That's a wrap.

bird, originally uploaded by jogger164.

1st of all sorry for the silence - busy (real busy) at work and the internet at home has gone Pete Tong.

London yesterday, so an early start and a late finish - but managed to finish the day/evening with a chilly 3 miles.

Today was a nice 5 miles, bringing my monthly total up to a cheeky 121 miles. I'm happy with that because I really didn't think I'd make it over the 100 mile mark this month. I really want to do 140+ next month :-)

Well off to have a quick surf and catch up with you guys.

Have a great weekend.

Cheeky 5

seal, originally uploaded by jogger164.

5 miles before work :-D

November miles = 113

It's dark out there.

chicken, originally uploaded by jogger164.

Why’s life so busy, up in the dark every morning. Work until 1-1.30 out for a run. Shower and work until 6.00 then 1 hours drive to the pool to watch the small person doing drills. Now back home in the dark for a cheeky spot of dinner and a quick blog. London on Thursday :-/ even an earlier start and a later finish.

We are all getting Flu jabs at work tomorrow - so that should be fun (see if my arm falls off) has anyone else ever had one?

Whilst out running today a double decker bus went past laden with chav school kids that thought it would be funny to through 2 pence pieces out of the top window at us. Clever!

November miles = 108

...Quicky

Jinx, originally uploaded by jogger164.

Work was busy, 5 mile run was cold :-D

Hope your all cool.

November miles = 103.5

Sunday run day...

thing, originally uploaded by jogger164.

Running has turned me into a masochist. After drinking cider last night and only having a jacket potato to eat for dinner, what better way to start Sunday than getting up in the dark and go for a long run whilst nursing a hangover of doom.

The getting up early wasn’t really my choice, but the farmer down the lane is hosting a shoot (poor pheasants) so the shot gun alarm clock woke us all up.

I had forgotten how horrible it is running over the winter :-/ it’s always cold, windy and wet. Then there’s the short days (the didn’t seem to be this short last year) it seems to start getting dark before you finish your breakfast at the moment.

Well off to the stables in a bit, then I’ve got a load of work to do around the house and then make some dough for pizza :-) ya!

November mileage = 98.5

Saturday catch up.

DSCF2387, originally uploaded by jogger164.

This week has flown by. We popped to see Monty last night - how cute is he! He is coming to live with us in January, we can't wait.

I have managed another 9 miles since my last post. I'm going to do a 13 miler in the morning to get some of them miles back that my cold has eaten away this month. Todays run was hard work, very cold and windy and to add more joy it rained for 5 miles.

Novembers miles = 85.5

Hope everyone has a great weekend.

Vampire Jinx

Vampire Jinx, originally uploaded by jogger164.

He just keeps on getting cooler :-D

Sorry

Gremlin, originally uploaded by jogger164.

Hi all - sorry for not posting for a while... I tried last night but my internet has broken at home :-/ not sure when it will be fixed.

Today (Thursday) managed to get out for 4 miles. The weather is very cold at the moment - your ears really hurt when you get back in the warm.

Yesterdays post:
I managed to get out for a late 4 miles in the cold air. My knee still hates me; I’m convinced that it’s my trainers so need to get ‘em updated (they wear out too quick).

November mileage = 76.5 miles

Well then I got tagged by young Miss JogBlog. I’m afraid I’ve not photos to post looking like a goth, even though I love the music. Also I don’t know 5 bloggers to tag as she has managed to tag them all first.

Here go the 5 fun facts about me:

1 – I’m training to tattoo at the moment, so if anyone wants some ink let me know.

2 – I was a vegetarian/vegan for 5+ years.

3 – My favorite Star Wars character is Chewbacca the Wookie.

4 – I can hold my breath for 2 minutes 11 seconds.

5 – Up until last year the only computers I have ever owned were Macs (apart from my Vic20).

Well that's it for me today folks. Normal service will resume asap - trip reports need doing :-/

WHAT! you idiots

Who needs enemies when you have the UK government. Check this out for stupidity! If we can't afford to ever go out again because of fraud you know who is to blame - NICE WORK! dumb asses

Catch up

dog, originally uploaded by jogger164.

