Pace is consistent, which I guess is good.
5.37 miles in 42:03 speed 7.7mph
30 May 2014
29 May 2014
Running 29-May-2014
Temperature not so bad humidity 95%, which would explain why I felt like my lungs were going to explode most of the time. Through sheer belligerence and ignoring my body telling me it wasn't getting enough oxygen I made a reasonable run. Worst point was around the 4 mile mark when I started feeling light headed, once I pushed through that there was a short downhill stint when I caught back up with oxygen needs.
5.36 miles in 41:59 pace 7.7mph
5.36 miles in 41:59 pace 7.7mph
Parental Surprises
I originally thought about writing this a while ago when my wife told me one of the most surprising comments my son has come out with so far, and he has surprised us often. As such I will start with background to the surprise, the comment, then move on.
I am not a pleasant person, an avid self-improver who expects a lot of myself and those close to me makes a tough person to live with let alone love. I am not abusive in the classical sense but I am incredibly strict and my mood can change like the weather and many don't even notice it happening.
The first word my son learned was 'no' if he didn't stop what he was doing at being told he would be removed from it or have what he was misbehaving with removed from him. It took very little time to learn that no meant he was doing something wrong and that a cute look was often not enough to get him out of trouble unless he stopped too.
Keen advocates of physical punishment hate me, because while their discipline has the range of their arm, mine doesn't. A look or call and the action stops, there are definitely occasions when there is a bit of stropping about it and heated exchanges happen, but unless I am wrong with what I assumed was happening my word goes. It angers a lot of people declaring a smack is needed that my son who has never been hit and has Asperger's which many use as an excuse is so much more disciplined and responsive than their progeny.
I make no secret of this to my son, he is told in no uncertain terms that I am hard on him and that his upbringing is strict. He knows this by the reactions of other children who think I must be cool Dad for getting involved in play, then are less pleased when they realise I take no nonsense.
We were out for a day with a friend of his who's parent uses a lot of empty threats, 'if you do/don't do this I'll do x' or 'you'll lose y' then they continue doing or not doing what they are told nothing happens but a repeat. Subsequently the behaviour doesn't improve. It is an unfortunate point to parenting that you can't bluff, if you say you will do something you have to follow it through even when it goes against everything you believe in, just learn not to say it again, or ideally think it through first.
I know my son has observed the behaviour of others then comment on being glad we are strict with him because it has stopped him being like them, but even still I found the conversation reported to me a shock.
With me being such an openly strict disciplinarian I have often expected this to cause issues between me and my son, something I don't want, but accept as part of being a parent. The conversation he started with my wife however made me realise that honesty and structure really are appreciated. His comment was that he knew we gave him quite a long leash but was glad we didn't give him as much as others because it showed how much we love him.
I will be totally fair a lot of surprises with children can be hard to take or amusing but this one stunned us both and made us feel very proud. This is the sort of thing I expected might happen when he became an adult, maybe had children of his own, but he's only 11.
No child is by the book, but it's worth reading them. Like most parents with a crawling toddler we took precautions, including initially putting plug socket covers over unused sockets. These covers are not really essential in the UK because the current only flows when the large earth section is fully pushed in but parents are paranoid so we cover them. The thing any parent will know about these things is they are a pain in the rear to remove, and before we put them in our son showed no interest in any socket. Once in place however they became a source of curiosity and he would sit pulling one out and pushing it back in repeatedly, they were given away that day and he never went near a socket again.
There are things you have to improvise and we all get things wrong but it is best to read up first and make informed mistakes than simply repeat the mistakes of parents or create whole new ones of your own. One I found horrible but have kept in mind is that as social animals there is no way to bring up a child without teaching them to lie. I read it and watched a show of various very good parenting methods and what the child would take from it. There is little more horrific to a parent than knowing there is no way to avoid a failure, and teaching dishonesty is something most of us would class as a failure.
None of us ever become expert parents but failing to bother learning anything at all will leave you floundering often and it is better to find know as much as you can first. The surprises are then less frequent and often less distressing.
Intelligence. I have often said if you treat a child as if they are idiots they will become one and have worked very much on the basis of treating my son as someone with a working brain, which has stretched him a lot and ended up with me spending long periods explaining things to him when saying something that sailed over his head at first telling. In contrast I have also been very surprised with some of the things he has simply picked up and the direct way in which he has declared it. One rather embarrassing example is the way he easily linked the mating processes of other mammals with humans and the understanding that sex is the beginning of procreation. When my wife declared that he was a child born of love to explain how we were in a strong relationship before he was born, his reaction was to laugh and say 'No I wasn't, I was born of sex.' It's very hard to have a response ready for a 9 year old saying that, especially when he's not wrong. Other parents nearby simply looked on glad it wasn't them.
It is bizarre sometimes to see him managing a lot of academic things so easily while totally missing what most would consider obvious social cues, but that is Asperger's and there is usually a cost to any gift. I won't say I am always happy to pay it but I got what I wanted and am willing to take the cost.
Individuality. We home educate and it is very easy in this situation to enforce ignorance in your child. They don't get taught by outsiders so as many do it is easy to leave out subjects you don't want taught. Examples I have seen are people refusing to teach science, history even geography because they disagree with the bible, something I am pretty sure no well read theist would want to do, people choosing not to teach their daughters English to confine them to their local community, or simply not teaching subjects they didn't like or know much about. We have enough ignorance in the world and I am a firm believer that my son will never be limited by me, an opinion my wife shares. As such we teach him as much as we can whether we agree in it or not. The pay off is a child who disagrees with each and both of us on a number of things, a true individual who has formed his own informed opinions about the world, and continually assesses them.
It can be horrible sometimes to see your child not feeling strongly against things you have seen to be very wrong in the world but it is also good to know this means they haven't experienced it. He is still at an age where there are heroes and villains but he is starting to understand that very often it is simply perspective that separates them. He is staring to understand scale too be realising that large companies are big polluters but they are being so to provide things we demand, so by buying him toys that he desires we are polluting our world, meaning he s part of the problem too. He understands this but like all of us still appreciates a new toy.
I am proud that he is becoming his own person, he is far more decent than I was at his age and set to become a better person than me in so many ways.
Dialogue. Something we have worked hard to keep open and is working well so far, better with his mother than me but he is with her more often. This one is painful a lot of the time but we set up a principle that if we could tell him off for misbehaving he could do the same. This was initially to reinforce lessons by ensuring we all obeyed the rules and occasionally have me disobeying them to let him have the chance to tell me off which helped him learn not to do it, which worked well. As time has gone on this has left the avenues open for him to tell me how he feel I am getting parenting wrong or how he feels about me when being told off.
If you want dialogue and confidence from your child be prepared for the emotional cost, because some of what they will tell you will tear your heart apart. I have heard him telling me how I have made him feel so bad he just wanted to run away and never come back, how he hated me for saying and doing some things amongst others. There are a number of parents who would deem this as a sign I have got discipline wrong, they will be the same parents who don't understand why their child didn't come to them when they needed help or guidance. If you want your child to see you as someone they can come to they have to feel you are approachable. It is difficult getting the balance to ensure respect is maintained as well, something I undoubtedly get wrong both sides on occasion but I am often surprised at how comfortable he is talking to me while still keeping the fact that I am Dad and have the final word in mind. Of course on occasions it goes wrong and his confidence overspills to a full on strop, he's not perfect, he's human and that is going to happen. In fairness I would rather this on occasion than him be scared of me. I don't tend to tell him this bit, there's a difference between occasional acceptance and encouragement.
Failures. We all have them and it's important to know when they happen and learn from them.
One I will never forget is trying the scream out system to stop a toddler paddy, something that wasn't common in his youth in fairness and none but this lasted more than a few minutes. Rather than our usual talking down when he tried a screaming fit we simply sent him to stand on the stairs until he stopped. Once you have said you will do something you have to follow through as said earlier, so we stayed the course. 1/2 an hour later he was still going and when asked if he remembered what he was screaming about the response of 'No!' didn't stop the process, in fact he barely stopped to answer. Things we learned from this, it doesn't work with him at all and there is nothing wrong with that boy's lungs, he kept going just over 3/4 of an hour before becoming tired, having a cry about the fact we didn't care enough to talk him down as normal then going to sleep. Never tried anything like that again, reasoning was the way to go.
