Monday Post - Back on the road - Video Nightmare

Sunday written off, Monday back on the program!
Well Sunday was a washout exercise wise - did some pressups but that was it. Weather was just too nasty for cycling or running as it was cold and wet - see pic of Brassington above taken out of car Window - brrrrrr. This week's weather's been given out as more of the same but a bit warmer - got fifteen miles done on bike this morning so am back on the program, am also going to make more of an effort this week on the Food Optimising front.

Video from Friday - "500 miles" by Proclaimers butchered to an inch of it's life by Alan, David and me good self!!






Some more Pics from Friday

Paul, Alan and David - Banned in concert - dig those music stands eh!!!

Yes - they're a bit scary but we don't half raise a good bit of money!!

Sunday Post - t'is nippy out!

Ye gods, it's cold out this morning. Half past ten and have done zero exercise, On positive side have ordered missus' xmas present from John Lewis' so that's good. Went onto Hotukdeals.com and got a £10 off promotional code which was good. In fact, I'd go so far as to highly recommend you check out hotukdeals.com voucher list before you buy anything online - you cut and paste a code into one of those promotional code boxes when you go through the payment checkout process and hey presto £10/20 whatever pounds off the price. Lovely jubbly.

Am still smiling about yesterday's golf result - 25 footer on the last - Ryder Cup stuff!

Saturday Post

8:30 am - Cycling

One goal done 101 miles on the clock. Had to do ten miles last night and fifteen this morning but at least it's done - need to look at my routine and work out where it's going wrong - have got golf at 11:51 so didn't really want to have to do an hour and a bit's worth of cycling really.


Garmin Training Center cycling record for week ending 17/11/07


Gym goal am not going to make as although I did 3 sessions I did say (and then forgot) that if it was less than 40 minutes it wouldn't count and on Thursday all I did was 35 miles on treadmill as had to go shopping. Never mind, it wasn't far off. Have got a mile or two of running to do to finish off the running goal and then that one's sorted.

11:52 Golf

Third Winter League match and thus far we have a 100% record. We played two brothers Vernon (18 handicap) and Peter (28 handicap). It was a to and fro sort of a match for much of it but John and myself managed to scrape to 3 up after the 13th hole only to get in to a bit of a fix with just being 1 up on the 17th tee. I sank a six footer to halve the 17th so we couldn't lose going down the 18th. We could however draw it which we didn''t really want to do. Peter the 28 handicapper had played really well for the whole round and hit his second shot to about 8 feet from 170 yards out!! Both John and myself made bad second shots and neither of us really put them under pressure after the third shots. I was about twenty-five feet past the hole which wasn't a whole lot of good. So it looked for all the world like we were going to lose the 100% win record and have to settle for a half (draw), but it ain't over 'til it's over and I drained the 25 footer - it must have gutted 'em!!! Peter didn't make the eight footer for birdie and we took home the bacon again!!! 100% record still intact, three out of three! Good stuff!

9.10 In the Long Run

Finished off the fifteen mile running target by doing a two-mile loop tonight. Total of 16 miles at an average of 5.2mph over 3hrs 4mins and a total of 2000 calories.


Been hard graft these targets this week. Not sure why it was so hard - needs a bit of better planning I reckon!!

Friday Post - Children in Need fund-raising and stuff.

Friday – funny old day all round!

Went to bed Thursday night with a list of things needed for today in my mind. Meself, David and Alan have been assigned a musical role in today’s Children in Need’ fund-raising at work so I had a ton of stuff to get in car. Amplifier for Alan to borrow (I got a 50w guitar combo for my electronic drums thing). I also loaded up with a bass drum, floor tom, rack tom, snare drum, hi-hats and a crash cymbal and associated hardware and sticks and what have you. Not to mention Gym kit, laptop (have forgotten it before now, let me tell you) and fruit to get me through the day.

