An Unenthusiastic Monday

I had very little sleep last night - thanks to my son, who seemed to develop some kind of weird toddler insomnia - and that, in combination with a miserable grey Monday morning didn’t enthuse me about going to the gym at all. But, I still managed it.

The Sennheisers I purchased really are excellent. They arrived on Saturday morning, which is impressive work by online supplier Qfonic given that I only ordered them on Friday, and aren’t quite as green as they look. They’re still green…but not that green. In a gym, they kind of blend in with the brightly coloured Lycra. Albeit not my brightly coloured Lycra, because I’m not wearing any. There’s a horrible set of images for those who know me, but FYI: I wear comfortable shorts and the first t-shirt I can get my hands on.

My green headphones managed to stop the drivel pumping out of the gym’s speakers penetrating my ear drums, and The Prodigy’s Fat of the Land sounded pretty good through them. Brilliantly, there’s never any worry about them coming out of your ears, because they’re held in place by the neck-band.

Having noticed that my heart rate was something like 200 last week - after a bit of research it sounds like this could either be “a bit high” or “dangerous” or “quite close to dropping dead” - I tried to keep more of an eye on it today. Not running helps, but then that’s like saying not eating is a good way to lose weight, or not jumping off a tall building is a good way to not break your legs. A few stabs of the “incline ^” button, and I managed to find a brisk, up-hill walking pace that was hard work, and kept my heart at around 165-170, which I’m told is OK.

PS: for those of you worried that this blog is simply going to become a log of my training - and I’ll not lie to you, I’m going to carry on writing about that - I’ll have some film and tech content along shortly.

Headphones - Update

I found some headphones that seem to get universal praise: I give you the horrific looking Sennheiser PMX 70 headphones.

I’ve read that they’re not quite that green in real life. I’ll let you know.

Morning Gym: Day Two

I managed to drag my lazy buttocks out of bed and down to the gym for the second day this week, despite the depressingly miserable weather we’re having. My plan is to do three days a week, so hopefully next week I can get into gear and commence three day gymification. I even ran for a bit today.

I have noticed a problem though - the headphones I’ve got don’t block out the horrific noise that the gym considers to be music. So, my next mission is to feed my headphone addiction find a set of headphones that block noise and aren’t too heavy for the gym. And in-ear ones don’t seem to live up to their name and stay in my ears, so they’re probably not an option.

Game on…

RUN!

I’m going to start running. Here’s why:

Last year, I changed jobs and soon after I joined the company, during the annual company conference, a representative from the Anthony Nolan Trust gave a talk about their charity. He was assisted by Lloyd Scott.  At the time I had no idea who Lloyd Scott was, but his presentation was moving, entertaining, and inspiring in equal parts. Some of his frankly insane ideas for fundraising events are the stuff of legend, it seems, and there’s more to come: he mentioned something about strapping a deck chair to a ludicrous number of balloons and floating himself over a pre-determined distance. While dressed as a clown.

After Scott’s presentation, it was announced that we’d be putting forward a team to run the London 10k race in May. And I decided that I was going to be in that team.

Now: those of you who know me will find this highly amusing. I don’t run, I don’t do any kind of physical exercise, and I weigh far more than a man of my age probably should. My brother-in-law is convinced that there’s no way I’m going to be able to get myself in shape. But to all the sniggerers I say this: "Bollocks".

I am going to run this race, and in order to do that I am going to get myself in a sufficient fit state to do it. And I’ll post about it here while I do it.

My plan is to start going to the gym three times a week, and on the days that I don’t go to the gym I’ll walk to work. We’ll see how that goes…

Ear Wick - Not That Bad?

WickerGirl very kindly left me a comment on my Ear Wick post from a while back.

Not only does she point out that I rank quite highly in a Google search for "Ear Wick" (which pleases me) but she also says here experience hasn’t been that bad.

So, if anyone comes across this site and is a bit worried about the potentially horrific insertion of one of these little beauties, fear not, WickerGirl says:

"There is a chance your wick may hurt but there is also a chance that if a good, gentle health person does the treatment, it might be heavenly!!!"

So there you go.

Alcohol As Medicinal Remedy - #1

This is #1 in a series of occasional articles.

For this recipe you will need:

• One nasty cough, ideally coupled with an unpleasant cold
• One bottle of cheap Brandy
• One large mug
• One bottle of Tesco organic honey
• One tea spoon
• One kettle
• Tap water

Boil the tap water in the kettle, and allow it cool for a few minutes. Add 2 teaspoons of honey into the mug , then add 2 teaspoons of brandy.

Then decide that, actually, 2 teaspoons doesn’t look like a lot, so chug some more brandy in for good measure. Top up with the hot water, until the mug is full.

Stir, and taste. After tasting, decide that, actually, there’s not enough honey in there, and it’s quite possible that, by adding more honey, there’d be potential for more brandy. Add an additional 1.5 teaspoons of honey, followed by an additional chug of brandy.

Check brandy bottle, marvel at how much brandy you’d actually thrown into the mug. Shrug, wander off into lounge to continue watching Top Gear and consume beverage.

Wonder about halfway down the mug if this was a good idea. Consume entire contents of mug, stagger off to bed, ideally falling over a number of strategically placed kids’ toys as you go.