First off :-D thanks for tagging me, I am trying to think of 5 facts for the tag and will post tomorrow (love the goth photo).

This week is already getting busy. Monday = London and back + 3 miles run.

Woke up at 6 for work this morning and my was killing me bigtime. I think it's 2 things. Sat on the train for 5+ hours yesterday and I think my trainers (likr Raes) are about dead... must be 500-600 miles on them now.

So to try and shift my crunchy knee pain I went for a lovely 4.5 miles. It seemed to help...

The weather has warmed up a little but it's raining now.

Has anyone been watching the latest BOOSH? quality!
November running = 68.5 miles

CHECK IT OUT...

snow, originally uploaded by jogger164.

It's snowing :-D

Jinx in a box

Jinx in a box, originally uploaded by jogger164.

HeHe! :-D

Sunday Six

frog2, originally uploaded by jogger164.

Great weather for the FroggerJogger :-D wet wet wet.

Got up and out (it feels erong running early on a Sunday) and ran 6 miles.

Gotta dash...
November miles = 62

It's Saturday :-D

DSCF2272, originally uploaded by jogger164.

Sorry for not posting over the last few days - it's been a busy week. But the weekends finally here so we can chill out a bit. Running wise since my last post I have done 4 miles+1 mile+13 miles. The 13 was this mornings effort. It's really damp and cold at the moment up here so my chest was loving it. The route for my run is a nice mix of countryside and woodlands but the downside to it is the hills, lots of 'em. But I have decided that I'd rather run up a long hill than run down a steep one... must be getting old it kills my knees.

Hopefully we will take delivery of Pirates 3 today :-D we pre-ordered it and I received an email telling me it was posted 2 days ago.

So far Novembers run totals add up to 56 miles. I need to put a long run each weekend now to try and get them back up.

Trip report day 8
Friday already :-( but today was the day we had arranged to meet Rae and her gang. I got up early and went for a quick 2 miles (I was starting to wish I hadn't signed up for the 13k). Time for a quick shower and out to Animal Kingdom to meet up outside Dinosaur.

We spotted them easily as they all had matching shirts (well the boys and girls did). It was really nice to finally meet up and we all got on well straight off the bat. The small people are now all best of friends. E is a scream - very funny! They all had fast passes for Everest so we headed over with them. I thought that we might just wait for them to ride it and meet up after. But Rae pointed out the single rider line was nearly empty so we headed off for that. The small person is cool - she rode Everest on her own (Mrs Jogger went first so someone would be waiting for her the other end). The ride is cool :-) I don't think the Yeti was working when we went in as it was just the strobe lighting - he didn't swing around for a grab.

Then we all went to watch the Lion King show (we got lost, but I blame E) - this show is really cool and a must see if you haven't already. Then we made our way to watch the Jungle Jamming parade.

After the parade we had to make our way to downtown Disney for a package pick-up for the race. We all caught the bus over to 'Pop' where they were staying. Rae and E gave me a surprise gift - the picture above is of it. SWEET! E had made me a custom hot wheels of my fav car - Cheers chaps.

We all jumped into E's sisters minivanbusthing (She is another nutter) and headed off. Package pickup was easy and then we said goodbye to everyone and arranged to meet up the next night for the run.

Before catching the bus home the girls had a cheeky ice cream sundae each in one of the shops. Back at the hotel we had a swim. Gotta love staying in a hotel with a pool.

Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

DSCF1752, originally uploaded by jogger164.

Another bl**dy cold run. It was windy and freezing. My chest and ears hated me for running today, when I got in I felt like someone had slapped me with a couple of bricks :-/ that's the thanks you get for 5 miles.

Trip report day day seven
Today was a special day for our little person. We headed off early for breakfast at the Magic Kingdom. We walked straight into the park as it was extra magic hours, so a pre-breakfast Mickey's Philharmagic was the order of the day :-) then we headed to the castle for breakfast.

The whole breakfast experience at the castle was awesome. My girls loved it, the food was good, the person serving us was amazing and the character interaction was second to none. I can't recommend this enough. Whilst eating breakfast the small person had visits from Aurora (her favourite), Mary Poppins, Snow White and old Cinders.