Big old run for starters

As it was, I woke up at 4am but that was much too early so stayed in bed until 4:55. Which meant after brek was on the road running at 5:25. Got 7.47 miles done according to Motionbased.com but was wary to make sure I was back home before 7am as we had our one and only ‘band reheasal’ at 8:30 this morning. Ran at a moving speed of 5.3mph (8.5kmh which was slightly up on the last run so all things getting better). And the truth is that it’s getting easier every time I do a proper run which is weird cause the gym run at 9.2km/h for thirty-three minutes (currently, 35 minutes next week) always feels like a trial. I thinks it’s because when you’re proper running you set your own pace rather than have to keep up with the machine. Image below or view motionbased page here.

We're putting the band together...

Considering we never played together before, and Alan and David not played in bands (to my knowledge) I reckon we did an okay job with the time we had to get ready! About an hour and we did about 6 or so songs - "500 miles", "When I'm 64", "Yellow Submarine", "Summer of 69", "Amarillo" and "Hi Ho Silver Lining" and not forgetting a wierd semi-instrumental version of "Hotel California". Anyway a video of the performance exists and am hoping to get a version of "500 miles" (possibly the least shambolical!!) onto Youtube or Myspace or something. Should be Monday or Tuesday I think!

Anyway there was lots of fund raising effort and Slimming World raided £1111.64 at Head Office today - more pictures to follow when I can get some.

El Gringo the Drummer.

Los Bandidos Guitarez

Does the Sombrero quite fit? I think not!

Thursday Post

Poxy Puncture
Was just thinking this morning that it's been ages since last had a puncture and what did I get after about 10 miles?? - bloomin puncture but not only that it had to be in the rear tyre so harder to fix. Not only that but it was perishing cold so as was only a mile or so away from home I decided to jog and push the beggar back. Still, got almost 12 miles done, so round about 75 miles on the clock for the week now.

Got another bit of good fortune in that Janette is going shopping later tonight so I can go to gym as well which will tick off the three attendances with an opportunity to still do Friday night as planned for four attendances again. Weigh in day as well and I'll admit things are not looking good for this week - will update this post later! Am planning to run 8 miles tomorrow morning to keep upping the distance. I reckon I'll need to be on the road for about 5:20am to do it!! But hell, it's a challenge isn't it and that's what life's about! Once have got that ticked off I can say with confidence that the fifteen mile running target is achievable in two sessions which will be great!

Alarming climb at the end - not good.


Worse reading for month - time to get back to work proper.

Another rotten weight-gain - 14st 10.5lbs
Well I was right about the weigh-in 2.5lbs on. Got what I deserved - drank and ate too much.

Quick Gym Session
As was in a rush I only managed 35 minutes in the gym. Had only time to run so did 5.20km on the runner and then got straight off for home. Have got to get drums ready for a "Children in need" thing at work tomorrow - which will be shambolic to say the least!

Wahey Christmas is back on!! Better than Eye Candy - Real Candy!!

Wish it could be Christmas every day.



After all my moaning about the bike shop I got a call from them today saying that while they couldn't do 2007 FCR1 at the web-advertised price they would do the 2008 FCR1 with the same discount - so hats off to Winstanley's of Wigan and shame on me for dissing them!

It's not actually coming until January so there's a while to wait but anticipation can be as good as having something sometimes!!!

Wenesday Post

Yog surprise for brek and then a solid fifteen miles, only pain in the backside was not getting back until 7:05, have changed alarm to get me up at 5:01am now rather than 5:09 am sure that will make all the difference!! 64 miles of cycling near as damnit on Training Center so well on target have decided that my weekly plan is gym on monday, wednesday and friday, will do running on a Tuesday morning and a Thursday night (although am thinking it might be better to run at night every time as lights are on in old railway tunnel - or could borrow Phil's light that goes on your head). We'll see.

Did another gym session tonight, two out of three completed, friday to finish. Added another minute to the runner did 5.15km at 9.2 for 33minutes. Hard work tonight - am going to bed early I reckon. Did quite a bit of weights but no rower.