The failures we make will often be small and short term if fixed immediately. I have even been complimented by my son for changing the way I have done things and he has told me how the new way made him feel which in itself explained it's improved success rate. Positive feedback on your parenting skills from your child feels good especially when it is about something they still don't like, example discipline, but are still happy to tell you is an improvement.
There are no perfect parents. I will continue to get things wrong but the important thing I have found which isn't a surprise is how accepting not being perfect as a general theme is not enough, we have to know what we are doing wrong and fix it.
I am not a pleasant person, an avid self-improver who expects a lot of myself and those close to me makes a tough person to live with let alone love. I am not abusive in the classical sense but I am incredibly strict and my mood can change like the weather and many don't even notice it happening.
The first word my son learned was 'no' if he didn't stop what he was doing at being told he would be removed from it or have what he was misbehaving with removed from him. It took very little time to learn that no meant he was doing something wrong and that a cute look was often not enough to get him out of trouble unless he stopped too.
Keen advocates of physical punishment hate me, because while their discipline has the range of their arm, mine doesn't. A look or call and the action stops, there are definitely occasions when there is a bit of stropping about it and heated exchanges happen, but unless I am wrong with what I assumed was happening my word goes. It angers a lot of people declaring a smack is needed that my son who has never been hit and has Asperger's which many use as an excuse is so much more disciplined and responsive than their progeny.
I make no secret of this to my son, he is told in no uncertain terms that I am hard on him and that his upbringing is strict. He knows this by the reactions of other children who think I must be cool Dad for getting involved in play, then are less pleased when they realise I take no nonsense.
We were out for a day with a friend of his who's parent uses a lot of empty threats, 'if you do/don't do this I'll do x' or 'you'll lose y' then they continue doing or not doing what they are told nothing happens but a repeat. Subsequently the behaviour doesn't improve. It is an unfortunate point to parenting that you can't bluff, if you say you will do something you have to follow it through even when it goes against everything you believe in, just learn not to say it again, or ideally think it through first.
I know my son has observed the behaviour of others then comment on being glad we are strict with him because it has stopped him being like them, but even still I found the conversation reported to me a shock.
With me being such an openly strict disciplinarian I have often expected this to cause issues between me and my son, something I don't want, but accept as part of being a parent. The conversation he started with my wife however made me realise that honesty and structure really are appreciated. His comment was that he knew we gave him quite a long leash but was glad we didn't give him as much as others because it showed how much we love him.
I will be totally fair a lot of surprises with children can be hard to take or amusing but this one stunned us both and made us feel very proud. This is the sort of thing I expected might happen when he became an adult, maybe had children of his own, but he's only 11.
No child is by the book, but it's worth reading them. Like most parents with a crawling toddler we took precautions, including initially putting plug socket covers over unused sockets. These covers are not really essential in the UK because the current only flows when the large earth section is fully pushed in but parents are paranoid so we cover them. The thing any parent will know about these things is they are a pain in the rear to remove, and before we put them in our son showed no interest in any socket. Once in place however they became a source of curiosity and he would sit pulling one out and pushing it back in repeatedly, they were given away that day and he never went near a socket again.
There are things you have to improvise and we all get things wrong but it is best to read up first and make informed mistakes than simply repeat the mistakes of parents or create whole new ones of your own. One I found horrible but have kept in mind is that as social animals there is no way to bring up a child without teaching them to lie. I read it and watched a show of various very good parenting methods and what the child would take from it. There is little more horrific to a parent than knowing there is no way to avoid a failure, and teaching dishonesty is something most of us would class as a failure.
None of us ever become expert parents but failing to bother learning anything at all will leave you floundering often and it is better to find know as much as you can first. The surprises are then less frequent and often less distressing.
Intelligence. I have often said if you treat a child as if they are idiots they will become one and have worked very much on the basis of treating my son as someone with a working brain, which has stretched him a lot and ended up with me spending long periods explaining things to him when saying something that sailed over his head at first telling. In contrast I have also been very surprised with some of the things he has simply picked up and the direct way in which he has declared it. One rather embarrassing example is the way he easily linked the mating processes of other mammals with humans and the understanding that sex is the beginning of procreation. When my wife declared that he was a child born of love to explain how we were in a strong relationship before he was born, his reaction was to laugh and say 'No I wasn't, I was born of sex.' It's very hard to have a response ready for a 9 year old saying that, especially when he's not wrong. Other parents nearby simply looked on glad it wasn't them.
It is bizarre sometimes to see him managing a lot of academic things so easily while totally missing what most would consider obvious social cues, but that is Asperger's and there is usually a cost to any gift. I won't say I am always happy to pay it but I got what I wanted and am willing to take the cost.
Individuality. We home educate and it is very easy in this situation to enforce ignorance in your child. They don't get taught by outsiders so as many do it is easy to leave out subjects you don't want taught. Examples I have seen are people refusing to teach science, history even geography because they disagree with the bible, something I am pretty sure no well read theist would want to do, people choosing not to teach their daughters English to confine them to their local community, or simply not teaching subjects they didn't like or know much about. We have enough ignorance in the world and I am a firm believer that my son will never be limited by me, an opinion my wife shares. As such we teach him as much as we can whether we agree in it or not. The pay off is a child who disagrees with each and both of us on a number of things, a true individual who has formed his own informed opinions about the world, and continually assesses them.
It can be horrible sometimes to see your child not feeling strongly against things you have seen to be very wrong in the world but it is also good to know this means they haven't experienced it. He is still at an age where there are heroes and villains but he is starting to understand that very often it is simply perspective that separates them. He is staring to understand scale too be realising that large companies are big polluters but they are being so to provide things we demand, so by buying him toys that he desires we are polluting our world, meaning he s part of the problem too. He understands this but like all of us still appreciates a new toy.
I am proud that he is becoming his own person, he is far more decent than I was at his age and set to become a better person than me in so many ways.
Dialogue. Something we have worked hard to keep open and is working well so far, better with his mother than me but he is with her more often. This one is painful a lot of the time but we set up a principle that if we could tell him off for misbehaving he could do the same. This was initially to reinforce lessons by ensuring we all obeyed the rules and occasionally have me disobeying them to let him have the chance to tell me off which helped him learn not to do it, which worked well. As time has gone on this has left the avenues open for him to tell me how he feel I am getting parenting wrong or how he feels about me when being told off.
If you want dialogue and confidence from your child be prepared for the emotional cost, because some of what they will tell you will tear your heart apart. I have heard him telling me how I have made him feel so bad he just wanted to run away and never come back, how he hated me for saying and doing some things amongst others. There are a number of parents who would deem this as a sign I have got discipline wrong, they will be the same parents who don't understand why their child didn't come to them when they needed help or guidance. If you want your child to see you as someone they can come to they have to feel you are approachable. It is difficult getting the balance to ensure respect is maintained as well, something I undoubtedly get wrong both sides on occasion but I am often surprised at how comfortable he is talking to me while still keeping the fact that I am Dad and have the final word in mind. Of course on occasions it goes wrong and his confidence overspills to a full on strop, he's not perfect, he's human and that is going to happen. In fairness I would rather this on occasion than him be scared of me. I don't tend to tell him this bit, there's a difference between occasional acceptance and encouragement.
Failures. We all have them and it's important to know when they happen and learn from them.
One I will never forget is trying the scream out system to stop a toddler paddy, something that wasn't common in his youth in fairness and none but this lasted more than a few minutes. Rather than our usual talking down when he tried a screaming fit we simply sent him to stand on the stairs until he stopped. Once you have said you will do something you have to follow through as said earlier, so we stayed the course. 1/2 an hour later he was still going and when asked if he remembered what he was screaming about the response of 'No!' didn't stop the process, in fact he barely stopped to answer. Things we learned from this, it doesn't work with him at all and there is nothing wrong with that boy's lungs, he kept going just over 3/4 of an hour before becoming tired, having a cry about the fact we didn't care enough to talk him down as normal then going to sleep. Never tried anything like that again, reasoning was the way to go.
