The weather’s getting to me.

I don’t mind the cold per se, and it’s nice in some ways – for example, you don’t get people with their windows wide open sharing their noisy music with you, as is the case in the summer. Cold weather also brings a fresher feel to the air – it’s less muggy, and you might even begin to think you’re in the Swiss Alps.

The cold air, however, is doing things to my throat.

Every morning this past fortnight it’s been routine to wake up with a sore throat – supposedly sore from breathing in the cold air when I sleep. It takes about an hour for it to feel right – an hour spent drinking loads, against the protests of my throat; an hour spent intermittently coughing up spit, and wheezing. The rest of the day I’m fine, until evening approaches, when my throat soreness starts emerging again, like a runner behind rapidly catching up with you. I’ve decided not to buy the Darth mask (see below) for running, as the seller hasn’t got back to me about postage, and in any case, it’ll probably be too expensive, but I’ve considered getting it just for wearing to sleep – so desperate am I to be rid of this sore throat in the morning. I know this sort of condition affects people that climb Everest, for example, and after a while it becomes accepted and second-nature to them. But I’m nowhere near the North Col, and this cough is annoying.

For me, cold weather also means eating a bit more than usual. Yesterday before dinner had gone down I was hungry already, and the snack after that didn’t last long either. My total number of calories consumed each day has steadily risen to about 2700-3000 now. Not that I care what I eat or anything, but my normal intake is about 2000-2200 per day. Finding time now to eat during work is at times challenging, because my school hours are packed and my lunchtime is minimal. And trying to force down 1000 calories at breakfast, and another few hundred over the course of the working day (can’t eat in front of my students, of course) when there are many things to do … well, that’s just pretty damn … hard.

Enough moaning, anyway.

Tonight it’s Stepper Night in this household. Free entry for feet! For every 45 seconds of hard effort, feet will get a complimentary 15 seconds of easy effort. Try the house specials, too – Fried Bicep Curls in a tricep kickback sauce, garnished with pressups and situps. Try also the Gnocchi Calf Raisé served with vegetables and hamstring curls.

I’ve barely just eaten before my impending cardio, but can you tell what’s on my mind already?

P(s)olar thoughts...

All I've got to show for cardio since Monday has been a 30-minute session on the stepper yesterday. That's right, no cardio since Monday's 5K PB, though it hasn't felt like coming down to earth with a crash. Rather, I've just been feeling sluggish, a little under the weather, and taken what I perceive to be a necessary rest.

#35 yesterday was definitely one of the hardest to start. I had thought about going running, to see how I would manage with running in the cold weather, but a short walk outside made me rethink the whole thing. The combination of 4C weather and a not-100% runner with some undiscovered problems in the cold is not a good one. And if more seasoned cold runners than me found it challenging, what chance would I have? I chose to lay pride to one side.

I don't seem to get as hard a workout on my stepper, and yesterday was no exception. Despite doing whatever I could, the heart rate wouldn't go past 140bpm. Not mind-blowing, but at least it salvaged something and allowed me to move on with cardio without feeling guilty. One thing good about the stepper, though, is that I’ve been so conditioned to it, that stepping 30 minutes while staring at a blank wall doesn’t bother me one bit. I just concentrate on the watch and do 45s hard/15s easy repetitively.

Cold air bothers me. That’s what I suspect. When I get up in the mornings my throat is sore and dry. It’s alright after a while, but I must be careful about running in these conditions. I did some surfing on the net in the hope of finding something that would help. I’ve seen cyclists cover their mouths with some sort of protection, and that’s where I discovered heat-exchange masks by Psolar.

Apparently these masks trap some of the air you exhale to warm a unit in the mouthpiece, which subsequently warms the air you inhale, and the process is repeated. The reviews I read by people who had tested it were fairly positive on the heating system. (The only drawbacks appeared to be the fabric the masks were made of, which didn’t seem durable, and the fact that these things aren’t for sale in the UK.)

So running in these Psolar masks might help. The only thing, though – much as I am a “function over fashion” person (yes, Susan, I know your dog dresses better than me) – is this: Would you go running looking like that?


"Obi-wan has taught you well, young Jedi."
(fwooooh.......)

Chill, man, chill...

Thanks for the kind messages, guys (or "ladies", I should say). Even though we've never met, you're all so sweet and kind.

The throat's getting better and the rest of me is as well. I think I was just hungry and cold yesterday. The weather's turned quite a bit this week and we're starting to see the first signs of winter in Pom-land. Isn't that just [sarcasm] Excellent! [/sarcasm]

Later on I'm going on the stepper, probably for 20 minutes - a simple workout interspersed with some weights and static exercises.

Yesterday I saw a flyer about an impending book launch at one of the schools I teach. The book is on how mainstream schools are failing a particular ethnic group. It badgered me to an extent. I can understand it if people blame schools for failing students - and there are such schools - because the teachers give students work that is not challenging; meaningless work whose sole purpose is to just occupy students for the hour so they don't create problems. That I can accept. But to blame the schools for institutional racism seems more like a transference of blame to me. In every school you will find kids from various backgrounds, and in each ethnic group you will have the high achievers, who are they are motivated to work hard, and the low achievers, who cannot be bothered. I can't believe that people would blame schools for the low achievers of a particular ethnicity. They are low-achieving because they don't work hard.

