Thursday 14 April 2011
Bill's Amazing Little Adventures: marathon training week 7, an 'interesting' week.
Bill's Amazing Little Adventures: marathon training week 7, an 'interesting' week.: "Hi Folks, It's the countdown to national championships, and I'm practising most of the time now. Nevertheless, I have time for this! Sunday..."
marathon training week 7, an 'interesting' week.
Hi Folks,
It's the countdown to national championships, and I'm practising most of the time now.
Nevertheless, I have time for this!
Sunday was good. Had marching practise on the torrens parade ground in the morning and marched down rundle mall in the afternoon. Had a stand-up concert, played thriller, copacobana and other uptempo tunes. I was on the bass drum and hit it between 112 and 138 times a minute for 35 minutes, with breaks of 2 mins between tunes. that's about 4500 hits, all between loud, louder, and loudest.
Met friend Helen for lunch, laksa at the food plaza. walked to victoria square, sat for a while, a coolish breeze on a sunny autumn afternoon in our faces. Quite nostalgic as we walked past the bus stop where we met in 1969. That's 42 years ago! so that's what 42 years feels like. I'll be 98 in another 42 years! I think that will make me the longest living Martin, but the others have come close. I might be the healthiest to date.
Worn out that I was, I was in bed at 4.00.
On Monday, after bass practise, I went for a run. Armed with my new garmin gps monitor, I ran 12.5 kms in 1:10:00. this is another personal best time, and takes me to the 'local' level of running, others being regional, national, and world levels.
Unfortunately I slightly strained a groin string, and it didn't recover adequately for the following run.
I had decided to do a speed set and set off at pace. Slight mistake, groin string became painful, so I slowed down and started walking. Thoughts of what to, turn back, or continue, the pain subsided so on I went. did some speed walking, jogged a little, back to a walk. 4.2 kms in 38 mins.
There was a slight sensation - not pain, but slight heat, coming from the string when I woke up on thursday morning. it felt a bit stretched. the sensation disappeared as I moved.
Inevitably I decided to stop running for a while. As it turns out, my efforts are needed for national band championships in just over a week, and I need to clean up my house for 2 french guys who are staying over.
I was thinking that some cross training might be in order. such as the pushbike mounted in my gym. given that the events I'm training for involve walking up hills, that's another option,
so, moving along, motorbike to market for shopping and lunch, I'm full of glucosamine avec condroitin, 'elasticity' , combination 12 , omega 3 and brahmi ginko. I head for the best salad in town. tabooli, chic peas, lettuce, tomato, cucumber, fetta cheese, olives, a sprinkle of spices. "that's so healthy it's disgusting!" said Chris.
Coles Adelaide is the best supermarket in my world. smoked cod, yoghurt, tomatoes, tomato juice, milk, chilli beans, sardines in tomato sauce. that reminds me! I love tomatoes, and onions (very complimentary vegetables) yum!!! I had a glass house once. bought it for $250, dis-assembled it and re-built it on my 12 acre hobby farm. I grew the best tomatoes! Roma Tomatoes, I salute you! Unfortunately 'man cannot live by tomatoes alone!' I ate so many tomatoes that their acid burnt my mouth and I had to stop eating them! so sad ! many years later, last monday, my salad girl - Mary, owner of the best salad in town, told me to sprinkle sugar on tomatoes, as well as salt. Hmm, thanks Mary!
out of the supermarket, into the veggie market for coffee and bacon, and back to the food plaza for a medium vietnamese beef noodle soup with corriander, mint and wheat sprouts, I am in heaven, metaphorically speaking...
there's a new chinese medicine shop inside the entrance to the food plaza, full to the brim with stock. all sorts of exciting stuff, I bought some fungi you make tea out of - good for tonnes of 'ailments', including stretched groin strings. Tastes fine to me but others use honey with it.
I went into cash converters in gouger st, a regular pitstop, and found a thigh trainer! this thing is like walking up hills! and at $25 a bargain! Woo hoo! big tick on the cross training scoreboard! I've been looking at steps but can't really justify buying one, especially with a flight of stairs in my house. So the thigh trainer was exactly what I was looking for.
