LE JOG

[El Gordo]

Welcome aboard LE JOG. Bear with me.

On October 8, I mentioned in my blog:

"Oh yes, and I had a weird idea for a long distance 'virtual' run, or even race, that we can all take part in. More later. Am just mentioning it here to remind me."

You thought I'd forgotten... And you may well wish I had.

You are likely to think this a weird suggestion, but here it is anyway. I was considering whether I should have any running goals for 2010 along the lines of 1000 miles, or whatever people usually come up with. That's a reasonable goal to have, but then I thought, how about making it a bit more interesting than just logging 1000 miles. How about running from Lands End to John O'Groats?



Not literally, of course. I'm thinking about a virtual amble up the by-ways of England, and Scotland, using http://www.mapmyrun.com.

The idea is to get to John O'Groats eventually. Not by the shortest route, and avoiding motorways. Even avoiding A roads, if that's possible. Just a leisurely amble through some of the lesser-known back roads of the nation. The plan would be to set off, save the route, then reopen it next time, and add the mileage from the previous end point.

A weird idea, I know, and hauntingly pointless, but it's just one of those mind games I have to play to help keep motivated.

Anyone want to join in? We could aim to meet up in various places along the way, like various favoured hostelries, or football grounds.

Just an idea....

If you're interested, here's what to do. Go to mapmyrun.com. Open an account (free of charge). Fiddle about with the slightly annoying interface, and work out how to move around and how to edit a previously saved route. Whether you keep saving the same route, or do a Save As, is up to you. I'd recommend the latter.

Put the URL in your signature.

Every time you have a run, add the mileage to the end of the previous one. MapMyRun will automatically increment the mileage to show the new total.

This isn't a competition, so there are very few rules. In fact, you can write your own. One of mine is that I can't include treadmill miles. This is an outdoor challenge, after all

Starts tomorrow, Jan 1st 2010, and my aim is to end up at JOG sometime this year. Shortest road route is around 870 miles, so the trip is likely to be rather longer than that. Would hope to get to the destination by 31st Dec 2010, but who knows?

Right. See you in Cornwall somewhere?

[Mid Life Crisis Marathon Man]

Welcome aboard LE JOG. Bear with me...

...Right. See you in Cornwall somewhere?

I like the idea EG, sounds like good fun and a nice goal for 2010. I would have to include treadmill miles though, or I'll never get there. They're still miles run, after all.

I'll suss out the website a tad later and open an account.

I'm in.

[Sweder]

Not sure I've fully grasped the concept yet, but if you mean we accumulate actual run miles and sort of paste them onto a map route from LE to JOG via some kind of clever interface with MapMyRun then ... it sounds like fun. If you're suggesting that we actually drive to the last point on the map and ... but no, that's not it at all, is it? Right, sorry. Nett result of cheese & crackers and too much Cava.

I'm in.

[El Gordo]

Welcome aboard guys. Not sure if this one will fly, but I'm desperate enough to try anything.

Yeah, the idea is that actual miles run are plotted on the map, on any roads you fancy -- though they have to be roads you could feasibly run on, so no motorways (the blue ones, for MLCM's benefit). and if avoidable, preferably no major A roads. Start at Lands End. I plan on meandering round a few places that have some resonance for me, so I may go via Dartmoor and Exmoor, for instance. Or maybe not.

Here's my first leg -- http://www.mapmyrun.com/route/gb/cornwal...6346690298

When you go back into your route, you can edit it by finding the (not immediately obvious) "Edit route" link to add the next bit.

I've added a note to mine to describe the first run.

The interface is a bit sticky. To navigate round, you have to use the Google Maps controls -- the up and down arrows and the zoom in and out buttons. If you try to drag the map, you'll create a new point, which isn't what you want. If this happens, you can 'Undo' when you're in Edit mode.

Tip -- it's helpful to have a separate Google Maps window open with the locality displayed so you can more easily see what your options are.

OK MLCM, you can have a treadmill dispensation. I may have to grant myself the same, depending on how my leg performs (blog post will explain).

See you on the road, as I think Sweder said last night.

[ladyrunner]

Great idea EG. I'm in for LE JOG. Training and mapping will start tomorrow.

I already have a mapmyrun.com profile with a few routes on it which maybe viewable on this link:-http://www.mapmyrun.com/user/184451/jedrun

Most of my miles will be made up of downland runs or interval track running which I can convert to LE JOG road miles.

[El Gordo]

Great idea EG. I'm in for LE JOG. Training and mapping will start tomorrow.

I already have a mapmyrun.com profile with a few routes on it which maybe viewable on this link:-http://www.mapmyrun.com/user/184451/jedrun

Most of my miles will be made up of downland runs or interval track running which I can convert to LE JOG road miles.

Great to have you along, LR.

[marathondan]

Sounds good, EG! Tremendous acronym, as well. My route is here. I'm on the bloody A30! Soon be in Staines...

I guess everyone will have seen that you can switch to a satellite map, and show the elevation profile. The user interface is a piece of work though, ain't it?

I don't fancy the routes suggested by Google maps though...

