Sunday. 

Decisions. Decisions. Decisions.

Have a lay in and go for a run this afternoon? Get up early and get the run done? Forget all about this ridiculous Janathon idea and have a day off?

After much deliberation, it was decided that a ‘get out by 9am’ would, and should, be the way to go. That left enough time for a coffee and a spot of reading.

I’m currently reading ‘Nod’, a really great book, ironically about a world were very few people can actually manage to sleep, unlike this morning where I could have slept until lunchtime. 

That left one more decision to make. This is the dog…

He is old. He loves going for runs at the woods. The only problem is that in the evenings after a run he hobbles around and can barely walk. After a little chat with him, to explain to him to take it steady, we decided he could join us. We were only planning on a gentle run.

Bourne Woods. 6 miles. Cushty.

Total Janathon mileage = 28.5

Well that’s a week gone already. Seven days. I’m happy to report that I’ve managed to get out for a run every day. 

Today is Saturday, so it was the regular trip to Rutland Water for the morning’s parkrun. It was a lovely mild morning, slight mist hanging over the reservoir, but a short-sleeve running morning all the same. 

I love parkrun, I think it’s a great idea: free weekly timed 5k. All you need to do is register online, print off your barcode, bring it along and run. Easy as that.

It’s always nice to have a blast at a 5k every week. This morning my legs found it all a bit of a struggle,started off at a good pace but just couldn’t maintain it. So the last 1k was hard work. I also had the added pressure of trying to hold off a young lad of about 12 in the last 250m. Thankfully I managed to trip him up and leave him crying in the gutter! 

My reward for getting up and out on a Saturday morning? Wetherspoons breakfast. Lovely jubbly.

Total Janathon mileage = 22.3

After running for the last 5 days, plus a parkrun tomorrow morning, I felt as though the legs needed a more relaxing evening.

So it was the gym (yep I know, gym again) for a very gentle half hour on the treadmill. Followed by the obligatory Friday night takeaway. 

Total Janathon mileage = 19.2 

Five days into Janathon and it’s already starting to get very predictable. It’s too cold to go out for a run, so it was off to the gym again for some treadmill action. 

My gym is a pretty crappy place, it doesn’t have a pool or steam room, it’s not one of these swish leisure centres, in fact it doesn’t even have a lot of exercise machines, just massively muscular fellas tensing and strutting about.*

But what it does have, and the highlight of every visit, is a motivation sign…

It’s a simple message: effort is a choice. I think that same mantra works for the blogging as well. As much as the exercise is an effort, the blogging is always a bigger effort. I’m five days in and struggling to write anything interesting. 

So I haven’t.

Total Janathon mileage = 16.7

Run streak = 5 days

* Hopefully they don’t read this blog or they will crush me when I next pop in. 

Now if you’ve come to this space in the World Wide Web hoping to take part in some ridiculous name the George Michael track listing game, I’m afraid you are a day late, try clicking here. 

If, on the other hand, you have come by to check how I’m doing on the fourth day of Janathon, then prepare to be totally underwhelmed.

It was a trip to the gym. Nothing extravagant because after two weeks of excess and 31 days of running on the horizon I’m thinking slowly slowly catchy monkey is the way to go.

3.5 miles.

In other news….

I’m not one to really eat breakfast on work day mornings, but that is about to change. On the way home from the gym I popped into Tesco for a box of my favourite chocolatey sensations…

Total Janathon mileage = 13.2 

Run streak = 4 days

During today’s run I was accompanied, metaphorically, by George Michael. I was never the greatest George Michael fan, Wham was all a bit pop for me, even as a teenager I had an eclectic taste in music, but what it didn’t include was a great deal of popular music. His solo career interested me slightly more, the album Listen Without Prejudice was a great album and I took the time today to enjoy it once again on today’s run.

So please if you will, read, or should I say, listen without prejudice to today’s Janathon blog…

Tomorrow I am back to school, my freedom has ended. I’ve been praying for time to move very slowly so that I can enjoy the last day of the holidays. Before even returning I’m waiting for that day when we break up for the holidays again; to heal the pain and set the soul free. 

I had to run on my own today, Kath came round this morning to take Helen out on a 6-miler, they won’t go when I go, so I expect it’ll be raining by the time I get out. 

As the new term approaches, my mind starts to think about planning lessons. Running is good for that. For a creative writing task I had this idea to give the students random characters, like some cowboys and angels, then get them to produce a story. Although I’m not sure how long I will be waiting for them to create something good with that idea. I’m not sure, maybe it’s something to save for the future. 

Well, that’s three days down and three days done, I’m my mother’s pride. 

Total Janathon mileage = 9.7

Total Listen Without Prejudice tracks surreptitiously placed into blog = 10 (all of them)