Today (friday) has been spent playing bass. our band is rehearsing tonight, tomorrow, sunday, monday night, and wednesday night. probably over next weekend too. we are in 3 competitions over the week end - a marching band comp - we are currently aussie champs, a B grade concert, we came second last year to a band from Singapore, and an A grade comp. No one makes mistakes in A grade, and it tends to be dominated by wind ensembles, 70+ players. They usually drop into B grade to steal our prize!
On stage, my bass and amp can be felt through the floor. you have to play loud enough to fill the space in the hall without producing a reverberation. In Magdalena Church (paris) it took about 3 seconds for the music to stop after we finished playing.
We are playing in Elder Hall next weekend. Very high ceilings, and a brilliant place to play. Hot hot hot!!!
Cheers Dears!
It's the countdown to national championships, and I'm practising most of the time now.
Nevertheless, I have time for this!
Sunday was good. Had marching practise on the torrens parade ground in the morning and marched down rundle mall in the afternoon. Had a stand-up concert, played thriller, copacobana and other uptempo tunes. I was on the bass drum and hit it between 112 and 138 times a minute for 35 minutes, with breaks of 2 mins between tunes. that's about 4500 hits, all between loud, louder, and loudest.
Met friend Helen for lunch, laksa at the food plaza. walked to victoria square, sat for a while, a coolish breeze on a sunny autumn afternoon in our faces. Quite nostalgic as we walked past the bus stop where we met in 1969. That's 42 years ago! so that's what 42 years feels like. I'll be 98 in another 42 years! I think that will make me the longest living Martin, but the others have come close. I might be the healthiest to date.
Worn out that I was, I was in bed at 4.00.
On Monday, after bass practise, I went for a run. Armed with my new garmin gps monitor, I ran 12.5 kms in 1:10:00. this is another personal best time, and takes me to the 'local' level of running, others being regional, national, and world levels.
Unfortunately I slightly strained a groin string, and it didn't recover adequately for the following run.
I had decided to do a speed set and set off at pace. Slight mistake, groin string became painful, so I slowed down and started walking. Thoughts of what to, turn back, or continue, the pain subsided so on I went. did some speed walking, jogged a little, back to a walk. 4.2 kms in 38 mins.
There was a slight sensation - not pain, but slight heat, coming from the string when I woke up on thursday morning. it felt a bit stretched. the sensation disappeared as I moved.
Inevitably I decided to stop running for a while. As it turns out, my efforts are needed for national band championships in just over a week, and I need to clean up my house for 2 french guys who are staying over.
I was thinking that some cross training might be in order. such as the pushbike mounted in my gym. given that the events I'm training for involve walking up hills, that's another option,
so, moving along, motorbike to market for shopping and lunch, I'm full of glucosamine avec condroitin, 'elasticity' , combination 12 , omega 3 and brahmi ginko. I head for the best salad in town. tabooli, chic peas, lettuce, tomato, cucumber, fetta cheese, olives, a sprinkle of spices. "that's so healthy it's disgusting!" said Chris.
Coles Adelaide is the best supermarket in my world. smoked cod, yoghurt, tomatoes, tomato juice, milk, chilli beans, sardines in tomato sauce. that reminds me! I love tomatoes, and onions (very complimentary vegetables) yum!!! I had a glass house once. bought it for $250, dis-assembled it and re-built it on my 12 acre hobby farm. I grew the best tomatoes! Roma Tomatoes, I salute you! Unfortunately 'man cannot live by tomatoes alone!' I ate so many tomatoes that their acid burnt my mouth and I had to stop eating them! so sad ! many years later, last monday, my salad girl - Mary, owner of the best salad in town, told me to sprinkle sugar on tomatoes, as well as salt. Hmm, thanks Mary!
out of the supermarket, into the veggie market for coffee and bacon, and back to the food plaza for a medium vietnamese beef noodle soup with corriander, mint and wheat sprouts, I am in heaven, metaphorically speaking...
there's a new chinese medicine shop inside the entrance to the food plaza, full to the brim with stock. all sorts of exciting stuff, I bought some fungi you make tea out of - good for tonnes of 'ailments', including stretched groin strings. Tastes fine to me but others use honey with it.