[El Gordo]

Sounds good, EG! Tremendous acronym, as well. My route is here. I'm on the bloody A30! Soon be in Staines...

I guess everyone will have seen that you can switch to a satellite map, and show the elevation profile. The user interface is a piece of work though, ain't it?

I don't fancy the routes suggested by Google maps though...

Bizarre from Google Maps!

Welcome, Dan.

[Sweder]

Crumbs, you're all very pro-active. I need to carve out an hour or two to delve into this technical mire.
So Dan, if you follow the Google Maps suggestion I take it you'll be logging swimming miles as well?
If tready miles count can I have golf miles?
I've not played for months so likely to clock up impressive yardage whilst creating crop circles on the course

[ladyrunner]

I don't fancy the routes suggested by Google maps though...

Me neither for Google maps route - lots of swimming involved!!

AA route planner route looks good (photo attached). It has been set to avoid motorways. 903.0 miles exactly and 20hr 52 mins in a car, but 1 year to run !!

    AA Route Planner image

Off out for my first leg in a few minutes - heading for Penzance today!! (Stanmer Park really for my XC).

Julie

[marathondan]

I haven't bothered to check, but the google maps route may actually make use of valid ferry routes, and thus possibly be the fastest route on foot. Going via Dublin sounds quite fun.

[ladyrunner]

I haven't bothered to check, but the google maps route may actually make use of valid ferry routes, and thus possibly be the fastest route on foot. Going via Dublin sounds quite fun.

The Goggle maps route is via ferries. There is about 400miles of ferry journey's included from Plymouth to France, then France to Ireland.

I'm thinking of planning my route around places that I have visited in my Motorhome over the past 2 years. May also include places that I am hoping to go to this year in the van which at the moment are Snowdonnia, The Lake District, The New Forest and Alton Towers. It could be a very round about route to Scotland.

Ladyrunner's LE JOG route is up and running and available via the hyperlink in my signature.

Julie

[El Gordo]

Excellent, well done Julie. I'm also planning a bit of a meander. I don't have too many associations with Cornwall (though we had a good holiday there a few years ago which was covered in the blog), but I do with Devon, so may wander round there for a bit.

See you on the road.

[Mid Life Crisis Marathon Man]

Yep, I've made a start too, and determined a course (sort of). Will keep details to my training dairy though, so see you there.


Or just skip straight to my LE JOG map here.

[Sweder]

Well, I think I'm in ... my fledgeling attempt at a route is here.

I'm taking my mileage from my SportTracks log which means I can only map mileage recorded on my Garmin. So far this year I've managed 13.07 kilometres, although I got carried away and mapped 11 miles. I'll add a few real miles in a minute to make up the difference; I'm not starting this again! I'm still getting to grips with the ugly MMR interface (yes, despite EG's warnings I did try to drag and drop the map to move around, inadvertently starting my first attempt somewhere in hampshire) so apologies if I backtrack/ re-start several times in the early days.

My route is vaguely coastal. No doubt I'll get fed up and drop into a few towns or points of personal interest along the way. I had the vague nortion of tying this in with my recent adventures with Motorhead & Girlschool with notes from each location on the tour; however I fear this would take a good deal longer than the twelve months we've set ourselves. I'll have to see.

[El Gordo]

Good work all, glad you've entered into the spirit. Just thought it might help to add a bit more interest and motivation to some of those workaday runs.

The interface gets a bit easier to use after a while. Remember you can "Undo" in Edit mode. There was a fix on RW a while ago about a way to see more of the map i.e. without all the ads and wasted screen space. I'll see if I can find it.

[Sweder]

A lovely sunny strut up the winding, climbing hills from St Just to Hellesveor and down into St. Ives this morning.
What a beautiful town this is, a real jewell in Cornwall's crown.

[El Gordo]

Amazingly, I've managed a 3.5 mile lunchtime plod. Leg felt sore today, rather than injured, if you understand the difference, so I went out for a gentle jog, taking it very easy on the frosty pavements. Beautiful day. Calf held up fine.

LE JOG -- I've now meandered through the prehistoric settlement of Sancreed, on the way towards Madron, which sounds like a slightly dangerous place on a distant planet. Trip length so far: 9.7 miles.

[Nigel]

Sennen Cove near Lands End was the scene of many a summer holiday in my childhood.

Here's my route: a year of running 2010.

I'm now following MLCMan along the softer south coast. Stopped off in the scenic village of Mousehole at the harbourside fish restaurant, and I'm presently enjoying an early fish supper overlooking Newlyn Harbour, just west of Penzance. There's a good view of the Newlyn lifeboat from here -- both this Newlyn craft and the Sennen Cove lifeboat have been involved in many dramatic shipwreck rescues over the years.

The City of London branch of the RNLI sponsored a new lifeboat for Sennen which was inaugurated just last year -- here's a video of the new vessel launching, and another clip showing a more typical rescue launch in atrocious storm weather. Hats off to those RNLI bravehearts. I'll stick to the running.

[El Gordo]

Hurrah!

It's Nigel!