Top 250 Movies Project

THIS post, is nothing to do with running. Unless The Running Man is on the list. Or Blade Runner. Or Forrest Gump!

I’ve recently started another blog too. (Two blogs?! That’s right! As if I’m not busy enough as it is!)

It’s about me trying to watch the Internet Movie Databases top 250 films, within a year:

(Copied and Pasted the first couple of paragraphs. Too lazy to type it twice. I did press Italics though!)

“I am a HUGE movie fan. I used to sit and watch two or three or sometimes four films in a row without getting bored, or fidgety, or falling asleep. (Unless I’ve been up all night watching films.) I currently own roughly 450 store bought DVD/Blu-Rays, and on the odd occasion have found myself buying the same DVD twice. (Always obscure ones like ‘Highlander 5′, ‘Exit Wounds’, and for some reason, ‘How To Lose A Guy In 10 Days.’)

That being said, there’s LOADS of movies I haven’t seen. I bet there’s literally TENS of films, maybe even HUNDREDS out there that’s never been seen by these eyes. (My eyes, the ones in my head.)”

Top 250 Movies Project (Opens in New Window)

If you want to have a look, and read my reviews about the films, feel free to follow or add my other Movie-based Twitter.

Thanks!

EDIT: Both Blade Runner AND Forrest Gump are there! Running Man isn’t. Travesty.

EDIT: Neither is Marathon Man.

Happy First Birthday To My Blog!

In Which I Give You A Load Of Stats And Stuff

27th June 2012 – I posted my first ever blog post, about how I was trying to be a runner.

27th June 2013 – Still trying to be a runner.

Hello! How are you? Hope you’re well. I’m fine, thanks for asking! I’d go so far as saying I’m ‘Good’!

‘Very cheery’, you’d say back, ‘Have you won a free Twix?’

‘No!’ I’d reply. ‘It’s because it’s one year exactly since my first blog post!’

‘Wow!’ Would come your response. ‘I hope you have lots of stats ready!’

‘I do!’ I’d say.

How much do you now wish you lived at my house, when you see you’re missing out on brilliant conversations like this?!

The first time I ever tried running, it was horrible. Really horrible. Couldn’t even do 1/4 of a mile without walking. I pushed and pushed though, and managed to get a mile done with a mixture of run/walk. After that, my legs were killing me. Did I give up? No! I carried on and on, and gave up a bit, then started again and carried on and on and on and on!

Since then I’ve run the following officially organised runs:

Run Stats

1 x 5k Run

1 x 8.8k Run (Sent wrong way)

5 x 10k Runs (Best time: 56.57)

1 x 1/2 Marathon (02.38)

1 x Full Marathon (04.55)

I’m signed up to the British 10k in July and also the Yorkshire Marathon in October.

I’ve collected 7 medals, 10 T-Shirts, One Water Bottle and One Towel.

As well as the above I’ve started riding a bike a few times a week to work and back, and have learned how to swim. (Not swim to work, not sure how that’d work or why you thought it to be honest…)

Blog Stats

As of yesterday, I reached 1’000 subscribers to my blog. (The DAY before my blog turned a year old! Good timing or what?!)

I’ve had over 15’000 views on the blog in the past 12 months. (Works out about 40 views a day, but  about 14’000 or so must be me.)

I’ve had visitors on my blog from 89 different countries. Google says that there are 194 countries in the world, so that’s almost half!

One of my favourite stat things on WordPress is that it tells you when someone has found your blog through a search engine, and most of the time what they searched for. (A lot is ‘unknown search term’ and it’s unknown to me what that means.)

Search Stats

The number one search that brings people to my blog is ‘Guide Dog’ because I blogged quite a bit at the start about raising money for the guide dogs. There’s a lot of ‘hemingway run’ or ‘run hemingway’ or ‘hemingway run blog’ searches that get people to my page too, obviously people that know me or that have been on the site before. Another popular search that brings you here is ’50 fat diabetic ahead of you’ which is people searching for the image that I took from the internet and put on the Inspiration bit.

Most search terms that come up I don’t look at anymore, because it’s obvious how they ended up here. Ones like:

‘Great North 10k Medal’

‘Blackpool Marathon’

‘Leeds 10k 2012 t-shirt’

I’m sure I’ve mentioned each of them quite a few times in various blog entries, especially Blackpool Marathon. (…did I tell you I ran a marathon..?)

Then there’s searches that people do that somehow lead them here, but I can understand why, when it’s those certain words in that certain order. Things like:

‘Bonfire the Manor Eccleshill’ I live near Eccleshill and have ran passed The Manor pub, and have also blogged about a Bonfire Night 5K.

