Tag: Health

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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.

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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

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.