I went into cash converters in gouger st, a regular pitstop, and found a thigh trainer! this thing is like walking up hills! and at $25 a bargain! Woo hoo! big tick on the cross training scoreboard! I've been looking at steps but can't really justify buying one, especially with a flight of stairs in my house. So the thigh trainer was exactly what I was looking for.
Today (friday) has been spent playing bass. our band is rehearsing tonight, tomorrow, sunday, monday night, and wednesday night. probably over next weekend too. we are in 3 competitions over the week end - a marching band comp - we are currently aussie champs, a B grade concert, we came second last year to a band from Singapore, and an A grade comp. No one makes mistakes in A grade, and it tends to be dominated by wind ensembles, 70+ players. They usually drop into B grade to steal our prize!
On stage, my bass and amp can be felt through the floor. you have to play loud enough to fill the space in the hall without producing a reverberation. In Magdalena Church (paris) it took about 3 seconds for the music to stop after we finished playing.
We are playing in Elder Hall next weekend. Very high ceilings, and a brilliant place to play. Hot hot hot!!!
Cheers Dears!
Saturday 9 April 2011
Bill's Amazing Little Adventures: speed writing
Bill's Amazing Little Adventures: speed writing: "the idea is to get my thoughts on paper asap. you know what I mean! today is saturday, a feel good day. I slept in. watched tv - golf (big t..."
speed writing
the idea is to get my thoughts on paper asap. you know what I mean!
today is saturday, a feel good day.
I slept in. watched tv - golf (big tick). coffee, bacon, eggs, tomatoes. started looking at facebook - I'm a bit of an addict these days. some interesting stuff on climate madness. this issue is my main intellectual pursuit at the moment, and the science says that the politicians, bankers et al are trying to rip us off. so annoying! how can I best use my time and voice re this subject?
otherwise practising bass guitar is my biggest commitment.
and of course my running is taking care of another 5 -6 hours a week. I have a garmin gps running trainer and am now into the computer age with my feedback mechanisms. I saw a point (me) on google earth, travelling at 25 kph. is this fast? I guess it's relative, must google sprinting speeds for 56 year olds .
when I started college, it took me a week to write an assignment, when I was finishing college, it took me half a day, with the benefit of speed writing. the idea is that you look at the question and answer it immediately using your gut reaction, the theory being that your gut reaction is essentially correct. as you write your answer, questions about proof come up. you then look for proof, and maybe different points of view. to use an analogy, a far fetched one, life, such as coral, grows as a reaction to the laws of motion in a liquid. this can be demonstrated by dropping dye into still and twirling water - the results look like coral. back to writing assignments - there are key words and implications in the questions that need to be addressed, and these form a scaffold for your answer.
I'm running out of steam, after writing for what seems to be 10 minutes.
had an interesting episode on the computer today - somehow my connection was turned off. I spoke to the technician who didn't think I did it i.e. someone else did it. atually I think I did it when I was trying to connect my garmin to facebook. otherwise, the alternative sounds a bit conspiratorial... don't really want to go there. but I will. I can imagine various boffins scrutinising hits of key word programs, and throwing spanners in the works of dissenting individuals.
I can wax lyrical about political motivations and purposes. today the new argument from tim flannery - commissioner of climate change, is that we don't have to think anymore - others, including him, will do it for us. this is similar to the view that the internet should be censored or even shut down. I mean let's face it, the internet, and in particular social websites such as facebook, have been instrumental in voicing opinions and directing actions that are counterproductive to the cause of the status quo. we can gleen many times the amount of info from the net than we can from other forms of communication. corelate that to the status quo's domination of traditional media, and lack of control over the net, and you can understand why they would want to shut us down.
of course, the current scare campaign that we need to do something now to avert climate disaster has been shown to be utter bullshit. look for yourself - it isn't hard to find.
that might be enough to go on with for today.
ciao bella
today is saturday, a feel good day.
