Tag: Fitness

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Life

Running, Motorbikes, and Pretend Plane Crashes

I’m at the stage of having fallen off the blogging horse where I’m starting to wander around looking for the horse, shouting it’s name from time to time – hoping it will come clip-clopping around the corner from a nearby saloon bar. Actually, I think cowboys whistle for their horse in movies, don’t they ?

Maybe blogging works like whistling up the wind. Maybe if I whistle, the words will begin to appear once again. I wonder if I have to whistle a particular tune ?

Anyway. Today was Monday. A fairly average Monday, if I’m honest.

I scraped myself out of bed at 7am, and met my eldest daughter in the kitchen – already dressed, preparing to go for a run. She has recently discovered that some of her clothes don’t fit any more – so it having a mad health kick to reverse the situation. Of course she discovered perhaps twenty minutes later that running several miles around town is much harder work and less pleasurable than watching Netflix.

I’ve run for two consecutive days now, and my shins have begun complaining about it. A dull ache has returned that hasn’t been there for over a decade. I’m ignoring it, but I know exactly what it is – I have “hyper-flexibility” (or some other such idiotic condition) – meaning my joints are a bit more bendy than they should be. While this doesn’t mean I’m the next Mr Fantastic, it does mean that too much running causes my legs to hurt. It’s as good an excuse as any to have tomorrow off.

I wasn’t supposed to be working today at all, but ended up helping out with a few bits and pieces. My commute is of course hilariously short – about ten steps from the kitchen to the junk room.

What else has been going on?

Oh yes – our middle daughter – she of Rugby and cooking fame in the hereabouts – has been bought a motorcycle. She starts college in September, a few miles out of town. She’s not old enough to learn to drive yet, but is old enough for a 50cc scooter. I imagine (hope) she will use it to get to rugby training when the weather is nice too. Before being let loose on it, we’re forcing her to do a training course. My other half is already threatening to borrow it to get to work.

I looked at getting a scooter for myself a few years ago, but ultimately decided that cycling to the office is a better idea long-term. If not for cycling (and now running) I would end up putting all sorts of weight on. Talking of cycling – I should get out on the bike in the morning, and go for a ride – stop the cycling muscles from checking out completely.

Finally, I’ve continued messing around with flight simulators in the quieter moments of the last few days. It turns out the flying bit is the easy bit – it was always the easy bit – it’s the “doing what you’re supposed to be doing” that takes some learning – flying departures and approaches “by the book”.

I kind of a have a scary story about the simulator too – that happened last night, and took me a while to calm down from, which is ridiculous, because IT’S A VIDEO GAME!

In order to learn more about the procedural stuff, I have been hopping from airport to airport in the simulator, working my way down the coast of Alaska, Canada, the US, across to the US east coast, and then out to Cuba. Last night I setup a flight plan from Havana to Gustavo Rizo – from one end of Cuba to the other.

To make the flight more interesting, I set the time in the simulator to the dark of night, the weather to overcast, filed the flight plan, tuned the radio to the computer-generated air traffic controllers, and set off.

Everything was going SO well. An hour into the flight I had flown the length of Cuba, and was descending into the pattern at Gustova Rizo – following instructions to descend first to 5000ft, and then on the base leg of the pattern, to 2000ft. I couldn’t see anything outside, so blindly followed instructions.

Suddenly every warning light in the cockpit lit up like a christmas tree, and the flight management computer started shouting “WARNING! PULL UP! WARNING! TOO LOW! WARNING PULL UP!”. Before I had a chance to react, there was a horrible scraping sound, then a few seconds of silence, then a sickening crunch sound, and the cockpit went dark.

Flight over.

I went to bed, wondering what on earth had happened, and needed to calm down. I was genuinely shaken up, even though it was a simulator. This morning, I created a new flight – from the destination airport, and flew the route in reverse – looking at the GPS track to figure out where I had been.

The computer generated air traffic control had generated it’s own “standard” approach pattern, because the database of known “standard approaches” didn’t cover the exact airport I was landing at. Unfortunately the flight simulator wasn’t clever enough to figure out that the approach might lead directly through the 3000ft high hills a few miles south of the runway. I had essentially glanced off the highest peak while descending through the clouds in the dark, and ended up in the forest a few hundred yards further on.

It was galling really – if I had been earlier or later making my turn, I would have missed the hill – but no, I was doing exactly what the simulator air traffic controller was telling me to do, exactly when they told me to do it.

So yes. Anyway. Enough about that – before I bore you to death.

