Run 3 miles, Plant a Tree !

The Manchester TreeAthlon, Heaton Park, October 2009

For a few weeks now, I’ve been doing a regular jog, aiming towards last Sunday’s Manchester Treeathlon, a 5km run around Heaton Park in Manchester.

Last Sunday, the big day came, so I set off to meet a few friends and colleagues. Registration was faultless when we got there, so we put on our t-shirts and waited for things to start.

Ian Cheesman from BBC Radio was there, taking the mickey, and half an hour before the run some too-cheerful-looking blonde gym bunny took to the stage and took us all through a thorough warm up. All I could think was "if I warmed up this much every time I ran a couple of miles, I'd never leave my bloody house"!

At 12.00, the run started. At around 12.10, we crossed the start line at the back of the pack. Sometime around Tuesday night, we finished! Well, it wasn't that bad, we actually had a great jog and here's proof that we finished. You have to take my word for it that we went round the course too...

For those of you that like to see the route, here it is in glorious MapMyRideColour:


It was a brilliantly organised event, plus we got trees and a frizbee at the end! What more could you possibly ask for??

I reckon I'll do it again next year, anyway.... :o)

Running - No, No Bikes: Purely Temporary

Running Amok

A little over a month ago, I received an email about a 5k run taking place this Sunday, 4th October 2009, in Heaton Park, Manchester.  The Manchester TreeAthlon is a fun run aimed at encouraging people to raise money and support the planting of more trees in and around our fair city.

Foolishly, I decided to run.  Anyone who knows me, knows I enjoy cycling.  They also know how unfit I am.  In our weekly Utility Masters football matches, I'm well known for being unable to run both ways along a pitch without a decent rest!

So, on Thursday 27th September, I did my first run.  One minute running, one minute resting, 8 times:  Absolutely blimmin' knackered!

Now, one month later, I'm doing FIVE minutes running, two minutes resting, 4 times.  The difference is incredible.  After five minutes of running, I know I could do more.  My legs are in better shape than they have been for years.  I have more stamina at our weekly footy matches too (though no more skill, alas!).

This has been done without any massive effort, just regular jogs whilst increasing the time running and reducing the time resting gradually.  You can see more at MapMyRide.

In short, I've run 28 miles, over 14 nights, burning about 2,500 calories in the last month.  I've lost a few pounds in weight too, but the biggest winner has been my fitness.

Once this Sunday's run is out of the way, I'll be getting the bike out again I promise!

Fitness Fumblings

Fatness, Fitness and Forgetfulness

We went to Ikea recently. That's bad enough news on its own, but this time we picked up some bathroom scales.  Needless to say, the inevitable weigh-in yielded bad news so I'm now in the midst of a bid to lose 9 lbs.

As a result, we're doing two things to motivate us:
1. Running in the Manchester Treeathlon, a 5km run in October, which is forcing us to go out and do a little jogging every couple of nights.
2. Trying to use the bike a bit more often.

On both fronts, I've decided to record my efforts on my own MapMyRide.com profile, which you can look at by following the link.  If you're a member, connect with me on there why don't you?  I often forget to log my runs for a few days, but generally we're doing well and it's even got to the stage where a few nights without exercise cause a bit of uneasiness!


The best bike loop I've found from our place so far is mapped on there, and also shown below.  Let me know what you think, please!




So far, I've lost 5lbs so it's going well!