The Mrs suggested the possibility that, perhaps, in subjects like history, certain groups might be disadvantaged because the history they study in school is not of their own. Tough luck. Other people have to study a different history to their own as well. Turkish kids have to read about Churchill. Korean kids have to study about the Third Reich. And the history I studied was American and South-east Asian history. Cuban-missile Crisis? Mongkut? The Great Society? Chulalongkorn? At one stage we even briefly read Egyptian history. And as you can probably tell, I ain't no Tutankhamen. In any case, there are students within the afore-mentioned group that do well, and students that don't. You can't really blame the school for what is an individual's lack of responsibility. It just happens that this lack of responsibility is quite widespread.

I'd like to go and see what happens at the book launch, but it's on an evening, and I don't really want to waste my time.

An article in the paper today was about how young adults aged 16-24 were going to go on courses to learn life skills such as ... getting up on time. It amazes me how this can count as a life skill, as if it's something you go on a training course to learn. Then again, if you can't be bothered to get up on time, would you be on time for a course like this?

To veer away from all this education talk, something with a sports theme - there's this guy that has the ability to raise his body temperature and is aiming to swim in the Antarctic in just Speedos and cap. I've placed the article as a post below. Where did he get this brrrright idea?

Tomorrow the Pom-land forecast is for "sunny intervals", and I was planning to go out and run, but it's going to be 5C, which - to a fragile weenie like me - is the cesspit (or the "colon", haha). I'm thinking of going out and doing a long run, but I don't know if that exposure to cold is going to make me feel yuck again. If it does then I should consider it not worth it. Exercise is supposed to be good for you - LSD shouldn't stand for Lousy Sick Disease, should it?

So, to my brave friends across the Atlantic, who are so much braver and made of sterner stuff than me, I defer to you for your words of wisdom on the following:

Does anyone ever go running with a scarf around their mouth?
What other ways can you protect yourself while running in the cold (specifically, against breathing in all that cold air)?
Or should I just stop being a baby and suck it up?

If you could kindly offer me some advice, that would be very, very, very much appreciated.

He goes with the floe, by Sarah Shannon

When Lewis Gordon Pugh looks at an expanse of icy-cold water he begins to perspire. His body temperature rises over a 15-minute period and, as it does so, he begins to feel thirsty.

It’s hardly the reaction most of us experience when we dip a toe into a cold pool, but it’s what makes Pugh an extraordinary swimmer. This unusual physical response will help the 35-year-old record-breaking long-distance swimmer to handle his next challenge — swimming in Antarctic waters, with penguins, seals and icebergs for company, while being assessed by scientists. His 1km swim, on December 15, will take place below the 65th parallel and, if successful, will break the record for the most southerly swim. What makes it all the more astonishing is that he will dive in wearing just a pair of Speedos and a cap, eschewing even the Channel swimmers’ favourite accessory, goose fat.

Don’t imagine that Pugh, a maritime lawyer based in London, enjoys the cold. “I enjoy the expedition and environment but I hate being cold,” he says with a wry grin.

Pugh first became attracted to distance swimming in South Africa when, as a teenager, he swam 10km (6 miles) from Robben Island to Cape Town in 3hr 42min after his parents moved to the city. Since then he can lay claim to a number of records, including becoming the first person to swim around the Cape of Good Hope. He developed his taste for cold-water swimming in August 2003 when he swam around the northernmost point of Europe, North Cape, in Norway, going on to swim 204km down a Norwegian fjord a year later. In August he took the record for the first swim in the Arctic Ocean.

Pugh first noticed his ability to “turn on the burners” before the North Cape swim. Before stripping off, he stood looking at the water, psyching himself up for the challenge with his coach, David Becker. It was during this 15- minute mental preparation that he found himself becoming so hot that he wanted to take his clothes off. “I looked at the ice and started feeling hotter and hotter. I kept asking my team for water and becoming aggressive, almost dying to get in the water.”

Accompanying Pugh on the Antarctic expedition will be a sports science professor, Tim Noakes, from the University of Cape Town. He observed Pugh’s ability to generate heat before immersion during the Arctic trip and dubbed it “anticipatory thermogenesis”. He plans to use the Antarctic expedition to establish for certain that this happens and to gain a greater understanding of how the human body copes in extreme temperatures. “We want to understand how Lewis can generate heat before the swim and how he manages to maintain his temperature at above 36C throughout the swim. A normal physiologist would say that it’s impossible to come out of water this close to freezing after 20 minutes with your temperature that high.

“Before Pugh takes the plunge we’ll be monitoring his heart rate, core body temperature (via a rectal thermometer) and muscle temperature, through a needle inserted into his leg muscle.” One theory is that a surge in hormones causes his temperature rise, so these will be monitored, too.

