Conjunctivitis, Cloverfield, and Comfortable Shoes

By way of an update, in reverse chronological order, here’s what’s going on:

I have conjunctivitis in my left eye, which has caused it to swell up, and will only open half way. This is annoying. I’ve got drops that have to live in the fridge, so at the moment they’re sat next to someone’s home-made salad, or whatever gubbins is in that Tupperware in work’s fridge. Hope my drops don’t get eaten…anything goes in this place…

I saw Cloverfield at the weekend, and very much enjoyed it. It’s basically Godzilla, or King Kong, shot through a digital camera by a bunch of attractive-looking youths. There are parallels with Romero’s Diary of the Dead (which should get a theatrical release soon) but Cloverfield isn’t as determined to get its message across. If it even has a message. It’s more of a clever piece of viral marketing, with an end product that actually delivers for a change. I’m a sucker for half decent giant monster movies, and this certainly fits that category.

Oh, and it gave me motion sickness for the first time in my life. Seriously, I thought I was going to throw up or leave the cinema. That’s never happened before. Unless you count the Texas Chainsaw Massacre remake…but that was for different reasons.

It’s also very pleasing to see all the speculation on various Internet blogs and forums, regarding things that didn’t happen in the film. The origins of the creature, what the meaning of various clues are, and what path a potential sequel could take are all being debated on a number of sites. This makes me happy: anything that fires up people’s imaginations after they’ve left the cinema is a good thing, if you ask me. And you didn’t, but you’re reading my blog, so that’s close enough.

I took a week off from training last week. I walked to work on Monday and Tuesday, and managed to hurt my heel/ankle, pansy that I am. On Wednesday it was particularly excruciating, and so on Thursday I decided a visit to the local quack doctor was in order.

He basically told me that a) the problem would be very persistent, b) the problem would be extremely painful, and c) I’d not be able to run the race in May.

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.

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…