LetJog14 Done!

This morning I went to the pool and towards the end of my swim set I reached John O’Groats. That means I can take all of the rest of the year off!!

If you don’t know what I’m talking about, then a group of us on Facebook committed to completing a distance equivalent to travelling from Land’s End to John O’Groats (the two most distant parts of mainland Britain) in out training in 2014.

It was a great idea and I know that it has helped many of us to keep focussed on the important (but often slightly dull and certainly not much fun) training sets when there isn’t an event to aim for. It’s this training that lays the foundations for great performances later on, but equally it is this training that is often missed.

Most of the group are runners, so they have run the distance. I however, as a swimmer, have allowed myself to include swimming miles (multiplied by three to equate to running distance) and cycling miles (divided by four). So my totals for the year are:

– Swimming – 402.37kms = 1,207.10kms
– Running – 128.13kms
– Cycling – 524.27kms = 131.07kms

– Total – 1,466.30kms

There seemed to be a little confusion about the exact distance at the very start of the challenge, so I adopted a distance of 1,400kms. Some others have been aiming for 1,400 or 1,407 I think. If I had gone for 1,407 then I would have hit the target during the first few lengths of my swim on 15th December.

Next Year

Now that the 2014 challenge is done, it’s time to look at 2015. I’m definitely going to sign up for it again, but this time I’m going to increase my target distance to 1,600kms (or 1,000 miles).

I’ve actually managed to complete the 2014 distance even though the last four months have been well below target (fortunately I had built up a surplus over the summer), so I should be able to manage an extra 140kms if I don’t slack off at the end of the year. That said, at the moment my main swimming activity is in technique drills which take longer than just regular swimming, so my swimming distances may be down slightly at the start of the year. Although I could make them back up with one swim alone in May,

And if you want to read more about the challenge, then check out this post by the guy who set it up.

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LetJog14 Update

At the start of the year a good Twitter friend of mine (I don’t think we’ve ever actually met in real life, we should correct that Dan) suggested that the runners of Twitter challenge themselves to run from Land’s End to John O’Groats – a total of 1,460kms – or LetJog.

100 #LETJOG14 kilometres this month

It’s only the 20th of the month and I’ve already hit the 100km mark for the month. To be honest I’m pretty damn pleased with that.

For those of you not of a mathematics persuasion, that’s 5kms per day on average.

Of course for me, much of it has been swum rather than run, the breakdown is:

– Swimming – 24.4kms
– Running – 12.94kms
– Cycling – 68.09kms
– Total (according to my algorithm) – 103.16

I’m just 13.5kms away from hitting the total required for the month – and I should do most of that during my swim tomorrow morning. If I keep going at this pace I could catch up everything I missed in January and be just ahead of the target required to complete the challenge in the year. That said, there’s a danger that I might be in Barcelona for the whole of next week with work (I was just planning to be out there for two days), so that might scupper the plans a little. Even so, I’m pleased with where I’m at right now.

#Febathon week 2

Half way through the week I almost failed. I nearly ignored Febathon after a tough day in London, but, as this post proves, I sucked it up and embraced the spirit of Febathon.

Slightly ironic then that the very next day (Wednesday) I genuinely forgot and therefore did nothing! I should have planked and done some press ups in my hotel room in London that morning, but clearly not learning from the night before’s almost failure I didn’t and planned to do it that evening. It wasn’t until the following morning that I realised that I’d forgotten. But that aberration then gave me the licence to have another blank day on Thursday.

So two blank days, but here are the full weekly stats (Mon 10th – Sun 16th):

– Planked – 60 seconds
– Press ups – 30
– Swimming – 9.85kms
– Running – 2.81kms
– Cycling – 16.65kms
– #LETJOG14 total – 36.52kms

I’m now 13.6kms ahead of February’s #LETJOG14 total – although still behind in total after falling behind in January.

My own personal #Febathon

Unfortunately I was ill in January and so I couldn’t complete Janathon. But I loved the idea of it and the focus and discipline that it brings, so I wanted to try and recreate that on my own. And so #Febathon was born.

As you can tell, I’m not blogging every day, and I certainly don’t have the great support of the Janathon community. But I do have my own determination and the rules of the ‘athon to keep me going. Those rules are quite simple – do some specific and dedicated exercise every day (ie don’t count something you would do anyway). And so far in February I’ve stuck to those rules:

– Sat 1st – we went to watch the world record swim, so it was just planking and press ups
– Sun 2nd – I went for a run, an actual run in the outdoors and everything
– Mon 3rd – a swim session, but I wasn’t feeling great, so just 2.4km
– Tues 4th / Weds 5th – a couple of days in London for work, but I planked and did press ups on both days
– Thurs 6th – a gym session, which includes the bike and the treadmill (as well as a set of core strength exercises)
– Fri 7th – a swim session and this one felt good – 3.4km
– Sat 8th – a quick [stationary] bike session followed by a quick swim

And later today I plan to do a gym session, followed by a quick swim.