Before the Arctic swim, Professor Noakes measured Pugh’s core-body temperature rise to above 38C (100F). That might not sound high, but it takes a runner 20 minutes of hard exercising to raise his or her core-body temperature to that level. Pugh believes that regular exposure to cold water has produced an almost Pavlovian response: when his brain sees cold water it knows it has to heat up his body. This gives him a huge advantage over ordinary swimmers, as it takes longer for his temperature to fall near the danger zone of 35C, which is classified as clinical hypothermia. When Pugh was pulled into his support boat at the end of his 20-minute Arctic swim his core temperature had dropped to only 37C and 30 minutes later it was recorded at 35C, as his organs continued to try to warm the by now chilly extremities of his body.

If ordinary mortals exposed themselves to water at this temperature they would be disabled within seconds and drown before hypothermia had a chance to set in. “You would hyperventilate,” says Professor Noakes “and this would make it hard to co-ordinate breathing and movement. What’s extraordinary about Pugh is that he puts his head under the water when he takes a stroke and is able to swim normally.” Yet he is not immune to the extreme water temperatures. “When the water hits your skin it’s like having an ice-cream headache all over. Then the cold starts to reach into your core. If your fingertips touch ice as you swim, it’s incredibly painful, like hitting a rock,” he says.

So how does he do it? Mike Tipton, a professor of human and applied physiology at Portsmouth University, conducted studies in the late 1990s into the response of human bodies to cold water. He believes that Pugh has habituated his body to such an extent that he no longer reacts to cold in the normal way. “Regular cold- water swimmers don’t have the usual cardio and respiratory difficulties normal swimmers would have in the water. They don’t get the ‘cold-shock ’ response. And Pugh’s body fat, his muscle and sheer bulk, will mean that his body temperature won’t drop as much as someone thinner or less used to very cold water.”

The only other swimmer to have attempted polar waters is the American Lynne Cox, a hefty swimmer with 38 per cent body fat to aid insulation. Pugh, by contrast, is tall and lean, even though he has been eating furiously to add bulk. He has 22 per cent body fat and weighs just over 15st (95kg). Professor Noakes laughingly refers to Pugh’s food regimen as the “see-food diet” — “He sees food and eats it”.

Despite his lackadaisical approach to diet, there’s no doubt that Pugh works hard at acclimatising his body to hostile conditions. He swims 5km daily, followed by a 10km run. Every other day he increases his resistance to cold water by swimming for 20 minutes in a pool which is gradually filled with half a ton of ice.

The most important part of his preparation, though, is mental training, which he does with the help of his coach. “We try to programme my mind to know exactly what it’s going to face and how to overcome it through visualisation.” He also reads inspirational books by explorers and listens to classical music. Just before the swim he has a more surprising choice of music. “I listen to Eminem and Puff Daddy because I want to feel angry and aggressive. You can’t dip your foot in first, you’ve got to plunge in.”

What drives a swimmer to plunge into ever colder water? “If you want to know why someone does anything in life go back to their childhood. I grew up listening to tales of explorers and dreamt of going to the poles. It’s taken 30 years of desire and I’m finally going to achieve it.”

For further information visit www.lewispugh.com

Highs and lows
Normal body temperature is about 37C (98.6F), which the body maintains either by directing blood away from the skin to conserve heat or by increasing blood flow to the skin surface to lose heat by convection or evaporation, such as perspiring.
Core temperature is considered to be the temperature of blood circulating the vital organs, such as the heart and brain. Generally it does not change by more than a few tenths of a degree either side of normal. During exercise, however, it can rise to 39C.
If your body temperature rises to above 42C, your brain and nervous system will cease to function and death will follow. If it falls to below 36C, hypothermia will set in, and below 33C, the risk of death increases significantly.
For every 1C fall in body temperature, your metabolic rate is reduced by up to 10 per cent.

Was it worth the PR?

Headaches and dry vomitting. I feel so ugh, I wish I hadn't gone running on Monday...

Ever exercised yourself sick?

Stupid TryAthlete. Trying to do a bit too much for yourself to handle.

Stupid.

Stupid.

Stupid.

The show's on hold, folks...

Had a particularly bad time at work today. Woke up feeling physically crap, as if I had the flu, and staggered in to school. Work wasn't particularly good enjoyable either. All I could think about all day was finding time to eat, and making it through to the end of the day.

My throat's been deteriorating since Monday. I wonder if gulping air on my 5K attempt did anything to it. Has anyone had such an experience - dry throat after running in the cold?

The sofa's arrived but I've been feeling so yuck I've not had a proper chance to enjoy it.

I'm glad I'm starting #35 on the next cardio, but when that will be remains to be seen.

Ramblings, part one

I’m off work today to wait for the sofa that we ordered twelve weeks ago to arrive. At the point we placed the order, we were assured it would take “six to eight weeks”. After that time frame, we were offered further excuses, such as “item not in stock, but there’s a new batch in two weeks’ time”, “it takes eight to ten weeks from the point that the manufacturer processes the order”, “the manufacturers only processes the order in mid-September when they reopen”, blah blah blah. Excuse after excuse, and six/eight became twelve. If only that theorem applied to my bank balance. Why weren’t we told the last reason in the first place?

I know that if a salesman was truly honest and told someone it would take up to twelve weeks for an item to arrive, chances are that the person wouldn’t buy it. This sort of lying doesn’t agree with me, and I’d rather be brutally straight with someone, but it seems to be so endemic and acceptable in society. We’ve all encountered it and can easily quote the excuses people give us, as well as the ones we tell.