The reason for messing around with the simulator at all is to get good enough at it to do a flight with my Dad. Since retiring, he spends his free time doing virtual flights in a flight simulator with a group of friends around the country. They meet up online a couple of times each week, and “fly” a pre-determined route. One of them even acts as air traffic control – managing the queue for departure and arrival. And that’s the bit I’m still terrible at – saying the right thing to the controllers. Once I can do that, I can do a simulated flight with them, and no doubt be mocked mercilessly for any mistakes I make.

I’ll let you know how it goes, if and when it happens.

Categories
Life

Running and Working

Slowly but surely, I’m losing track of the day of the week. I’m only working three days a week at the moment – Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday – so my weekends have become longer than my working week. After decades working five days a week, it’s a bit of a shock to the system.

I didn’t help that I went to bed at 2am last night. I somehow scraped myself out of bed this morning, and went for a run – I looked in on our youngest daughter, but all I could get from her was a muffled groan about something or other. I asked for a final time if she was running or not – yes or no – and she shook her head into the pillow.

So we lasted three weeks of “Couch to 5K” runs until I found myself as the “last person standing”. Rather than continue on with the programme alone, I decided to just “go for a run” this morning – to remind my body what a longer run feels like. I ran the same route we have been doing recently, but without any walking at all – and of course the weather cooperated by trying to cook me slowly throughout the run. I kind of surprised myself though – and survived, even after so little sleep.

The rest of the day has been filled with conference calls, emails, writing documents, and jumping down development rabbit holes. Pretty standard stuff.

I can’t help wondering if our ways of working and living have changed for the better in some ways – for many companies, the only reason they have an office is convention, and lack of trust in their own staff. I think perhaps the last few months have made many realise that their fears were unfounded – and that the internet, and platforms such as Office 365, GSuite, Teams, Zoom, Slack, and so on have made remote working a viable alternative.

I guess I’m lucky because I have no problem working alone – I don’t really rely on anybody else for anything, whereas I know others do. There’s going to be a huge problem bringing new starts up-to-speed, and perhaps recruitment will look much more towards self sufficiency as a desirable trait.

Here’s the thing though – if I’m going to end up sitting in the junk room for months of the year, perhaps it’s time to declutter, and decorate it.

Categories
Life

If Only We Had Some Cookies

My youngest daughter’s school has been taking part in a huge effort to rack up as many kilometres as possible in physical exercise while in lockdown – by either walking, running, or cycling. Each day after our Couch to 5K runs she has been emailing the distance covered to her teachers, who have been compiling the results, and letting everybody know how many kilometres were left to reach the target. Last night the remaining target stood at about 49 kilometres.

This morning I set out on bicycles with Miss 15, with the intention of lopping as many kilometres off the total as possible in one go.

I had agreed to cycle around town with her – perhaps doing 10 kilometres or so. While cycling out towards a nearby town, it occurred to her that we might visit her school. Great idea – except her school is quite some distance away.

“Are you really sure? – it’s a long way.” (this was one of those “are you really sure” conversations, where the parent is actually thinking about themselves, but trying to make it sound like concern for their child)

“Yeah”

And so the epic journey began – cycling across the county to her school – a twenty eight kilometre round trip. I think the biggest shock to me was the amount of traffic on the roads. It would appear that pandemic really doesn’t exist any more for a lot of people. We saw car parks filled to bursting, and queues of people at many of the shops we passed along our way.

I know people joke about Darwin taking care of those that either believe the pandemic is a hoax, or massively over-blown, but trust me – I know several people that have had (still have) the virus, and it’s nothing to joke about.

Perhaps the biggest annoyance is the citizen journalists that are jumping on the anti-establishment band-wagon at the moment to gain traffic, and therefore advertising money. They are cyncically playing to people’s frustrations, peddling fear, uncertainly, doubt, and just about every anti-establishment fiction, or distortion of statistics they can dig up and fashion to fit their agenda. It’s not helping anybody.

Anyway. I bought some coffee earlier. We ran out. I’m thinking about installing a panic button in the kitchen – one of those Amazon “instant order” buttons – specifically for coffee.

If only we had some cookies.

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Life

Missing Days

I think it’s fair to say I’ve well and truly fallen off the blogging horse. After several years posting almost every day, I’ve dropped back to posting every few days, and it feels strangely fine. Nobody has come after me with a pitchfork (yet).

I’m sitting in the junk room for the first time in three days. It’s just getting dark outside, and I’m wondering what I will fill the next four days with – I’m not due back in the office until Tuesday next week.

I’m still running with my youngest daughter every other morning – working our way through the “Couch to 5K” programme. She has unwittingly become something of a superstar at school – they are taking part in a challenge where all pupils are asked to walk, run or cycle, and to submit their miles towards an overall total. We are heading out on bicycles in the morning to finish the challenge in style – it finishes at noon – so will hopefully add quite a few kilometres to the final total.