The totals so far are:

– Planked – 270 seconds
– Press ups – 120
– Swimming – 7.05kms
– Running – 5.87kms
– Cycling – 23.88kms
– #LETJOG14 total – 32.99kms

I’m currently 0.34kms behind my monthly target (not including the amount I was behind in January), but I should be well ahead of the pace after tonight’s gym session.

Getting there… slowly.

90 down – 1,310 to go

January has been a tough month for me as far as training goes – mainly due to having two weeks almost completely off as I was ill. It forced me to pull out of Janathon and affected my #LETJOG14 distance. However, I’m starting to feel like I’m getting back on track.

The January numbers in detail are:

– Swimming – 22.65kms
– Running – 16.7kms
– Cycling – 21.2kms

Based on the way I count that gives me a total of 89.95kms for the month.

I’m currently nearly 27kms behind the monthly average I need to hit, but that said in the last six days I’ve done the equivalent of over 43kms, so I feel confident that I’ll soon be back on track.

Today’s swim was a great example of how I feel at the moment as I got in the pool and just swam. I didn’t do any sets I decided just to keep going non-stop for an hour. The first 15 minutes or so were tough as I had to talk myself into continuing, but then the laps and the minutes just flew by and I swam well – apart from the 10 lengths I had to swim breaststroke behind someone who wouldn’t let me overtake! I had to get out after an hour, but I could have just kept going no problem – so I’ve looking forward to the 10km swim in a few weeks time.

I’m back… kinda

After a couple of weeks of feeling ill and therefore not exercising I managed a very gentle 1km in the pool on Saturday. On Sunday I did 1.5km. Tonight I did 2km and even finished with the last 200m at 3:43. Pleased with that.

Janathon is over…

… for me at least.

It all started well and I ran for the first three days – not far, but further than I’d run probably since Janathon. Then I had a couple of days where I couldn’t fit a run in, but I still managed to plank and do press-ups. A swim on day six and I felt like I was kicking Janathon’s butt. But then I got my butt kicked.

I caught the horrible cold / flu that seems to be going round. What was even worse was that it had already laid me low just before Xmas. That time I put it down to being generally run down at the end of the year and ready for my Xmas break. I had assumed that the break had done the trick and the first few days of Janathon were great.

But then it came back and it came back hard.

The big hit was the lack of energy and the flu-like achy feeling. Although I didn’t have the energy to swim or run, at first I tried to keep with Janathon and plank and do press-ups, but eventually they had to stop too. It was hard enough getting out of bed and going to work (and I even admitted defeat with that one day and spent the day in bed).

Fingers crossed and touching wood I think I’m over it now (I even managed to swim 1km this afternoon – although I was worn out afterwards), but Janathon is clearly over. Not only that, but I’m already well behind in my #LETJOG14 target too.

I love the idea of Janathon and so I’m going to try and do a full month of exercise in February instead. It’ll be mainly swimming and running with planking and press-ups on days where my schedule doesn’t allow for anything else.

Good luck to the rest of the Janathon participants.

Janathon day 9

I’m feeling a bit better today – still not 100%, but well enough to go to the pool for a very gentle swim this evening.

I did 50 lengths, so 1,250m.

I do have another category to add to the list of bad pool etiquette (see previous lists here, here, here and in fact here – a bit of a bug bear of mine!). This one is the “This is what I always do” – you know the person, the one who always swims the same routine no matter how busy the pool and no matter how many people they are obstructing.

The pool was very busy tonight with a lot of “real” swimmers in the fast lane. As I only wanted a gentle swim anyway I decided to go in the medium lane and do a mixture of breaststroke and crawl. In the medium lane was an older guy that I’ve seen before, but I’ve never paid much attention too (cos I was in the fast lane before). Well, he was doing a little routine of 1 length breaststroke, 1 length front crawl and 1 length backstroke. This would have been fine except for 2 key points:

1 – his backstroke was as slow as an arthritic snail
2 – the medium lane was full (cos the fast lane was so busy) so he kept holding everyone up

Of course he hardly ever let people past and continued to do this annoyingly slow routine for about 30 minutes. Oh well, at least I was only doing a gentle swim.

Back to swimming

Yesterday morning I was back in my usual territory of the swimming pool for my first swim of the new year. I’d spent the first few days of Janathon and #LETJOG14 running and planking, now it was time for some proper exercise :-).

I did:
– a gentle 200m warm-up.
– a 400m swim. The original intention was to increase the pace every 100m, but I got caught behind some traffic in the lane, so I kept it nice and easy – but I still did it in 7:35. Not so long ago that would have been a great time for me, yesterday it felt slow.
– 20 x 100m at 1:50 with a 10-sec rest between each.
– a 400m cool-down swim.

I started a bit late as I was a bit slow getting up and off and the lane was full of “tourists”, so I didn’t get quite as much done as I thought I might, but still a solid 3km.