Uncategorized

The 31 Day Challenge (Andrew)

2 Comments

Some might say that the ’31 day challenge’ was to read every daily blog I wrote throughout January. I would say that’s not a challenge, that would be the ’31 day pleasure’! However, if you don’t have time to read all 31 blogs then here’s what I learned after 31 days of running, cycling and swimming.

  • You need luck: Whether it’s avoiding injury, illness or getting pinged to self-isolate because you met someone with COVID, it’s very difficult to do anything for any length of time without a bit of luck that conditions will be favourable. I was lucky because I didn’t get ill until day 32, the day after the challenge was over. I had a couple of days with a heavy cold. I could probably have continued through it, but it wouldn’t have been good for me. Instead, I had 31 clear days.
  • You need a plan: Life gets in the way of doing something everyday. Most weeks I knew which days would be difficult: whether through work, travel, family or other commitments. For those days you need a plan in advance and you need to stick to it. You can’t think, like I did, that time will suddenly make itself free. that way leads to exercising at 9:30 at night and trying not to do too much so that you can still sleep at 11.
  • You need to think about the start: I didn’t. I started on the first of January but hadn’t thought that I should maybe have rested on the 31st December (or the 30th or 29th…). Tyson Fury doesn’t box for an hour before he enters the ring, he has a happy meal and a milkshake (probably!). So should you.
  • You need to make it tough enough to be a challenge: I aimed to run or cycle for at least 30 minutes and to swim for at least 15 minutes. Over the month I averaged one hour a day (though that included some commuting time). That felt enough for me. Just long enough to make it a challenge, not so long it became a chore each day. However, everyone is different, and you should set a time that works best for you.
  • You will push yourself in unexpected ways: You will end up running when the weather is crap, cycling indoors when you’d rather watch TV and getting to the swimming pool when you wouldn’t even have got out of bed. The challenge does make you think about how much time you have each day to swim, run and cycle and that it’s possible to fit this in without sacrificing anything else.
  • You will get fitter: By the end I improved both my lap times for swimming and my average speed for running. Consistant training does work except…
  • You won’t get slimmer: But that may just be the cake! By the end I was the same weight as when I started. Maybe 31 days without a Mars Bar would be a better challenge?
  • You will be tired at the end: I was happy to finish!

What the biggest thing I’ve learned from the challenge? Probably that it’s possible to do some form of exercise each day and still get the benefit of a rest day. A swim, an easy cycle or gentle jog can be just as relaxing as doing nothing. I bet no one else in the world knows this so I hereby can confirm that I have invented a new form of exercise! I shall call it ‘Active Recovery’. No one has thought of that before!

Now, how do I claim my Nobel Prize for Science for inventing it?

Andrew, The Sound of Football

The Sound of Football: Barnsley (Andrew)

Leave a comment

Every fortnight we cover the best and worst football songs from every club in the UK from our book ‘The Sound Of Football: Every Club, Every Song’. You can buy it here

Barnsley

Nickname: The Reds

Ground: Oakwell

Stadium Capacity: 23,287

Song: Cocoon

Barnsley has spent more seasons in the second tier of English football than any other club. In the 1996/97 season, Barnsley reached the top level of English football for the first time in its history. A song was released to celebrate the occasion called ‘Up & Up.’ Unfortunately, it should be called ‘Up & Down’ as the club was relegated the following season.

Its solitary year in the top division saw the signing of Macedonian international striker Georgi Hristov. Hristov was signed to help Barnsley score on the pitch, but he had trouble scoring off it. In an interview with a Belgrade sports magazine, he said:

“I’m finding it difficult to find a girlfriend in Barnsley, or indeed settle into a decent way of life. The local girls are far uglier than the ones back in Belgrade or Skopje, the capital of Macedonia, where I come from. Our women are much prettier. Besides, they don’t drink as much beer as the Barnsley girls.”

This prompted the response from the Barnsley fans that “Barnsley women are the prettiest in the country,” which country was never confirmed.

Hristov would have known which town had the prettiest girls if he’d carried out some basic research before joining Barnsley – or he could have just watched the telly. For years, ITV filmed a show inside northern nightclubs called The Hitman and Her and hosted by northern soul expert, pop producer, model railway enthusiast Pete Waterman (The Hitman), and ex-children’s TV presenter Michaela Strachan (Her).

Each week The Hitman and Her broadcast live from a club in the north of England. If Hristov had tuned in, he would have seen what the women of Barnsley looked like on a Saturday night. First, though, he would have discovered another connection to Barnsley: the club plays The Hitman and Her’s theme tune – ‘Cocoon’ by Timerider – when players run out at the start of games.