I slept in. watched tv - golf (big tick). coffee, bacon, eggs, tomatoes. started looking at facebook - I'm a bit of an addict these days. some interesting stuff on climate madness. this issue is my main intellectual pursuit at the moment, and the science says that the politicians, bankers et al are trying to rip us off. so annoying! how can I best use my time and voice re this subject?
otherwise practising bass guitar is my biggest commitment.
and of course my running is taking care of another 5 -6 hours a week. I have a garmin gps running trainer and am now into the computer age with my feedback mechanisms. I saw a point (me) on google earth, travelling at 25 kph. is this fast? I guess it's relative, must google sprinting speeds for 56 year olds .
when I started college, it took me a week to write an assignment, when I was finishing college, it took me half a day, with the benefit of speed writing. the idea is that you look at the question and answer it immediately using your gut reaction, the theory being that your gut reaction is essentially correct. as you write your answer, questions about proof come up. you then look for proof, and maybe different points of view. to use an analogy, a far fetched one, life, such as coral, grows as a reaction to the laws of motion in a liquid. this can be demonstrated by dropping dye into still and twirling water - the results look like coral. back to writing assignments - there are key words and implications in the questions that need to be addressed, and these form a scaffold for your answer.
I'm running out of steam, after writing for what seems to be 10 minutes.
had an interesting episode on the computer today - somehow my connection was turned off. I spoke to the technician who didn't think I did it i.e. someone else did it. atually I think I did it when I was trying to connect my garmin to facebook. otherwise, the alternative sounds a bit conspiratorial... don't really want to go there. but I will. I can imagine various boffins scrutinising hits of key word programs, and throwing spanners in the works of dissenting individuals.
I can wax lyrical about political motivations and purposes. today the new argument from tim flannery - commissioner of climate change, is that we don't have to think anymore - others, including him, will do it for us. this is similar to the view that the internet should be censored or even shut down. I mean let's face it, the internet, and in particular social websites such as facebook, have been instrumental in voicing opinions and directing actions that are counterproductive to the cause of the status quo. we can gleen many times the amount of info from the net than we can from other forms of communication. corelate that to the status quo's domination of traditional media, and lack of control over the net, and you can understand why they would want to shut us down.
of course, the current scare campaign that we need to do something now to avert climate disaster has been shown to be utter bullshit. look for yourself - it isn't hard to find.
that might be enough to go on with for today.
ciao bella
Friday 8 April 2011
Bill's Amazing Little Adventures: marathon training week 6
Bill's Amazing Little Adventures: marathon training week 6: "week 6 has come and gone, time for me to rabbit on. I'm pretty happy with progress this week, 55 kms in 4 runs. 2 x 20km, a 10 km run, and a..."
marathon training week 6
week 6 has come and gone, time for me to rabbit on.
I'm pretty happy with progress this week, 55 kms in 4 runs. 2 x 20km, a 10 km run, and a 5km run.
The legs have been under duress, and times have been slower than normal. I ended the week faster than I started, encouraging...
My garmin gps heart moitor arrived today and I used it to measure the distance of my normal lap, which turned out to be 5.05 kms. I've seen some brilliant computer graphics of these garmins in action. map of route, distance, time, heart rates, history and training programs. It will give me an accurate picture of what I need to do to achive my goals.
so my average pace for the lap was 10 kph, max pace 19 km. I looked at it on google earth, and at one point the pace was 25 kph - I do a sprint for a distance shortly before the end of the lap.
just a short posting today,
cheers dears!
I'm pretty happy with progress this week, 55 kms in 4 runs. 2 x 20km, a 10 km run, and a 5km run.
The legs have been under duress, and times have been slower than normal. I ended the week faster than I started, encouraging...
