I went out on my lunch break thinking I could do it in an hour and that it would be 10K at most.
90 minutes and 10 miles later I had to abort the run and head home otherwise I’d be late for a work meeting.
What I took from my attempt is that it’s very hard to do it without a map. I wanted to challenge myself by trying to find my own way around town rather than relying on technology. But the mental strain of trying to remember which roads to visit and where I’d been was hard. I haven’t concentrated that hard on a task since my school exams!
New build estates are a killer to run around. So many dead ends and identikit houses makes navigation a challenge.
I got some strange looks from locals when I did run down dead end streets especially if the street was only a couple of hundred metres long. The locals must have wondered why I was bothering.
Long streets with lots of roads running off it are also tricky. I couldn’t work out whether I was better running the street in one go and then coming back to do the turn offs or just do each turnoff as I came to it.
Its an interesting challenge a mixture of running and mind skills.
Good news. It looks like Boris will relax lockdown on Monday and everyone will be able to visit family in another house.
This is a great idea. We’re currently too frightened to leave home to return to work but there is nothing that will get me back in the office faster than the thought that the mother in law might pop in.
“Who’s coming? Quick, I need to go to the office, I’ll be working for the rest of the day!”
Boris is also expected to announce that we’ll be free to exercise more than once a day, which is bit like announcing that we’ll be free to breathe more than once a day. We can already exercise more than once a day. There’s no law in England or Scotland that prevents you from going out as many times as you want and for as long as you want just as long as you maintain social distancing. Announcing we can exercise all day is good news but it’s no more news than announcing the sun rises in the morning.
Despite there being no legal reason not run a marathon every day followed by a 100 mile bike ride, I’ve tried to keep to less than an hour when out and about. That means I can run around 6 – 8 miles depending on fast I’m going. I thought that would be enough to cover a good bit of ground for my #EveryStreet challenge – see here – but, after the first attempt I think I may need quite a few runs to cover every street within one mile of the house.
It’s hard to remember every street and make sure you catch them all as you round. I can see I missed one street in the above sweep and will now have to add it on. Groan.
Also, in one hour I managed a few immediate streets but I hadn’t taken account of the number of backtracking or circling you need to do when confronted with a block of streets. I’m beginning to suspect that by running every street I may in fact be running #everystreettwice…
I spotted this challenge on adventurer Alistair Humpher’s Instagram account. Can you run every street within one mile of your home?
It’s a great idea. It fits in with the spirit of lockdown by exercising locally and next to your home while also including a sense of adventure and exploring as you realise that you have never actually ran down the street right next to you.
Not sure if there’s any rules to the challenge (I was too lazy to Google it!) so I’ve invented my own.
Step 1
You’ll need to join Strava. There may be other ways to record this but this is the one I know.
Step 2
Sign up for their Summit package – which should be offering one month free.
Step 3
Remember to diary to cancel the package in 29 days!
Step 4
Go out for a run then, when you upload it to Strava, you can check “Heatmap” and it will show you where you’ve been. Every time you run, you can update the heat map and it will travel the streets you’ve run along.
Step 5
Try and run every street within one mile of your house.
And one final rule – it’s cheating to live in a small village where it is a challenge just to find another street…
Oh, and one other rule. Don’t try and run every single street unless you’re Ricky Gates who ran every single street in San Francisco. Keep it local during the lockdown! 🙂
Despite lockdown, I managed more exercise this month than any other month this year. It’s just a pity Celtman isn’t on. I feel really fit!
Luckily, I live in a small town in the countryside. I have access to biking, trails and hills on my doorstep. I can leave the house and not see a soul for hours. I don’t need to practice social isolating. I’ve been doing it for years.
Here’s some things I’ve learnt this month.
I’ve learnt that I’m sports TV addict who is so desperate for sport to return I watched the wood chopping world championship.
I learnt that my Dad hasn’t mastered video calls but it was good to see his ear
I learnt that I could spend lock-down learning to bake, or work on art, or even learn a new language. I could do any of those things….or could use this time to get my favourite twitter account Grumpy Skeletor to insult a friend of mine. All it required was a three pound donation to Grumpy’s coffee fund. Money well spent.
I learnt that the most exciting day in lockdown other than Bin Day is Bin Day Eve. I’m never sure if I’ll be able to sleep due to the excitement of wondering whether the bin men will come.