The failures we make will often be small and short term if fixed immediately. I have even been complimented by my son for changing the way I have done things and he has told me how the new way made him feel which in itself explained it's improved success rate. Positive feedback on your parenting skills from your child feels good especially when it is about something they still don't like, example discipline, but are still happy to tell you is an improvement.
There are no perfect parents. I will continue to get things wrong but the important thing I have found which isn't a surprise is how accepting not being perfect as a general theme is not enough, we have to know what we are doing wrong and fix it.
Deadlift 28-May-2014
Fat gripz are good. Made 90kg feel virtually impossible and my hands ache like hell.
Deadlift with fat gripz
10 x 70kg, 8 x 80kg, 6 x 90kg
Upright row low cable
10 x 20kg, 8 x 30kg, 6 (sort of) x 40kg. 5th was dreadful, 6th was barely acceptable
Strict barbell curl
10 x 30kg, 8 x 35kg, 6 x 37.5kg
Deadlift with fat gripz
10 x 70kg, 8 x 80kg, 6 x 90kg
Upright row low cable
10 x 20kg, 8 x 30kg, 6 (sort of) x 40kg. 5th was dreadful, 6th was barely acceptable
Strict barbell curl
10 x 30kg, 8 x 35kg, 6 x 37.5kg
27 May 2014
Squats 27-May-2014
This was yesterday's workout. Today's run turned into running around trying to find something in the nearest city centre, hated that.
Session was good, got everything in and ache nicely today, all the good signs. Come to the conclusion this has to be done on a Monday for me to get a full week in.
Deep raw squats
10 x 80kg, 8 x 100kg, 6 x 110kg last set was better than the set of 8 quality wise, which was weird.
Sumo squats
10 x 70kg, 8 x 80kg, 6 x 90kg Ow!
Single leg standing leg curl
10 x 10kg, 8 x 15kg, 6 x 20kg
Session was good, got everything in and ache nicely today, all the good signs. Come to the conclusion this has to be done on a Monday for me to get a full week in.
Deep raw squats
10 x 80kg, 8 x 100kg, 6 x 110kg last set was better than the set of 8 quality wise, which was weird.
Sumo squats
10 x 70kg, 8 x 80kg, 6 x 90kg Ow!
Single leg standing leg curl
10 x 10kg, 8 x 15kg, 6 x 20kg
23 May 2014
Running 23-May-2014
Back to original app. Crazy humidity, stated 86% but temperature was lower so I melted less.
Was working hard so happy with result.
5.36 miles in 41:23 pace 7.8mph
Was working hard so happy with result.
5.36 miles in 41:23 pace 7.8mph
22 May 2014
Running 22-May-2014
The rain stopped causing humidity, but the run wasn't bad.
Tried a new GPS running app today and in fairness for a basic tool it wasn't at all bad. If I didn't do intervals I think I would use this as my main monitoring tool, but I do so the search goes on.
5.38 miles in 41:50 pace 7.71mph
Tried a new GPS running app today and in fairness for a basic tool it wasn't at all bad. If I didn't do intervals I think I would use this as my main monitoring tool, but I do so the search goes on.
5.38 miles in 41:50 pace 7.71mph
Deadlift 21-May-2014
In the name of ensuring I don't miss another deadlift session I did it first this week.
In the name of ensuring moderation I used fat gripz to keep the weights low and super strict form. I have this whole moderate training lark down!
Deadlift with fat gripz
10 x 70kg, 8 x 80kg, 6 x 85kg, for some reason that didn't feel moderate
Upright row on cable
10 x 10kg, 8 x 20kg, 6 x 25kg, that was far to easy should have started at 20kg
Barbell curls
10 x 30kg, 8 x 35kg, 6 x 37.5kg, keeping that strict was hard work.
In the name of ensuring moderation I used fat gripz to keep the weights low and super strict form. I have this whole moderate training lark down!
Deadlift with fat gripz
10 x 70kg, 8 x 80kg, 6 x 85kg, for some reason that didn't feel moderate
Upright row on cable
10 x 10kg, 8 x 20kg, 6 x 25kg, that was far to easy should have started at 20kg
Barbell curls
10 x 30kg, 8 x 35kg, 6 x 37.5kg, keeping that strict was hard work.
20 May 2014
Intervals 20-May-2014
Hot, humid, horrible. I know my tolerance to heat is not great and there is worse to come but this was hard on my lungs.
Sprints felt fairly even, start of every recovery felt like I was fit to drop, consistency good.
3.61 miles in 33:23 average pace 6.5mph
Sprints felt fairly even, start of every recovery felt like I was fit to drop, consistency good.
3.61 miles in 33:23 average pace 6.5mph
19 May 2014
Running 19-May-2014
2nd week on the trot where deadlifts have been replaced with many reps of lift and carry to try clearing soil from the back of my home. Functional but not fun.
Anyway at least I got my run in today. Stupidly hot and subsequently slow. I would love to declare I think I could have done more but it felt like I was lucky to finish. I don't do well in heat and this is early summer, bad year for running coming up I fear.
5.37 miles in 44:11 pace 7.3mph
Anyway at least I got my run in today. Stupidly hot and subsequently slow. I would love to declare I think I could have done more but it felt like I was lucky to finish. I don't do well in heat and this is early summer, bad year for running coming up I fear.
5.37 miles in 44:11 pace 7.3mph
16 May 2014
Running 16-May-2014
Summer is on the way temperatures increase and I start to melt. I should be pleased with this as it is still in the minimum, but I'm not because it will get hotter yet.
In other news I want a good suggestion for a decent running app for an iphone 4 because runtastic is seriously annoying me now. Yet again they have released an update that has over-written my settings and I have had enough.
5.37 miles in 43:13 pace 7.5mph
In other news I want a good suggestion for a decent running app for an iphone 4 because runtastic is seriously annoying me now. Yet again they have released an update that has over-written my settings and I have had enough.
5.37 miles in 43:13 pace 7.5mph
13 May 2014
Bench 13-May-2014
Bench press 10 x 70kg, 8 x 75kg, 5 x 77.5kg, oops that should have been 6
Wide grip standing shoulder press 10 x 40kg, 8 x 42.5kg, 6 x 45kg
Wide press ups on rack safety rails intensity increased by making myself closer to flat 10, 8, 6
Wide grip standing shoulder press 10 x 40kg, 8 x 42.5kg, 6 x 45kg
Wide press ups on rack safety rails intensity increased by making myself closer to flat 10, 8, 6
Intervals 13-May-2014
First one in too many weeks. Felt good but the last one in particular felt like it was going to kill me.
There seems to be a new type of weather due to the humidity and rain we are getting at the moment, clouds made up of small flies and aphids which rain into eyes etc. distracting me. I am confident I must have inhaled a few today.
Pointless stats
3.7 miles in 33:32 average pace 6.6mph Felt so much better than I expected it to.
There seems to be a new type of weather due to the humidity and rain we are getting at the moment, clouds made up of small flies and aphids which rain into eyes etc. distracting me. I am confident I must have inhaled a few today.
Pointless stats
3.7 miles in 33:32 average pace 6.6mph Felt so much better than I expected it to.
Squats 12-May-2014
Well this was interesting. It showed that my version of moderation is likely a poor reflection on me.
I have a distant history of injuring myself in the name of being stupid and as such doing deep squats without knee wraps is risky at best downright foolhardy at worst. So in order to enforce moderation I decided to make this my first exercise in this program, after all I can't go too far without injury.
I have seen many people declaring that you can't train to failure indefinitely, because to keep getting to failure you will always just get to the point where you are continually injuring yourself. I have always disagreed with this and this session backs up my argument nicely. Training to failure involves knowing when you have failed, for me this was the point at which I knew one more rep would be injury, so I stopped. There are people who will say this isn't failure because I didn't fail to complete a rep, but I have been doing this long enough to know this was my point of failure, when I had run out of juice. The squats themselves were top class up to the point where I got a warning from my knees, depth was to the point where my hamstrings and calves made contact, well below parallel, no bounce because I can't do that under all but lightest load, wish I could, core well engaged meaning no dipping forward at virtually any point, of the 16 reps 1 had a slight dip.
