i am training, honest!

so...my sister said i should keep a bit of a training log on here (i think she gets that if i think the world is watching, i'll try harder). i was disinclined until today, when after a complete fail of a day-mainly sat in bed alternating between internetting* and eating, i dragged myself out for a run and did 4.3 miles in 38mins 40s on some hills. this works out at about 9mins/mile.

central park loop the loop

4.30 miles / 6.92 km

now to put that in perspective:

when i started running 4 years ago now (?!) i ran 11 minute miles. on a good day. since then i got to a comfortable place where i was running 10 minute miles as standard. that was fine by me. occasionally in a parkrun i would run sub 9 minute miles, but it was a rare thing, and when i was feeling particularly fit.

then nearly a year ago i did the saunders mountain marathon and buggered my itb, this came on top of buggering my ankle running the MK half on the back of roughly 3 training runs. i decided the only sensible thing to do was give up on running til i could trust myself to train properly. over the following months i swan occasionally, then before christmas i started in the gym. i got a program from one of the lovely instructors at kingsbridge leisure centre, who suggested i needed to work on my glutes, cos my other problems all probably stemmed from there. so i did. sporadically.

since the new year i've been putting a lot more work in, and several of you will probably know that i gave up rest days for lent (which for the most part has been a success so far, if you use similarly lenient definitions of what constitutes exercise as i do), and today's run would seem to be proof that it's paying off, given that i didn't even think i was running that hard!

so from now on monday will be training log day, that way i will have to suffer the fear of posting if i think about skiping a training session.

i'm relying on you guys to judge me.

jin x

*internetting: time spent randomly browsing for stuff-to-buy-that-will-never-be-bought, stuff-to-make-that-will-never-be-made and other general interweb procrastination such as facebooking and blog reading

110 days to go

my name is jinni and i'm a gearaholic

gearaholics: also commonly known as gear whores, and occasionally as total bores... nonetheless i'm loving the justification this trip gives me to splash out many pennies on wonderfully lightweight kit:

first things first: the boots! purchased from the very helpful pete bland sports and weighing in at less than 400g per boot are the roclite 400 GTX's - marketed as the world's lightest leather and goretex boot. they've been out for a few small jaunts now and so far are proving very comfy:

inov8 roclite 400 GTX

next up: the tent. springfield camping was the source for this beauty which was gifted to me by my wonderful father for christmas and birthday combined. weighing only 920g at a maximum, it's one of the lightest tents i came across and it isn't even a single skin. the best bit though...it's red! (admittedly this may not help with the wild camping situation, a nice unobtrusive green version may have made more sense, but then it wouldn't have fit my colour scheme):

 

terra nova laser competition

possibly the most crucial bit of kit: the bag. i was brave and went for a fairly small bag, justification being that my tent, sleeping bag and matt will all be tiny, and i don't want to end up filling a bigger bag with loads of food etc. that will just weigh me down. therefore i plugged for the 34 litre version of the osprey exos from the climbers shop: a light weight pack which still has a proper metal frame support in the back and a nice ventilation bit which will no doubt prove ineffective against overheating, but will be much better than nothing (hopefully): 

osprey exos 34

as soon as pay day comes i'll be completing the sleeping set up with a sleeping mat which gets awesome reviews:

thermarest neoair

and then i'll be ready to road test it all...dartmoor here i come!

jin x

Thunderbirds are go!

or at least i am! finally got round to booking all my hostels, so there's no way out now. a few changes to the timetable (due to fully booked youth hostels) mean i'll now be camping in a proper site just after the lizard, and staying with a friend in st agnes.

117 days till i'll be standing here:

* http://www.britishwalks.org/walks/Named/NationalTrails/SWCP.php

in between hostels it'll be wild camping as much as i can get away with, which brings me on to the awesomely lightweight kit i've been procuring for said camping, details on their way...

jin x