Sunday 28 December 2008

Festive Thoughts

It's now officially the time of year where no one does anything apart from eat and argue with their families. The week before New Year's Eve is a temporal no man's land and I'm in the middle of it. It can't be all bad because now I can write more blogs.


I thought I would make this a general catch up about what's happened in the last couple of weeks rather than going back to June 2008. Although, it is this time of year when people reflect on the year just gone and generally say, 'It's been a rubbish year, let's hope next year is better'. This is either because British people are always negative and cynical or every year is in fact pants. Someone you know always dies and something global and crap happens, this year it was the credit crunch. My prediction for next year is that a great great great Uncle will die of old age and a global herpes epidemic will have hit Britain.

Fitness has undoubtedly declined slightly as I have been eating ridiculous amounts of tuck and imbibing grog everyday for the last week, which has taken a toll on me especially as I have reduced my alcohol intake over the last few weeks. Although, as many of my pals who have real jobs have time off at the moment, we have played a few games of 5-aside football courtesy of the sports hall I have free access to.

As a team we have chosen to change one of the charities from Sport Relief to The Lord Taverners, who are a cricket charity aimed at helping disabled children feel more integrated in society with their sporting programmes. It may not be such a Hollywood charity as Sport Relief but they have been much more keen on our project and want to work with us. I know charities have many things to organise and sort but if you are not going to get behind a project like this then that seems, in my humble opinion, to be foolish. Anyway on a positive note I'm about a 3rd of the way to my personal fundraising target and let's hope the project keeps building momentum.

Kirt and Curry are currently in Nepal sorting out some logistical stuff, so my thoughts are with them: That makes them sound dead, they aren't. Just to clarify they are alive and well and are probably drinking Nepalese beer whilst having women of the night push their services upon them.


in a bit

Thursday 11 December 2008

Swearing

If you look back to my first post on 27/06/08, I state that I was told off for swearing. I have been retold off for swearing on this blog. It now must stop. If you're a fan of swearing you should find another blog that can give you what you want.

yours politely...

Wednesday 10 December 2008

Grim Bruv

Just to cut out the suspense, I did in fact complete the 8 mile off road run. I did in in 1hr 15, which is quite respectable because I was placed 600 odd. Obviously that means nothing unless you know the amount of entrants. I think there were 2000 odd not 601; it is definitely important to know how many people are in each competition. I remember I once came 7th in an event, which on paper seems better than 600th, however, for the former race I was in fact in an 8 person contest. It is necessary to know these things unless of course you come first because that is always good (outside of the bedroom). Runner-up is generally pretty respectable unless you believe the mantra of the No Fear t-shirts: '2nd place is first loser'. On the other hand if you own a No Fear item let alone believe the slogan you are either a complete helmet or a dad who thinks he's cool. Just for the record you are not cool.

The Grim Challenge was surprisingly enjoyable. The waist high puddles we had to run through were especially enticing when we arrived because the rock hard ice on the surface had to be broken pre-race. This means that the water was scientifically freezing, I'm not just exaggerating for the purposes of your entertainment. I was reticent before the start to say the least as I was half asleep and running in mud and ice for 8 miles seemed like a pretty awful way to start the Sabbath.

I actually never felt aerobically exhausted during the race, which is a good sign for the expedition. I was also nattering to my mate Jimmy who I bumped into on the start line. I was dressed in a www.Everesttest.com t-shirt and leggings, which did nothing to help my shamefully miniature twiglets for legs whilst Jimmy was in a Mexican wrestling mask and a pink thong. I looked quite overdressed and sensible compared to the Ray Mysterio look-a-like. We overtook people who were blowing out of their proverbial arses whilst we casually had a really pleasant catch up.

A fun day had by one and all. Afterwards at pub lunch we had a really good chat about people who over use the 'reply to all' button on emails. To me it's very obvious that if someone emails a group of people saying "let me know if you can do this" you let HIM or HER know by emailing just HIM or HER. There is no need to email everyone else invited. I mean if you're officially invited to a wedding, do you find out everyone else on the guest list, photocopy your reply 50 times and post it all the other invitees?? No. Case closed.

Thursday 4 December 2008

General Training and Fundraising

In about 3 days I'm taking part in the Grim Challenge. This is something I only have a vague knowledge of. From what I can gather it consists of 8miles of running in off road army terrain including big puddles/ rivers, which is pretty handy because luckily on December the 7Th it should be really warm so a quick dip will be really refreshing. I am of course being sarcastic, it's going to be fat and shit!

I have no idea how I will fair fitness wise. I've started using the cross trainer. Despite previously hating any mechanical indoor aerobic machine I've been favouring the Cross trainer as it's indoors and warm, which is really good preparation for what is essentially an outdoor expedition.

I have also been doing some serious weight session with the people at the school I work at. I don't really like lifting weights as it is the most cliched male thing to do. The good thing about it is the 30 minutes afterwards where you genuinely feel like the Incredible Hulk. Sometimes I go out starting fights on people because of all the adrenalin and the 0.1mm larger pecs I have sculpted. I think I can beat up a bear but in reality I can barely take down a Chinese door mouse.

I also have severely cut down on drinking so now after about 3 pints I'm an absolute shambles. After 5 I want to fight people, which never happens. I worked out that the worst scenario would be if I have 5 pints whilst doing the bench press; I would start trying to smash everyone up and fail miserably.

Last thought for the day why do people make waistcoats for their pet dogs? Utterly pointless.