I see that sort of thing in schools as well, white-lying twinged with over-protectiveness. Don’t get me wrong, I know it’s important to encourage children and teenagers, and when they take time and effort to produce something, we should encourage the effort even though it might not be up to our critical standards. But I’ve often seen students turn in substandard work, with little effort put it, only for the teachers to say “that’s good” for fear of permanently emotionally scarring the child. Even “coursework” which is unacceptable – does it take two years of class lessons to illegibly handwrite a substandard one-page essay? – is given a “good effort” comment, even when it comes from someone who could have obviously done better but couldn’t be bothered to make the effort to do so. What does lying do in that context, except teach someone that it is okay to make substandard effort because the goalposts will always be moved to accommodate you, that it is okay not to strive, because society will lower itself to meet you?

I also once had a student who believed she was Alicia Keys reincarnate (okay, so Alicia Keys hasn’t died, but you get the idea). This student would refuse to learn how to read music, and for about six weeks insisted on playing only songs she had “written”. She would sing them, off-key, and then smear (yes, smear, C-C#-D-D#-E-F-F# all at once) her hands on the piano for accompaniment. On the seventh week she wanted to play for me “Puff the Magic Dragon”, which she did in her usual style.

Me: “Now try that without the singing. Listen to what you’re playing.”

Student: (Smears keyboard.)

Me: “Is that the tune for Puff the Magic Dragon?”

Student: (nods) “Uh-huh.”

Me: (in a very kind tone of voice, almost contrary to the message) “No, it’s not.”

I’ve probably skewered someone’s musical ambitions, but sometimes you have to call a spade a spade. The truth sucks.

But I digress…

Yesterday evening it was back to weights. I did 3 sets of 15 of bicep curls fairly quick, then lowered the weight and did the 10 seconds concentric / 10 seconds eccentric thing for another two sets. The weights I use are fairly light – in fact, they were the ones the Mrs had when she was in her teenage punk phase. You know the ones – “executive dumbbells” that office execs in ties supposedly lift in their privacy of their offices while reading “Total fitness in 1 min a day!” books. The mini-weights seem to work better for me than the big uglies. In any case, I am too much of a cheapskate to spend money on equipment. A weight is a weight. I’ve curled briefcases, squatted bags of books, deadlifted beds. The Mrs also kindly agreed once to be piggybacked for me to do calf-raises. I said “What a workout!” That’s the last time she volunteered.

Ramblings, part two

Out of interest too, I weighed my rucksack in school yesterday (the only time I’ll be found near a scale). The sum of running stuff, books, and teaching materials weighed 13% of my body weight. I hate to think about what this might have done to my back on those occasions I sprinted a mile with it for the train after work. This brings me to mention about “Alexander Technique”, which is about misuse prevention. Discovered by Franz Matthias Alexander, the technique believes that we misuse ourselves in daily life to achieve our wants, and the stresses of life keep us from returning to a “balanced resting state”. As we age our misuse accumulates, our nerves become increasingly tightened, and our reflexes assimilate our misuse to the point where it becomes natural … ever seen old people with “the hump” around their neck region, or necks pressed too far forward, or over-arched backs? We ascribe these to unavoidable symptoms of old age, but that’s not necessarily the case.

Anyway, it’s far too complex for me to ever hope to summarize here, and one of the places you can find out more is from the Society of Teachers for the Alexander Technique, or STAT. One of the things the technique recommends is lying on the floor in a semi-supine position, with your head supported by a few books. (As if you’re about to do crunches, but with hands on hips.) This allows the spinal fluid to return to the vertebrae, and the spine – which is compressed all day by the weight of the head and body – to lengthen to its natural state. You are also encouraged to think about freeing the neck and induce the motor neuron fibres to lengthen.

I don’t necessarily agree with all of the Alexander Technique, and I know some of it must sound quite new-agey and airy-fairy. But I agree with the idea of having a good head-neck-back relationship, and allowing the spine to lengthen. Think of it this way: When you want to do something, the brain sends electrical impulses down the spine which then activate the various motor nerves. (Consequently, someone who has received a heavy blow to the back of the neck can be paralysed and cannot send impulses to move the lower half of their body.) Taking care of your head-neck-back relationship sounds like a good thing to do.

The “before/after” pictures I’ve seen in books (these were before the days of Photoshop and image-doctoring) are also hard to deny.

I’ve probably established myself in your eyes as a “looney” at this point, but trust me, lying down in the semi-supine position, 15-20 minutes a day does help. Try it for a week and see.

I’d better get my student reports and schemes of work done, and hope the doorbell rings.

Hey hey hey...

I was back to running by the river at lunch break today. Today was cold - temperature was below freezing when I left the house - and when I started running it was "only" 9C (50F). It felt alright, though - last year (and years before) I would have scoffed at running below 12C, but I'm gradually getting used to it now, thanks to my friends across the Atlantic who continually assure me that running in that sort of weather is actually no big deal. I'm beginning to see the light.