After we made it back down to the Magic Kingdom we hit Space Mountain, Monsters Inc and then the Haunted Mansion. We left for Epcot and finally managed to get on Soarin then Figment, Honey I shrunk the audience and then took in the Mexican pavilion.

As we headed back to the hotel the rain closed in so I decided that I head out for a run when we got home. I did 3 miles and then went to the small persons swimming academy :-) We played around in the pool for an hour and then got some dinner.

Next time... Finally we get to meet Rae and the USA Crew!

Total mileage for November = 38miles

It's tundra Tuesday

DSCF1966, originally uploaded by jogger164.

Another really busy day at work, but I managed to get out for a late lunch and a 3 mile run. The weather has changed for the worse, it’s not t-shirt weather anymore. Today I had to run with a jacket on (still shorts though).

Trip report day six
No parks for us today. Don’t faint and know you didn’t read it wrong - no parks. Instead we made a visit to DownTown Disney. We had a good time looking around the various shops selling Disney everything and slowly walked our way around to Disney Quest.

Disney Quest was ok - not the all singing all dancing entertainment day out that we were expecting. The highlights for us were the Pirates of the Caribbean game and err, that was about it. The other games are ok, but nothing new from an arcade game view point. I don’t think that we will be going back anytime soon.

If you do go ‘DownTown’ I recommend the Magic shop I think that it was called Magic Masters. The chap that was running the shop was amazing, he showed us and the rest of the customers loads of tricks - the small person really loved it.

Well that’s it for day six… don’t worry we will hit a park tomorrow.

November total mileage = 33 miles

It's freezing

DSCF2101, originally uploaded by jogger164.

And that's official, when I got up to go to work it was minus 2 and frost was everywhere :-D Winters coming, and that means cheeky snowball fights (I'll try and forget about the horrible wind and rain blasting you in the face every run etc).

Another solo run - Preston hasn't really run since the Robin Hood, he needs to get some new trainers still. I managed a jaunty little 5 mile spree to add to this months mileage list.

Total November mileage = 30 miles.

Trip report Day 5
Not much of a day in the parks today. We had a later start and then headed off for a little shopping at the malls on iDrive. When we got back we made the most of the pools at the hotel and then started to get ready for Mickey's Not-So-Scary Halloween Party. The small person went as the corpse bride, I went as zombie Jack Sparrow and Mrs JB went as Tink.

We had a great time. The party didn't seem as good as last years but it was fun. The parade was brilliant as were the fireworks. Around 11.00pm the heavens opened and dumped on us all. We were fortunate enough to be just going into the haunted mansion at it's worse.

Sneaking back on a packed bus we made it home around 1.00am, had some of our stash and hit the sack.

Trip report - Day four

DSCF1637, originally uploaded by jogger164.

Another early start - out of the hotel for a run at 6.30. Boy was it hot! I think this was the hottest day of the holiday and one that taught me a lesson about hydration. Back home I always have a drink before running and then one when I get back home, even if it's a long 13 miles (as I run slow). If I'm running fast I make sure I have a drink with me.

This morning on holiday I only ran 3.5 miles and a drink before and a quick sip after as we had to get out quickly because we had breakfast booked at the Crystal Palace in the Magic Kingdom.

We got to the park in plenty of time but had to wait for rope drop to go in. Once we made ourselves known to the reservation cast member at the palace we had to wait outdoors for them to call our party. This wouldn't normally bother me, but it was roasting hot and I was gagging for a drink.

We eventually got called (45 minutes later than our booking) and took our seats at the table. I asked for a diet coke which never came so I drank a mug of coffee... ERROR! We got some food and started to eat. Winnie the Pooh and friends came to visit, but by this time I was in a bad way. I had to go and be sick (sorry for the details) and was shaking like I was in the freezer.

I had managed to dehydrate myself big time and drinking the coffee was the final straw. I got some water then some more and then more. It took about 4 hours until I felt ok again. Lesson learned - Make sure you drink water when running.