It will surprise nobody to discover that I still haven’t read any of the colossal mountain of unread books that I listed at the start of the coronavirus lock-down. Evenings have been spent watching movies, playing board games, meddling with computers, or running quizzes on Zoom. Days off have been spent fighting with our jungle of a garden.

I am starting to wonder how difficult it will be to resume normal life. For years our live has run on rails – working all week, doing chores throughout most evenings, then running ragged most weekends taking the children to sporting fixtures, washing kit, buying groceries, and so on. I’m not entirely sure how we did it, because even with days to burn, we’re still somehow managing to fill them.

Anyway. It’s getting late. Perhaps a glass of wine, and then bed.

p.s. I’ve been listening to a lot of Katherine Jenkins recently. I’m not entirely sure why. I didn’t used to like her voice, but it’s grown on me.

Categories
Life

Almost Midnight

It’s been a day. Somehow it’s already heading towards midnight, and I’ve only just sat down to write something. I know, I know – I could scratch today, and write something later in the week – but then I started thinking “it migh tbe nice to write every other day”… and that’s my slippery slope, right there. Within days I’ll be writing every day again.

So what DID I do today ?

I scraped myself out of bed early this morning, retrieved my bike from the shed in the back garden, and set off to cycle a few miles around town. Along the way I reached a really rather ridiculous hill leading out of town, and thought to myself “I actually feel ok – I’ll go up it”. On reflection, this was a really stupid idea, and my lungs and legs still haven’t forgiven me.

As I turned the pedals, eating up the tarmac, I could see a cyclist ahead of me on the hill. I kept my head down, and kept turning the pedals – slowly slipping backwards through the gears. I was gaining on him at quite a rate of knots, until I ran out of beans rather spectacularly. Still – thought I was doing remarkably well, and could have cheered when I saw him pull into a layby half-way up the hill. I pulled in behind him, and then realised he was just turning around – to go back towards town. He also looked as fresh as a daisy. And was about seventy years old. And I wanted to climb into a hole in the ground.

After a few moments catching my breath I continued on up the hill, with my legs slowly turning to rubber. The rest of the half-hour on the bike was remarkably easy after that – smiling at people as I passed them walking their dogs, as they no doubt thought “that idiot just cycled up the hill, didn’t he” (it probably didn’t help that I hadn’t shaved either – so not only did I look like I might die at any moment, I also had pretty good caveman stubble going on).

While cycling through town, I was overtaken by two cyclists on racing bikes. I convinced myself they were only faster because they were on racing bikes (I was on my commuting bike) – even though they were probably ten years old than me. I started grinning at my own idiocy, and before I knew it arrived back at home.

It’s the effort that counts, right ?

After a shower, a shave, a round or two of marmite on toast, and a coffee, I settled into the work day, and sat through a number of Zoom and Teams meetings. For the record, I think Zoom works far better than Teams, even though I’m not supposed to say that.

This evening has been all about updating my eldest daughter’s computer, teaching her how to use the terminal in Linux, and installing Steam for her. Fingers crossed the computer keeps working – it wasn’t doing a very good job of it earlier this evening.

Ah crap. It’s almost midnight already. I wonder if we have any cereal left? I need the energy for the morning – the PLAN is to do the next Couch to 5K run with ALL THREE daughters. It remains to be seen if they will all get up.

Categories
Life

Unfollowing Drama Queens

I’m sitting at the dining table this morning, opposite our youngest daughter who is getting on with school work. My other half is in the junk room, working. I have the day off. So far I have thrown a couple of loads through the washing machine, cleared the washing up, been for a cycle around town, and had a shower.

The cycling thing is my master-plan to “fix” my right knee. It’s been hurting for the last week when I run on it – I imagine because I’m nowhere near as fit as I was three months ago, and have probably put on weight while at home. It seems to be working so far. Thankfully the “Couch to 5K” running plan doesn’t really ramp up for another couple of weeks, so we’ll see.

Cycling around town was… interesting. If not for gale-force-winds, it would probably have been really enjoyable. As it was, it turned into a serious workout – but miraculously my knee was fine. I only stayed out for twenty minutes, and covered about 6 kilometres. I saw nobody throughout the ride, other than a car that got stuck behind me on an uphill stretch of the route. I imagine they were pretty furious – given that I didn’t see any more cars anywhere in town – and they got stuck behind the only cyclist they probably saw all morning.

One up-side to the wind? It’s making short work of drying the washing on the line.