So my attempt at moderation meant pushing exercise 1 to the point where performing more squat movements would be dangerous and having to ditch exercise 2 completely. Not something I am happy about but I can walk today and will still be doing interval training on tired achy legs at lunch time (writing this up day after).
Deep raw squats 10 x 90kg, 8 x 105kg, 2 x 120kg Only annoying part I know the muscle could have done more.
Single leg standing leg curls 10 x 10kg, 8 x 12.5kg, 6 x 15kg I do like the way the cable system feels heavy but smooth on my set up. I have used machines doing leg curls where there was over 100kg on the stack and they didn't feel this tough. Numbers are per leg.
I have a distant history of injuring myself in the name of being stupid and as such doing deep squats without knee wraps is risky at best downright foolhardy at worst. So in order to enforce moderation I decided to make this my first exercise in this program, after all I can't go too far without injury.
I have seen many people declaring that you can't train to failure indefinitely, because to keep getting to failure you will always just get to the point where you are continually injuring yourself. I have always disagreed with this and this session backs up my argument nicely. Training to failure involves knowing when you have failed, for me this was the point at which I knew one more rep would be injury, so I stopped. There are people who will say this isn't failure because I didn't fail to complete a rep, but I have been doing this long enough to know this was my point of failure, when I had run out of juice. The squats themselves were top class up to the point where I got a warning from my knees, depth was to the point where my hamstrings and calves made contact, well below parallel, no bounce because I can't do that under all but lightest load, wish I could, core well engaged meaning no dipping forward at virtually any point, of the 16 reps 1 had a slight dip.
So my attempt at moderation meant pushing exercise 1 to the point where performing more squat movements would be dangerous and having to ditch exercise 2 completely. Not something I am happy about but I can walk today and will still be doing interval training on tired achy legs at lunch time (writing this up day after).
Deep raw squats 10 x 90kg, 8 x 105kg, 2 x 120kg Only annoying part I know the muscle could have done more.
Single leg standing leg curls 10 x 10kg, 8 x 12.5kg, 6 x 15kg I do like the way the cable system feels heavy but smooth on my set up. I have used machines doing leg curls where there was over 100kg on the stack and they didn't feel this tough. Numbers are per leg.
12 May 2014
Running 12-May-2014
Well after losing training on Friday due to having to get a punctured tyre replaced I am determined to get a full weeks training in this week.
To welcome me back to running I had to contend with humidity from the recently finished rain evaporating fast. Don't know what level it was, the phone uses forecasting so will not have been able to give what I was experiencing at that exact time.
The phone looked like it picked up my swipe across but looked as if it had with the time staying at 42:52 then restarting at 43:10 and taking a couple of swipes to actually stop. I think the average pace is virtually the same anyway so I will keep with what the device registered.
5.39 miles in 43:12 pace 7.5mph
To welcome me back to running I had to contend with humidity from the recently finished rain evaporating fast. Don't know what level it was, the phone uses forecasting so will not have been able to give what I was experiencing at that exact time.
The phone looked like it picked up my swipe across but looked as if it had with the time staying at 42:52 then restarting at 43:10 and taking a couple of swipes to actually stop. I think the average pace is virtually the same anyway so I will keep with what the device registered.
5.39 miles in 43:12 pace 7.5mph
8 May 2014
Bench 08-May-2014
More moderation, joy!
Bench press 10 x 60kg, 8 x 65kg, 6 x 67.5kg
Wide grip standing shoulder press 10 x 40kg, 8 x 42.5kg, 6 x 45kg
Wide press ups on rack safety rails intensity increased by making myself closer to flat 10, 8, 6
Bench press 10 x 60kg, 8 x 65kg, 6 x 67.5kg
Wide grip standing shoulder press 10 x 40kg, 8 x 42.5kg, 6 x 45kg
Wide press ups on rack safety rails intensity increased by making myself closer to flat 10, 8, 6
Running 08-May-2014
Well today was annoying tech wise. End of the run, hands and phone wet from the gentle but persistent rain. The protective case the phone is in meant the swipe needed to stop the timer wouldn't work I saw 42:32 on the timer after I stopped but couldn't stop the software for nearly 2 minutes so this is based on another run of that time.
5.37 miles 42:32 pace 7.6mph
5.37 miles 42:32 pace 7.6mph
7 May 2014
Squats 06-May-2014
Squats and moderation, two words that shouldn't share the same sentence. After 3 weeks not being able to train properly moderation is the way for the next few weeks. This combined with the fact I have a week coming up where I haven't been expecting to train for most of the year, this is going to be fun.
I was planning to do pure adhoc, but I think I will do 3 movements on core this week, 4 next and hopefully back to stupidity after.
Deep squats raw 10 x 70kg, 8 x 80kg, 6 x 100kg Felt a lot easier than I expected
Sumo squats feet at full width of inner rack 3 x 6 x 70kg Felt a lot harder than expected
Single leg standing leg curls 10 x 5kg, 8 x 7.5kg, 6 x 10kg Bizarre doing this using cable set up
I was planning to do pure adhoc, but I think I will do 3 movements on core this week, 4 next and hopefully back to stupidity after.
Deep squats raw 10 x 70kg, 8 x 80kg, 6 x 100kg Felt a lot easier than I expected
Sumo squats feet at full width of inner rack 3 x 6 x 70kg Felt a lot harder than expected
Single leg standing leg curls 10 x 5kg, 8 x 7.5kg, 6 x 10kg Bizarre doing this using cable set up
6 May 2014
Running 06-May-2014
Well that felt decidedly harder than it should have. Time was still in my usual range but I felt like I was quicker than this today.
5.37 miles 42:39 pace 7.6mph
5.37 miles 42:39 pace 7.6mph
2 May 2014
Learning Curves and Methods
Age brings experience, apparently. Personally I find experience and allowing yourself to be affected by it bring experience. There are several who are born and grow old living in a bubble protected by familiarity and ignorance, often chosen ignorance. Others embrace the world around them at a young age and cherish the learning which comes from being wrong. I often say that I went travelling at 16 knowing everything and came back knowing nothing, a reflection on how much I thought I knew when setting off that was totally wrong.
Some of my experiences will be in direct opposition to that of others, this doesn't make me right, just my life different.
Learning by experience, or often from your mistakes is good, learning from the mistakes of others is far better. A couple of examples.
My uncle enjoyed his job, not a bad thing in itself, but when his health got to the point where he needed to stop work he found he didn't know anyone outside work. This got to the point that even when told he wouldn't live more than a few months if he returned to work he still did so. A few months later he died at work. From this I learned that it's good to enjoy your job but more important to ensure you enjoy your life. This is the same for people who cannot retire because they wouldn't know what to do with their time, if this is you, time to get a life, boring as I am I could retire now happy, if I had the money to do so, donations to this fund seem somewhat lacking.
Those reading this blog may notice a subtle theme regarding the occasional desire to keep fit, or obsession with stupid levels of training of those around me seem to recognise it. As I turned 40 recently I had a phone call which confirmed part of why I do this when a relative told me I was now one of less than 50% of my family to have reached that age without heart health warning or an actual attack of some sort, mine is not a fit family.
One of my family in particular used to constantly say that she would welcome dying form heart attack because it would be over quickly rather than the slowly degrading health she had witnessed many times. When she did have one a reality dawned on her, not every heart attack is fatal, in fact a surprisingly high amount aren't. What they are however is incredibly painful because your entire body and mind is telling you that you are going to die and this is something it will complain about.
In fairness there is not a single member of my family that has heart issues that cannot be sourced to lifestyle, but enough of them have it to persuade me that looking after my heart and lungs is of optimum importance. My lungs are rubbish considering what I do but my heart idles below 60 and can happily sit at 180 while I run as long as I want, not bad for someone 1.5 times as heavy as genetics make me.
Look after things your life depends on.
Things like this I learned by watching the stupidity of others, there are many more of course but this post will be big enough without listing them all. The fact I have benefitted from things like this means I am generally very open about my own past stupidity to allow others to make informed decisions. This doesn't mean telling them not to, it means telling them the costs and benefits and letting them decide for themselves.
My brother got married last year and one regret I declared in my best man's speech was that I haven't always set a very good example for him. Something we discussed a bit in his stag do.
