My resting heart rate is between 52 and 58 beats per minute. According to Wikipedia this means I am an athlete (adjusted for my age). This is good.
I have spent much of the last 5 months running. I started with a 2 mile loop and not really being able to run all of it and now I can run 6 miles and not really think much of it. I do get some joint aches and pains if I run much more than 5 miles at a time but I think that’s to be expected.
Sometimes it takes me 2 miles just to feel warmed up! Crazy.
As an ex smoker and overweight person I am very happy with the outcome of my diet and training over the last 9 months. I have various health benefits which far outweighs the pain and starvation I have experienced!
Slow Worm
Here’s a picture of a slow worm I found in the garden. It was hiding below the wheelie bin and then basked in the sun for a little while before wandering off.
UXB
There were interesting times in Eccles over the summer. WW went for a run one evening around the sports field but was stopped by some youths claiming they had found a bomb. She was rather incredulous about this but they insisted and said they had called the police. She decided to run elsewhere.
When WW got home she explained what had happened and we didn’t really think much more of it until . . . .
About 9 that evening there was a LOUD bang. It shook the windows in the house. It didn’t wake the children though which was good.
WW ran back down to the sports field to see half the village looking at nothing and asking the police what had happened. When asked why we weren’t told that they were going to detonate the bomb the police replied “because you would all have come to watch and it would have been far more dangerous.” Fair point.
This bomb wasn’t as loud as the two I heard when I lived in London. Check out this post here.
Wow
WW and I went for a meal last night (14 August). It was the first time we had used a proper babysitter and left the kids at home, sleeping soundly.
We headed to Pizza Express in Maidstone as WW wanted a goats cheese something. She has been needing goats cheese for a while and supermarket bought stuff doesn’t make her taste buds flower!
I ordered whatever I wanted but was shocked when I came to enter this information into my food tracking app.
Il Padrino Pizza – 922 kCal
Chocolate Glory – 691 kCal
Glass of red wine – 191 kCal
Shared tomato and mozzarella salad – 243 kCal
My dinner came to 2047 kCal. This was quite a shock. Even with a 10km run in the morning I was way over what I consider my daily calorie allowance! Much more running going to happen over the next few weeks to normalise my intake!
The Limits of My Tolerance
After a day spent at a major theme park near London (Thorpe Park) I have to announce that I am officially disappointed with my body’s physiological reaction to rides. I have known about this reaction for many years (since I was about 14) but I have never really analysed it much before.
Many years ago I spent lots of time in the Air Training Corps and during that time I got some Air Experience Flights in a DeHavilland Chipmonk. After my first go the instructor always asked if I wanted to do aerobatics and, of course, my answer was yes. Every time my reaction was to turn a gentle shade of green and feel very sick and disorientated for about 3 hours afterwards. Eventually I would become very hungry and then finally I would be ok.
When on a trip to the Kennedy Space Centre in 2004 I experienced time in a multi-axis spinner designed to throw the best of the best out of kilter. With me I experienced about 4 hours of green and sickness with clammy skin and finally I grew extremely hungry.
The most recent trip to Thorpe Park confirmed that I am useless at roller coasters and similar rides. It’s such a shame as I do enjoy myself, it’s just that I feel like crap for ages.
Shame.
Poor Design
Here’s a picture of my toilet seat. It’s a special one with two seats. A seat for adults and a seat for children that attaches to the lid via a magnet.
This communication regards the poor design of this seat.
After my children’s bath I sit on the seat lid to dry #1. If you see the supports that transfer my weight force through the seats onto the toilet you will notice that they are NOT aligned. This results in a moment affecting the adult or lower seat. Over time and with my weight force this results in the lower seat bending and breaking at the point indicated. It’s a lovely seat, but it doesn’t take much to design it properly.
Reptile!
This communication was going to be called Snake! but it turns out this would have been very incorrect. Last night once my boys were in bed we noticed a “snake” in the garden.
It’s a shame that my boys weren’t awake to see it. I think they would have been fascinated. WW took these photos and then I looked on a website to see what kind of snake it was. Turns out it’s a slow worm and not a real snake. Just a lizard that has evolved in such a way as to remove its legs.
Just love living in the countryside.
Clematis
Here’s a picture of our clematis. Looks lovely. Also, given the dog ate all but one of the main stalks three years ago I’m surprised in got this far.
Change
I started gaming just after I persuaded my parents to buy a Commodore 64 for “educational” reasons. We’d had an Atari in the house before then and so I could play pong and tennis but the C64 was my first proper computer. I remember buying games on cassette tape for £1.99. These games must have been below 32kB as that was all the RAM on the C64 and it was tape drive.
Since then I have progressed from the Sega MegaDrive through all versions of the Sony Playstation. I was a little shocked but not really surprised that the latest GT Academy came in at a 3GB download! Wow, we have moved on so much. [yes – I know that Blu-Ray disks hold about 50GB but its just amazing to see this in real numbers]
Rare Thing
Here’s a rare lenticular cloud that formed over Kent.