After breakfast we headed out into the park and I watched the girs ride the Flying Carpets then we went into the Enchanted Tiki room. Next was the Country Bears, Splash mountain and then a change of park to Epcot via a round trip of the Magic Kingdom on the steam train. We didn't do too much at Epcot, the girls rode Mission Space and we played the game a few times.

Back at the hotel we all cooled off in the pool.

Sunday running...

Running was the last thing that I wanted to do when I got up this morning, but I dragged myself by the nostrils out of the front door and into the rain. I thought I'd wear my Garmin and upload another map for JogBlog, I bet her ears were burning as I minced around at the bottom of the lane waiting for my satellites to lock on. How comes it takes twice as long when it's raining?

I managed a chest burning snot gurgling 4.5 miles and here's what it looked like :-)



The mist of the plague seems to be lifting at the house. We have just listened to a horrible histories CD about the Tudors, why didn't we have these when we were kids. The small person is mad on the books - we have read them all after buying a box full at a car boot the other month.

Not much else planned for the weekend apart from trying to get better.

November Mileage = 25 miles (I've got a feeling it's not going to be a huge mileage this month)

Just for Jog Blog

Here's a couple of sat pictures from Florida. Thanks for the heads up on the software - it's great. I didn't run with the Garmin much more after working out the 4 mile route so I haven't got many more of these funky maps to go at (plus the route was nearly the same everyday).

Everyone is fully flu'd up in the JB house today - not sure if I'm going to go for a run or not today... will see later.

Welcome one and all...

DSCF2262, originally uploaded by jogger164.

To Monty :-) this little chap is going to be the Jinx's little kid brother :-D he is very cute. Jinx already knows him as he stayed with our friends (whom we adopted Jinx from) when we visited Florida and this little dude was 2 weeks old then. He is now 5 weeks, so that means in the new year we will have another four feet running around the house.

Work was work, so glad it's the weekend. The small person is fighting off a cold (she is the last one to be hit by it) so I imagine we won't be up to too much over the next 2 days.

JogBlog has asked me to upload some Garmin Map google things so I will try and do that... it will be funny to see the route I jogged around.

Rae is having a rough day so drop on by and say hi :-D.

Well it's late again so I'll try and do my next trip report tomorrow. Hope you all have a great weekend and get some miles in.

Ps Susan - he has got a sweater :-)

Hi :-D

DSCF1948, originally uploaded by jogger164.

Sleep wasn't happening last night :-/

Work was hard - busy and my head wanted to pop. Managed a cheeky 4 miles.

Day 3 trip report
Another sneaky early start - I got up and headed out the door for a 6.00am run. This time it was a hot 4.1 miles. I really enjoyed these runs as I zig-zagged around the parking lots of all the 3 All Stars Hotels checking out all the cool American cars (for some reason they don't look that big over in the USA... but a Mustang looks huge on the UK streets).

Once home and washed we made our way to Animal Kingdom for rope drop. We had a morning wake up ride on Dinosaur and then went and caught the first showing of the finding Nemo musical. It was brilliant :-D I really recommend it to anyone who is thinking of going. Then we slide back in time on Dinosaur again went on the spinning roller coaster and the flying dinosaurs. We decided that we would head off at lunchtime to Epcot. So we jumped on the bus and was there in 10 minutes. We walked all the way around to the American adventure and had lunch there. Then went to Mission Space and meet up with a cast member we had made friends with last trip (the small person loveeeeeeeeeeeeeeeees her). We played mission space race 3 times then head back to the hotel for a dip in the pool.

Time for bed...

November total mileage = 16.5 miles

Pirates... Day three

DSCF1986, originally uploaded by jogger164.

Yo ho ho it's a designers life for me. Got up at 5.30 so that I could head down for London today. The traffic was pants for some reason but I managed to catch my train (it took me over an hour to get to the station). The Day in the capital flew past and I was homeward bound before I knew it.

Not much time for a run - after taking some pain killers for my shoulder I did a 2 miler. I will try and do a 6 miler tomorrow.

