After completing the 10K for MND I foolishly stopped my training.
I decided to restart it during the week, I stretched just as much as I normally did. I walked 5 times further for my warm up. I went for 1 mile: jog 4 walk 2. I had a long walk to warm down.
I still managed to pull my right calf !
This was something I had when i was training regularly, the only thing that helped was going for a weekly massage.
I have changed the way that I walk so that I am stretching my calfs more and I feel a twinge with every step, this is helping me slightly but not “fast” enough. I want to get back out and do more.
Any suggestions for “better” or “more appropriate” stretches that I should do?
A happy coincidence, at the beginning of the year, I read an article, I think it may have been on LifeHacker about the concept of a “zero state” inbox. Basically, keep your inbox empty, file all e-mails as soon as they appear and create tasks for anything you can’t do there and the.
Now I realise that this is the basic premis of Getting Things Done (GTD) by David Allen.
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I first read about this on JD’s Get Fit Slowly blog, I’m up for it !
The target is, after 6 weeks I should be able to do 100 push-ups.
First day is today!
Sarah and I managed to finish the 2008 Scottish Motor Neuron Disease Association (SMNDA) Fun Run 10k (6 mile) route in a respectable 1 hour 20 minutes.
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photo credit: Carmelo Aquilina
That is most definitely the furthest and fastest I have ever travelled by foot in the last decade !
OK, it was my slowest speed to date, but I’m not to concerned about speed just now.
My goal is to finish the 10K in 4 weeks time; gulp, I can’t believe it’s so soon !
If I could maintain my current 13minute mile I should come in under 1 hour 20 minutes, lets set that as a goal !
Sarah Goodman, my 13 year old daughter decided to join me on my run tonight.
She did great, she did’nt slow me down any. I am keeping track of my training in a Google spreadsheet here.
We are in training for our upcoming fundraising events.
See the widgets on the right if you would like to donate.
I have just fine tuned my working environment and have come up with the ideal setup.
OK the monitor heights are a bit wonky but I very rarely span monitors, I like to have discrete items open in each and focus on one monitor at a time.
In this picture I have outlook split between monitors 1 & 2, thunderbird between 2 and 3 and firefox crossing all 3.
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I treated myself to an external flash for my camera, specifically a Nikon SB-800.
This allows me to play around with having the flash off camera. Mucking around produced the photo above, which also gives a sneak preview to the “face fungus” which I am currently cultivating.
As you may or may not know, i love the concept of openid which allows you to have a single authorisation location for multiple sites (including this blog). It also allows you to have a single profile page. It has just scared me the number of places where my profile photo may be, I’m going to spend the next hour seeing how many places I have put it!
OK, in 1 hour I have found 16 discrete sites, and I have not even started with the forums that I frequent !
Sarah, Connor and I just spent a fantastic day with Patrick McGlinchey from Backwoods Survival School on the outskirts of Glasgow.
We started off the day with a discussion on what “Backwoods” actually means and how it’s as much about preparing your mind as it is your body and your kit. Patrick was able to describe just about every plant, weed, shrub and tree that we passed and gave us the chance to sample all of the edible morsels that we could find as we walked through the woods. We also discussed the materials that could be obtained and what could be made from them, this included everything from cordage to fish traps to which wood was the hottest and brightest to burn.
We then had a long talk on knife safety as much for my benefit as for Sarah (12) and Connor (8). It was then time to put these skills to the test. Connor had chosen to make a bow and arrow whilst Sarah and I would be making a fire bow. Again plenty of time was spent showing us the steps required. One of Patrick’s principles is to learn by doing. He may well show you how to do something, but you don’t take what he starts and finish it, you have to reproduce the steps he has shown you. This obviously takes a little longer but is MUCH more rewarding.
The only complaint that I could possibly have is that; as I had to pay so much attention to completing my own task, I completely missed the finer details of how to make arrows. I’ll need to see what Connor remembers. The only bit I picked up on was using dried dogfish skin to sand the shaft.
Our creations complete, it was time for a well earned (I thought) cup of tea. Patrick demonstrated fire starting using a fire bow and also using flint and steel in conjunction with some fungus.
After the tea it was time to put my firebow and my stamina to the test. I did manage to get it burned in. I did manage to produce smoke. I even managed to burn my finger, by poking it in to “see how hot it was”. The main thing I was struggling with was bowing level, so i was a bit stop and start. I will be practicing this over the next few weeks.
Next it was time to “hunt” for our “dinner”. Patcick had brought along one of his hand made blowpipes and we took it in turns to pop a handily placed balloon. Despite my previous reputation as a blowhard it was Sarah who had the best combinatio of puff and aim.
It was then time to head back to the car, sampling some more nibbles on the way and also giving Connor a chance to try out his bow and arrow in an open field.
All in all a fantastic day, proof of the pudding, the kids want to go back again. I am going back, I have booked to go on the next available Backwoodsman course which lasts a whole weekend.
