Running 100km in a month for Women’s Aid: Day 23

2.55km run to and from metros, 4.37km training -> 82.67/100km complete

Spent a good hour today getting to my first training with a local team here. I ran to the metro and then from the second metro to the pitch, which was a good distance and up a LOT of steps, then had a really enjoyable but warm training where I ran over 4km. There was a good turnout and a few games so it was a lot of fun and an easy way to increase my distance. I plan on going to the next session too.

Thankfully was offered a lift home so didn’t take as long to get home, and even had time for a beer with the team after and still made it home in good time.

Running 100km in a month for Women’s Aid: Day 22

6.28km run -> 75.75/100km complete

Huge progress the last two days. Really did not think I’d make it to the 75% mark at this point but thankfully have done it! I was struggling with the challenge a lot this week so to now be back on track and slightly over the kilometre amount I should have done by the 23rd day is massive.

Today’s run was a night-time jog in a suburb of Barcelona, out to the pier and looping back to the start point. Quite hilly as are a lot of my runs here, and on hard ground, though I ran on a wooden walkway for as much of it as I could, maybe a couple of kilometres. Could feel it in my knees on the way home though, they’re not too happy with me. No major blister issues though, just minor ones, so yeah, very happy with that. I put aloe vera on the remains of my original large blister today, and the couple of little new ones, as it apparently helps, and has done wonders for my numerous mosquito bites, so hopefully that will keep them from getting to big or too sore.

The 6.28km I did today took me just under an hour and 2 minutes, and I averaged 9.49 minutes per kilometre. I did take a break halfway while up on the pier just to cool down and take it all in, but the heat is really slowing me down a lot. Just 3 weeks ago at the start of the challenge I did 8km in an hour and 4 minutes, so it’s noticeable how much slower this is. I’m not trying to increase speed though, just getting to the 100km mark is my goal, so I’m glad to be on track!

Running 100km in a month for Women’s Aid: Day 21

0.8km run, 1.21km run, 5km run, 1.06km run-> 69.47/100km complete

Covered 8.07km today with a couple of little runs to get here and there, and a solid 5km run in under 37 minutes in 23-degree heat. Considering I’ve been running a decent amount slower here, I was just hoping I’d do the 5km in under 40 minutes, so 37 was alright. My fastest ever 5km run was 30 minutes, 40 seconds, and it’s a bit of a goal of mine to some day run 5km in under 30 minutes, even though it’s not that useful to be good at 5km runs for football or soccer, I’d just like to do it.

My run today was north along the coast in Badalona which is north of Barcelona. Not as much of a cool sea breeze as I’d have liked, but there was a little bit of a breeze still, which was welcome. I did the 5km run around 10pm as it’s one of the coldest parts of my day here.

Running 100km in a month for Women’s Aid: Day 18

0.33km run, 1.86km run, 4.12km run-> 50.77/100km complete

Ran 6.31km today in much hotter weather than I’m used to. A quick 330-metre run to a local restaurant to pick up some lunch to go (to save time and also because every metre helps at this point), a 1.86km run around the local area while they cooked the food, and later a 4.12km run to try to make up a little for the lack of running the last couple of days. Running in the heat is definitely a lot more challenging than in the cold. A little easier on the lungs (I have asthma so my lungs struggle a lot with running especially in cold weather), but I run hot anyway, so it’s difficult. A lot of my running here is going to have to be in the morning or at night, as although it’s still very hot for me then (around 22 degrees), it’s better than a couple of degrees warmer and in sunlight.

Hugh milestone hit today, a little later than planned but a good achievement nonetheless – over 50km of the 100km is complete!

Blog Trouble

The main problem I encounter with blogging, apart from writing coherently in English and posting consistently, is that most of my ideas come to me in the latter part of the day.  Or, more accurately, at nighttime.  Right now, I have several ideas floating around, but it’s almost 4am, therefore I’m too tired to write them, and well, should really go to sleep rather than attempting to create new blog posts, which I no doubt would end up having to edit drastically, because of typos, errors and just a lack of sense being made due to the time at which they were written.

That really is all for this post seeing as it is late and I should sleep even if I have no classes tomorrow.

Good night!

Facebook Birthdays

(Disclaimer:  I’m probably not as angry as you may think I am about this after reading this post, like a lot of what I write here, it’s not meant to be taken too seriously!)

It irritates me when Facebook points out people’s birthdays to me.  For a number of reasons.  First of all, it’s patronising.  You think I’m not going to remember my best friend’s birthday?  Wow.  Thanks.  Concerned that I’ll forget my one of my brothers’ birthdays?  Okay, I may not have been alive when he was born, so I can’t remember that exact day, but I have since been filled in on when his birthday is, and remember it.  A lot of people seem to do this.  It’s not that difficult.

