Chapter 14 - In which our hero finally gets back off his arse

Time flies and such like, eh? Once again after that post about intentions and looking to get back to doing something by way of exercise I stop, take a look around, and realise months have gone by. I'm really not good at this whole self motivation/doing stuff thing. Better late than never though apparently.

So then, as it says in the title, our hero (me, obviously) has finally gotten off his arse and started the Couch to 5K again. It began this morning, with my alarm clock set for an early rise to get up and at it. I then proceeded to sleep through said alarm, and so it's off to a good start as usual. When I did get up, it was no time to be going for a run. Don't get me wrong, it wasn't like it would be an actual bad time to do it, but Goals On Sunday was about to start and I had missed Match of the Day, so what could I do? After this, it was almost lunchtime and I had a bunch of housework to do so the run was put off to later in the evening. At this point, old Ally would have put it off to another day, but not this time. Not today. This is all new(ish) Ally. Half five came around and it was time. Podcast was already loaded on my ipod, thermal running tee on, shorts on, shoes on, out the door.

Fuck me, it's cold.

Two minutes out from the house and it started snowing, but that's cool. I'm invincible and possessed of a steely determination. Honest. Well, maybe not, but I was feeling OK so kept going. If you've done the C2-5K before you know how it goes: walk a bit, run a bit, walk a bit, run a bit, etc. You know what, after the first couple of runny bits, I was feeling good. Maybe I wasn't as out of shape as I'd believed.  Ha. That type of judgement is best left to the end, and at that point I realised I was exactly as out of shape as I had suspected. My physical ability, combined with the remnants of a bad cold from over New Year meant that while I maybe wasn't quite breathing out my arse by the end, at the same time it wasn't a cake walk either.

So what did I learn? I learned I'm out of shape - no surprise there really, and the whole point of this is to improve on that, so not exactly something learned. More like something already known reinforced.

Chapter 13 - In which our hero has a quick look at his weight

Back in February, I stepped onto The Scales. I weighed in at 15 stone 4 pounds. Now then, according to the healthy weight chart over at the NHS Live Well site (here), for a man who stands around 5' 10", I'm obese at that weight. In the lighter end of the obese range, but obese never the less.
I weighed myself again yesterday (28/10/13), and came in at 15 stone 5 pounds, a net gain of a pound. Ordinarily, this isn't something to be happy about, but in this case I am and here's why. In my last blog post I may have mentioned how I had basically sat on my arse for the last few months, all exercise cast aside. What I didn't mention, was that last month I weighed myself also. I was 15 stone 10 pounds. So, while since February I have gained a pound overall, in the last month I have lost 5 pounds, and am beginning to head back in the right direction. Next on the agenda is to get back under 15 stone.

According to that chart in the link above, a healthy weight for someone my height should be somewhere between 9 and a bit to 12 and a half stone. I assume this is based on healthy people who have never discovered the joyous feeling of eating bacon. Poor bastards.

Anyway, that's enough discussion regarding weight and I have no intention of bringing it up again for some time.

Final thought on the matter: for anyone who wants to know how I managed to lose 5 pounds in little under a month, I simply ate less crappy food and snacks, while maintaining my daily poo amounts. Science!

Chapter 12 - In Which We Realise Just How Long It Has Been

So then, The last post I made on this blog was back in April and frankly, that tells you everything you need to know about my willpower and ability to motivate myself. If the road to hell is paved with good intentions, they used mine to tarmac over it and upgrade it to a highway.
I start things. I always start things. I'm good at that. What I'm not so good at, is then seeing those things through to completion. When I started this blog I had also started to exercise more. Both of those activities have lapsed in the intervening time between the last entry and this, always with the intention of "picking it back up tomorrow". That's the thing with tomorrow though: it's never today.

This was all brought into sharp focus the other day, when the postman delivered my bundle of shame. My entry pack for a 10K run I had entered all those months back when I started out. When there was more than enough time to get a reasonable level of fitness. Now, with less than a couple of weeks to the start of that race, I look at it and know there is no way I will be at the starting line, let alone the finish line. I haven't ran in months, nor taken any other form of exercise. I look at the pack and realise again what I've known all along: when you don't hold yourself to a high standard, you can't let yourself down. I've come to accept giving in as a fundamental part of me.

I'd like to change that.

