LE JOG

[El Gordo]

Welcome aboard LE JOG. Bear with me.

On October 8, I mentioned in my blog:

"Oh yes, and I had a weird idea for a long distance 'virtual' run, or even race, that we can all take part in. More later. Am just mentioning it here to remind me."

You thought I'd forgotten... And you may well wish I had.

You are likely to think this a weird suggestion, but here it is anyway. I was considering whether I should have any running goals for 2010 along the lines of 1000 miles, or whatever people usually come up with. That's a reasonable goal to have, but then I thought, how about making it a bit more interesting than just logging 1000 miles. How about running from Lands End to John O'Groats?



Not literally, of course. I'm thinking about a virtual amble up the by-ways of England, and Scotland, using http://www.mapmyrun.com.

The idea is to get to John O'Groats eventually. Not by the shortest route, and avoiding motorways. Even avoiding A roads, if that's possible. Just a leisurely amble through some of the lesser-known back roads of the nation. The plan would be to set off, save the route, then reopen it next time, and add the mileage from the previous end point.

A weird idea, I know, and hauntingly pointless, but it's just one of those mind games I have to play to help keep motivated.

Anyone want to join in? We could aim to meet up in various places along the way, like various favoured hostelries, or football grounds.

Just an idea....

If you're interested, here's what to do. Go to mapmyrun.com. Open an account (free of charge). Fiddle about with the slightly annoying interface, and work out how to move around and how to edit a previously saved route. Whether you keep saving the same route, or do a Save As, is up to you. I'd recommend the latter.

Put the URL in your signature.

Every time you have a run, add the mileage to the end of the previous one. MapMyRun will automatically increment the mileage to show the new total.

This isn't a competition, so there are very few rules. In fact, you can write your own. One of mine is that I can't include treadmill miles. This is an outdoor challenge, after all

Starts tomorrow, Jan 1st 2010, and my aim is to end up at JOG sometime this year. Shortest road route is around 870 miles, so the trip is likely to be rather longer than that. Would hope to get to the destination by 31st Dec 2010, but who knows?

Right. See you in Cornwall somewhere?