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

630 miles in 39 days

so the south west coast path - hereafter "swcp" cos i'm lazy - website says that walking the whole path should take 7 to 8 weeks (49 to 56 days), but i'm doing it in 39... why 39? that's how many days there are between the end of my course and my sister's hen do. it works out at an average of about 16 miles a day and since that seems vaguely do-able i decided i'm going for it.

i'm planning on walking it solo, but i'd greatly appreciate any company if anyone feels like joining me for anything from a couple of days to a couple of weeks.

my itinerary is based around when i'll be passing youth hostels:

leave me a comment below to let me know if you wanna join in...

welcome...

so i finally got round to starting the blog i've been planning for ages!

to start with, this blog is going to focus on the adventure i have planned for this summer: walking all 630 miles of the south west coast path. once that's done it'll cover the adventure that is my life

expect itinerary info, training tales, geeky kit stuff and fear, as it begins to sink in that i'll actually be doing this!

thanks for stopping by

jin x