‘Road running Etiquette UK’ I once did a blog entry about running etiquette, so guessing that’s why they got here.

‘Tattoo in Blackpool near the train station’ I’ve mentioned Tattoos, Blackpool, and Train Stations on various entries.

‘Wrestlemania 29 showing in Blackpool’ Bit obscure, but on the Blackpool Marathon blog I mentioned that I watched Wrestlemania afterwards.

Those searches, I can understand why they ended up here.

What I don’t understand is how searches like these ended up here:

‘Homemade radio’ As far as I know, I’ve never made a radio in my life.

‘Guy who got ticket for driving and consuming too many energy drinks’ No idea.

‘Sayings around waiting so long on the toilet’ I don’t even understand what they were asking.

And then there’s this:

‘Great North Run Tit Flash’

Amazing.

 

EDIT: Thank you to everyone that takes the time to read my blog, and having done so doesn’t send me any abuse or anything, but instead leaves a nice comment, or follows my blog, or ‘likes’ the posts. You’re great. No YOU are. Oh, stop it, you!

3 Weeks Away and 17 Weeks Away

In Which I Make A Motivational Poster

3 Weeks today until the British 10k in London.

17 Weeks today until the Yorkshire Marathon in York.

“But!” I hear you say, “You’ll be fine! After all, you’ve been eating healthy and not drinking beer!”

You’ll be disappointed in me when I say this…

I’ve not been eating healthy.

I HAVE been drinking beer…!

***SOB!***

That stops NOW. (Not NOW, because I’m planning on eating unhealthy and drinking beer tonight as one last night of excess before the seriousnessnessness of training starts.)

“How are you going to stay so motivated?” You ask.

AHA! I reply.

I made this to stick on my fridge!

What I Did This Week (By Marc, age 31 1/3)

In Which I Swim, Bike and Run (But Not On The Same Day)

Monday: 

Every Monday is swim day. I have a lesson at 7:15pm each week that lasts 45mins, and there’s about 10 of us. Is it wrong that I don’t know anyone’s names? I think it’s gone too far now to start asking what everyone’s called, seeing as though I’ve been having these lessons once a week since February…

I’m quite a strong swimmer when it comes to breaststroke now, and I need to get working on my distances. I think I can do about 100m without stopping but as the Triathlon I’m looking at in September is 400m swim, I could do with getting better. I keep meaning to go through the week for a swim but always find something else to be doing, like sleeping or looking at the cat.

On Monday the instructor (name…. no idea.) split us into 2 teams of 5, and gave us each a pool noodle. (Like a long float thing) He told us that we were going to race across the pool and back in a line. Everyone had to put the noodle under their arms. The person at the front was to do normal breaststroke, then the person behind held onto the front persons noodle, then the 3rd held onto 2nd and so on. People 2-5 had to just use their legs (as hands were full of noodles.) When getting to the other side, the person in front dropped to the back and held onto the noodle, then 2nd person was at the front and therefore used arms and legs to get everyone back.

That’s not me in the picture

The aim was to go across the pool until everyone had had a go at the front, then seeing who finished first. I don’t know if you’ve seen the film ‘Human Centipede’, but that’s the general idea.

I was 3rd to start with, so we went across the pool, moved to 2nd, then came back, and I was the lead swimmer. I went across the pool powering my arms as hard and as fast as I could and was surprised at how easy it seemed to drag everyone across. As we reached the far side, I turned and noticed that instead of 4 people in a row behind me, there was just one. Someone had let go, and so we ended up losing due to going back for them and swimming it again.

It’s because of things like this that I don’t bother learning their names.

Tuesday: Decided on a Marathon plan at last! I downloaded an app called ‘My Asics.’ You go on their website (free to sign up) then put in your details such as what distance you want to complete, how fast you’ve finished a 10k and stuff, date of your run, how quick you want to finish, and it comes up with a full plan for you to follow, which you can then sync to the app. You choose whether you want to run 2/3/4 times a week, and if you want to take it easy/medium/hard and then it adjusts your predicted finishing time.

Mine originally said that if I follow the plan, 3 runs a week, I can expect to finish the Yorkshire Marathon in around 4:19.

I changed the details that I entered, lied a bit, and now it says 3:55. Figure that if I train for a sub 4 hour, then I should be able to finish under 4:30 easy enough! Also, when you put in your details of runs run it adjusts your finishing time up or down depending how you’ve done.

Wednesday: Today was Grandad-In-Law Normans 83rd birthday so used it as a rest day (and a beer day). He showed us his new road bike that he’d bought himself ready for Skipton Triathlon in September. Had an 83rd birthday and is entering a triathlon. What’s your excuse?