Tuesday Post

Did a 7 mile run this morning on me little spindly legs. 5.2 mph average (8.36km/h) which ain’t overly fast but the important thing for me is that am making it a little bit longer each time and it ain’t walking – last week it was quarter marathon distance (6.5miles) now we’re up to 7.1miles which I reckon is dead good. If I can do one that covers 8 miles then that's my fifteen mile weekly running target met.

http://trail.motionbased.com/trail/episode/view.do?episodePk.pkValue=4438861

Am getting over disappointment of Bike Shop saying they can’t sell me the bike they advertised. £450 was a lot to spend on a bike anyway. So there you go. The potentially good thing is I found a thing that the goverment is pushing where your employer buys the employee (you) the bike, the employer then hires it to you for 12 months, the employee pays for the hire by a salary deduction which saves the employee n.i. and p.a.y.e on the deduction, the employer gets VAT back on purchase, saves employer n.i. contribution on the salary deduction and gets happier healthier employees (although potentially sweatier employees I suppose so not all good news). Goverment gets less clogged up roads, healthier less obese public, less load on NHS apart from the road traffic accidents! Anyway seems a good thing to me!

Finally (almost) went to Doctors this evening (appointment at 5:10, saw him at 5:55 - nipped into town and got me hair cut before going in - bonus!!). Anyway he was well impressed - blood pressure really in control 130/80 when he measured it, and according to his scales I was smidge over 14st which was good (if incorrect). His records say that I was 124KG in 2005 and now today was 90KG so a loss of over 5 stone from my worse ever weight, so he's chuffed to bits. Was talking about reducing medication I'm on next February if I can keep to same weight (he said it in a nice way but it was still a challenge I'm going to take)!!!

Finally (penultimate one), went out about an hour and a quarter on the slow but comfy bike got another fifteen mile done so a smidge under 50 miles on the clock for the week, 1 gym attended and almost a half of running target achieved.

Finally, finally, haven't mentioned have inherited some Specialized cycling shoes which cost a fortune as cousin and cousin's hubby are moving to France and leaving some stuff behind (just a shame he hasn't left his carbon fibre bike behind!!!). Anyway, if I manage to remember tomorrow morning am going to give em a try out. Take care.

Christmas is cancelled....

Got home to find an email from bike shop saying could not supply this bike as it has been discontinued, please contact our sale team to discuss an alternative. I knew it'd happen, said it was a misprice. So am not well-pleased at the minute but am resillient to setbacks!

It's have been too good for me anyway.

Did 12 miles on me old Giant this morning which was nice. Then did 55 minutes in gym, added another minute to running machine and did the 2000m rower challenge in 8min 28.3sec. Did some weights and then went to Darley to pick up bike from me mum and dads.

Met Slimming World man of the year Peter Toakes today, had a brief chat, a real nice bloke, lost 7 stone in about 10 months, he goes to a group in Sunderland run by Wendy George who remembers me somehow(?). I said something like "since August my weight loss hasn't done anything", she said "it's you who's not done anything" meaning (I think) look at what you're doing, sunshine - she's very direct and quite correct (and a nice lady too).

Sunday Post

Well there was no comment on yesterday, was a wee bitt gutted at the time. Derby were just unbelievably poor, we made a very average West Ham side look like Chelsea or Man Utd which is a worry when we face Chelsea in a fortnight and Man U next month, am praying we avoid double figures. Am ashamed to say I walked out after West Ham scored their fourth, I was just mad as anything so stood up and walked out. Only problem was that I found myself outside Pride Park with 30 minutes to kill! So went into JJB sports store and bought some lights for the mountain bike, £15 reduced from £40 and some trackie bottoms for Phil. 5 bloomin nil, aaagh.

Anyway on the bright side, me and John won in Winter League golf again today, shook hands on fourteenth green 5-up!! Played a nice couple of fellas, Geoff and Terry from Langley Mill, we were never behind from the get-go and I finished the game of with a two on the par-3 fourteenth so things went well, 100% record, 2 out of the 8 wins needed to get through to the
finals stage.

So didn't get a full 18 holes of golf but about 1pm this afternoon set out on the bike to get over to me mum and dads. Janette was already over this way as Lucy was playing rugby against Bakewell and Phil had gone for a spin on the go-kart with me dad. Did a really good 22 miler, went anti-clockwise round Ballidon Quarry down something called Royston Lane. Saw this fine old building that looks like a chapel with no glass in the windows?

So even though Derby sucked am in a sort of a good mood.


Link:http://trail.motionbased.com/trail/episode/view.do?episodePk.pkValue=4403745