(The song also features in the 80s Britflick The Fruit Machine, which wasn’t half as good as its proposed sequel and prequel The Time Machine or its porn version: The Sex Machine.)

The song has become derided in recent years, but older fans still remember it fondly for soundtracking their promotion in 1997.

One song that Hristov would have known while at Barnsley was the town’s official anthem. It’s called ‘The Barnsley Anthem.’ It remembers the mining struggles of poverty in Barnsley in the early 20th century. Families were so poor that they were forced to hide in their cellars from threatening bailiffs. So why would he know the song? Well, after his comments about Barnsley women, he’d need to know the best place to hide on a Saturday night.

“We’re all dahn in t’ cellar-‘oil where muck slarts on t’ winders,

We’ve used all us coil up and we’re reight dahn to t’ cinders;

If bum-bailiff comes ‘e’ll never finnd us,

Cos we’re all dahn in t’ cellar-‘oil where muck slarts on t’ winders.“

(Source: trad.)

Buy the Sound of Football from Amazon.

Andrew

31 Day Challenge – Day 31 (Andrew)

Leave a comment

As a challenge, I’m going to run, bike or swim every day in January.

Day Thirty One

Even on the highest setting of my electric bike, the cycle to the pool felt tough. To put this in to perspective, I was feeling beat, even with battery assistance powerful enough to get a 100kg bike and rider up to 16 mph. But with a swim first thing, and no time to thing about backing out, as I needed to get to the pool to get to work afterwards, I got up and was out the door within 30 minutes. By 31 minutes I was dreaming of adding a second battery pack to the bike…

How was it? Tired legs, tired arms. I could tell it was going to be a struggle as I couldn’t get into a breathing rhythm as I was turning in the water. Pooh sticks thrown off a bridge show more skill in the water than I did this morning. I was very glad to finish the swim and, with it, the challenge.

Andrew

31 Day Challenge – Day 30 (Andrew)

Leave a comment

As a challenge, I’m going to run, bike or swim every day in January.

Day Thirty

Well, that was stupid.

Before we started running I gave my car key to Iain TwinBikeRun to keep in his car. “We don’t need both keys,” I thought, “I can just pick it up at the end from his car.”

Except, halfway round, I checked the time and thought I wouldn’t have time to run up Holehead. Instead, I could take a shortcut to the finish and get home earlier. Genuis, I thought. Until I got to the car without my key. And it started to snow.

With hypothermia a real risk, as I was near zero, I’d been running or 90 minutes and my t-shirt and jacket were damp with sweat, I had no choice but to… run up Holehead and try and stay warm by staying active. I also thought I might encounter Iain coming back down but, when I was three quarters of the way up I had the horrible thought that maybe this wasn’t the right path and I should stick closer to his car instead.

I turned back and was running laps of a few hundred metres beside his car until I could see he was coming down. I jogged to meet him and then back to the car to switch the heating on in full and drive home while being blasted by near Saharan levels of hot air.

How was it? All good, apart from the hypothermia worry. I’m not sure I would have enjoyed the route if it had been in the middle of the challenge but knowing this was the second last day and that tomorrow will involve a swim, it felt okay to push things with two climbs.

Andrew

31 Day Challenge – Day 29 (Andrew)

Leave a comment

As a challenge, I’m going to run, bike or swim every day in January.

Day Twenty Nine

The title would suggest that I was competing against one of the world’s fastest female cyclists but, instead, it was a training ride inspired by her. (There were also rides by Sir Chris Hoy and others). It’s a good thing it wasn’t a race as, if it was, I’m not sure Anna and I would be anywhere near each other other than at the start line. I’m pretty sure her idea of an all sprint and my idea of pushing for the finish line are as different as Gordon Ramsay’s idea of a quick snack and a Chicken Pot Noodle.

How was it? Feeling good going into the final two days.

Andrew

31 Day Challenge – Day 28 (Andrew)

Leave a comment

As a challenge, I’m going to run, bike or swim every day in January.

Day Twenty Eight

After yesterday’s non-effort, today I got cocky with the end of the challenge in sight. I tried a doubler: a swim and cycle. Maybe I should aim for a triathlon to finish or is that just the endorphins talking?

How was it? After twenty eight days I definitely improved my swimming as I was able to swim non-stop for 10 minutes without too much thought. My legs though have a constant heaviness that could do with a break. Roll on next week.