Today my run was an experiment of sorts - I mainly wanted to see what sort of effect the stepping (interspersed with weights) I had done would have on my running. There's this 1.25km strip of road near the river, so I ran along it for a warm up, then did 4 laps to get a 5K.

1st lap: 4:40 (what the?)
2nd lap: 5:30 (paying for it now)
3rd lap: 5:24
4th lap: 5:20 (hard. hard. hard.)

I'm so happy I want to shout it out: 5K - 20:54! Damn, 6:43 mins per mile feels good! It certainly didn't feel that way when I was running it though. I didn't measure my heart rate after I'd finished, but ten minutes after that my heart rate was still at 110bpm. I still can't honestly say I like speedwork. It tastes like vomit.

Does stepping have any impact on running? I'd like to think so, seeing as stepping (for me on my lousy stepper anyway) is fast and I'd like to think of it as some derivative form of interval work. And I took a minute and a half off my previous 5K best. Then again, 5K is really such a short distance, that if I stopped to sneeze I'd probably lose a significant amount of time.

I'll have to be back at work. You be the judge.

Is exercise taking over your life?

Boil water in kettle.
Do one set of pressups.
Slice one zucchini and fry on low heat.
Do one set of pressups.
Cook pasta according to instructions on packet.
Do one set of pressups (repeat as necessary).
Drain pasta when ready.
Wilt one packet of spinach (low heat, with cream and pesto).
Do one set of pressups.
Add zucchini and pasta.
Stir. Do one set of pressups. Superset stirring with pressups.
Enjoy your pasta with zucchini and spinach in a pesto and cream sauce.

(I got in over 120 pressups this way.)

"Chinese Boy, Go Suck Cock"

Today, at the school I go to in the afternoon, the kids were deliberately causing trouble in the main classroom for the teacher at the end of the lesson. Keyboards were left playing demo tracks at full volume; students were running about at the end of the lesson, playing hide and seek; some even taunted the teacher who asked them to leave by not moving and adopting a “what you gonna do about it” attitude. As I was between lessons, and my next student hadn’t yet arrived, I helped the teacher to get some sort of order by asking some of the kids to leave. Some did, but there was this one, with his bottom sat on the keyboard (turned on, of course), that started chanting “Chinese boy, Chinese boy”. When I asked him whether he had any self-respect, and why he wanted me to diminish my opinion of him by acting silly, it became “Chinese boy, go suck cock”. After a few repeats, the coward then left the room in a cloud of self-righteousness.

I’ve of course mentioned this incident to the teacher, as well as other people who need to know, and will formally put my complaint in writing to the Headteacher of that school. God I hate drafting letters, but this one’s necessary.

My attitude towards this sort of behaviour is somewhere along the lines of the following:

Some people will say anything just to get under your skin.
Some people want to see they’ve needled you. They want you to correct them because they love the attention they get.
If the person is correctable and receptive to advice (saying inappropriate things mistakenly), stop to correct it.
If not, leave that person to get on with his (sometimes her) miserable life and resign yourself to letting them rot in hell.

The kid that said that was barely twelve. And uncorrectable. He’d said it in front of a group of other kids, so really I couldn’t overlook that. Reasoning with him, however, didn’t help – and I couldn’t throttle him, so what can you do?

It saddens me – well, “saddens” not quite the word; “concerns” is maybe more appropriate – that there are young people like that who have already got to that incorrigible state. Kids that are barely nine or ten, being menaces in school, beyond correction. I call them “The Living Dead” because to me, there doesn’t seem to be any hope for them. The only reason they come to school is because they have to. Their parents don’t want them at home, and if they are absent from school the council gets on their parents’ case and the parents can get taken to court. The kids are dumped in school, where they get joy out of disturbing other teachers’ classes. In one school, I’ve seen kids hang around during lesson changeovers and then create problems for classes already in progress. Other reasons for coming to school are to be with their mates, to call the girls “slags” or “bitches”, to tell their classmates “your mum” (is a whore), to get into fights. The saddest thing is that if you try to reason with these people, they look at you as if you’re dumb. I’ve had one boy snigger “heh heh heh heh”, point at me to one of his friends, as if to say “look at him, look at him”. Concern is interpreted as a sign of weakness. The Living Dead have no hope in school, nor life; when they grow up they will drift towards drugs and drink and their means of earning a wage will come through crime and fraud. Internet fraud will, to them, be interpreted as a sign of “using your brains”.

I have resigned myself to accepting that there are people who are beyond hope and reasoning; that there are people that I have to mentally confine to the “forget about it” section in my mind; people who I won’t bother with because they are the living dead. This may offend others, but it’s the only way I can make sense of the whole situation.

I’m also tired of being called “Chicken Chow Mein”, “Egg Fried Rice” or “Ching Chang Chong” or people stereotyping Chinese people into three categories – takeaway chef, secret society member or pirated DVD seller. And I hate those commercials where we're stereotyped as having poor English, confusing our "l"s and "r"s.

Today I read an article in the newspaper about how a member of a particular community was called “Michael Jackson” and that was taken as evidence of racism. A couple of months ago certain football players in an international match were unhappy because bananas were thrown on the field and the crowd made monkey sounds whenever a certain player touched the ball.