My garmin gps heart moitor arrived today and I used it to measure the distance of my normal lap, which turned out to be 5.05 kms. I've seen some brilliant computer graphics of these garmins in action. map of route, distance, time, heart rates, history and training programs. It will give me an accurate picture of what I need to do to achive my goals.
so my average pace for the lap was 10 kph, max pace 19 km. I looked at it on google earth, and at one point the pace was 25 kph - I do a sprint for a distance shortly before the end of the lap.
just a short posting today,
cheers dears!
Sunday 3 April 2011
Bill's Amazing Little Adventures: marathon training week 6 run 1
Bill's Amazing Little Adventures: marathon training week 6 run 1: "I had an interesting run today - 21.2 kms in 2 hrs 4 mins. no particular dietary preparation, looking to burn fat and go for distance. the f..."
marathon training week 6 run 1
I had an interesting run today - 21.2 kms in 2 hrs 4 mins. no particular dietary preparation, looking to burn fat and go for distance.
the first lap (5.3 kms) took 29.39, heart rate (hr) 137, a normal warm up time.
in the second lap my right foot kicked some unseen raised concrete, and over I went. I curled and rolled over my left shoulder, said the 'b' word, got up and kept running. slight grazes above the elbow and knee, and on left palm. 30.47, hr 139.
on the third lap I noticed some pain in my right calf muscle. I had been experimenting with relaxing calf muscles between each stride and I guess the extra shock was a bit much for them. So I backed off a bit and the pain subsided. I finished the lap in 30.47 - the same time as the second lap, hr 141. I was pretty happy about the time.
the fourth lap seemed to be going okay and I was considering a fifth lap. at 400 metres to go I started to run up the hilton bridges, when my calf muscle started to cramp. I don't like stopping so I persevered with the pain. at one stage I considered hopping but decided not to. with the end in sight, I kept going. it wasn't a full on cramp, just 6 out of 10 on the pain scale! 32.58, hr 140. I was glad to finish!
So the obligatory cold bath at home, followed by some raised leg against the wall massage and relaxation.
my calves responded well in my trip to the food court and supermarket, and feel okay now. I'm tempted to go for a swim in the sea, but might just settle for another cold bath. I love the way a cold bath takes most of the blood out of the leg muscles!
I'm really looking forward to picking up a Garmin 205 which I bought on-line a few days ago - $150 cheaper than the one in the local bike shop! This heart rate monitor has a gps transceiver in it, and a few other bells and whistles.
cheers dears!
the first lap (5.3 kms) took 29.39, heart rate (hr) 137, a normal warm up time.
in the second lap my right foot kicked some unseen raised concrete, and over I went. I curled and rolled over my left shoulder, said the 'b' word, got up and kept running. slight grazes above the elbow and knee, and on left palm. 30.47, hr 139.
on the third lap I noticed some pain in my right calf muscle. I had been experimenting with relaxing calf muscles between each stride and I guess the extra shock was a bit much for them. So I backed off a bit and the pain subsided. I finished the lap in 30.47 - the same time as the second lap, hr 141. I was pretty happy about the time.
the fourth lap seemed to be going okay and I was considering a fifth lap. at 400 metres to go I started to run up the hilton bridges, when my calf muscle started to cramp. I don't like stopping so I persevered with the pain. at one stage I considered hopping but decided not to. with the end in sight, I kept going. it wasn't a full on cramp, just 6 out of 10 on the pain scale! 32.58, hr 140. I was glad to finish!
So the obligatory cold bath at home, followed by some raised leg against the wall massage and relaxation.
my calves responded well in my trip to the food court and supermarket, and feel okay now. I'm tempted to go for a swim in the sea, but might just settle for another cold bath. I love the way a cold bath takes most of the blood out of the leg muscles!
I'm really looking forward to picking up a Garmin 205 which I bought on-line a few days ago - $150 cheaper than the one in the local bike shop! This heart rate monitor has a gps transceiver in it, and a few other bells and whistles.
cheers dears!
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