Neglect & Action Jen

Oh dear, my poor blog. I have rather neglected it again. Poor thing. So I have given it a bit of a remake and I have written some crafting posts which I will send out over the next little while.

One thing which I have noticed is that this blog is starting to get a little overwhelmed with the amount of posts on exercise. And so  I have decided to set up another blog entirely related to my training, races and thoughts around those things. That way this blog can get back to what it is supposed to be about. Or at least it is when I am not neglecting it. If you would like to follow my exercise stuff then feel free over at Action Jen, it will be good to see some friendly faces.

I do have an excuse – setting up my business, doing my MA, administration for a theatre company and a large amount of volunteer work as well. But still, I really should write more as I get a great deal of pleasure out of it.

So, no promises as to how often I will write, we all know that that does not work well for me, but still, some more writing will happen here!

Women in marathons

Well, I signed up for a marathon this week – the Brighton marathon, which is happening next April, so a year to train!  I will be doing it for either Cancer Research or Mind, depending on which one I am allocated to, both are important to me.

I am very excited and very scared, all at the same time!

However I was surprised to see this article today – first from Spikes and Heels and then more detail at the BBC.

The city of Boston is staging its annual marathon. Kathrine Switzer became the first woman to officially run the race 45 years ago, despite stewards trying to physically force the 20-year-old off the road. Here she recalls how a female runner caused such a fuss.

Anything long like 800m, or even longer, God forbid, was considered dangerous, de-sexing and de-feminising for a woman

Anyone else completely and utterly shocked by this? It is only forty five years ago, just 12 years before I was born. I am totally surprised. They actually tried to attack her. I got really rather emotional reading this story, but maybe that’s just me – watching the London Marathon makes me cry and when I finish a race I find it rather hard not to burst into tears.

Now of course we have amazing women runners like Rosie Swale-Pope, Paula Radcliffe, Jane Tomlinson,  and all the Ultra running women of this article.  Not to mention the Triathlete (one day…one day for me!) Liz Blatchford.

So, a big thank you to Katherine Switzer, I cannot imagine not being allowed to run.

Overwhelmed

Is pretty much how I am feeling at the moment and somewhat wondering if I am suffering from SAD. I have an ear infection at the moment (although pretty much over it now), so I have been pretty much getting ill, ill, or getting over being ill since November. It is getting a tad tedious to say the least.

Although I have realised this is possibly because I am trying to do far too much and not physically relaxing at all. So I have decided to give myself a break, I don’t have to post witty, insightful posts here twice a week, no-one is making me. I don’t have to complete all of the reading challenges that I stupidly set myself when I have some hardcore reading to do. Doing a Masters is bloody hard work actually and there is TONS of reading, let alone working on top of it and then challenging myself to read more!

I am not good at physically relaxing, and so on the suggestion of a friend I am thinking of going back to yoga to help my poor, stressed body to relax. But I am not doing that until the Mindfulness course has finished. One thing at a time.

I am also not going to train for a triathlon, or start outdoor swimming/racing this year. Nor am I going to enter all of the races that I had marked into my diary. But I am going to do the silly notorious nights one and then the Royal Parks half marathon at the beginning of October.

Yesterday was Valentine’s day, and the OH was away on business, so I ordered a pizza, ate an entire garlic pizza bread by myself and watched two no brain requried films in the dark, just by candle light.

Why don’t I do that more? Just lie in candle light, so much nicer than electric lights.

I have also started to get into audiobooks, they are wonderful, reading without the actual reading part. Which quite frankly is too much for me at the moment, I picked up a book I was looking forward to the other day and I just could not read it, I had read too much about entrepreneuralism to even read another word. So I will listen to an audiobook by candle light.

So, basically, a programme of TLC has to be implemented at the moment in order to stop me feeling overwhelmed and to just relax.

Oh, and we have also been featured in Off Beat Bride, which I find totally shocking, as this was the uber-cool website that I spent most time crying over as I just wasn’t that cool. Turns out I am and we just had a wedding which suited us, whatever cool blogs said. LOL

2012

Well here we are, well in into 2012 now.

I have several things which I would like to focus on for this year, note I say focus, and not resolutions. I want these to be positive and not things to beat myself up with:

Running

The last few months have been a running disaster for me, I have caught lurgy after lurgy and it has had big repercussions with my asthma, I am going to write a post about that soon. However, I have been fixed and I have been out running since I got the all clear and remembered how much I love it and how grumpy I get when I don’t run. My aim for this year is to run a 10K in under an hour. Now, admittedly this is ten whole minutes off of my current PB, but that was on a really hilly course, similar to what I train on. I am hoping that if I get some treadmill training in and race on the flat I might be able to do this. So that I what I am thinking.

Blog 

After a lot of thought recently I have realised that I really enjoy writing and that this blog is a big outlet for that. So I am going to post at least twice each week. I know it’s not a lot, but I have been really sporadic in my writing and I want to put some focus on that and do something which I enjoy so much some more!

Happiness project 

I have already posted about the happiness project here  and I want to carry on with that. As a quick update on all of my daily resolutions I am doing really well on all of them. Except fruit. I haven’t managed to do it once, which is rather sad. I have got to get more focused on that! This covers a lot of things that would normally be covered in a big focus like I am writing here, but I would rather just think about them as the headlines of movement, space, spiritual, achieve, nagging task, fruit and be a good person. 