Day 3 trip report... I'll type it up tomorrow, I'm to tired now. Night night.
November mileage = 12.5 miles

Back to work day 2 - Trip report day 2

DSCF1576, originally uploaded by jogger164.

Day 2 back at work
Hard! busy and my throat is loving me (my neck seems to have turned into a plank of wood). Managed to get out for a late lunchtime 4 miles. Running with a cold isn't much fun, but it's got to be done, I've got Rae to try and beat this month in the mileage front.

Day 2 trip report:
Saturday was an early start. I sneaked out of the room at 5.00am with my garmin to do a pre-park run. It was already very hot and humid. I snaked around Disney all stars Movies, Music and Sports then up to a huge Mc Donald’s and back down again, by the time I finished the Garmin flashed 4.1 miles... It was hard work! running in the heat and humidity is difficult.

Had a shower and a few drinks then we headed to Magic kingdom for rope drop. As we walked to the entrance the heavens opened up and fell on our heads. Not put off by the pre-show we headed off for a first ride on the newly opened Haunted Mansion - It was brilliant. The rest of the morning was spent riding the following: Peter Pan, Small World, Escape Stitch, Tomorrow Land Transport Authority, Astro Orbiters, Buzz Light-years Space Ranger Spin, Mickey's Philharmagic... then we went to MGM again.

We had dinner reservations for Hollywood and Vine, but went to the animation academy before. The Dinner was lush :-) very good service and the food was yummy. After we wobbled away from the restaurant we managed a tour on the great movie ride and then headed off to watch Fantasmic. That show is cool - it's the first time we had seen it, and we all loved it. After the show we caught the bus home and managed a dip in the pool before bed.

I thought holidays were meant to be relaxing...

November total mileage = 10.5 miles

Frogger Jogger

Frogger Jogger, originally uploaded by jogger164.

Day 1 back to work - Day 1 trip report

DSCF1520, originally uploaded by jogger164.

Back to work today :-/ man was that a breaker. Everyone is ill at home ans at work, colds and throats... mine is burning at the moment. I was the only one to venture out for a lunchtime jaunt, managed 4 miles before I gave up and went for a shower.

But enough about the boring stuff - lets talk holidays. This trip was the first time we had stayed on Disney property in the USA and it won't be the last - it was ace. We stayed at the All Stars Movies, which is a budget hotel but has 2 pools an arcade, cinema, food court and shopping area as well as these huge figures everywhere from famous Disney movies. The small person loved it to the max. When we arrived Thursday evening we had been travelling for hours so all went to bed straight away. But at 4.30am the funsized wanted to go and explore (that's when the above pictures were taken). When we got back to the room the magic suitcase unpacking fairy had been hard a work and had put everything in drawers and cupboards etc.

We all caught the bus to Epcot in time for rope drop and headed straight for test track and rode it twice. Next we did mission space and also played the game. We decided to head over to MGM studios for the rest of the day and squeezed in TOT twice, Journey to Narnia, Muppet vision, Star Wars Jedi academy, The great movie ride and the animation tour and 2 drawing classes. Feeling a bit tired out we back to the room and changed for a swim and grabbed something to eat - then bed...all this on day one (it was going to be a long holiday)

Novembers running total = 6.5 miles

October Mileage

Not the best - but not bad as I spent the last 2 weeks on holiday.

October total = 101.5miles

Frogger Jogger

badge, originally uploaded by jogger164.

Race update.

The Tower of Terror 13k took us alongside some motorway style roads and through woods and along plenty of water.

At certain points they had pick-up trucks playing loud music. The best race tune we heard was a Neil Diamond track - got us running past very fast ;-)

As I said before I ran the race with my new American friend Raes son. We had a water fight at one point (well I threw a few cups of water over his head) and generally didn't take it all too seriously (running through puddles rather than around them etc).

As we headed back towards the MGM park Raes son jogged onto a dead frog (by accident I hasten to add) making it pop over his shoes...eewwww!!

From then on he had to endure being called:
The Frogger Jogger
The Froginator
Kermit Killer
Road Toad

And also being asked if he was wearing "Crocs"... oh no they are frogs aren't they ;-) lol.