So, I'm going to try again. Whether I keep going this time, I don't know. I wont know until one of two things has happened. Either I'll realise that I've stopped again, or maybe I'll realise I'm still going. I don't know which, though if I'm honest, the strong money is on the former of the two. That's how the form guide lists me and to deny it is to lie. Still, you never know how things will turn out until they happen.

Chapter 11 - In which I return to the C25K with a vengeance

OK, so probably not quite with a vengeance, but I have returned to it. If you look at the time gap between this post and the last, you should be able to work out I've not really done too much in the intervening time. I could blame work commitments (my shifts were a pain in the arse), etc, but in reality blaming it on self indulgant lazyness is closer to the mark.

I only managed to go along to the gym once last week. I did feel suitably guilty about this though, if that makes you feel any better. This week I've went back and decided just to stick to the C25K that I was doing before I joined the gym. Once I'm more comfortable with this running malarky I'll work the gym routine they gave me in around this (the more astute readers may notice I change my exercise plans more often than Kerry Katona (sp?) changes addictions). Since I've not gone entirely without some for of exercise, I decided to jump back in at the same point I left off - week 3. Loaded up the podcast, started up the treadmill, and away I went. You know what? Wasn't as difficult as I expected. That was Monday night. Went back on Wednesday night for week 3, run 2. A little bit harder, but again, not as tough as expected. I may be getting the hang of this. We'll see tomorrow morning when I head along again for week 3 run 3.

I guess what that shows is that although you may not notice the change at first, it starts to creep up on you, and you get a little bit fitter each time without realising it. Happy days. Looking back at the first blog post where I described myself as a wheezy mess, I realise that I'm still a wheezy mess, but it takes longer to get that way and I recover a lot quicker. I'm still not in a position where I can comfortably run for extended periods of time, but I can definately see the improvements and that helps to realise that I'll get there in the end.

Marathons and suchlike

More experienced and smarter people will have touched on this in better read and more thought out blogs than mine, but in the aftermath of the Boston Marathon, and unfolding drama that followed, I sometimes wish that Rufus had been right. It's times like this that the world could do with Wyld Stallyns bringing peace and uniting us all under the banner of rock music. I'm not trying to make light of the situation by any means, but there's an awful lot of folk on this planet could do with "being excellent to each other".

Chapter 10 - In which I've actually been going to the gym

Gym is an abreviation of the word "gymnasium", which comes to us, like many things, from Greece in days of yore. It means something along the lines of "place to be naked". Now, for those of you of a literal disposition, do NOT take this at face value. Apparently it's entirely unacceptable to stroll around these places au naturale and any attempts to point out that you are merely adhering to the very definition of the name will be regarded with contempt by members of your local constabulary. Now luckily, I am occasionaly blessed with the gift of foresight, and so carried out some brief research into what is expected before I went along, but I thought I'd just provide this quick advice to those of you without the time to check on these matters, or who would just blindly stumble along and find out your social faux pas after the fact. Don't say you haven't been warned.

Onto those visits themselves then. I have now been along to the premises three times so far. The first two visits consisted of brief induction sessions. The first giving an overview of the various cardio type machines, the second giving a lesson in self torture via various machines based around the premise of lifting, pulling or pushing of weights. Each of these sessions lasted half an hour to 45 minutes at a guess, and neither consisted of any form of particularly strenuous work out, so I had a 20 minute go of the treadmills after each.

The third session I was to be provided with a "routine". I arrived to be greeted by one of the instructors who started to lay out a work out plan for me to try and follow.
"Is there anything you don't particularly like?" he asked. 'Ah good', thought I, a reasonable chap who understands I should enjoy my time spent honing my body to physical mediocrity. Blindly did I stroll into the trap.
"I really can't stand the rowing machine" I answered, joy and hope shining in my eyes no doubt.
"Good," came the response, "first thing when you arrive, you're doing five minutes on the rowing machine to warm up. It'll get your mind into gym mode and get rid of all that outside world nonsense." The rest of the program was made up in quick order, a mix of cardio and weighty stuff.
The joy and hope died then. "Now, how many times are you planning to use the gym?" "Two or three times a week" I replied, a bit more wary by now.
"You're going to do this program three times a week. Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays you don't need to do this. Just come in and spend an hour on one of the cardio machines. You can have Sundays off though,"
I can only assume the man had once wanted to become a PE teacher, as all of this was delivered with the earnest, vindictive glint of the eye common within that profession*.

