Couch to 5k Week Four

Week Four 13.3.17

Steps 3834  km 3.08  cal. 291  time 29m

A brisk five-minute walk, then eight minutes of running, five minutes of walking and eight minutes of running.

Week five!  Over half way through.  I like that.  I like it so much I mess up my timings and only do 29 minutes instead of 31.  Never mind.  Weds will be more exciting for it.

On my own today, so sleep in.  Naughty.  Get up to see Victoria Derbyshire ensconced in a semi circle of people who believe (or not) that dogs can sniff out cancer.  Must be a trend – only the other day, there was a woman who could do the same with Parkinson’s.  Ian Duncan Smith did a good job of undermining the voice of science and good sense by quite reasonably suggesting that if it works, it might be worth a try until something more, well, scientific comes along.  Nothing is, apparently, that simple.  The NHS can’t keep dogs – what about feeding them, walking them?  I feel my brain glazing over.  I say, stop arguing about it and let those who want to be diagnosed by a savvy four-legged friend at least have a try.

Homes under the Hammer is on the other side.  Dare I?  I feel myself being dragged under by the 80s current.  Presenters who echo the fashions and music of a bygone age, entrap me.

I finish my toast.  Drink my tea.  Stare at the screen goldfish-like.

Eventually, when I’ve seen how much profit everyone has made, I curse my luck  and get into my leggings.  Blue sky and a surly breeze.  Perfect washing day for sheets and towels.  Damn!

The sheets blow dry and I run.  Marianne Faithfull is in full flow with some of the most colourful language I’ve heard set to music.  I imagine that some of the (quite ball-shrivelling) accusations are aimed at Mick Jagger, not that he will give a hoot.  I find that I like the narratives more than I thought I would.  Four letter, mainly anatomical words abound, along with ever more cutting recriminations and a slightly contradictory world view.  Go Marianne!

Is it smoking that gives her voice such gravel?

I run.  Almost without noticing.  I have absolutely no shortness of breath, although my legs wouldn’t cope for long with a faster sprint.  I might try next time.

My garden is coming along.  I edged some of it yesterday but was awake all last night, itching.  It’s either cancer of the kidney or an allergic reaction to some of the weeds I strangled.

Fingers crossed.  There are three dogs in the impasse.

Times’s up.  Saunter.  Smug expression.  Lunchtime – does it count as lunchtime if I’ve just had breakfast?

I believe it might.

A mercredi?

Week Four 15.3.17

Steps 4089  km 3.32  cal. 314  time 31m

Blue skies and garden coming to life.  Feeling on top of the world.  No time to write blog.  Too much to do.

Week Four 18.3.17

Steps 4729  km 3.88  cal. 369  time 34m

Missed Friday so just did my run today (Saturday).  I tuned in to the music of Queen and hoped it wouldn’t go on forever.  When the rhythm took me I upped the energy level and was surprised how fast I could go.  Pushed myself.  Actually got out of breath today.  Time was up, but Brian Ferry started singing More than This and I wasn’t going to stop him.  Took me back to the idealism of my youth and made me want to write a book.  I’d call it The Bits that Matter.  In the meantime, I have to practically re-write my second Alice Candy mystery.  I’m up for the challenge, though.  My advice: Get running – there’s nothing like it for boosting those brain cells.

My posts have shrunk.  If anyone is reading them and notices, apologies.  I will probably get back to normal next week.  Probably  But as long as I’m doing the running, that’s the main thing, isn’t it?

A la semaine prochaine  x

Couch to 5k Week four

Week Four 6.6.17

Steps 3266  km 2.64  cal. 249  time 25m

The new schedule: a brisk 5-minute warm-up walk then 3 minutes of running, 90 seconds walking, 5 minutes running, 2 ½ minutes walking, 3 minutes running, 90 seconds walking, 5 minutes running.

