The Flying Beetroot: Running Banjos

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The Flying Beetroot and Banjos

There’s nothing like a bit of banjo music to give you motivation to keep running. Even if it’s just to imagine yourself on the set of Deliverance and the creepy people are chasing you.

(NB: I’ve never seen the film. If you tell me it’s scary and unpleasant, that’s enough for me. I’ll believe you.)

So, while I update you on the latest from the Flying Beetroot, here’s some banjo music. Don’t worry, it’s not Duelling Banjos. Why would I choose that when I have such fabulous banjo playing from an Aussie band?

[Edit: Oops. Not Australian, British. Sorry. I shall sack my researcher. If I can find her.]

Roll Away Your Stone – Mumford and Sons (2009)

 

Remember Lesson One? (Read about it here, if you don’t.) I fell over on the very next run. Failed to get up in the morning and had to run in the afternoon after work on another warm day. Then I fell asleep in a meditation later that evening.

I got up in the morning after that. Anyway, who wouldn’t want to see this in the mornings?

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I love to see the sunrise (she keeps telling herself).

Or even this (on a not so clear morning)?

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This one’s for Sue Slaght over at Travel Tales of Life. It’s our local version of the Golden Gate Bridge In The Fog.

Oh. Except last Thursday. I didn’t get up. I knew I was working. I knew it was going to be 30°C that day. But the 6am alarm came and went. Hey, there were mitigating circumstances involving a visiting dog, an indignant cat and a need to run interference between the two. The upshot of all this was that I had to run 7km in the rain when the change roared through at lunchtime. I was a soggy Beetroot that day.

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I wasn’t the only mad person out there. I’m pretty sure the beginner rowers from one of the local elite schools were thinking, “Well, this sport sucks.”

Before you say “get a treadmill”, forget it. Years ago, when I was training for my first tilt at Oxfam Trailwalker, I borrowed a treadmill so I could still train if the weather was bad. I used it once. And decided I’d rather run in the rain.

You’d think I’d finally have learned my lesson but I did the same thing yesterday. More mitigating circumstances, this time to do with technicians arriving at ungodly hours of the morning. More running when I really didn’t feel like it. The Gauntlet Thrower got a few choice words on that run.

So, here’s how things currently stand:

Training runs 3

 

There is one more motivating factor, aside from the Spreadsheet and the fact that I seem to have made myself accountable to the entire Blogosphere. One of the positive side effects of this training regimen has been the change in my shape. Or rather, a return to the shape I think I should be. I have, in recent times, been developing what is hilariously (if you don’t have one) called a “Muffin Top”. That’s what you get from middle age and too much chocolate. However, after just a few weeks of running, the Muffin Top is shrinking and I now possess something more akin to a pancake (American Hotcake, not French Crepe). Hopefully before this is done, that too will be gone.

 

 

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28 thoughts on “The Flying Beetroot: Running Banjos”

  6. Oh yes, running on a treadmlll always made me feel like a hamster on a wheel. I adore Mumford and Sons, by the way, and their banjo work on this rivals that on “Deliverance.” What do you use, Heather, to so gracefully plop a song into a post? I fear I am getting behind on all this music technology….awesome about the great vanishing muffin top too!

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  7. Good work Beetroot! I love the foggy photo with the 2 boats. It’s so peaceful and beautiful early in the morning.

    … and I’m SOOOO jealous that you are losing your muffin top ( I really dislike that expression). Must I be the only person in the world who DOESN’T lose weight when I’m training?!!! IT’S. SO. NOT. FAIR!!

    Happy running!!

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  9. You clever old thing !! 🙂
    Your daily routine is a demanding one, and I’m chokka with admiration for your persistence, doggedness and general determination. And if they’re all synonyms for one another, so much the better.
    I don’t believe the muffin top either, btw …
    {grin}

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  10. A muffin top – yeah right. That is so ridiculous. I am glad you are feeling improved but you can’t go throwing terms like that around or the rest of us will be needing to upsize our terms and I am not ready for that.

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