Off-season 2015

[Sweder]

Yes, I'm in. My status of RC Luddite-in-Residence means my graphical reports will be slightly different.
100 miles in 100 days it is. Is there an agreed start/ finish date for all, or are we unilateral centurions?

[Mid Life Crisis Marathon Man]

Yes, I'm in. My status of RC Luddite-in-Residence means my graphical reports will be slightly different.
100 miles in 100 days it is. Is there an agreed start/ finish date for all, or are we unilateral centurions?

Well I think some of us have already started at different dates, so it looks to be 100 days of your own choosing. I started this morning.

[Charliecat5]

Yes, I'm in. My status of RC Luddite-in-Residence means my graphical reports will be slightly different.
100 miles in 100 days it is. Is there an agreed start/ finish date for all, or are we unilateral centurions?

Hey!  Can I refer you to a post a couple of days ago on this very fine thread. 

[marathondan]

My status of RC Luddite-in-Residence means my graphical reports will be slightly different.

You'll be drawing on the ground with a stick and then snapping it on your phone? Excellent!

[marathondan]

A workmanlike 3.6 this morning around the Bracknell mill pond, before breakfast. The catchup continues; I reckon I should be on track by early July. As mentioned before, I have backdated my start so that I finish at the end of August, for reasons that will become apparent later. As such, I'll be supping an ale with my feet up when the rest of you still have a few weeks to go.

   

[marathondan]

Edited -- er, maybe I'm over-egging this pudding.  But a starving man will... tend to over-egg his pudding. Mmm. Time for a spot of brunch, I think.

You don't want to end up with pudding on your face.

So you're going with the "daily mile" strategy, both running and rowing? Interesting...

[marathondan]

Never let it be said that I am not a creature of habit. Or that I use too many double negatives. I'm sure the routine will waver sooner or later, but for now I'm in a minor groove, and chasing down that dotted line.

   

[marathondan]

3 miles round the home field at 0630 this morning. A bit different from the mid-winter late night slogs through rain and fog. The grass is thigh-high, except where an enterprising National Trust worker has been along the path with a tractor and mower. A few bunnies out and about. The elderflowers are in full bloom. Yesterday I stopped off on the way to work to cut some, then last night made cordial and champagne - my first attempt at the latter.

   

[Charliecat5]

I did 1.7 miles at lunch time... flat sprints and hill sprints.  Tomorrow, I'm up early for a long one.

[marathondan]

A bit of a blippette over the weekend, so I needed a slightly longer session to catch up. Last night I stayed up to watch the Lionesses, but I was still able to spring out of bed and hit my home field long loop (4.7 miles) at 6am, before the school run. Another lovely morning, and I'm only about 4 miles short of the dotted line now.

   

[marathondan]

I did 1.7 miles at lunch time... flat sprints and hill sprints.  Tomorrow, I'm up early for a long one.

Mix it up, fit them in when you can... excellent.

[marathondan]

Another pre-work outing under summer skies to keep the gentle miles up. This time I headed out of Bracknell towards a small meadow that I last tried in winter when it was a sodden bog. Rather different this morning, hard trails and waist-high grasses. The field is less than a mile around, so a couple of laps of that is a rather poor return for the mile each way of pavement running needed to get there. But still, a damn sight better than driving to a gym.

Within 2.5 miles of the target now.

   

[marathondan]

The blipmeister blips again. Sunday morning would have been an ideal opportunity to bank miles, but instead I caught up with the Lionesses, with my own lion cubs on the sofa. I've been impressed with the standard of football. Naomi and I went to see England v Germany at Wembley earlier in the year, and I was underwhelmed. But the control and passing - not particularly England men's strong points - have been excellent. Not quite so impressed with the refereeing though. But 'twas ever thus, I suppose.

So I grabbed a cheeky daytime effort after work yesterday, a long loop around the home field with the afternoon sun pushing the mercury into the high twenties. Three minutes slower than last time, due to the heat. 

The target remains tantalisingly close.

   

[Sweder]

I've been following the tournament avidly. Comparisons with the men's' game are unfair and, frankly, irrelevant. Apart from the difference in pace of play, there's no cheating, hardly any histrionics, zero disrespect for the (frankly awful) officials and a complete lack of amateur dramatics after every 50-50. Personally I could do without Jonathan Pearce's patronising observations on hair-band fashion. Where was all that bollocks when Zlatan was banging in four against England from beneath his Alice-band?

Spellchecker wanted to change 'Zlatan' to 'Satan'. That's brilliant.

I take issue with you on the passing, Dan. Canada shouldn't have had a sniff in that match once England went 2-0 up. Inexplicably senior players like Karen Carney started hacking the ball back to them instead of holding, passing short and making Canada come and get it. If England play like that against Japan you'll see death by a thousand passes, no doubt with a late-in coup de grace once the Lionesses are reduced to mesmerised kittens. Australia, if anything even fitter and more physical than England, succumbed in the 87th minute, having chased Japanese tails for far too long in debilitating heat.

That said, Mark Sampson impressed on Sportsweek. 'We've been looking at scenarios and factored in Japan for the semi's. We have plans for them and we'll be working on those in the coming days.' He's energised, focused and 'keeping it real', which is great to see. He's also young and British (Welsh). His tactics and selections have been criticised on social media, right up to the point when his team wins through to the next round. Goes to show you don't need to be almost dead, foreign or have a top playing pedigree to get the best out of a national team.

Speaking of the heat, it was over 100 degrees pitch-side for that round-of-sixteen match.
This is Canada, hardly the tropics. Qatar? Really? Ha.

[marathondan]

Yes, point taken on England's poor possession football - worthy of the men's team, for sure. A better side would probably have punished their inability to close the game out.

I just meant that in general, we can have no complaints about the technical quality of the football being played.

Let's hope England don't get an easy two goal cushion early on, then. The performance against Norway was much more gratifying.

[Sweder]

Sorry about the rant
Yes, women's football is really quite enjoyable to watch, especially the last few games where teams are well matched. We're hoping for an influx of trialists down at Lewes in pre-season as a result of increasing coverage.

[marathondan]

Last week was a washout - up at 4am every day to support our man in Korea. The alternative was for me to be the man in Korea, so it was the lesser of two evils. Perhaps not a problem for the likes of MLCMM, but for me that wipes the day out.

It seems even this modest target is proving less than straightforward to achieve. So we regroup and march on. With some sleep recovered over the weekend (which offered no free time from 4pm Friday to 10pm Sunday), I bagged four and half sunny miles this morning before work. Two more of those this week, and I will hit the dotted line at last.

June, overall, was spot on target though - 8 runs, 30 miles.

   

[marathondan]

Cool and damp this morning, cows, dogs and runners afoot. Tripped over a dog, but otherwise uneventful. 

   

[marathondan]

Oh yes. 

Half way there, and I am on track at last.

   

[marathondan]

The slow-moving pictorial drama continues.

Out at dusk last night. In the tree-lined sections, my first taste of running in the dark for months. Bunnies and dog-walkers aplenty out on the fields.