Back to morning running.  Fruit for breakfast – I sometimes feel the need for an apple with my cup of tea.  We watch another episode of Fortitude as the thought of BBC’s Louise and Dan on the couch is just a little underwhelming in comparison to great drama.  The Arctic landscape is bleak and the murders brutal.  The two policewomen are reminiscent of Laurel and Hardy.  The sheriff’s smile makes my blood run cold.

Should I watch another episode?

Got to get moving.

Outside, the weather is blowing a storm.  Trees are down in the village.  But I love the wind.  I set off at a brisk pace and am soon jogging easily.  First up is Gotye with Somebody I Used to Know – I can’t resist singing along.  Then comes Grace Jones and my running takes on a whole new rythmn.

I think of a place I used to work in London, Bond Street.  The mind makes strange connections.  It was a family business dealing in high quality, high tensile bin bags.  Amanda was the boss’s daughter, selling bin bags over the phone with her educated banter and plummy tones.  She and her millionaire boyfriend had gone to see Grace Jones in concert.  It was back in the late 70s and I was a Blondie lookalike who’d never heard of  Pull up to the Bumper.

Mirror Man and Electric Dreams send me into a different, more nostalgic, more romantic mood.  The garden takes on a summer haze and I picture perfect afternoons spent in the arms of perfect men (isn’t imagination a wonderful thing…). 

With Happy Mondays Twisting my Melons, I start to wonder about the rest of my day.  Writing, a lunchtime walk with Al, a dental appointment, shopping, and cooking dinner.  And planning a trip to Berlin.  It could be worse.

Time is up.

A mercredi?

Week Four 8.3.17

Steps 3626  km 2.95  cal. 2.79  time 27.5m

First, let me note that I forgot to progress to week four schedule on Monday.  Just realised!

Today, I’m thrilled to see an increase in my stats.  Almost touching 3k and running is much easier.  Too late for the olympics, but keeps me out of walking netball.  I’m aiming to be able to run for a bus, leap on a moving train or take part in my future grandchildren’s egg and spoon race without flushing purple.  All looks good at the moment.

Only downside today has been the music.  Japan.  Just Japan.  I like a bit of Japan in a bar, as an alternative to jazz, but after 27.5 minutes of David Sylvian droning on, replacing lyrics with dum, dum, dums and la, la, las.  Ad infinitum.  Well, I must say I pulled out my earphones and considered the various methods of pruning my wayward garden, wondering at the same time when I had turned into a person who prunes.

But I didn’t skip ahead on my MP3.

I simply put in an earphone every couple of minutes to see if anything with a bit more life had arrived.  Not a bit of it.  And, as I began to write up this blog I decided to leave the MP3 running, just to flush out the last remaining dirges.  The net result of this is that I shall begin on Friday to the outrageously fabulous Hendrix and his wailing guitar.  Good.

Back in the house I couldn’t be bothered to do the cool down.  I know.  I should have.  Nobody’s perfect.

Instead, I shall shower, listen to Charlton Heston reading The Old Man and the Sea while I concoct a pork curry for the slow cooker.  Requested by my son.

When we are on our own, I tell Al, we will eat at lunchtime and in the evening, we’ll sit by the sea for aperos then come home for romance and cheese. 

A vendredi?

Week Four 10.3.17

Steps 3718  km 3.04  cal. 289  time 27.5m

Woke up to the most beautiful blue sky and sunshine at my bedroom window.  And, yes, the birds were singing their hearts out.

Toast and marmalade for me, peanut butter for Al.

Today, we are being encouraged by the BBC to listen to a very affable man and his adoring colleague.  They want us to count penguins.  More interesting to me is mapping the surface features of Mars.  And wondering why Sally is wearing her grandmother’s lacy blouse.  Oh, and she has a dog on her lap.  There are more dogs.  Ones that behave badly.  Apparently, according to an expert, we shouldn’t reward bad behaviour. Who knew? BBC in depth investigative insight at its best.

