We're leaving together, But still it's farewell

Alot has happened since the last Blog. Well not happened in lots of ways. I had a weekend of Triathlons planned at end of March,but due to circumstances they both got cancelled.

All that build up, all that work and it felt like failure. I spent a week not exercising as it felt like someone had stolen my puppy...

But then I decided to do something positive and in pure Will logic I entered a Sprint Triathlon at the end of April. Which is double the length of the one that had been cancelled. What a great idea!

Except I had been training but not that hard because I didnt need to run that far. Now I do, so I have upping the training with painful consequences! The day after I feel like the tin man and just want someone to oil my joints.

So come Sunday at 9:25 I will embark on my first triathlon. I have even got a bib number 103 ... eeek. To say I have been thinking about it is an understatement. It is pretty much all that is on my mind. I have read the course description about a million times, worked out how I can mess up a million times and calculated my chances of dying.  Even reading my new favourite book about Wolfram Mathematica, the calculations supporting the big bang theory, inflation and how we are only a universe away from our doubles, doesnt help. Eeek  again.

I know I can finish and I dont even care if I am last (I do really unless people DNF then that is fine) but the unknown is a big headache

So this is it... I think... maybe...

Think about me on Sunday as I huff and puff around Kendal, cursing the world and my stupidity...

Ohh and I have booked another for September with plans of another two in between ... too early??

Tick Tick Tick Tick Boom...

This year has disappeared in a blur, often involving a lot of rain. Lots of rain. But now the sun is out and my feet have started to thaw out, smiles are beginning to appear on the lips of the public in the UK.

Training has been going well ish. Mostly sticking to the programme I am now into week 7. In fact in 4 weeks time I will have (theoretically) have completed my first triathlon. Gosh that is a thought!

Up until now it has been all in the gym due to the aforementioned weather. With teh sun out and dryign the ground I think the next few weeks will give me the opportunity to get out and experience the world flying past me as I dash along country lanes (or more likely huff and puff up the smallest hillock whilst old dears on their constitutionals race past me) 

To celebrate the fact it is coming up quickly I did what any sane, normal, slightly plump (stop sniggering) man would do and buy a trisuit. If you dont know what this is, think of skin tight lycra, with a nappy between your legs for the bike and fancy graphics. I know .I am hoping they dont think it is an Orca beached and start chucking water over me before a group of hippies try to roll me into the sea. And no I cant take that image back!

Up until now I have been maing so with normal gym stuff, but on the day you start with the swim before on to the bike and then a run. If you wear normal clothes your special bits often will get a little erm .. .chaffed. So instead I have got the sporting version of a gimp suit.  On the right is exactly what I dont look like!

My plan is to do this one and then do another 3 this year I think. The next ones will be the bigger versions rather than the baby version I am doing at the moment. In theory if I havent died, got bored or something I might aim to do an Olympic distance next year. It sounds so simple when you say it out loud ...

Outside of training stuff, I am currently setting up my own company. Started some work already and will be out flogging my amazing abilities in the general public in the next week or two.

Something that you may all be interested to know about is I am launching "Name that Flock"to help create identities for my new logos. And yes there will be prizes.. sheepy ones..


 Music Corner 

A beauty of a tune this week Logistics - Back 2 U (click on Pic)

You done what?

The pain has subsided. Although a trip to get a sports massage on Friday left me covered in bruises. I am not sure I should be paying a lady to do that to me!

Another week has flown past, in a blur of wind rain and sweat. I had been hoping to get outside to do some training but not until this storm passes.

Over the last month I have roughly Swum 5km, Run 25km & Biked 150km which combined could get me to Carlisle.

I know, winnah winnah, chicken dinnah indeed. I could have a wicked night out there... apparently Guildhall Museum is Carlisle’s best kept secret.. so I will set my sat nav to there!

Wierdly my body seems to have been taken by aliens (and not the probing kind). the last couple of times I have been to the gym, I have really enjoyed it. Yes I know. No I havent taken any of that. Honest.

Which is good as now I have started my own business, time is going to be at a premium so I need to avoid feeling like I have to drag myself along to the gym and its bright green walls looking like a bad fast food place, or maybe they bought the paint from Del Boy.

Another added bonus is that I am getting faster. I guess it is because I am spending less time panting, bent double like a wheezing old man and more time ambling along like a wobbly dinosaur. Thats a mental image for you all to savour (how many of you thought Barney rather than a T Rex?)