This is what my life has been reduced to – washing clothes and dishes, running and cycling to avoid becoming enormously fat, and minding children to make sure they get their homework done. I’m starting to identify really strongly with the Bill Murray movie “Groundhog Day”. At least I’m working tomorrow – even if that does mean sitting in the junk room, instead of the lounge.

Following the Prime Minister outlining plans for the beginning of the UK lifting itself out of lock-down last night, Facebook erupted with a torrent of ignorance, misinformation, fear, and uncertainty. I swear – some people love nothing better than to set fire to the ground beneath their own feet, before climbing atop a soapbox of their own construction, and attracting as much attention as possible. For a change I think the government are doing a pretty damn good job in impossible circumstances – and now is not the time to start pointing fingers, blaming, or whatever else. How quickly people forget what it means to be British, and instead start whispering “but what about me though?”.

I blame the social internet, and the ability for people to foster their own insular bubbles filled with self-obsessed attention seeking idiocy. And yes, I realise there is a certain amount of irony involved here – given that blogs are of course insular bubbles filled with personal content – but they tend to describe life in a fairly even handed manner (or at least the good ones do) – not complain, shout, scream, and wallow. Bloggers tend to be highly introspective and reflective – rarely finger pointers or blamers.

I had to un-follow several people last night – if only to protect my own mental health.

Anyway. Here’s to you and yours, and another day in lock-down. I’m here all day.

Categories
Life

Running the Roads

Last autumn I took part in the “Couch to 5K” running programme at the local running club – to support my eldest daughter both with her fitness, and in her battle with anxiety. We joined a small intrepid band of new runners each week, and pounded the streets together every Tuesday evening. Over time the distances increased, and in early December we “graduated” – completing several organised 5K runs around town.

We had planned on starting to take part in park runs – a weekly 5K organised run at the big park in town every Sunday morning – but then the entire town flooded for several months, and then the Corona Virus hit. We stopped running in early December, and haven’t done anything since.

Having been in lock-down for the last several weeks, the children were becoming increasingly restless, so my other half volunteered me to re-start the Couch to 5K programme with them. In case you’re starting to see a pattern forming, yes – I get volunteered for a lot of things.

We made it through three weeks before a mysterious injury afflicted me on the way down the stairs one day. I was carrying a pile of towels towards the washing machine – as you do – when something suddenly hurt. That was last week.

This morning, we reset again – this time with the NHS Couch to 5K App on my phone – with Olympic champion Michael Johnson encouraging us throughout the programme, with his deep booming voice announcing “You’re doing great – the next run starts in 3 – 2 – 1 – go for it!”. Part of the reason for resetting is because a circle of acquaintances on Facebook have also started from zero with the same app – so we get to share our progress, and encourage each other.

My only reservation so far is that my knee hurt almost immediately this morning. I’m wondering if it’s just because I’m sitting down a LOT at the moment, and perhaps crucially, not cycling. On a normal workday, I would cycle 6 miles – that hasn’t happened since March. I’m going to try getting the bike out on the in-between days, and just go for a quiet ride around the local area.

Fingers crossed!

Categories
Life

Sunday Morning

After waking up a little after 8am this morning I was very busy daydreaming when my other half rolled over, woken by the cat asking for his breakfast, and murmured:

“Are you not going for a run this morning?”

I sighed. For some reason I woke up with little or no enthusiasm this morning. After wondering about maybe going running tomorrow instead, some unseen force scaped me out of bed, gathered together some shorts and a t-shirt, and delivered me to the bottom of the stairs.

Miss 15 leaned around the corner of the kitchen doorway, bowls of cat food in her hands.

“Shall we go for a run then?”

She shrugged – “I suppose?”

Five minutes later we found ourselves doing warm-up exercises in the warm morning sunshine outside the house, and then set-off through town. While running, it occurred to me that I don’t have to make conversation with my youngest daughter while running – she’s the polar opposite of her older sister. With Miss 19 I have to keep a continual stream of nonsensical conversation to take her mind off what she’s doing – with 15, I don’t have to do anything – just be there with her.

We ran eight sets of three minutes this morning. She sniffed throughout the entire run – I imagine hay-fever. The sun has caused everything green to burst into life over the past few weeks – suddenly the air is thick with pollen and insects, even in the morning.

After the run we took turns through the shower, and then made a late breakfast. She cooked pancakes, while I cooked bacon. Of course I say “she cooked pancakes” – it was more a case of she made the mixture, massacred the first pancake, and then I cooked the pancakes and the bacon.

It’s now almost lunchtime, and I’m not entirely sure what I might fill the afternoon with. It has already been suggested to me that I might spend some time with our eldest, but she just printed out a recipe to make sushi. Ah – so I’ll be cleaning up an unholy mess in the kitchen later then.

Coffee. That’s what I’ll do first.