These aren’t nice incidents to have happen to anyone. I certainly hope this isn’t taken the wrong way, nor do I wish to appear a crybaby, but in my personal experience a lot of the racist experiences I’ve had have come from members of that particular group, and sometimes I can’t help but feel that certain people, because of history, are more inclined to cry “discrimination” but not see it when they do it to others.

Anyway, this is just one of these things to lock away in your mind, and get on with your life.

It’s turned cold this past week. The cold reminds me of various incidents in my life, like catching pneumonia after I decided to “tough it out” and run in the rain, and consequently spending two weeks in hospital. Or the time, on national service overseas in Taiwan, when the weather was rainy and miserable and seven of us huddled under a groundsheet and warmed our hands vainly around a battery-powered lamp. Anyway, army stories for another time, but I, like many of my fellow bloggers, have been out to get stuff to deal with the cold. I got a pair of thermals from my favourite Matalan, which do keep me warm, and I’ve taken to wearing two pairs of socks. I’ve got a query for anyone who can help. Are there any socks that will definitely keep your feet warm? Mine are freezing through the two pairs, and the Mrs always complains that her feet are cold as well. Both of us are novices in the area of sock technology – any experts with tried-and-tested advice?

I went on the stepper for the second night in a row. My once-every-other-day cardio routine should have meant going on the stepper tomorrow, but I’d like to have two days free before I resume running on Monday lunch time. I used to do that, but stopped after the mid-term break because it was toeing a fine line - having to stop my last student in school on time, then running about a mile in nine to ten minutes with a heavy rucksack to the train station to catch the train, so as to be able to teach piano to another student at home on time while feeling partially sweaty. Confused? Anyway, on two occasions the train doors closed on me – ever watch Gwyneth Paltrow in Sliding Doors ? – and I then decided to lighten the load to ensure I got the train on time. I stopped running at lunch time, and the sprint for the train lessened in intensity to more or less a fartlek (you can tell I’m really liking the italics feature), but I missed running…anyway the piano person has very kindly agreed to have a lesson on another day (after being messed about on many occasions), so I can run on Monday lunchtimes, not worry about catching the train, and be happy.

I'm actually looking forward to running on Monday. The weather's forecast to be 10C maximum, and I rarely go out running in that sort of temperatures, so we'll have to see what transpires.

This is turning into a ramble and my feet are cold, so I’ll off to do the housework, then some stepping while watching Alias (last chance for italics). Have a good weekend, everyone - don't dwell on things that will cause you grief, but concern yourselves with things that are important to you. Give them your time and attention. Hold the things dear to your heart, and not let them go.

More experimenting, today's workout was. (Darn it, beginning to sound like Yoda!)

Spent 20+ minutes on the stepper. I wasn't really in the mood to do any exercising today, but I knew that if I postponed it I would get irritable, edgy and flat, so as a compromise I did so some cardio but kept it short and simple. After a quick warmup, it was a few sets of all out stepping for 40 seconds followed by an easier 20. Midway through the 20 minutes it became 1 minute of all out stepping, then 1:20, then 1:40. For me, 1 minute of stepping makes my heart rate get to 80%ish and then it plateaus there, no matter how much longer I keep up the intensity. So if I'm going to make it any intense for myself on the stepper I reckon that I will have to alternate stepping with weights. I'd like to build up to the point where I'm doing about four or five minutes all out on the stepper, and see how that translates to running. I have been looking for stuff on the relation between stepping and running, but not been able to find any - I don't suppose any serious runner really goes on the stepper...

More to follow, but I really haven't got time, so I'll have to leave it for some other day. Hope everyone's dealing with the weather okay and life is treating you all well!

Solid Stepping

I had a great stepping workout this evening. My after-school student cancelled on me today, which meant I could have afforded an hour or so of running, but work preparations for the days ahead took a little longer than I would have liked, so I was left with less time. (Usually I try to be at least 3 or 4 days ahead with my work so if I fall ill, have an off day, or something crops up, I can afford to coast a bit.) In any case, I had also wanted to experiment with the stepper, so I wasn’t all that fussed about missing a chance to run.

Here’s the workout, if anyone’s interested:
5 mins stepping warmup – 60-70% MHR
1 min medium effort, 1 min all out, 1 min easy
1 min medium effort, 1 min all out, 1 min medium effort
2 mins all out, 30 sec easy (repeat)
1 min all out, 1 min easy (repeat until you get bored)
30 seconds all out, 30 seconds medium effort (repeat as often as desired)

I stepped for 20 minutes until the “1 min all out, 1 min easy” stage, then experimented with the next stage of shorter intervals at 30 seconds. Somehow I found that 30 seconds all out, 30 seconds medium effort got my heart rate going, more so than doing it in 1 min intervals.

Another interesting thing was that after 25 minutes I started doing 30 seconds all out, and then 30 seconds of squats – full ones, no weight at all – instead of stepping at a medium effort. I found that 30 seconds of all out stepping got my heart rate to about 70-75% MHR, but when I did the squats my heart rate was nearly 80%.

While doing 30 seconds of squats and calf raises (all in one motion) following 30 seconds of stepping, my heart rate got to 85% MHR. I confirmed these over three sets.