In a random universe I shouldn’t have been surprised when Susie Quatro appeared, unchanged in style, if not in physiology.  We switch off.

Round and round the garden.  I’ve actually started to wear a track.  Lots of dew on the grass, but the weather is pure summer bliss.  I fill my lungs and remember the bike ride I had to work in Cambridge in the midst of lorries and cars and untrained cyclists from all over the world.  With my three-year-old son on the back, we would could the different words for rain and snow.  I remember getting to twenty-six.

Hendrix sings in one ear and plays guitar in the other.  He shoots his fickle woman, muddles through a purple haze, before turning up all along the watchtower.  I try to work out why he is such a genius and decide that genius is not something that can be defined.  I just let the music penetrate my soul and take me back to parties, youth, laughing, dancing, joie de vivre.

My track is turning muddy.

My favourite primrose is flowering next to the compost bin.

Daffodils that have survived the storms are brilliant, brilliant yellow.

Madonna injects me with vigour.  She’s a dancy kind of girl.  Good for joggers.  I remember being surprised that such a scraggy, untalented young girl had become so famous when I returned to England after two years in Greece.  Holiday was the song that got her noticed, apparently.  All I saw was a Cindy Lauper lookalike who couldn’t really sing.  Much better now. Hard not to be envious of her jaw and waistline.

Time’s nearly up and I’m not in the least exhausted.  My knees are fine.  No twinges in my muscles.  Alice in Chains delights me with a version of The Man Who Sold the World.  Better than Bowie?  Would that be blasphemous?  I remember my grandmother’s warning: comparison is odious. Where did that come from!

My final seconds.  A perfect start to my morning.  And as Marianne Faithfull begins Broken English, I pull out my ear plugs and go inside.  I’ll switch off my MP3 player when she’s finished.

Happy days!

A la semaine prochaine?

Couch to 5k Week three

Week Three 27.2.17

Steps 3161  km 2.54  cal. 239  time 25m

Hmm… my stats seem to be a little down on last week.  To the discerning analyst it would perhaps suggest that my fitness level has taken a small hit of the ‘weekend away’ variety.

On the other hand, it could be that the very basic counter is not very accurate on Mondays.

Breakfast was porridge.  TV was dominated by the Oscar Awards mess-up.  Do you think Fay Dunnaway failed to read the nomination properly?  Or at all?  Very entertaining, very gracious, not very bright.  Heads will roll, but only some will care.  Other news was tragic.  Mobile phone users cause road accidents – who knew?  So police it!  Create a device to disable phones in cars?  Or am I being naïve?

On with the kit and out into the white day.  Coolish and drizzle a possibility, but for the moment it’s dry (except for the grass).  I begin with the five-minute warm up.  Then it’s 90 secs running/90 secs walking, followed by 3 mins running/3mins walking.  For total of 25 mins (including warm up).

Music begins with Telegraph Road – a Dire Straits epic.  Can’t say I was thrilled with it in the context of my regime.  Bit ploddy. Went on, and on, and on.  Fabulous, of course, but still a bit ploddy.  No skipping rule remained in force and I listened to the interminable journey through decades and across miles.  Went into a kind of daze. Nice guitar bits. Daze.

Then came an Echo and the Bunnymen selection.  Not much of an improvement – but I did get into People are Strange.  The lyrics can’t be that simple and yet incomprehensible, can they? 

Never mind.

Time is nearly up.  I have a slight twinge in my right shin.  I slow to a walk for the last minute.  This is payback for missing my Friday run. 

Into the house and do my stretches (a bit). 

Week three needs to be taken seriously.  Who can I find to do such a thing?

Life is calling – housework first, then shopping, then writing.  Or I could start the other way round.  

A mercredi x

Week Three 1.3.17

Steps 3202  km 2.56  cal. 241  time 25m

Well.  Breakfast was toast and Marmite (one slice) and marmalade (the other slice) preceded by a glass of green tea and accompanied by a cup of Yorkhire.  Outside, the weather was asking for a derogatory comment, but I went straight to the living room for the latest BBC could offer.

