Sound of Silence

I'm having a couple of weeks of country living while I'm between flats. This means that I'm also driving to work and hence there's not as much walking in my day. I hadn't realised how much I'd miss the 40 mins or so that I walk every day on the way to work and the reason I know I've been missing it is that I've found myself coming home of an evening and heading back out for a while.

Tonight was a great example: I had my application for the 10K to post and so I wandered along to the village postbox. Rather than walk straight back, I found myself wandering up to the top of the village and heading along a walk known locally as the Beeches. What started as a 5 min walk to post something became a 40 min walk enjoying the peace and solitude.

When you spend so much time living in the city it's possible to block out the regular background noise and accept it as normal. It's only when you come to the countryside where there really isn't any other noise that you realise how noisy it was before. I found myself tonight actually 'hearing' the silence. Weird?

Another great idea

I think I might be the worlds worst blogger,.. actually I'm not that bad but still, there's room for improvement I think!

So let's catch up before I start on another great idea. The 10K happenend and I ran it in 1hour and 7 minutes. What made it more impressive was that I managed it even without doing as much training as I would've liked. Injuries (lots), girlfriends and trips away all conspired to disrupt the schedule but I still managed to get some time in. I had been aiming for 1 hour 30 mins so I was over the moon with the time I managed.

The next great idea is to run another 10K which, given I haven't run since the end of June, isn't the most clever idea. Darren Stenhouse and I will be running the Glasgow 10K on Sept 3rd just because,... well I don't know why, just because it's there to be done.

I know I'll be attempting it now because I've been out this afternoon to test out the running legs. The route I chose was 5K and featured some decent size, never ending, hills. I managed it in 30 mins which is a decent first attempt. Now I need to see how long it takes to recover (the legs will hurt tomorrow) and if I can keep up the pace. 30 mins was the time but I finished with a stitch and thought I was going to be sick as I stopped running. I have a suspicion that isn't good!

Overall it does seem do-able and I think I can aim for a 1 hour time on this one. Hopefully I can keep this blog more uptodate as I do this one.

That hurt a bit

Last night was session 2 of the training; again 1min jogging, 1min walking. This time it hurt a bit more than before and was more of a struggle. However it's nothing too daunting just yet, unlike what comes next week. The pace is about to step up with longer jogging sessions. I'm hoping that the motivation will come easier because this week I've had to force myself out of the door. It doesn't help that I've been getting the later train home from work so maybe that's something I've got to sort out.

The exercise or perhaps the camomile, honey and vanilla tea has had a great side effect of making me sleep so much better at night. Of course it could be that I'm only getting 6 hours but at least it's a sound 6 hours. For a long time now it's been an interrupted sleep even though I've felt knackered.

A suggestion that we should be noting what we're listening to while training and so here goes: last night I was exercising while watching Friends on E4. Amazingly it was an episode I've never seen!

Not so unfit?

Day One of the training schedule and I was feeling like the relucant athlete tonight. Felt knackered on the way home from work and almost had to bully myself into starting the training.

The main issue was that a nameless colleague (to protect the unfit) had started the program on Saturday and found it really difficult. Anyway headed to the local gym which I joined back in September but hadn't been to yet.

The first day involves 20 mins of alternating between walking for a minute and jogging for a minute. Amazingly it wasn't that bad but did have the desired effect of working up a sweat and pumping the endorfins round the body. Managed to travel 2.6km in the 20 mins so I think we're on course for 10K in around 100 minutes. We'll get that down over the next few weeks but at least it's a good start. I'm considering doing the first part of the program in the gym and then heading out on the road.

Anyway, day one gone, many more to come but at least it was a good start.

Getting the start right

Right, if I'm going to do this I'm going to have to be serious about it. After speaking to my sister, Allison, at the weekend, I've decided that I'm going to have to get the correct footwear and the correct plan.

Stopped in at Borders books in Glasgow last night on the way to the train and found a book called Bone Idol to Body Idol. It's a 100 day plan to improve fitness, both physical and mental. There's lots of cool stuff in there about dealing with stress, lack of sleep, lack of fitness, etc which are all things I need to tackle just now.

Darren's been in touch to confirm that we're definitely going to do this so there's no going back now. There's talk of doing before and after shots for the website and I'm thinking of a Demi Moore pregnant on Vanity Fair cover type of shot for the before. I've got hopes of flattening the stomach. Might happen?

The Nike website has a set of training plans which take you to running 5K in 6 weeks and 10K by week 11. The 5K plan starts off as a 4 day/week commitment with week 1 involving 20mins of walk for 1min followed by jog of 1 min. It's achievable and that's the most important thing. There's nothing about the plan that looks daunting just now. I'm planning on starting on Monday.

Had some time to kill tonight before the train so popped into John Lewis in Glasgow and visited the sports dept. The guy was really helpful, explaining the whole running shoe technology and pointing me in the direction of the correct fit. Ended up with the Asis GT 2110 with extra gel padding and a thermo plastic frame that holds the foot in the correct position.

So there we go, we've got the plan, the shoe and the book. Unlike Mr Stenhouse, we're not going for the flash clothing, but it's early days, it may still come.

Nike Running Europe - THE RUN STARTS HERE

Nike Running Europe - THE RUN STARTS HERE

Great site for training schedules.

A book for everything?

So here's the thing,... way, way back in the days if yore when Windows(TM) was just a dream of Mr Gates, your average geek had to use DOS as their operating system. This was quite confusing (apparently) for non-geeky types and so some people decided to write a book that would make it simple and straight forward (ish) for those who had no knowledge. So the 'For Dummies' books were born. Over the years the range has branched out to non-technical subjects and there is a great book called Guitar Playing for Dummies that I bought last year.

Anyway, to the point, I was joking the other night about my lack of culinary expertise. I had been looking at the range of books in the local Sainsburys by the top chefs. They all assumed at least a basic knowledge and used 'buzz' words and phrases that I'm sure most people understand but that I don't. There really was no point in buying a book and trying to follow the recipies if I had no idea what I was doing. Wouldn't it be great if there was a Cooking for Dummies that would explain these things? Turns out there is and I found it today.

Go Greece

Before I left for holiday (more on that soon) I entered the office sweepstake at Kingdom FM for Euro 2004. I drew the last ticket which was Greece and I admit I wasn't hopeful of winning any cash. Imagine my surprise then to be sitting on the Greek Island of Kos watching them claim a place in the semi-finals. Now they are 90 mins away from winning the competition.

It's great to think that either Portugal or Greece will win tomorrow even though neither have made it this far in a major competition before. Perhaps the Tartan Army aren't as misguided as we may believe after all?

I'm still alive

BBC NEWS | Scotland | Video evidence on skydiver death

I received a call last night from a concerned colleague at Kingdom FM who thought I was dead. They'd just received a call from a member of the press asking if I was the Alastair McLaren who was killed in a parachute accident. The story is linked above.

It struck me later that there are going to be friends reading that story in the press and possibly thinking it's me so let me squash that rumour now. I am alive and well and harbouring even less desires to jump out of a plane.

I would however like to say that my thoughts are with Mr McLarens family.

Top class music

Okay, so there's a long story behind this but,.....

If you get a chance, check out this guy, Amos Lee. He is absolutely fantastic! Saw him last night (Thursday) in Glasgow and he blew me and my friends away with his set.