MA 

Well, strangely enough, I want to complete it to the best of my ability and make friends and contacts by the end of it. I have got my placement sorted out (except it is not just an internship – they are paying me for four months) and I am very excited about that and I want to do the best job that I can do, and it is a big challenge – I have to raise £40K in three months and organise a tour – it is a small theatre company. I also want to have something lined up for when I have finished – be that a job, several jobs, or my own company up and running. It is all very exciting and I want to have to trust in myself that it will all be good!

Spiritual 

As I have mentioned before I have the Mindfulness Based Cognitive Therapy course starting next week, which I am really looking forward to doing. I want to use this as a chance to consolidate those things into my practice and refresh it. I will share it with you along the way.

I also want to continue my Pagan practice, although at the moment, I am not sure how that will take shape, maybe I just need to let it evolve, rather than trying to pin it down.  Maybe a little more trust that it will all be good!

Creativity 

Here I am going to acknoweldge that I am a creative person (despite what my rational, logical brain keeps telling me) and I am going to allow myself to express that this year, in what ever form that takes. It maybe writing, music, crafting or anything else. And again I am going for unplanned and unstructured.

Overall, I think this year that I will try to allow some things to flow and to trust me a little bit. Maybe that should be my ‘word of the year’. Trust.

Rat Race

This weekend I completed my first ever adventure race – the Capital Capers – Rat Race.

It was set in London & unlike normal races there wasn’t a route set out – it was across the whole of London.

It was good- we got given a map, some checkpoints and set off for 2.5 hours of running. The checkpoints that I stopped at included having a bucket of water chucked over me in a car wash, climbing a wall, throwing and catching an egg with my partner (it mustn’t hit the floor, or it’s a fail), karaoke singing, finding little chip readers and other strange stuff.

All of these are great, but a climbing wall, in running shoes, when you have just run 10K is seriously hard work!

I ran with a friend, and we did ok. We both decided that we were doing this for fun and were not fussed about getting as many points as possible. Which is good, because there were some people who were taking it seriously – I mean, really seriously.

A good example of this is when I was crossing London Bridge someone had already got to the checkpoint before me and they were charging back across the bridge – I didn’t see them, looked down and the next thing I knew I was on the floor. Their shoulder had hit me on the cheekbone and knocked me to the floor. They stopped for a little while (about 10 secs) and then charged off again. Other teams stopped to help me up and make sure I was ok (I hit my head on the floor as I went down too). My OH and I worked out it was a 16 mile per hour collision! On bare skin!

I was ok, but when the adrenaline wore off at the end of the race I was in a lot of pain, so I went to the ambulance which was there. They told me to go home and head to A&E. (ER). I was not amused and wasn’t going to go, but my OH made me. Still, I got the all clear – with no breaks. However I do have a nice black eye, which is going to be a great impression to give for my first day at university.

It was a great day and has really whetted my appetite for these things! However due to my hypermobility I easily bruise/damage and heal badly. My catalogue of injuries for the day is: bad cut on my knee, twisted ankle, 3inch square (literally – it looks like a space invader) bruise on my back and a black eye! Still, that is why they make you carry a first aid kit!

I am challenged now to increase my fitness, so that next year I can do the all day version of this, with a mixture of biking/running/kayaking! Whoop!

Yearly goal update

Hello there

Today I have a very important interview, so keep your fingers crossed for me!

I thought I would give you an update on my yearly goals:

To run 5K without walking

Yep, I completed this in February I think!

To train for, and run, a 10K race without injuring myself

Not only did I manage this, but I kicked arse! My first 10K was done on the 5th June at Bluewater, Kent at an astounding time of 1hr 10 mins! I was so, so happy and in fact I still am every time I think about it! I have been surprised how much I love running – it has turned into my meditation practice, gives me valuable time to myself and allows me to feel strong in myself.

It has taught me that I can achieve a goal without throwing myself at it at 20 million miles an hour and that a slow and steady approach does get there in the end. This is a really valuable lesson for me, as I tend to hurtle around crashing into things.

By the way that is a Buff on my head. If you don’t know what that is you should find out! I love the things, but apparently I have a tendency to bore people about them, so I won’t tell you!

To have a happy and enjoyable wedding

Still a work in progress really – but time is ticking away, quite frankly it is bloody scary! It’s the 30th of July – so really not long at all to go.

To finish my quilt

My quilt is finished and I am incredibly proud of it – possibly unreasonably so, but it is the biggest project I have undertaken and completed. I am very impressed with myself and I will do a full post on it soon.

To do my grade 3 exam in the flute

I have my grade 3 next Friday and I am really, really nervous. I also feel a bit of an idiot being 32 and taking an exam that children do when they are 5 or something. But I enjoy playing the flute and I am sad that I can’t do it next academic year. This is why am taking my flute exam a few weeks before my wedding, rather than in November as was the original plan!

To enjoy work

Ha! Well, you have seen my education, education, oh bollocks post. So I have greatly enjoyed my work, but it really hasn’t worked out the way that I thought it would – there are no jobs available to me. Part of this is because I have decided to specialise in further education (16 year olds plus as a general rule), rather than school, but even so, there is not many jobs available.

To find additional work

Yep, I did – working in the photography department of the college, but that actually ends in July.

So, some really great, positive stuff in there – which I am pleased about, the only thing that hasn’t gone entirely to plan is the work situation. Hopefully I will able to shed some light on that soon.