parkrun Preston then check out the Volunteer section on the parkrun site and give them an email.
If you somehow have been living in a hole for months & don’t know what parkrun is all about, then I’m shocked, and point you to the parkrun home page!
Photo taken by Lynn Brown
Lastly, proof that I was there, and proof that I didn’t mess the results up HERE!
There’s also a Preston parkrun facebook group and a twitter too.
Plus if you like the amazingly gorgeous photos in today’s post then head over to the Flickr Preston parkrun pool where you’ll find lots more photos by Lynn who kindly let me add these pictures to my blog.
Run for the Quiet 