Conclusions(from this experiment at least): Doing weight training in the middle of cardio seems to get the heart rate (mine anyway) going even faster. Combining weight training and cardio is fun too.

Sorry this post is so muddled, but I'm having problems thinking through my endorphin rush!

I spent 30 minutes above 60% MHR on the stepper yesterday. 25 of those minutes were at around 80%, largely spent stepping, although some pressups, squats and calf raises went into it at the end. After that I did some weights and crunches, and consequently got cardio and a full body workout in one session. Every part of me today has that sort of dull ache. My calves are complaining to me today, "150? Why did you do that for?"

One exercise I have trouble with are crunches. I find them hard to do without straining my neck. I do them slowly, and as properly as I can, but usually the day after, I get neckache, and on occasions that has even led to headaches. Headaches after crunches ... come on! I'd like to substitute them with some other exercise, but situps aren't any better ... for now I'll have to be content with doing reverse crunches instead. Head on the floor, and bottom off!

I've also been thinking about getting an exercise bike. This was on Saturday after I went online looking for a pair of trainers. My current pair of ACGs have, through proper care (actually it's more lack of use) lasted nearly four years. They were also dirt cheap, at US$30 - where else can you get such durable shoes! - but they're getting on a bit and the cushioning isn't what it used to be. Anyway, the shoes I looked at were almost the cost of a simple exercise bike. If the bike's any good, it might be worthwhile going for it instead of the shoes, because it means lower impact exercise. I just don't want to get anything where I have to pedal a little flywheel like crazy just to get my heart rate above 120bpm, and then consign it to the junk cupboard.

I'd also thought about rowing machines before, but I wouldn't trust myself to maintain proper form when I'm pulling one for twenty minutes. In any case, the ones that I might consider are too expensive, and I hate spending too much money on equipment.

On another note, I read in my book about a runner in the late 1880s called Walter George who ran a 4:12 mile on just 3km of training every day. 3km! At one stage his training consisted of doing 100 knee-ups (jogging on the spot and getting the knee above horizontal). It definitely reminded me about how training should be about quality rather than quantity. My cardio "training" is once every two days for about twenty to thirty minutes each time - it's all the time I can afford and want to devote to it, and it's got me results that I'm satisfied with.

Can you achieve any more in your training by spending less time?

I don't really feel like work today, to be honest. At least it will be over in a couple of hours.

Yesterday was a rather windy day. Bins strewn across the road, the previous day's news scattered and tossed about, overturned pots... that kind of a wind. It happens here, but not often, so it's still an unusual sight. I had thought about running at the start of the day, but rain, darkness, cold, and a strange ... craving? for ab crunches convinced me to do some minutes on the stepper instead. I chose four exercises for the lower-intensity periods - pressups, calf raises, squats, and crunches, of course - then did two-minutes stints on the stepper, and simply picked two exercises to do in between for about 30 seconds. I ended up spending about 25 minutes at 70-80% MHR. I'm past #29, and the next few ones definitely going to be the harder ones to do. It gets dark here by 3:45pm now, and the only sort of lighting around where I live is street lighting, and I don't really want to be running on pavements, darting around cars, hoping they stop at zebra crossings, or dodging pedestrians. I only like watching the steeplechase!

Some interesting facts I've picked up reading The Lore of Running:

1) Only 20% of the calories expended during exercise goes towards the activity, apparently. The remaining 80% heats up the body.

2) A fluid replacement rate of about 500-700ml per hour is about average. Close to 1000ml per hour will lead to overhydration.

3) Worshippers of the scale (you know who you are), if you exercised for an hour and didn't drink at all to hydrate you'd lose about 2-4 pounds. This loss is easily recouped after you drink. Forget the scale, that's what I say!

The class music teacher at one of my Friday schools had a really tough day. 2 classes of screaming, misbehaving 12 year olds, messing about, doing little work, shouting, tearing down posters, fighting, messing about on keyboards, talking back... I couldn't help but think, "People fought in the great wars ... FOR THIS?"

While I'm at this, can I wipe your bottom for you?

One of my students is doing a Grade 2 Piano exam in December. He was supposed to have done one in May, but that was deferred.

On the previous occasion I gave him a registration form to take home for his mother's signature. He came back saying he'd lost that form, so I gave him another. As it was already near the closing date for entries, I told him to make sure it got signed and sent off within the next day or so. Form #2 came back to me a few days after the closing date, because neither this boy nor his mother could bother to put a stamp on the envelope and put it in the mailbox.

Man adapts, right?

To register for this exam in December, I gave him the registration form AND a stamped envelope. Practically everything was done - all he had to do was get Mother to sign it and drop it in the post box, which he'd confidently announced was in front of his house.

The envelope is passed back to me today.

You want to know what motivates me when I run?

Slave to Oxygen

I've decided - Wednesdays are traditionally my worst days at work. Part of my work involves going to various schools to teach students the piano or keyboard on a one-to-one basis. Students come out of their lessons for twenty minutes, which is just about enough time to learn something sufficiently. (It used to be 15, which was downright ridiculous - barely enough time for much else except "Hi" and "See you next week".) On most Wednesdays the school I go to has got so many students, that to fit them all in a six-hour school day requires me to have a really short lunch break (we're talking 10 minutes here), and hopefully a chance to have a toilet break if someone is absent or slightly late. (And the nearest toilet is a five-minute walk.) I've come to tolerate Wednesdays now, but at least I only have to teach there 11 Wednesdays each term.