Secondly, let’s say I don’t know when someone’s birthday is.  But Facebook tells me.  That seems kind of useful, right?  But now if I wish them a happy birthday, it’s just because I’ve been told to.  That doesn’t count.  It’s like when people purposefully remind you that it’s someone else’s birthday.  Then it undoes any further birthday wishes offered after that moment.  I was going to remember on my own, okay?

Another problem with Facebook’s insistence on telling us all when everyone’s birthday is, is that I get told about lots of people’s birthdays.  Most of whom, I’ve wished a happy birthday to on Facebook at least once or twice already.  I assume, at this stage, that they just know the drill.  Yes, I hope you have a great birthday.  No, I am not bothered writing it on your Facebook wall again, unless you’re a close friend and I’m going to write something with a bit more thought put into it than “happy birthday <name>”, with an optional smiley face thrown in.

This may seem a bit strange when this practice of wishing people a happy birthday as a once off doesn’t happen much in ‘real life’, but consider the fact that I may barely have seen the person in question since I last wished them a happy birthday, on Facebook.  It doesn’t matter any more if I say it to them or not.  It’s not going to have an impact on them if I don’t.

…You might be able to tell, but I’m not really one for celebrating my own birthday, hence the general lack of fuss about birthdays in general on my part.

The notifications, when sent, are the worst.  So now we don’t even need to remember to look at the top right corner of the screen to see if it’s someone’s birthday, we actually get a little virtual nudge and an update telling us whose birthday it is today.  Why do we even bother with these ‘brain’ and ‘memory’ things we have?  Sure Facebook will remember things for us, there’s no need to prevent our memories from getting worse all the time because of technology – technology’s going to allow us to survive without even having a decent memory.

I read too much into these things.

Happy birthday to everyone ever, I hope all of your birthdays are fantastic.  There, I think that covers everyone.

11 things that happen if you don’t have internet for 2 days

Oh look – a listicle.  List article.  List.  Whatever you want to call it.  Similar in design to many of those non-news stories which may pop up on your Facebook homepage if you’re unfortunate enough to use the slightly soul-destroying social media site.  (I haven’t managed to delete mine yet (if that’s even technically possible), but I have used it less over the last while, so that’s a start.)

So…  Here’s a super informative list of what happens (in my experience) if you don’t have internet for over two whole days.  Obviously, being a listicle, this contains unique and very wise insider knowledge that you just could not function or survive without:

1.  You socialise.

2.  You make friends.

3.  You exercise.  (I actually went for a run.  And it wasn’t even to a wifi hotspot.)

4.  You go exploring (especially if you’ve just moved to a new area, like I have, and need to find your way around).

5.  You go shopping.  (Proper, real life shopping, not online shopping.)

6.  You get enough sleep.

7.  You get into a good sleeping pattern.

8.  You meet up with people when you say you were going to meet up with them because you can’t contact them to say you might be late (taking a fully functioning phone out of the question because I’m abroad and haven’t got a sim card that works here yet).

9.  You go outside.

10.  You tidy, and in my case, unpack (in reverse order).

11.  You clean.

What?!  You do actual things?!?  Talk to actual people?!?!  Madness!!

I am a native English speaker, I swear!

I think this blog could be a good way of keeping track of my deteriorating English if (I mean when) I continue to post regularly. It’s already gotten quite bad just from spending five months in Argentina (yeah that’s a thing I did, I might write about it later…). Since I’ve gotten home there have been so many occasions where I literally couldn’t get across exactly what I was trying to say, couldn’t think of a particular word that I needed, or just directly translated phrases I’d learned in Spanish into English, which ends up sounding a bit weird because although they make sense, we don’t use those exact phrases.

That and actually speaking in Spanish accidentally a few times. Now I don’t mean blurting out whole sentences in Spanish, but a few phrases now and then, like “ay díos” or “¡díos mio!”* if something goes wrong, or annoys me, or “¿qué sé yo?”** pretty much if anyone asks me a question ever. It’s nice that I picked up these phrases, and remember them, but it would be handier if I didn’t use them when meant to be speaking English…

And then there’s the hand gestures. I’ve attempted to teach one or two to friends from home, and one even caught on for a while, but I’m not sure I’m going to succeed in making them a permanent part of Irish culture just yet. Sometimes I find myself doing them and almost have to grab my hand and lower it back down into a more regular, motionless state so I can converse like a normal Irish person again.

Now France is going to influence how I communicate too, and if I manage to avoid speaking English a lot there then my English will surely get even worse. I don’t want to be awful at English, but I like to think that if my English is getting bad then surely my other languages are improving, right? …But then I find words I don’t understand in other languages and look up their meanings only to find that they’re the same in English, and realise I may need to work on improving my English for once.

But I thought I was a native speaker?!

* = “oh god” or “my god!”
** = “what do I know?”