Thursday: What happened Thursday? I can’t remember. Oh wait, yeah! I biked to work and biked home. When I go home, because it’s all uphill, there’s one route that’s a bit of a hill, then flat, then a steady hill for about 3/4 of a mile, then flat to home. The other route is a bit of a hill, then a LOT of a hill but doesn’t go on too far, then flat. Today, I did the first route home and managed to get all the way up in a tougher gear than I’ve ever managed before. Very chuffed with that!

Friday: Biked to work again, and biked home too. This time I did the other route, and when I got to the big hill I passed the bit where I normally have to get off and do the push of shame, then somehow managed to get all the way up the hill! (Not in a tough gear or anything, but it’s still progress!) I’m glad I can feel myself getting stronger on the bike. If only I felt stronger running!

Saturday: Biked to work again, and decided that I need to up my miles a bit. I normally go in a straight line to work (roads permitting, I don’t ride through gardens) and decided that I’ll go a longer way around, and also because Sarah was picking me up after work because we were going shopping. If you look at the pic, I normally go from the green dot to the red dot (3.5mi) and this route was about 6.5mi.

Sunday: Today I was walking to work, it’s 3.5mi and takes just under an hour. I left my bike at work last night, otherwise I’d’ve ridden (rode…?) down to work. I was sat on the sofa watching Sunday Brunch before setting off when the thought hit me: “I could RUN to work!” I asked Twitter for motivation, and it came from @beady_stace @10marathons @vanishedbob and @Hansplat so that was nice. They all told me to go and run to work (apart from @hansplat who said working on a Sunday was bad enough with out running, took that to mean motivation though) and @beady_stace said to reward myself with cake.

I had a nice steady run/walk down to work and ended up getting to work 15minutes earlier than normal, think I might make it a regular Sunday thing!

Seen quite a few blogs mentioning the York Marathon but not many saying they’re running the British 10k in London in July. Let me know if you are, I’ll keep an eye out for you!

York Marathon On The Horizon

In Which I Do What I Should’ve Done For Blackpool Marathon, And Forward Plan.

(Actually I DID Forward Plan For Blackpool, But Didn’t Stick To It)

In Which I Do What I Should’ve Done For Blackpool Marathon, And Forward Plan, AND Stick To It…!

I love York. It’s a beautiful city full of Olde-English history and streets, wonderful for a day out or a weekend away. There’s hundreds of pubs and bars within the city walls, and plenty of places to eat, along with museums, ruins, and things to visit. It’s one of the most haunted citys in England (as seen in England on the show ‘Most Haunted’) and is the birthplace WH Auden, Judi Dench and of Guy Fawkes (who tried to blow up Parliment, how can you not like him?)

In just over 4 months, however, I’ve a feeling I’ll HATE York. For a bit.

Just been on the Yorkshire Marathon website and it says it’s just over 133 days until York Marathon. Plenty of time, thought I, until following a swift calculation on a calculator, I worked out it’s 19 weeks.

http://www.theyorkshiremarathon.com/about/

That’s 3 more weeks of building back up a base fitness level, then starting a 16 week marathon plan. (Of which, I’m still yet to decide.) Seriously, there’s bloody LOADS of different ones! Makes me tired just reading them. (Makes me tired just SEARCHING them!)

At least I’m not going to be short on choice.

The York Marathon is a full loop, one circuit, where as the Blackpool Marathon was out-and-back laps of a 10k route. From the 10k runs I’ve done I know I much prefer the out-and-back run, because even though the miles/kilometres are marked, and you can see when you’re half-way done, my head seems to better process actually getting to a turn around point and heading back to the start, rather than carrying on in a loop. I think on the long runs leading to the marathon I’ll practice running loops instead of there-and-backs. (Or: TABs. Hope that catches on!)

After the holiday of eating and drinking WAY too much, I’m back on the exercise and healthy eating. I’ve been cycling to work and back twice a week (3.5mile each way) and also walking to, then running home from work twice a week. (Surprisingly, also 3.5mile each way!) I’ll be doing the long runs on a day off.

I also go swimming on a Monday evening, and keep trying to get out of bed early and go swimming on a Thursday morning before work (but that hasn’t happened yet…)

I need to get back to the gym and start going about twice a week for strength training and would love any comments on the best machines/exercises I should be doing to help me on my way.

100% determined to make a running schedule and stick to it this time. Not like Blackpool where I made a schedule then didn’t do anything on it, and subsequently hated the 2nd half of the run. If I hadn’t’ve already signed up for York before doing Blackpool, I doubt I would’ve signed up!

Does anyone have a decent marathon training plan? Or tips? Or free stuff?

Any and all advice is welcome!

Next run is the British 10k in LONDON BABY on the 14th July