We were brought up separately me as an only child by my mother he and my sister by my father with my step mothers other child. So when I went travelling doing competitive dangerous sports rather than following the path expected, college, university, productive life, this appeared the epitome of cool adventure and he was always a bit envious of the things I had seen and done that he never would.
When we talked on his stag do I pointed out to him that the root requirement behind my activities at that time was the willingness to endanger my life often several times a day. While the carefree lifestyle looks great and I did enjoy it at the time, there is a point when you have to ask why someone would be willing to do this. When I said this to him he took a moment to absorb it and realised his uber cool big brother was telling him that he didn't value his life at all at that time and while I wasn't seeking death I would happily have welcomed it. The information hit him hard but it also made him realise there is something to be said for feeling happy enough with your life to walk the path most travelled and of course why it's good that this is the more travelled path.
There is always a cost to a benefit and while that period of my life got me out of depression I didn't even realise I had and gave me the confidence/ arrogance I have become proud of, I could easily have paid the ultimate price for it. I don't mind being considered arrogant and will declare myself so. The reason is I remember the time when I sat and looked in the mirror hating the person staring back at me to the very core, when you hit that kind of low where you loath yourself to such a level you don't mind people seeing your confidence as brimming over a bit.
Misinformation. When growing up we get told a lot of things, some of them will be incorrect. Our parents and peers are rarely deliberately deceiving us but their lack of knowledge or biased opinion is often passed on. An example I encountered was the classic drug pusher, which I was led to believe would be the person working hard to recruit new customers. The reality I found was that the most common pushers are guilty conscience users who feel better if there are more people using their substance, and in truth illegality is irrelevant on this, I have found more people trying to push me to consume alcohol than anything else.
When I first saw someone I thought matched the image of a drug pusher I had been fed in my childhood, I advised a friend and was told to follow him discretely. When I did it wasn't long before I saw the transaction I was expecting but he was handing over the money while someone simply sat at a table relaxing, waiting for customers. He was pushing drugs less than an off licence pushs beer, no adverts etc. just keeping the product with him and being there.
This doesn't make drugs safe of course. You can by rat poison from the hardware store but that isn't a good idea for regular consumption either. It is an incident that taught me that stereotypes we are fed can often be wrong.
A more pleasant example was the first time I met a group of Russians when travelling. These were people I had been brought up to despise and distrust, brought up in a military town in the last days of the cold war meant being brought up on fear waiting for the inevitable nuclear holocaust.
Learning that the people I met had been brought up to fear and despise me just as much for being British was a real eye opener. I had been pacifist for many years by then but some of the brain washing was still working and it took effort from both sides to accept each other.
When we did it was brilliant and we found ourselves loathing the people who had tried to limit those we would accept into our lives instead. This doesn't mean I would like every Russian person, it means I know the only way to judge a person is as a person not by nationality, gender, social background etc. I don't like a lot of people, some know it others I tolerate because I have to, that's called social existence, but it's worth getting to know people before judging them. There is an expression if you lend a friend a pound and never see them again it was a pound well spent, basically showing that if they are untrustworthy they weren't a friend. We all get the judgements wrong too and people change so be ready to adjust your opinion for better or worse.
Parenthood, if in doubt don't. There were often groups of protestors in the city centre where I grew up and in fairness most of the time when they were talking about things that affected me deeply I tended to walk past and avoid them. One of them was an anti-abortion rally and I got stopped and asked if I supported abortion when I declared yes and congratulated the person on a happy childhood he decided I needed to be told how wrong I was, a few seconds into his rhetoric I stopped him and asked a simple question he evidently hadn't encountered 'If someone was stopped from aborting, would the child you saved thank you when they grew up?' The answer was obviously yes with a look of being astonished I would ask such a silly question, my response of 'Then why don't I?' left a few thinking more than they were used to. I am not great at showing how I feel but I don't think anyone there doubted the truth of my claim, and I was able to leave without further harassment.
This paints my mother out as the worst of people and in fairness neither of my parents would win any awards for the job they did with me but there is a lot more to it than simply finger pointing. My mother did as many of her generation and used marriage as a way to escape home, as someone who used dangerous sports as a way to escape my life I can't criticise. She wasn't shown love as a child and neither were her parents, subsequently she didn't know how to show me any and after the marriage broke down she was left with a child she had insisted on contraception to avoid and intended to have terminated until she was persuaded not to by my father and others. Finding herself in a situation where she felt even less valued than before while trying supporting and caring for a child she had correctly assumed she wasn't ready for. If you think this makes her the villain in this picture, I suggest you try doing it with an electronic child and see how it works out for you.
There is a lot of talk about the best age for parenting etc. and a disgraceful amount of pressure on people to have children. I don't tell people not to have children but I do say if you think you aren't ready, wait until you are over 99% certain. As parents we are the main influence on our children and we need to be ready to put someone else ahead of ourselves for a couple of decades at the very least. A 'normal' child is hard work, one that veers from the norm will be more difficult still, worth every bit of effort but still a huge commitment and one where getting it wrong will destroy a life.
Some bad reasons to have a child.
To strengthen a relationship. Seriously if your relationship needs strengthening a child will kill it stone dead. You will be adding a new ingredient that will demand care, love and attention from both of you, so it will strain your relationship and take time attention and displayed love from each other, you need to be ready for this. This doesn't mean you will love each other less but there will not be the ability for an adhoc romantic evening or carnal fest when there is a baby or child needing you.
Peer pressure. If I need to tell you this I despair for you, but it is something I hear a lot. If someone is so keen to see a new baby let them have their own or adopt one. Have one when you are ready. This goes for pressure from your partner too, it's a tough one that splits many otherwise strong relationships, so have the conversation earlier rather than later.
Forgot contraception. If you were trying to avoid having one there is a very strong chance you know you aren't ready. It isn't a direct given but don't simply have a child because of laziness or absent mindedness.
Age. There are a number I have encountered who decide they have reached the age where it's now or never for parenthood. If you are sure and ready go for it, but if in doubt, don't.
To care for them in old age. Seem sick, is sick and is not nearly as rare as it should be, because it shouldn't happen. Your child is not your servant or staff, they are your responsibility and by the time you need care they will hopefully have a family or better things to do than look after you.
Companion for current child. Children can make their own friends and most of us will have seen younger siblings being dragged around by reluctant elders. The older child will resent having to look after the younger and the younger will hate being bullied by the older who doesn't want them around.
Companion for you. This is not your friend it is your child, keep the separation very clear in your mind. It is good for your child to like being with you but you have to be prepared to make them dislike or even hate you on occasions when it means teaching them lessons that will help them in life. This is not friend territory, it is part or parenting. This isn't a popularity contest between parents either, if one of you does something the other disagrees with you support in front of the child and discuss privately. If you realise you are wrong apologise in the way you would expect from your child, mutual respect is important.
If you think I am being harsh on other parents, this is nothing compared to how hard I am on myself. I spend my life wanting to be worthy of my son and hoping to have done a good enough job for him to enjoy his life.
Theology. I like theology which considering the grief I got in early life for not 'understanding' god surprises some people. I don't like the way religion is used by a number of people, but I don't like the way guns are used by a number of people either so that's no big deal.
To understand history you need to understand the people, to understand people you need to understand their beliefs, and why they believe or pretend to believe it, I do like history. Ironically to fully understand theology you need to understand history too.
There are so many people whose lives have been enhanced by belief in some form of deity and I have seen this first hand many times in my life. People receiving support to help them through tough times and encouraged to help others do likewise. There are of course plenty of people who will do this without religion, self included, but for some this is central to improving their lives.
Flip side of course is that I have seen many people who have had their lives torn apart by religion of moving away from it. This brings me to the main thing I don't like with religion, the arrogance of assuming it must be infallible and that rejecting it means rejecting people in it. In fairness every intelligent theist I have encountered, the majority, haven't been like this but it takes very few to make this unforgivable. The worst cases I have seen of people being excluded from family and friends for moving away from faith have resulted in attempted suicides, fortunately none successful, and there is no way to justify that over what at their core are a collection of stories. Even if these stories are totally true I would say a deity that insists on you ostracising those showing doubt is unworthy of worship, and in fairness I have yet to find a religion that fully does, this is a human issue.