I completed a Jigsaw! Now, a lot of haterz might say – what about the sky? That’s #fakejigsawnews from the #fakejigsawmedia The bits are all there! Do they report that? I’m the jigsawest jigsawer of all time. So there! Make jigsaws great again!
The letter below says that I am a key worker. No need to call me a hero or clap for me…oh ok then. You can clap a little. #humble #clap4todd
After last month’s postponement of this year’s race… only 62 weeks to go!
This month was a short month as I still felt the effects of being ill in March. I tried a couple of rides and runs but I still wasn’t feeling right so I rested for another week before starting up again gradually. Thankfully the last few weeks have seen no reaction and I’ve been feeling stronger each time I go out. The only challenge is motivation. 62 weeks is 434 days – and that’s definitely too many days to make me think anything I do now will matter.
I enjoy training but I know there are some days where I need the extra motivation of a race to get me out the front door. A bit of rain, a cold day or just tired legs. If you have a race then you know that you need to go out in order to give a race your best shot. But when you have 434 days, you know that you don’t need to go out – well, at least not for at least another 433 days.
So, this month has been about trying to find some new ways to motivate myself. Rather than thinking about races I’ve been thinking instead about how to keep injury free over such a long time and to try some new training to help – whether that’s something simple like warming up on a bike before going on a run or, more challenging, taking part in some Yoga online. Either way, it’s been a strange month, one that should have seen training start to peak but instead saw a postponement to 2021. Oh well, with 434 days to go, I can’t complain now that I don’t have enough time to train!
It seems that every day there is a different challenge. Former Tour De France winner Geraint Thomas is cycling 12 hours a day for three days in Zwift to raise money for the NHS. Captain Tom Moore, a 99 year old army veteran, has raised £15m by completing 100 laps of his back garden. And umpteen folk are trying to complete marathons in the smallest possible location. I wrote a couple of weeks ago that at least the lockdown would mean that we wouldn’t receive any ‘please sponsor me for charity’ emails – see here – but I was completely wrong about that. I don’t get anything but charity messages now. If I’m not donating to the NHS then my sponsored donkey is running an ultramarathon on the spot in someone’s living room as I write this. Oh well, at least it’s all for a good cause – and I couldn’t help joining in!
So, in an attempt to try a challenge that would be genuinely challenging as we would be going from zero to (helping an NHS) hero in the attempt, we tried the Andy Murray 100 volley challenge. You can see his attempt below:
Remember though that he is a professional tennis player and make it look easy. Too easy. Our first attempt at volleying the ball back and forth to each other last two volleys. Our next attempt was five. By the end of our first session we’d managed 36. But, if there’s one thing the lockdown has given us it’s time and a lack of other thing to do instead…
After two days and umpteen attempts we managed to complete the Andy Murray Challenge – and also completely fail it with our first attempt as the video show.
Having more time at home means I get to spend quality time with my loved ones – the TV, the computer and the wife. That is not an order of preference. My wife reads this so I have to say that!
I don’t watch many TV shows. I’m about five years behind everyone else. I only recently started Game of Thrones. I love Sean Bean. I can’t wait to see how his character progresses over the seven seasons.
But because of lockdown, an abundance of free films, Theatre and YouTube videos have been made available to watch.
Two twins – one more successful than the other, swap places after one dies in an accident.
This is a concept I can totally buy into. It’s factually correct. One twin is always more succesful than the other. Andrew – How did you get on at Norseman? Do you want to see what a finishers T-shirt looks like? Is it cold in my shadow?
The show is utterly preposterous but it has one redeeming feature. It is filmed in Lofoten. One of the most beautiful areas of Norway. Lofoten is somewhere I want to visit (as I love Norway) and hopefully do their triathlon https://www.thearctictriple.no/lofoten-triathlon/
GANGS OF LONDON
Gangs of London is the thickheaded more violent brother of Twin. It is even more preposterous and prone to extreme violence. It is well directed and acted but at the end my wife said “I’m not sure I could watch any more of that”
A train circling the globe has the last reaming humans. The train is split into different classes from the poorest to the richest.
This films sounds stupider than Twin and Gangs of London combined but its actually great. Don’t learn anything about it in advance. Just watch it and enoy a smart sci fi premise done really well.
The director and writer went onto to win Oscar for this years Parasite. So it proves he knows what he is doing.