Today, thankfully, wasn't one of those Wednesdays. I finished early at another school, had two hours spare in between, and the weather couldn't have been better (sunny and 11C - I'm learning to tolerate it, Jen) so I went running in the middle of the day. I did 5 miles at 7:20 pace. I did some sprints after that - instead of marking out a distance to sprint, and working on achieving a specific timing, I decided to sprint all-out for a minute and then work on improving the distance each time. I found it a bit more enjoyable that way. One definitely needs to have an acquired taste for that sort of thing, although it seemed like the only taste I had after that was lunch almost coming up the wrong end.

Didn't manage to get my triceps work yesterday. I ate poorly all day and didn't consume enough calories. I didn't feel hungry though - that's the thing with high fibre foods. They make me feel full, but without the calories. At some stage the body needs calories to burn, and it sure as hell isn't going to get energy from fibre. It's a weird feeling - not feeling hungry, but being in caloric deficit. By the time I realised it I was doubled up in discomfort for most of the evening. I shall endeavour to make up the missed workout today - if I'm going to be bent over and in discomfort, I'd rather it be because I'm trying to get another tricep kickback in!

Back to work!

Had a good weekend, as you might have guessed. Who gets fireworks in the sky on their birthday? Whose wife bakes them a huge cake and throws them a celebration and makes them feel really special? She's really wonderful, the Mrs - a real gem!

Did a run on the way back from work on Saturday - took about 25 minutes. I ran with my backpack of clothes and work stuff, which I had tried to keep to a minimum. I don't really like having to run with a backpack. I know a lot of people do it, but for me I find it collapses my spine, the "S" curve in my back is strained, my neck and shoulders pressed forward - in short, not good. While running with a pack may lead to greater muscle endurance, I am also conscious of the increased pressure on the spine; of the abrasion of the spinal discs because of the increased load. Given a choice, I'd opt to keep my bones intact over any cardiovascular gain. But maybe I'll only do this for a short period, over the winter, keep the weight really light, maintain form over speed, and make sure each time after I've finished to lie down and allow my spine to realign. Or else I have to shift some students around (again - not sure of how they might take it) to do my running on Monday.

My wife got me a book called "The Lore of Running" as a present. It's a good read, and explores the scientific bases for a lot of things in running. I've learnt quite a few things from there - for example, over longer distances, VO2max doesn't seem to be as much of a factor as running efficiency. VO2max also does not translate into percentage gains in time (ie someone with a VO2max of 70 litres will not run twice as fast as someone with 35 litres.) And if you want to improve your 5K time (like I do), plyometrics are a good way to do it.

Went on the stepper for #27 tonight. An easy 20 minutes, alternating one minute of fast stepping with one minute of moderate. I'll aim to work towards extending the "fast stepping" portion. What was interesting also was that after 5 minutes of getting the body warmed up, there seemed to be no discernable difference in the effect of fast or moderate stepping on the heart rate - pretty consistent at 70%MHR. But that's probably because one minute is too small a sample time.

Also did some dumbbell curls today as well as last night - tomorrow it's tricep and ab day. Mmmmm!

Birthday Photos

Edging closer to mid-life crisis

Not that I race much any more, but today I move up an age group. Woo hoo!

I was intending to run yesterday after my last student, but before I'd even started work I had a headache that refused to go away for all of the working day - having a headache and having to teach nearly six hours straight without any lunch is no joke! The rain also conspired to keep me in - I was just glad to be home and resting, really.

I hate colds. I had one a couple of weeks back, but because I couldn't take any days off work I had to fight through an entire week with one, and that wasn't fun. Over the past few days I've felt like I'm on the verge of another, one which threatens to come and go, which is a bit annoying, to say the least.

I finished run #25 today. That puts me at the halfway mark of my pursuit of 50. I didn't do any sprints, barring a short half-mile stretch. Total distance was 4 miles at an easy 7:30 pace.

Today I had a few breaks when students didn't turn up, so I did some "weights" in the music room. 5 sets of 10 reps, dumbbell curls, with an amplifier. The next time I'll squat the bass drum if I have to!

Boy, am I hungry. I'm wolfing down a huge plate of noodles for breakfast. Normally the Mrs and I would share this amount for dinner. There's no lunch break today, let alone time for pressups, so I'll have to get as many calories down as possible. Not ideal, but what the heck.

I did end up on the stepper Monday evening, and alternated periods of all out with slower rest breaks. My heart rate for the "rest" periods were at 70%, which I'm satisfied with. Usually that's the "all-out" heart rate.

Yesterday was spent doing weights for arms - my favourite tricep workout and some forearm work as well. That's not really essential for running, but more a vanity thing.

Got out all my gloves and hats from storage - now that the clocks have gone back it gets dark at 5, and if I'm going out running at that time I'll need those because it's a bit chilly for my liking.

Off to work - hope everyone has a good day!