Now, six days of actual factual exercise per week is a wildly optomistic expection of someone with my levels of current fitness and aptitude for malaise, and realistically it's just not going to happen. You know what though, I'll give it a bash. Now, I  don't man I'm going to be in that gym six days a week. I'll try and get there at least four or five though. Starting from a long period of virtually no exercise I can only guess that day after dayof physical activity, without rest between, could end up causing some damage, but we'll see how I get on.

Anyway, time to stop bothering the world with drivel and go tidy my domicile.

Have fun.



Notes:
 *this evil glint may have been entirely fictionalised after the fact, but I wouldn't be surprised if it had been true

Chapter 9: In which a gym membership is (finally) purchased

So then, the joys of springtime in Scotland for someone starting out on a course of exercise. You get up in the morning, have a look out and realise it has snowed again. I've read several people on forums and blogs elsewhere talking about how refreshing and nice it is to get out and run in fresh snow. These people are fit. These people are the enemy. OK, they're not the enemy, and many of them are very friendly and encouraging, but I bet they're secretly out there, frolicking through the snow, feeling smug.

In the past two weeks, I've managed a total of two runs. I think you could safely call that a setback to my grand plans of gaining fitness. Similar to the last couple of posts, the weather hasn't particularly helped with my efforts (or lack there of), and also, my get up and go, got up and went. I got lazy. Now, granted this week has been spent on holiday (didn't go anywhere for the curious, just didn't go to work) and this entitles me to a certain degree of lazy idleness. I have made full use of this entitlement and definately got my monies worth.

So, we come around to the whole point of the last blog post again, and I quote "I'm joining the gym".

Actually, we can now move that into the past tense. I've joined the gym. I went along this morning and signed up, and I've got my induction on Monday. I could probably have arranged it for sooner, but figured I might as well get all the laziness out of me over the weekend. I think, I'll get the induction period over, then return to the running program. Had a bit of a tour of the facilities today. The equipment all looks like it will do the trick. Not entirely sure what some of it is, but there you go. Cardio equipment upstairs, weights downstairs, free weights in a seperate room.

I'll not be going in there. Ever.

And no, I don't lift.

Anyhoo, since I've gotten into the habit of chucking a song onto the end of this gibberish now, here's the latest one:

Trivia fact of the week:

I spent roughly 15 years where one of my biggest regrets was never seeing the Foo Fighters. Until I realised I had seen them at Donnington in 96. Memory is terrible when you were pished.

Chapter 8: In which a decision is made.

Second week in a row with very little effort to show for it. Got up on Monday, early doors, and went out for a run, but I haven't been out since then. Woke up early today, looked out the window, and went back to bed. Snowing again. It may be too late in the year now to quote Game Of  Thrones and say that "winter is coming", but it sure as hell doesn't seem to be in a hurry to go away again.

This leads me to the decision I've taken:

I'm joining the gym.

You can all stop laughing now. Frankly, it's the only sensible option. I just don't have the fitness levels to be outside toiling away through blizzards. I'm struggling to run in nice(ish) weather at the moment. Plus, I live about 300 yards away from one of South Lanarkshire Council's fine establishments. I say, fine, this is an assumption though as I've not been along yet. It could be a rat infested shithole for all I actually know, although, running away from rats could serve as a decent form of motivation. I'm assuming it's fine though.

I recently took Sky Sports and Movies off my cable package, so the money saved from that can fund the gymness. Money previously spent watching other people run, will now fund me to get off my arse and do it for myself. That's logic youngsters.

I'm off work on a weeks holiday next week, so among the many grand schemes I shall have on the go, will be the whole going along and signing my life away taking out a gym membership. Previous experience of gyms brings memories of overly fit instructors trying to force you onto the various torture devices one after the other, so I expect a large part of my first visit will consist of finding polite ways to tell them to bugger off as I just want a go of the treadmills since it's pissing down outside. Sure, maybe later down the line I'll try out the myriad of other fun ways to make yourself hurt, but just now I think I'll stick to the basics. Baby steps and that.

Anyway, continuing my recent trend of gratuitous music videos, here's another one: