Funny thing, when I hear a siren here or even a bunch of sirens, I don’t immediately assume something dramatic is occurring. This is partly because I’m very used to the sound and partly because it’s different here, less dramatic, safer. There are no acts of terrorism (well not since the French blew up that boat in the 80′s) and there is no rioting. Aside from the occasional mugging gone wrong it’s pretty quiet really. This is no bad thing.
January 14, 2012
Run – the third
Saturday morning dawned sunny with gusts of wind of 85 miles per hour. So instead of running at Oriental Bay I hopped in the car and drove around the bay until I reached a relatively sheltered part and ran there instead.
Running into the wind was harder than I thought, rounding one corner was like hitting a wall or running in treacle, but I did it and week one is now complete – I’m looking forward to running for longer periods in week 2.
January 13, 2012
Island life
The one and only thing I miss about my previous job is the friends I made there. There’s just very little camaraderie at my new job.
I think the reason we were good friends at my last job was because we were united by a common adversary. By that I mean that we were all generally overworked, underpaid and under a lot of stress. This caused us to band together by way of drunken nights out, much needed fag breaks or cheeky lunchtime wines. Colleagues were pretty tolerant of each others foibles.
Life gives with one hand and takes with another. I feel very little camaraderie in my new job and I think it’s because it’s just a job. We’re under a lot less pressure therefore work isn’t the all consuming, life swallowing beast it was in London.
On one hand this is a shame as my social life has dropped considerably, on the other hand I no longer feel the need to go out, debrief and get drunk just to cope. The sides of my mouth are no longer ragged as I’m not chewing on them like I used to. I’m no longer in the habit of finding my teeth habitually clenched. Best of all I don’t wake up in the middle of the night thinking about work.
I guess at some point I’m going to need to go out and actively seek friendships because no (wo)man is an island, but for now i’m pretty content on my wee island.
January 11, 2012
Run – the second
After one day of rest, during which my muscles were reminding me why I don’t usually run, I hauled myself out of bed at 6.45, did a few stretches and headed back down to Oriental Bay. I’m still, as ever, an awkward runner, my posture isn’t great and I’m not sure where to position my arms. Watching other runners – they seem to have a very comfortable way of running, however they do all have different styles. Some run with arms hung loose, hands waving about. Some run with clenched fists, arms bent at a right angle. Some run with arms bent but raised slightly higher and pulled into the body. I haven’t find a style that’s comfortable yet, my arms feel stiff, my hands, lightly clenched, feel wrong. My speed is off too, as ever I’m trying to quash the urge to run as fast as I am able and instead jog lightly. It’s hard as my natural inclination is to do everything as fast I can then have a sit down, but I know that on a longer run that isn’t sustainable. So I’ve been trying to concentrate on a more plodding speed rather than roadrunner speed.
My next run will be Saturday or Sunday morning. I’m not looking forward to it as I know there will be more people about and I’m still self conscious about my chaotic style. As an antidote to the self consciousness I will no doubt feel, I plan to take a long cycle in the weekend – riding a bike feels as natural to me as breathing.
January 9, 2012
A New Year, a new fitness scheme doomed to failure?
With the beginning of a new year and the inspiration of several running friends I’ve decided to start running regularly. I’m attracted to running for the simple reason that it’s exercise that requires little kit/maintenance of kit and is largely not weather reliant.
In the past I’ve embarked on runs with seasoned runners and made the mistake of keeping up with them despite my complete lack of experience. For example the last run I went on I ran for 35 minutes as fast as I could – achieving 4.5 km without stopping. Whilst this is pretty good in terms of timing and distance, the down side struck me the day after and the day after that as I found myself severely disabled. Every muscle in my body hurt – it quite seriously took me a week to recover. That was about 5 years ago, I think I may have learnt my lesson that time.
This time I’ve consulted the internet and found what sounds like a sensible schedule that allows me to build up to 30 minutes of running:
Week 1 Run one min, walk 90 seconds. Repeat eight times. Do three times a week.
Week 2 Run two mins, walk one min. Repeat seven times. Do three times a week.
Week 3 Run three mins walk one mins. Repeat six times. Do three times a week.
Week 4 Run five mins, walk two mins. Repeat four times. Do three times a week.
Week 5 Run eight mins, walk two mins. Repeat three times. Do three times a week.
Week 6 Run 12 mins, walk one min. Repeat three times. Do three times a week.
Week 7 Run 15 mins, walk one min, Run fifteen mins. Do three times a week
Week 8 Run 30 mins continuously.
(Source: Runners World)
I started this morning. I felt like quite a fraud headed down to Oriental bay at 6.50am this morning dressed in my pristine proper runners gear. Thankfully once I was on the path along the bay I realised that there are many different types of runners and probably no one cares what I’m doing or not doing out there.
Instead of using a stopwatch timer which seemed too difficult, I organised my iTunes by song length then chose songs of appropriate length so that I could just switch to walking on every second track. It wasn’t easy getting songs of 1 minute long – I look forward to choosing songs of 2 minutes length for next week’s run portion..a slightly easier task.
So wish me luck – I’m hoping to report back on progress at the end of the week (this assumes that I will stick to the schedule this week).
January 6, 2012
It’s an illness
Having now spent what I like to call ‘a crapload’ in the sales and on holiday I now find myself confined to quarters. As suggested by a kindly shop assistant observing the full flight of my addiction – the only way to stop this madness is to isolate myself from temptation.
So far this holiday I have purchased:
1 necklace
1 skirt
1 striped vest
1 running shorts (I don’t yet run, but am trying to motivate myself)
1 3/4 length running tights (see above)
1 dress
1 short sleeve cardigan
1 racer back converse vest (to go with the rest of my converse addition influenced purchases)
This list doesn’t include the money I’ve spent on camping, booze and boat trips etc… I never do dry Januarys but this year I’m making an exception, if only to reduce costs and increase the likelihood of gym use and possibly running.
On that note, I’m off to the gym (in about an hour when I get my shit together).
