Cod Liver Oil, fruit and nuts and evaluating priorities in life.

I live quite an active life. My mind is usually buzzing about the next thing I must accomplish. Do I do photography or kayaking, what about the garden, the veg needs watering. Should I spend time with wifey or go for a run. (I am trying to get her jogging so I can kill two birds with one stone.) I haven't seen my parents for sometime and I do not want to lose out on my inheritance.

I am also making plans to visit Uganda in February and someone has asked me to take photos at their wedding in October. At home Wifey and I are preparing for a fitting of a new kitchen in preparation of me finishing working for the police in 2015. It is our intention to rent our house so we can have a little overseas adventure. Hopefully together.

So life is hectic, we are like two hamsters in the same exercise ball not too sure where we should be going. But we are two hamster who enjoy each others company and have fun even though we do occasionally knock into furniture.

And with regards to the half marathon in less than four weeks I am now looking for sponsorship to raise funds for the Huntington Disease Association. Please see earlier posts about the HDA and my friend Mick Billingham who suffers from this awful disease. For more info look at the website

http://hda.org.uk/

Mick Billingham and me at St Andrews Hospital.

Friday 9 August 2013

This morning I met my parents for breakfast at Silverstone Golf Course. I consumed with a hint of guilt a full english breakfast that included fried bread. Yesterday I had a food binge when I munched my way through  two large packets of Walkers Cheese and Onion Crisps, (Not the children size) and a mars bar. It was not my fault as I was working a 12 hours shift, I had eaten only a bowl of partly cooked porridge for breakfast.  I did not have my fruit and nut mix to eat when I got the sugar shakes so I raided the snack vending machine.

I continued my binge at home when after dinner I ate 3 apples pies with custard. They were exceedingly good. Again this was not my fault as Wifey had bought the pies and left them alone in the cupboard.

On Saturday my parents came to visit and after they left I ran around a big block 6 times. According to my online distance calculator each lap is 1.34 mile which equates to 8.046 miles.

Great news is that the knee seems to be okay and I had no urge to make like a bear. A great relief for me and my bowels.

On my return home I had to get fluids and salts into my body so I had a large drink of watered down pepsi. Not too sure how healthy that was but I do feel refreshed, after some stretches I feel quite good. I feel relatively confident that I could run an extra 5 miles!

Diet

I was annoyed that when we met for breakfast my mother commented on wifey's weight loss.  Nothing was said about my improving physique. I wanted to tell them, over breakfast, that a woman in the control room said I looked brown and fresh but I thought it would not have been a good time.

To battle the sugar rushes at work I do eat a lot of mixed fruit and nuts and to ease the pain in my joints I have started the daily taking of cod liver oil and Glucosamine Sulphate. I am skeptical about what benefits I will feel but Guru has advised that I take these supplements. Time will tell and I will use the achey pain levels when I walk down stairs in the morning as a guide to any improvements.

I am please with my anti blister socks. Only problem is that I bought one pair and they are beginning to smell. It is again not my fault as they are not being washed as regularly as they should; and I am not in charge of these procedures.

Aims

My aim is to get below 12 stone. To achieve this I must lose 3 kilos. (Sorry about mixing imperial and metric.) This is the weight of my smallest kettle bell so it should be achievable. Problem is next week I am cycling in Wales with my mate Graham. Although we will doing some serious cycling there will be some serious consumption of solid and liquid carbohydrates.

The curse of the Ford Transit and Jerry and Benny's Ice Cream

It has been an eventful week in my fitness and weight loss programme. It is interesting to note how easy it is to put on weight and then so difficult to lose it. For wifey's birthday treat we were going out for a meal. However as time was short  the meal ended up at home with pie and chips for me and a healthy stir fry and a few stolen chips for her. 

My regular trips to the scales showed a massive increase in body mass for me the next day. It does seem so unfair. 

The following day I was courageously injured on duty. I am worried that this bloody injury could impact my training  programme.

Driving north to Kettering I entered a congested roundabout. In front of traffic lights I saw a transit van stationary, it had broken down. I parked behind it and activated the blue light. I went to the van and joined the driver looking under the bonnet. I pretended to know something about car mechanics and made a few pointless observations and it became apparent he knew less than I did. It was no good, so to clear the road we had to push the van off the roundabout. The driver, his mate and I pushed the van off the road on to the grass. We were stronger than I realized and at speed the van mounted the kerb and headed with momentum toward my police car. I thought that if anyone was recording this on a phone, the sight of a police man running round a van as it collided with his marked car would make a great youtube clip.

To prevent this I started to run round to the back of the van only to trip up over the drivers mates foot and fall forward into the oncoming traffic. I landed on my right knee just above the place 3 pins were added when I broke my knee a few years ago. It was agony but I could not show the pain. 

"You alright mate."

"Yes fine no problem" 

"I thought you were about to be run over."

"Yes so did I but it's okay."

"You sure you're alright, you're limping and are you crying?"

"I am fine, never felt better. Must go"

And with that I drove off with grazed knee and damaged pride and a nice egg like swelling on my knee. The good news is that I think I can still jog. Time will tell.

After I got home I thought I deserved a treat. There was some Ben and Jerry's cookie dough ice cream in the freezer. I deserved a couple of scoops but unfortunately I ate the who tub. It was not my fault as once started it was impossible to stop.

1 August 2013 

The months just fly by and here we are in August when it should be June. I went for a 40 min Jog this morning and despite some pain in the right knee the run went well. I followed Gurus advice and did a different route. As my calendar is now complete I am looking for a different place I can regularly run passed and take photos once a month to record a year at one, iconic, beautiful spot.

And concerning the photography, I went to Silverstone on Sunday to take a photograph with the theme of colour.  I took a number of photos of both cars and people.

Late in the afternoon I saw these beautiful women working for a tyre company all dressed in black playing with their ipads leaning against a bright orange wall. Great, I thought, this will make a great picture.  I'll be bold and ask to take their picture. All good so far until I tried to focus.  My Nikon was distracted by their beauty and would not focus and therefore I could not take the picture. I felt too embarrassed to spend any time trying to reset the camera, so I  pretended that I had taken a picture and walked off thanking the girls for their help. The picture taken here was done away from the girls and missed the impact of them the black dresses, their shadows and bright orange background.

4 August

For the stats I am now 79.9k and I ran 7.5 miles in 1 hour 20 mins. My objective for the programmed long run on Sunday was to finish, I was not concerned about the time. This week the training programme include a 40 min tempo run so this will hopefully improve my speed.

A blocked path that lengthened the long run by 0.5 miles

And the good news with regards to my injury is that apart from slight discomfort in my right ankle knee and hip I seem to be able to continue training.

On the advice of a radio pundit I purchased a pair of Anti- Blister Socks from Sports Direct. The pundit said that runners will buy an expensive pair of running shoes and not consider what quality sock to wear with them. Good socks improve running, he said. There will be an update in the next blog.

http://www.menshealth.co.uk/living/gear/put-a-sock-in-it-9781