I was impressed with his running as he had only ran about 4 miles before and we managed to run the 8+ without stopping! I've got admit that running with someone else is a lot more fun.

No running for me today - way tired out. Back to normal tomorrow.

Where to start...

DSCF2220, originally uploaded by jogger164.

First of all the holiday was soooooooo much fun, I’d say it’s one of the best trips we have ever made as a family.

It was great to get home to the Jinxter (the small person hasn’t put him down for about 24 hours now) he needed his ears cleaning (the only thing that you have to do extra for a sphinx cat) and a nail trim and next on the list is a cheeky bath but we haven’t told him about that yet.

I will do a break down of parks, rides, shows etc another day but will concentrate on the running for this post.

When we landed I was still struggling with a minging cold, and also body clock troubles so took a few days off running. The first run was about 4.00am in the morning (tick tock) and must admit that it was a real eye opener. The humidity was just wrong even at that time in the morning. I took the old Garmin and worked out a 4 mile route which I could run each day. I choose to run without the old iPod as it was pitch black for the most part and also along some marsh lake sides and I didn’t fancy being alligator breakfast (believe me them buggers are everywhere in Florida). Once I got used to the heat and sweat the running was fun, but I had to really watch the water consumption and stay hydrated as one day I made myself really ill.

The Tower of Terror 13k came around too fast, and I ran it with Raes son (he was a great running partner). Disney really needed a kick in the ass for the communication side of this race. First of all they changed the packet pick-up to a completely new venue, and only communicated this via email (good job Rae was there to tell me) you think they would have had this all over there hotels and the MGM park.

I had arranged to meet Rae in the MGM park (where the race was to take place) outside of the TOT ride at 8.00pm. So spent the day there with the family, I got changed and they went to Magic Kingdom for the rest of the night. I hung around until 8.30pm and walked to the front of the park (a few other runners were hanging around the same area, but not the mass of runners I’d expected). As I got to the front of the park a security guard asked me to leave and I would be allowed back in to the park in a few minutes. Again there was a group of runners hanging around, but not many. I went and asked a security guard where I should be heading for, and found out the start was about a mile away the other side of the park. My heart sunk as I turned the corner and saw the masses of people - I had only met Rae and her gang once, no way would I find them in this mess.

As I walked through the crowds Raes son came up and grabbed me - cool J at least we could all run this thing together. After that we managed to find Kate (great to meet her as well) and Nathan Rose. By this time the humidity was lovely - around 80-85% sticky. Then we got the great news that they were going to delay the start time ( I think it kicked off around 10pm). But to add insult to injury Kate told me that Disney had stopped all transport buses because of the race so I’d have to find my own way home (error - the Disney park area is like Milton Keynes no way of walking anywhere). Raes E’s sister stepped up to the plate and said she’d give the old JB a lift home - THANKS :-D you saved my life.

Once the race got underway I settled into a ‘run at the speed of chat’ pace with Raes son and enjoyed the race should say run really. There wasn’t any Disney characters to see on route (why?) but as we entered the ‘World of sports complex’ (a big running track and sports place) they had all these people dressed up as mental inmates freaking out in the woods and the sides of the track. I couldn’t resist making a few of them jump as we ran by :-D

Before we knew it we were heading back into the MGM park and running around the final 2 miles inside the there which was cool. The finishing line was behind the TOT, they gave us our medals a brownie and drink.

We headed back up the park to watch for Rae and E to come in and shouted some encouragement. Then we all hooked up and I rode the TOT with E’s sister (who is a complete laugh). Then we headed home. Thanks again for the lift.

The girls were tucked up in bed, I sneaked in and washed the sweat stench off and found a few slices of pizza waiting on the table next to a cheeky glass of white wine (gotta love my wife) had that and went to bed about 2.30am.

The race bling is sweet :-).

PS went out for a weedy 2.5 miler this morning.

Back...

DSCF2109, originally uploaded by jogger164.

Had a great time - haven't slept for days - Jinx Rocks!

Met loads of cool people, had sooooooo much fun - will update later.

PS - everyone has colds :-/