I have only got 7 weeks before I actually do it properly proper for real and all that. Eeek.

On a final note thank you very much for all the contributions to the Gym idea. I have now met my fundraising target and I will be opening it with Two Hats Jimmy in the next six months :-)

 Music Corner 

And oldie but a goodie..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8l6vTw97QWs

House of Pain

Not just a 90's music reference, but a fact of life at the moment.

Yes yes I know girls have high pain thresholds and boys don't. Yes I know that manflu is the most life threatening non lethal, but I hurt.  A lot.

Just a dull ache, located erm .. in my body ... everywhere. This has made the last 3 workouts based around grin and bear it.

I must have distorted the fabric of space time when I run because on one occasion 3 minutes was long than my whole 6 weeks holiday as a child! 

Still by 8am this morning I had completed my brick (40 minutes cycle followed by 15 minutes run). Ouch. And this is week 3 of 12. Woo and Hoo.

Ignoring my self pity and frankly childish moans, those that know me, know that I am quite frankly a bit odd at times.

Voices in my head this morning....(does wavy hands thing)

"Good morning Dragons. Today I am going to pitch to you a new and unique idea in branded exercise programmes.  It is called Two Toned and will reach £100 profit after year 3. I am asking for £100K investment for 4% of the company.

Studying the current offerings in the marketplace, my research identified a gap in the working out and and Ska  music. I havent heard of any other gyms in the Accrington area offering such a unique and stylish proposition.

Before you rush to invest I will outline some of the details. Two Toned will be a black an white themed gym, with all of the music supplied by Ska and Two tone bands.

Members will have to wear pork pie hats whilst working out for that extra Beat Burn (TM) which by providing coverage the head area will increase atoms leaving the body by up to 1% 

The gym will have a house band led by the weight loss king Buster Blood Vessel. They will provide up tempo music, a performance to perspire to.

The gym will also host every wave of Ska bands up to and including the 3rd wave. 

Themed nights include Beatercise, Leaner than Jake, Rowing with big Fish and Rankin Roger Run.

We would extend the chain with brand such as New Row Mantics, Rock and Run, Middle of the Row and Cross Country Music. 


I am now open to questions .... .Yes Theo ......" (wavy hands)

 Music Corner 

This week is that amazing duo -   
Carter USM with Surfing USM 

The intro to the song just explains it all.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8l6vTw97QWs




 

Mmmbop

So I am back .. after a few months. Missed me ? I doubt it.Well welcome back to this irregular and frankly irrelevant load of tosh that is my blog.

In the intervening months I have almost moved to a small hebridean island, started volunteering at a horse sanctuary and now am living the dream in a small northern town.

Due to the move and life getting in the way training dropped off (erm sort of stopped) with it becoming patchy.

Got back to the Gym at the beginning of December and hated it with a passion. Then foolishly, I accidentally entered my first triathlon. Well as accidentally as you can do it, and no I wasn't drunk ... the theory being that if I have a date, I need to get training.

Which it has. Over the last 5 days I have trained un 4 of them, including two pool sessions and two lots of running. It hurts. A lot. And the next day you get up and start all over again. 3 months of this ..eek.



So why Mmmbop. well like any good scholar I have been doing my research about triathlons and came across something interesting. There are different levels of triathlon with the top one being the Ironman. This is pain on a epic scale.

Roughly it consists of 3.8k swim, 180k bike ride and then a marathon. One after another.  In under 17 hours.

Those who have completed it like to adorn themselves with a badge of honour, which is the M Dot. It is the Ironman logo.

So why do I care. I dont. Sort of.

Imagine this scenario, an unruly class is messing about the teacher threatens to give them a test if they don't behave. Out of the 30 students 29 will be dreading a test, yet one will want to take it, to test themselves.

A lone voice against the sanity peddled by others.

Some where inside of me is this class. 99% of me looks at an M Dot and thinks yeah that's nice.

But I am never going to get one.

Yet...

yet..

somewhere is a quiet voice saying "yes I would love one".

Reality strikes ...

I wonder if they do fake transfer ones ...

Music Corner

 The only way I can get through some of the runs is to listen to decent music. So each week I will bring you one Tuuuuuuuuuuuunnnneee that has eased my misery.