Education and knowledge, understand the difference. I have met many educated idiots and some remarkably intelligent and knowledgeable people who hadn't been given the opportunity to get such formal educations. This doesn't mean you can't be educated and knowledgeable of course, I have conversed with many who were both and I was fairly sure that for them it was like me talking to a chimpanzee who'd learned English.
There are many things to be gained from effective use of education but you need to have the end in mind from the start, otherwise you end up with a qualification that is no more use than any other ornament. If you want a job in a particular field find out about it and what you need to do to get there. My brother did this and in a style almost unique worked from the age of 10 to around 30 getting to exactly where he wanted to be, proof education can be very useful.
There is a lot of critique about education, and I am as guilty as most for doing so. But it is one of the most valuable resources out there. I am from a family background where I have to be very thankful to the many people involved in making education not only available to all but compulsory in my country. Without them I would be an illiterate serf, instead I have been able to work alongside some of the most educated and in many cases privileged in society on roughly equal terms.
There are of course several instances where education fails people in todays world and I remember being one step from expulsion being asked why I hated learning and telling the teacher I loved learning which was why I hated school. It is amazing sometimes to look back at things you said and realise that you were the person creating some of your own problem. I was a nightmare in class because I was bored. My reaction was to not attend some of my classes and spend that time in the city centre library or museum instead. Yes I was truly that sad, no alcohol or standard rebellion, more learning for me. If I had realised at the time that the teachers were teaching under orders of a strict curriculum they would like to have been able to improve on and expand I would have asked them for guidance to other learning, but I was too convinced they were somehow stopping me learning out of malice, I was a teenager and they are wired to seek absolutes.
The few friends I had from those days are predominantly dead or in prison, so my continuous desire to improve myself and learn has likely saved my life.
Use education to enhance your opportunities and guide you to further learning. If you want knowledge get out there and study things you do and don't agree with, challenge yourself and encourage others to challenge you. One thing I will guarantee every single person on this earth is we all believe or 'know' things that are totally and utterly wrong. The best part is most of us have no idea what most of them are, which means we all have a massive amount to learn.
Sometimes our primary purpose in life is to serve as a warning to others. If this is never true for you it isn't a good thing. We all need to mess up a few times in our life, if nothing else it teaches humility, though often humiliation too. Learning from others errors is a good thing of course but sometimes you will be in a situation where you have to take your own risks, love is the classic example. There is a very good chance the first time or even few times you find love you will find heartbreak a while after, this should never stop you being open to it happening again, if it does you are a world class idiot. There are a few things to remember when looking for love that I will list below. I am not an expert, I just happen to have been lucky enough to have found a wonderful wife who is willing to put up with me to such an extent she can't imagine life without doing so.
Love at first sight = lust, over 99% accurate. This doesn't make it a bad thing, in fact statistically relationships that make the exceptionally rare transition from lust to love have the highest success rates long term. The key is to understand the difference, looking at someone and noticing your brains have dropped a few feet is lust, even if love has joined it that's still lust.
Love is a whole different ball game, even when the person you love is driving you out of your mind with frustration, rage etc. and they will, you don't want to lose them. You see them suffering and want to take that from them and would gladly take it on yourself, especially when you are the cause.
There is no magic way to know when it's love but a good guide to know is when the idea of life without them scares the heck out of you, that feeling never goes away, part of feeling so good with someone is being scared it could end.
You change and you don't care. To be right for each other you will both make changes because there will be things about each of you that could damage the happiness you share. When these become a part of your past you don't regret it or pine for the good old days to return, you are too busy enjoying the relationship that is a central part of your life.
Don't rely on 'you just know' it is cliché and you don't always realise. The best sort of love sneaks up on you and sometimes this can be so gradual that you need a good shake to realise it's happened at all. Please don't wait for the person to push you to think about it, doing so risks losing the most precious thing you may ever know. The truth is that love doesn't always feel the same either, I have only encountered it twice in my life, both were very different, assuming the opposite meant not recognising how I felt. When I describe myself as lucky to have my wife, my luck was often her pain.
Don't fake it. The 3 little words carry a massive weight, don't ever forget it. If asked and you truly don't know, say so, likewise if you know the answer is no. One of the few things I can declare that avoids me having been the worst of people in my time is that I have never declared love I didn't feel I had. I have seen the results from people who did and can say people are hurt less when you are honest in this area, still hurt of course but nowhere near as badly.
Be on the same page. If you are wanting a relationship that is purely between the sheets, totally plutonic, fun, steady, flexible, there is no problem with this as long as you both want the same thing. If you don't there will be problems and you will have to decide if the relationship is going in a direction where both of you will be happy, if not it will fail or you will be unhappy.
Not everything lasts. This may look like the sort of thing that is easy to say by someone who is happy in a lifetime relationship that will likely only end when one or both of us do, but shocking as this may seem there was a time before my wife when this was something I had to accept too. How you handle this will define you in many ways. I was disposable for so many years I considered it a part of normal life and often genuinely didn't care. However there was one love prior to my wife that tore my heart apart when it was over. I did what many don't and realised the reason I was so hurt was because I had lost something that felt so good. This realisation stopped me doing what many do, going cold and hiding from love. I am currently enjoying the result of remaining open, so I would recommend doing the same to others.
Love is not a weakness. There is a lot of childishness about people declaring love openly etc. Truth is either those doing it are having a laugh and do it themselves or they wish they had the strength to have their emotional attachment so clear for others to see. One of my proudest moments was walking into a workplace where a woman I had never met was saying how you can often just tell when someone is married then pointing my way and saying 'like him' before stalling and saying 'you are married aren't you?' as she checked the ring finger. To me being instantly identified as a married man means I give off an air of someone totally happy with my life and wife, a true strength in my existence.
Live and enjoy it. Learn until the day you die, it is truly one of the greatest things you can ever do. Be wrong and thank those who put you right, it may be painful to do it at the time but where possible go back and do so.
We are all ignorant but remember there are 2 types of ignorance, not knowing and hiding from knowledge. The first is good, it means there is more to learn, the latter is not. Choosing to ignore things that challenge you or what you feel you know is never a good idea. It is better to seek things that disagree with you and learn something new than avoid them. It doesn't automatically mean you change your view but it always enhances your understanding and sometimes it makes you realise how right you truly were.
Some of my experiences will be in direct opposition to that of others, this doesn't make me right, just my life different.
Learning by experience, or often from your mistakes is good, learning from the mistakes of others is far better. A couple of examples.
My uncle enjoyed his job, not a bad thing in itself, but when his health got to the point where he needed to stop work he found he didn't know anyone outside work. This got to the point that even when told he wouldn't live more than a few months if he returned to work he still did so. A few months later he died at work. From this I learned that it's good to enjoy your job but more important to ensure you enjoy your life. This is the same for people who cannot retire because they wouldn't know what to do with their time, if this is you, time to get a life, boring as I am I could retire now happy, if I had the money to do so, donations to this fund seem somewhat lacking.
Those reading this blog may notice a subtle theme regarding the occasional desire to keep fit, or obsession with stupid levels of training of those around me seem to recognise it. As I turned 40 recently I had a phone call which confirmed part of why I do this when a relative told me I was now one of less than 50% of my family to have reached that age without heart health warning or an actual attack of some sort, mine is not a fit family.
One of my family in particular used to constantly say that she would welcome dying form heart attack because it would be over quickly rather than the slowly degrading health she had witnessed many times. When she did have one a reality dawned on her, not every heart attack is fatal, in fact a surprisingly high amount aren't. What they are however is incredibly painful because your entire body and mind is telling you that you are going to die and this is something it will complain about.
In fairness there is not a single member of my family that has heart issues that cannot be sourced to lifestyle, but enough of them have it to persuade me that looking after my heart and lungs is of optimum importance. My lungs are rubbish considering what I do but my heart idles below 60 and can happily sit at 180 while I run as long as I want, not bad for someone 1.5 times as heavy as genetics make me.
Look after things your life depends on.