YOUTUBE
I’ve watched a lot of great YouTube videos. I’ve created a playlist of some of the best
I tried watching some live theatre – One Man, Two Guvnors starring James Cordon but after 30s of watching him, I wanted to lick a self service machine to try and get a dose of covid-19. Even that horrific illness must be more enjoyable than 2 hours of Cordon!
Andrew wrote a set of guidelines for exercising during lockdown. You can find them here: TheRules
He missed out some important rules.
DON’T PUT YOUR RUN/BIKE ON STRAVA!!!
If you are lucky enough to be able to exercise freely outside then don’t show off about it. Have some respect for people who can’t. Keep you epic run or your 100 mile bike ride to yourself.
People are stuck at homes and can’t get out so don’t make their day worse by seeing how great your day was.
2. DON’T DO A MARATHON IN YOUR GARDEN
Why do that? The original marathon was a point to point run from point A to point B. You’ve gone from A, stayed in A and finished at A.
Why bother? Sit and have a beer instead. No-one cares you’ve gone around in circles more often than a wind mill.
3. DON’T DO ZWIFT RACES
Its not real! You’re all at home sweating on the carpet. The people you are racing are probably cheating just as much as you are. If you use Zwift then listen to a podcast or YouTube at the same time and forget about races. At least you’ll learn something whilst you are getting fit.
As the weather turns from “blimey, it’s sunny but that’s a cold wind!” to “cracking!” in the next few days I thought I’d share some random ‘rules’ about exercising during lockdown. Anyone got any others? Or disagree? 🙂
‘Road bikes’ are for roads, ‘mountain bikes’ are for mountains and ‘Gravel bikes’ are for folk who are easily persuaded to spend hundreds of pounds more on a road bikes with ever so slightly bigger tyres. But there is one type of bike that doesn’t exist and that’s the ‘pavement bike’. Bike are not designed for pavements. Ride your bike – but keep it on the road!
Don’t wear your club cycling gear when secretly meeting other members (of other clubs, not heard of any GTCers doing this) for a four hour ride. It’s not a secret if four of you are wearing the same club top.
And, no, the Crow Road (or favourite climb wherever you are) will not be quiet this weekend. Every other cyclist in north Glasgow (wherever you are) has had the same idea. You will be joining a peloton larger than the number of people trying to get a Zwift selfie with Geraint Thomas.
Fat blokes must wear longer t-shirts. It’s great to see so many people running, especially when becoming fitter can help fight the virus, but this tip shouldn’t need saying, but say it I must, no one wants to see your under-gut, wear a longer t-shirt so you’re not flashing your belly.
Fit bokes must wear a t-shirt. I know it’s sunny but the only fashion trend you should be following is “masks on” not “taps aff”. You don’t need to physically distance yourself from your running gear.
You cannot outrun the virus, just because you’re running faster doesn’t mean you can brush someone as you pass and escape the coronavirus. Keep your distance even when running. Especially, if you have your top off. No one wants a drive-by sweat-swipe.
Don’t go swimming. Not only will be breaking curfew you’ll be breaking in as the swimming pools are closed.
You are not invisible when exercising. In fact, you must as well be out with a spotlight on you and a klaxon blaring “I AM A TWAT”. Remember, most people will hate you for being out and assume that you’re breaking some rule or other. Try and avoid busy places, be the first to cross the road if you see someone come towards you, stay well away when passing anyone. Just, in general, assume not only that you have the virus but you’ve also seen Colin from Accounts and he’s the most boring man alive and you want to avoid a conversation with him at all costs and act accordingly.
A POST I WROTE BEFORE CHRISTMAS BUT DIDN’T PUBLISH AT THE TIME. NOW IT FEELS LIKE NOSTALGIA. HOLIDAYS? TRAVEL? WHAT ARE THOSE?!?
I’m being mansplained by a man, which is unusual because mansplaining is what happens when a man tells a woman something she already knows. When a man does it to another man it should be called splaining to show it’s not sexist, it’s just really, really annoying. Especially when it continues for the next four hours floating down the River Nile. This is what happens when you say hello to strangers…
We’re in Jinja in Uganda, the original source of the Nile and a spot famous for white water rafting. Apparently, Prince William has rafted here – along with Geri Halliwell aka Ginger Spice or Jinja Spice, as she should have been called. We read about it before coming to Uganda and thought it would be fun to try rafting on the Nile. We signed up for the intermediate package. Big mistake.