This week it has been Apollo 440 - Odessa Dubstep.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gjZEXIvQz-0

Please if you have any recommendations for Tuuuunes to run to I am all ears ...

Apologies for lack of funny stuff but this is the first week so breaking you in gently.
Next week I will do better.

Recruiter says no ...

Been an odd sort of week, time has flown yet stayed still at the same moment. I am sure young Mr Einstein will have an equation to calculate for that something along the lines of T=H-Tr+CB*

Still applying for jobs, but almost at double figures with my rejections, which i class as success. I think they are just playing hard to get. I reckon a couple of weeks stalking their offices, writing them love poems which I will sellotape to the CEO's car and creating the head of HR their own C90 mix tape and I should be good for at least second interview with them. Cheeky cheeky monkeys... I know their game ...

So this week has seen a few notable achievements in the world of wobbling Will. Last week I started to use my bike in anger. It was a mild sort slightly pissed off ness to be honest, like the realization that you have put the suspension bolt in the wrong way when you have spent 30 minutes putting it back together and will now have to disassemble it again, but without the 10 second thought of does it really matter?.

Luckily Scotland is awesomely flat and very very smooth, so I have been enjoying the path round the nearby lake (or as the ginger indigenous people call it a Lock).

Brilliantly for a nation that cant even install a tram system, the path round the lake doesn't actually go round the lake, but stops halfway.  In a couple of years apparently they might get round to finishing it. Really then a there and back ride, about 25km in total.

That has been attempted and conquered a few times, with a few blue bits on the way(man I didnt know wind was made that cold)

Just in case I am ever famous and you want a small anecdote about me to use at parties, I bought my bike from Perth Bike Station. They take bikes from the tip and refurbish and flog them on (that isnt the anecdote fact fans).

In their shop they had a Raleigh Activator the first bike I ever bought with my money earnt bell ringing way back in. If that isnt enough they had Grifters and also a Street wolf in stock!



Sadly none of these fitted my needs, so I now have a slightly rubbishy 15 speed MTB which more than suits my needs.

Step one of sprint triathlon complete - I can cycle the distance, outdoors and not die. Yes I may be slow, have a sore undercarriage and I am definitely not stylish but complete none the less (unlike trams or paths in scotland)

Step two has been to get more time in at the gym and today I completed my first 5km in 36 minutes. Again not very quick with some small bit of walking but a tick in the can do without dying spreadsheet.

My next aim is to sign up to Park Run and try it out doors. In the cold.... bits of me turn blue just thinking about it...

*Time = Happiness - Tears + Chocolate Biscuits

..and we are back

Welcome back to the wonderful world of wobbly Will...

So been a few months since I have updated this, the last time was in 35 degree warmth in Cambodia. Now I am sitting in 14 degree Scotland. How the mighty have fallen :-)

A quick recap for those not paying attention. Man gets fat, gets fed up of being fat, puts down his chocolate biscuit*, decides to do something about it, decides that it can wait until after the chocolate biscuit, then reads a book, decides he is a fell runner, realizes that physics have objected to him taking that path, has another chocolate biscuit, starts running.

The inital plan was to do a 5k run then move on to half marathons. Easy.. .of course. Apart from running is boring. And I am not very good at it so far.

Then I had a new flash of inspiration brought to me by Mel C. Now it isn't the first time she has featured in my thoughts (No.2 after Baby for those who wanted to know) but she was shown doing something called a sprint triathlon.

I have always fancied doing a triathlon but quite frankly they would take me too far away from the biscuit jar and I wouldnt be home for Neighbours** so I ignored them. They are better left to super humans like Wendy, Lawrence and Simon to do.

They are around 750m swim, 20k bike and then 5k run. These Sprint ones though are shorter and more importantly mean I wouldnt have to miss match of the day training.

So that was it, my new target is a Sprint triathalon for March time.

With renew vigour I put down the biscuit and joined the gym. It hurts but it is nice.

In the last 6 weeks I have gone from thinking that 30 minutes is a good workout to being disappointed if I dont do over an hour of cardio. I have also lost about 8 kgs (which is nice). I have bought a bike, cycled 25km on it, froze to death with the brisk scottish breeze and now have a sore unercarriage(very tender)

So that is up to date. Bet you are wondering if you can invent a time machine and get those last 2 minutes back of your life spent reading this rubbish. :-)

*Rich tea biscuits name has been changed to protect the innocent
** Other generic addictive rubbish programme are available