Things like this I learned by watching the stupidity of others, there are many more of course but this post will be big enough without listing them all. The fact I have benefitted from things like this means I am generally very open about my own past stupidity to allow others to make informed decisions. This doesn't mean telling them not to, it means telling them the costs and benefits and letting them decide for themselves.
My brother got married last year and one regret I declared in my best man's speech was that I haven't always set a very good example for him. Something we discussed a bit in his stag do.
We were brought up separately me as an only child by my mother he and my sister by my father with my step mothers other child. So when I went travelling doing competitive dangerous sports rather than following the path expected, college, university, productive life, this appeared the epitome of cool adventure and he was always a bit envious of the things I had seen and done that he never would.
When we talked on his stag do I pointed out to him that the root requirement behind my activities at that time was the willingness to endanger my life often several times a day. While the carefree lifestyle looks great and I did enjoy it at the time, there is a point when you have to ask why someone would be willing to do this. When I said this to him he took a moment to absorb it and realised his uber cool big brother was telling him that he didn't value his life at all at that time and while I wasn't seeking death I would happily have welcomed it. The information hit him hard but it also made him realise there is something to be said for feeling happy enough with your life to walk the path most travelled and of course why it's good that this is the more travelled path.
There is always a cost to a benefit and while that period of my life got me out of depression I didn't even realise I had and gave me the confidence/ arrogance I have become proud of, I could easily have paid the ultimate price for it. I don't mind being considered arrogant and will declare myself so. The reason is I remember the time when I sat and looked in the mirror hating the person staring back at me to the very core, when you hit that kind of low where you loath yourself to such a level you don't mind people seeing your confidence as brimming over a bit.
Misinformation. When growing up we get told a lot of things, some of them will be incorrect. Our parents and peers are rarely deliberately deceiving us but their lack of knowledge or biased opinion is often passed on. An example I encountered was the classic drug pusher, which I was led to believe would be the person working hard to recruit new customers. The reality I found was that the most common pushers are guilty conscience users who feel better if there are more people using their substance, and in truth illegality is irrelevant on this, I have found more people trying to push me to consume alcohol than anything else.
When I first saw someone I thought matched the image of a drug pusher I had been fed in my childhood, I advised a friend and was told to follow him discretely. When I did it wasn't long before I saw the transaction I was expecting but he was handing over the money while someone simply sat at a table relaxing, waiting for customers. He was pushing drugs less than an off licence pushs beer, no adverts etc. just keeping the product with him and being there.
This doesn't make drugs safe of course. You can by rat poison from the hardware store but that isn't a good idea for regular consumption either. It is an incident that taught me that stereotypes we are fed can often be wrong.
A more pleasant example was the first time I met a group of Russians when travelling. These were people I had been brought up to despise and distrust, brought up in a military town in the last days of the cold war meant being brought up on fear waiting for the inevitable nuclear holocaust.
Learning that the people I met had been brought up to fear and despise me just as much for being British was a real eye opener. I had been pacifist for many years by then but some of the brain washing was still working and it took effort from both sides to accept each other.
When we did it was brilliant and we found ourselves loathing the people who had tried to limit those we would accept into our lives instead. This doesn't mean I would like every Russian person, it means I know the only way to judge a person is as a person not by nationality, gender, social background etc. I don't like a lot of people, some know it others I tolerate because I have to, that's called social existence, but it's worth getting to know people before judging them. There is an expression if you lend a friend a pound and never see them again it was a pound well spent, basically showing that if they are untrustworthy they weren't a friend. We all get the judgements wrong too and people change so be ready to adjust your opinion for better or worse.
Parenthood, if in doubt don't. There were often groups of protestors in the city centre where I grew up and in fairness most of the time when they were talking about things that affected me deeply I tended to walk past and avoid them. One of them was an anti-abortion rally and I got stopped and asked if I supported abortion when I declared yes and congratulated the person on a happy childhood he decided I needed to be told how wrong I was, a few seconds into his rhetoric I stopped him and asked a simple question he evidently hadn't encountered 'If someone was stopped from aborting, would the child you saved thank you when they grew up?' The answer was obviously yes with a look of being astonished I would ask such a silly question, my response of 'Then why don't I?' left a few thinking more than they were used to. I am not great at showing how I feel but I don't think anyone there doubted the truth of my claim, and I was able to leave without further harassment.
This paints my mother out as the worst of people and in fairness neither of my parents would win any awards for the job they did with me but there is a lot more to it than simply finger pointing. My mother did as many of her generation and used marriage as a way to escape home, as someone who used dangerous sports as a way to escape my life I can't criticise. She wasn't shown love as a child and neither were her parents, subsequently she didn't know how to show me any and after the marriage broke down she was left with a child she had insisted on contraception to avoid and intended to have terminated until she was persuaded not to by my father and others. Finding herself in a situation where she felt even less valued than before while trying supporting and caring for a child she had correctly assumed she wasn't ready for. If you think this makes her the villain in this picture, I suggest you try doing it with an electronic child and see how it works out for you.
There is a lot of talk about the best age for parenting etc. and a disgraceful amount of pressure on people to have children. I don't tell people not to have children but I do say if you think you aren't ready, wait until you are over 99% certain. As parents we are the main influence on our children and we need to be ready to put someone else ahead of ourselves for a couple of decades at the very least. A 'normal' child is hard work, one that veers from the norm will be more difficult still, worth every bit of effort but still a huge commitment and one where getting it wrong will destroy a life.
Some bad reasons to have a child.
To strengthen a relationship. Seriously if your relationship needs strengthening a child will kill it stone dead. You will be adding a new ingredient that will demand care, love and attention from both of you, so it will strain your relationship and take time attention and displayed love from each other, you need to be ready for this. This doesn't mean you will love each other less but there will not be the ability for an adhoc romantic evening or carnal fest when there is a baby or child needing you.
Peer pressure. If I need to tell you this I despair for you, but it is something I hear a lot. If someone is so keen to see a new baby let them have their own or adopt one. Have one when you are ready. This goes for pressure from your partner too, it's a tough one that splits many otherwise strong relationships, so have the conversation earlier rather than later.
Forgot contraception. If you were trying to avoid having one there is a very strong chance you know you aren't ready. It isn't a direct given but don't simply have a child because of laziness or absent mindedness.
Age. There are a number I have encountered who decide they have reached the age where it's now or never for parenthood. If you are sure and ready go for it, but if in doubt, don't.
To care for them in old age. Seem sick, is sick and is not nearly as rare as it should be, because it shouldn't happen. Your child is not your servant or staff, they are your responsibility and by the time you need care they will hopefully have a family or better things to do than look after you.
Companion for current child. Children can make their own friends and most of us will have seen younger siblings being dragged around by reluctant elders. The older child will resent having to look after the younger and the younger will hate being bullied by the older who doesn't want them around.
Companion for you. This is not your friend it is your child, keep the separation very clear in your mind. It is good for your child to like being with you but you have to be prepared to make them dislike or even hate you on occasions when it means teaching them lessons that will help them in life. This is not friend territory, it is part or parenting. This isn't a popularity contest between parents either, if one of you does something the other disagrees with you support in front of the child and discuss privately. If you realise you are wrong apologise in the way you would expect from your child, mutual respect is important.
If you think I am being harsh on other parents, this is nothing compared to how hard I am on myself. I spend my life wanting to be worthy of my son and hoping to have done a good enough job for him to enjoy his life.
Theology. I like theology which considering the grief I got in early life for not 'understanding' god surprises some people. I don't like the way religion is used by a number of people, but I don't like the way guns are used by a number of people either so that's no big deal.
To understand history you need to understand the people, to understand people you need to understand their beliefs, and why they believe or pretend to believe it, I do like history. Ironically to fully understand theology you need to understand history too.
There are so many people whose lives have been enhanced by belief in some form of deity and I have seen this first hand many times in my life. People receiving support to help them through tough times and encouraged to help others do likewise. There are of course plenty of people who will do this without religion, self included, but for some this is central to improving their lives.