Today we will be fined more for using a mobile phone whilst in our car and will have six points instead of three on our licence.  Newly qualified drivers will potentially lose their licence.  Don’t know whether to be pleased or not.  Sounds like fluff. Why are human beings so difficult to train?

More news about Trump and his new, more stately image.  More news about football.  And lovely Carol brings us giant daffodils, tranquil lakes, another version of the only dress design she possesses, an unstable hair piece and an irresistibly jolly demeanor.  Thank you, Carol, for your everlasting positivity.

Outside, the weather is still vile.  Should I brave it?

******Interlude*****

Four o’clock in the afternoon and it’s stopped raining.  Off I go.  Warm up, brisk five minutes walk and, up to my heels in mud, I break into what can only be described as a dangerously euphoric jog.

Today I have Echo and the Bunnymen in all their forms.  They sound like an 80s band (cue xylophone).  They sound like U2 – nice pipes.  They sound like The Cure.  Maybe they just sound too generic for their own good.  Nice tunes, though.  Pleasant.  Just about right for jogging and thinking about something entirely different. 

I pass the washing line and a wet towel slaps me across the face.

New game of dodge the towel – nice distraction.

The garden is very soggy.  It’s the time of year when roses start to come into leaf only to rot on the stems before being burned to a crisp by the French sunshine.  Every year I get rid of the most susceptible varieties and every year I try another.  Result – more blackspot and yellow leaves.

What we need is astroturf and a pool.

I notice there is a bird’s nest in the Red Robin bush.  It seems that the sacrifice made by previous birds to the cat kingdom is a ritual that will continue.  What to do?  Spray cat deterrent? Build a fence? Frighten away the bird?  Let nature take its course?

Last year the cat did the frightening.  Mother bird fled.  Baby birds got eaten (I presume).

I check my time.  Three minutes left.  I could run for another hour or so…

Inside for stretches and time for a nice coffee – we have a machine!  Al is now officially running on caffeine – locked away in his office being a wage slave. 

I’m running on sauerkraut, grated carrot and boiled ham.  Got to shift a few kilos for the good weather.  Only fair on the neighbours.

A vendredi x

Week Three 3.3.17

Steps 3203  km 2.57  cal. 242  time 25m

Toast, tea, grapefruit juice and, on a sudden whim, a little of the next episode of Fortitude to ease ourselved into the day.  Must say I’m hooked. 

I have a student this morning – exceptionellement.  So running is delayed a little, allowing the sun to establish itself in my French garden.  Nice.  I change, forget to warm up and get outside before someone asks me to do anything. 

Echo and the Bunnymen are Breaking the Back of Love and I’m loving it.  Tones of Bowie.  Energising.  Then comes Frankie with Two Tribes and I up my pace.  It’s time I cut the grass.  Need rabbits or a goat.

The wind blows my hair around and the music keeps coming.  Then, disaster!  Gary Jules and Mad World.  It’s as though I’ve been given chocolates, a good book and a sedative.  I ramp up my resistance and don’t skip the song, punching the air I let the lyrics fly over my head.  Going nowhere, going nowhere…  No expression, no expression… Why does he have to repeat everything.  I’m on a downward spiral.  When people run in circles…My hackles rise.  I will not give in. 

At last, Radar Love!  Memories of university life, a well-stocked juke box, Special Brew and blackcurrant.  I’m back in the smoke, in the dirt and the LIFE.  Keele, with its vibrant students’ union and liberal politics.  Rugby boys bare their bums in the bar, girls keep their distance and smoke demurely (some of them).  There is noise and a sense that anything is possible.

Time’s up.  My cheeks glow.  It’s almost time for lunch.

Happy days!

See you next week?  I’ll try to have some pics next time.