“Should we take the beginner’s package? We’ve been rafting once before so we know the basics.”
We were told that the beginners package was only for complete beginners and we’d be fine. We should have realised that complete beginners also included us. Three hours on a river is the average amount of time a Cambridge student takes to learn how to punt. Three hours on a river does not make you a Royal Marine Commando ready to storm a beach.
The second warning was when we arrived at the start and saw the number of boats required to take us down the river. A safety boat. Three kayaks. And our personal photographer and videographer – a nice touch, I thought until I realised they were probably just filming our last moments for insurance purposes.
“Look! He really didn’t know what he was doing! He should never have signed up for the intermediate trip! He’s so bad he’d even drown in a puddle!”
On the positive side, at least Iain would have a good montage to show at my funeral. And a funeral was a distinct possibility because the instructor said we’d be staring with a level five rapid.
Rapids have six categories. The first five are progressively harder from one to five. The sixth is reserved for those on suicide watch or need to invade an enemy camp under the cover of darkness. Either way, five was the hardest we could try outside of a war zone.
But level five wasn’t going to be our toughest challenge. That was our fellow rower – Karl – a man from Eastern Europe who’d ridden 10 hours on a bus across Uganda in order to take part in this adventure. And Karl had perfect English. Or as he would say; “No, I don’t have perfect English, my English is 100%!”
Because Karl contradicted everything I said. Even if it was to confirm what I just said.
“I don’t like Dubai,” I said.
“You’re wrong – Dubai is a hellhole!” He’d say with absolute conviction and then he’d stare me down to dare to contradict him, even though he was agreeing with me.
And then he’d spend five minutes explaining what Dubai was like as if I’d never been even though the only reason I mentioned it was because I said that we’d just been there. I quickly wanted to throw him off the boat.
Which was lucky, as by starting with a level five rapid, there was a good chance we were all going to be thrown off the boat as the only thing you need to know is that you hold on and hope. And that’s it. I can honestly say I had no control over what happened in that whirlpool. Sprayed with surf, rocked by waves, spun by currents before the raft was chucked out like a frisbee. And then our guide shouted “And now a level four!”.
And Karl shouted to me “this is one less than a level five” – like I didn’t know how to count.
And this time to add to the spray, the rocking, the spinning and the escape we also had a 90 degree flip when the raft almost toppled over in the middle of the rapid.
However I have to admit that despite my fears I always felt completely safe. The instructor had prepared us with a safety briefing. The kayaks and safety boats went ahead of us to catch anyone falling off the boat and the instructor talked us through the whole rapids explaining what was happening and what would happen next -which Karl would then repeat to me. Thanks, Karl.
The rafting lasted four hours and involved 11 rapids over 20 kilometres of river. At various points we could jump in the Nile and swim beside the boat. The water was warm and with a life jacket it was easy just to float and let the current take us down stream until we finished with another level five and level four. This time the guide said we could jump out in the middle of the level four.
“Are there any crocodiles?” I asked
“We’ve not seen a crocodile in twenty years,” reassured the guide.
“So,” I said, “you’re telling me that you have seen a crocodile..?”
It was nerve wracking to jump into the churning water. It was disorientating to jump in and resurface 20 metres away having been pulled instantly along by the current – but reassuring that falling in wasn’t dangerous, as long as you had the life jacket and helmet than you just let the river take you to the calm waters beyond the rapid. Calm waters where I could see Karl, who’d also jumped in. He was grinning. And I was grinning and I thought I should forgive him and we should celebrate overcoming our fears by finishing the rafting and jumping into the swirling waters. I shouted “High five!” And raised my hand from the water only for Karl to say:
“No, Andrew!” Said Karl “Fist bump!”
I loved rafting, but I really, really hated Karl.
Skill required: None. The raft had guides taking control when in the high rapids.
Strength required: Some, you will need to paddle between rapids and while it’s not hard work it can tiring to paddle for a kilometre or more, even with the help of a current.
Safety: Loads. Life jackets and helmet checked before each rapids.
Overall: If Ginger Spice can do it, anyone can. If they can get to Uganda anytime soon…
🙂
Twin brothers swimming, cycling and running in Scotland 