(Note – This is a rough-and-ready video that needs editing and polishing. Just wanted to get something up to avoid delay.) Snow! An exhilarating wintry plod today, through the densely wooded hinterland of Horgen, brings a fine end to Week 5/60. Covering nearly 13 kilometres this afternoon sounds impressive by my standards, but it did take 1 hour 45 minutes. The terrain was anything but fast however, and my time included a fair amount of snow-yomping and scrabbling through pathless forest, not to mention standing to gawp at the scenery (15 minutes according to the Garmin). Also, most of the second half was through the local woods, whose paths and steps and narrow bridges and tree roots are treacherous … …
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Idly tickling the iPad during a break at TEDxZurich this morning, I checked the Berlin Marathon website. Fans of big city marathons feel obliged to keep this one bookmarked — just in case. Christ on a cracker! Entry for the September 2013 race opens today, at 12 noon. Only 60 Euros for the first 10,000 entrants. I tried to lose this information behind the complexity of the morning’s presentations. But no amount of futuristic urban planning and intravenous nanorobot chat could scrape the knowledge from my cranial walls. This marathon gets more popular every year. Last year, it had sold out by the New Year. Sigh. Ah, go on then. So at 12 noon I registered. Glad I did. Within … …
A quick update, as interesting things are afoot. Week 5/60 begins well, with the scales registering a 12.8 lb loss over the 4 weeks. There was a brief exchange on the forum today about how easy, or otherwise, it is to lose weight. For me, it is quite easy. I know the formula. But it helps that I live on my own most of the time. This allows me to obsess without reproach, temptation or guilt. And obsession (sometimes generously called ‘determination’ by others) is what it requires. In other news… three days into what I am telling myself is a 24-week marathon training plan, I can report two early morning plods along the lake — around 5 km each. … …
Just now and then, something major comes along. An FA Cup final ticket, a new computer, the amputation of a limb, a wife, that sort of thing. I have a feeling in my lower back that Chi Running might be the latest big thing. Lower back? I’m leaving the sensation there rather than transferring to the more conventional gut because I already have a resident back ache from this morning’s practical introduction to the art, and I won’t get away with two corporeal twinges in one post. Anyway, saving energy by exploiting what’s already there is a fundamental principle of Chi Running. But first… Week 4/60 comes to an end with more steady progress to report. Weight loss is still … …
As chic as Switzerland can be, the lack of Timothy Taylor’s Landlord is a critical design fault. I was reminded of this during my six-day London fun package which, apart from the funeral, the Guardian weekend writing workshop thing, some hospital visits and a two-day work conference, included a few nights in the pub to renew acquaintance with friends human and friends liquid. I even had a good excuse for my trips to the local Hatch End hostelry. They had Wi-Fi, while my permanently offline elderly father has never felt the broadband urge. It was where the previous, rather forlorn, entry was created — so blame the beer. The funeral was the usual mixture of gloom and euphoria. But it’s … …
Hell is other people and their fridges. Me and mine included, I’m sure. I am subdued. Welcome to damp suburban London. Much as I love the city of my birth, I will never feel affection for these featureless outer stretches, where the nineteen fifties never quite escaped. Being carless isn’t helping. In the last two days I’ve trailed around Harrow and environs on the bus and overground train. Wretched. Not had to wait long, and the Oystercard system is good. But there is something so down-at-heel about the London experience now. Everyone seems to be on the edge of suicide. The same sensation struck me in New York a few months ago, when we took the A Train through the … …
It was a yoghurt of two halves. The first began full of hope, but petered out. The lower reaches of the pot remain uneaten, and the doctors are shaking their heads. Perhaps strawberry isn’t one of her favourite flavours. Or wasn’t. Maybe her bags really are packed this time, and she doesn’t have time to waste. Who knows? Not me, not the medical staff. We’ve asked them enough times, and are getting exasperated by their incompetence in the star-gazing department. This does not match our benign prejudices about weary-eyed people in white coats. A reporter at the scene quotes one of them as saying: “It could be weeks rather than days, and weeks rather than months.” My comatose sister “stopped … …
I bought an iPad a few weeks ago: my first ever bite of Apple merchandise. Is it true that Apple has a person, or perhaps a department — heck, let’s make it an entire business unit, one should believe everything one hears about Apple — devoted solely to enhancing the experience of removing the cellophane on the iPad box? I hope so, because I thought of her/him/it a few minutes ago as I… removed the cellophane on the iPad box, deciding as I did so that they hadn’t earned their corn. There was a small tear on the plastic in one corner for a start, which distressed me. Unless. Unless the tear is programmed into the wrapping process, giving the … …
I have less than 5 seconds to hold your attention before you drift off to less challenging destinations. Quick, let me put this to you: You’re in a new car, or a hire car. Or perhaps you have just stolen a car. Or it could just be an old car you are driving while very drunk. You pull into a gas/petrol station to fill up. As you approach the pumps, you realise you don’t know which side of the vehicle the petrol cap is located. What do you do….? Are you aware that there’s a simple way to tell which side your car dresses without dislocating your neck trying to spot the petrol cap? Without winding down the window, … …
Remember when I used to give training updates? No, nor do I. Here is almost another one. Little to report. And anyway, I’ve never been convinced that the training regime of a rotund, indolent, middle-aged plodder can be of interest to anyone outside the psychiatric profession. Some say they find encouragement in this sort of thing, but I suspect that any comfort or motivation to be found here is more a case of “There but for the grace of god go I”. The latest revival began in November, when I pulled my running shoes on 7 times in a 12 days. The spreadsheet looks good — three or four miles each time, but as always after a lay-off, the first … …