Flip side of course is that I have seen many people who have had their lives torn apart by religion of moving away from it. This brings me to the main thing I don't like with religion, the arrogance of assuming it must be infallible and that rejecting it means rejecting people in it. In fairness every intelligent theist I have encountered, the majority, haven't been like this but it takes very few to make this unforgivable. The worst cases I have seen of people being excluded from family and friends for moving away from faith have resulted in attempted suicides, fortunately none successful, and there is no way to justify that over what at their core are a collection of stories. Even if these stories are totally true I would say a deity that insists on you ostracising those showing doubt is unworthy of worship, and in fairness I have yet to find a religion that fully does, this is a human issue.
Education and knowledge, understand the difference. I have met many educated idiots and some remarkably intelligent and knowledgeable people who hadn't been given the opportunity to get such formal educations. This doesn't mean you can't be educated and knowledgeable of course, I have conversed with many who were both and I was fairly sure that for them it was like me talking to a chimpanzee who'd learned English.
There are many things to be gained from effective use of education but you need to have the end in mind from the start, otherwise you end up with a qualification that is no more use than any other ornament. If you want a job in a particular field find out about it and what you need to do to get there. My brother did this and in a style almost unique worked from the age of 10 to around 30 getting to exactly where he wanted to be, proof education can be very useful.
There is a lot of critique about education, and I am as guilty as most for doing so. But it is one of the most valuable resources out there. I am from a family background where I have to be very thankful to the many people involved in making education not only available to all but compulsory in my country. Without them I would be an illiterate serf, instead I have been able to work alongside some of the most educated and in many cases privileged in society on roughly equal terms.
There are of course several instances where education fails people in todays world and I remember being one step from expulsion being asked why I hated learning and telling the teacher I loved learning which was why I hated school. It is amazing sometimes to look back at things you said and realise that you were the person creating some of your own problem. I was a nightmare in class because I was bored. My reaction was to not attend some of my classes and spend that time in the city centre library or museum instead. Yes I was truly that sad, no alcohol or standard rebellion, more learning for me. If I had realised at the time that the teachers were teaching under orders of a strict curriculum they would like to have been able to improve on and expand I would have asked them for guidance to other learning, but I was too convinced they were somehow stopping me learning out of malice, I was a teenager and they are wired to seek absolutes.
The few friends I had from those days are predominantly dead or in prison, so my continuous desire to improve myself and learn has likely saved my life.
Use education to enhance your opportunities and guide you to further learning. If you want knowledge get out there and study things you do and don't agree with, challenge yourself and encourage others to challenge you. One thing I will guarantee every single person on this earth is we all believe or 'know' things that are totally and utterly wrong. The best part is most of us have no idea what most of them are, which means we all have a massive amount to learn.
Sometimes our primary purpose in life is to serve as a warning to others. If this is never true for you it isn't a good thing. We all need to mess up a few times in our life, if nothing else it teaches humility, though often humiliation too. Learning from others errors is a good thing of course but sometimes you will be in a situation where you have to take your own risks, love is the classic example. There is a very good chance the first time or even few times you find love you will find heartbreak a while after, this should never stop you being open to it happening again, if it does you are a world class idiot. There are a few things to remember when looking for love that I will list below. I am not an expert, I just happen to have been lucky enough to have found a wonderful wife who is willing to put up with me to such an extent she can't imagine life without doing so.
Love at first sight = lust, over 99% accurate. This doesn't make it a bad thing, in fact statistically relationships that make the exceptionally rare transition from lust to love have the highest success rates long term. The key is to understand the difference, looking at someone and noticing your brains have dropped a few feet is lust, even if love has joined it that's still lust.
Love is a whole different ball game, even when the person you love is driving you out of your mind with frustration, rage etc. and they will, you don't want to lose them. You see them suffering and want to take that from them and would gladly take it on yourself, especially when you are the cause.
There is no magic way to know when it's love but a good guide to know is when the idea of life without them scares the heck out of you, that feeling never goes away, part of feeling so good with someone is being scared it could end.
You change and you don't care. To be right for each other you will both make changes because there will be things about each of you that could damage the happiness you share. When these become a part of your past you don't regret it or pine for the good old days to return, you are too busy enjoying the relationship that is a central part of your life.
Don't rely on 'you just know' it is cliché and you don't always realise. The best sort of love sneaks up on you and sometimes this can be so gradual that you need a good shake to realise it's happened at all. Please don't wait for the person to push you to think about it, doing so risks losing the most precious thing you may ever know. The truth is that love doesn't always feel the same either, I have only encountered it twice in my life, both were very different, assuming the opposite meant not recognising how I felt. When I describe myself as lucky to have my wife, my luck was often her pain.
Don't fake it. The 3 little words carry a massive weight, don't ever forget it. If asked and you truly don't know, say so, likewise if you know the answer is no. One of the few things I can declare that avoids me having been the worst of people in my time is that I have never declared love I didn't feel I had. I have seen the results from people who did and can say people are hurt less when you are honest in this area, still hurt of course but nowhere near as badly.
Be on the same page. If you are wanting a relationship that is purely between the sheets, totally plutonic, fun, steady, flexible, there is no problem with this as long as you both want the same thing. If you don't there will be problems and you will have to decide if the relationship is going in a direction where both of you will be happy, if not it will fail or you will be unhappy.
Not everything lasts. This may look like the sort of thing that is easy to say by someone who is happy in a lifetime relationship that will likely only end when one or both of us do, but shocking as this may seem there was a time before my wife when this was something I had to accept too. How you handle this will define you in many ways. I was disposable for so many years I considered it a part of normal life and often genuinely didn't care. However there was one love prior to my wife that tore my heart apart when it was over. I did what many don't and realised the reason I was so hurt was because I had lost something that felt so good. This realisation stopped me doing what many do, going cold and hiding from love. I am currently enjoying the result of remaining open, so I would recommend doing the same to others.
Love is not a weakness. There is a lot of childishness about people declaring love openly etc. Truth is either those doing it are having a laugh and do it themselves or they wish they had the strength to have their emotional attachment so clear for others to see. One of my proudest moments was walking into a workplace where a woman I had never met was saying how you can often just tell when someone is married then pointing my way and saying 'like him' before stalling and saying 'you are married aren't you?' as she checked the ring finger. To me being instantly identified as a married man means I give off an air of someone totally happy with my life and wife, a true strength in my existence.
Live and enjoy it. Learn until the day you die, it is truly one of the greatest things you can ever do. Be wrong and thank those who put you right, it may be painful to do it at the time but where possible go back and do so.
We are all ignorant but remember there are 2 types of ignorance, not knowing and hiding from knowledge. The first is good, it means there is more to learn, the latter is not. Choosing to ignore things that challenge you or what you feel you know is never a good idea. It is better to seek things that disagree with you and learn something new than avoid them. It doesn't automatically mean you change your view but it always enhances your understanding and sometimes it makes you realise how right you truly were.
Running 02-May-2014
Well I seem to have proven I have something in common with a cheetah, it isn't blistering speed unfortunately or being dangerously inbred which is a good thing it is the fact I am fairly certain that my speed is limited by internal body temperature. Todays was a good run but despite it being only 11 degrees centigrade and 48% humidity I felt like I was severely overheating.
5.4 miles in 41:33 pace 7.8mph
5.4 miles in 41:33 pace 7.8mph
1 May 2014
Running 01-May-2014
Nothing dramatic, but nice to see being out of proper training for 2.5 weeks hasn't meant back to 0 again. 89% humidity too, so reasonably pleased.
5.39 miles in 42:52 pace 7.5mph
5.39 miles in 42:52 pace 7.5mph
Training (sort of) 30-Apr-2014
Two seizures in two weeks and feeling dreadful in between = 2.5 weeks where I was barely able to train at all, 2 runs that took days to recover from.
So training was something I hate passionately, moderation. I basically used a 16kg kettlebell and then an 8kg for movements that didn't include legs. Not feeling too bad today so I pitched it right. Hopefully reintroduce normal levels within a week or two, really hated having to be so gentle.
Don't know reps just kept doing different things for around 20 minutes.
16kg
Swings both arms, then single arms release switching at the top.
Single arm snatch
Clean and press
Pass arounds
Clean, goblets squat, push press
Figure 8s through legs with short swings
8kg
Shoulder raises, side then front
Curl and high tricep press
So training was something I hate passionately, moderation. I basically used a 16kg kettlebell and then an 8kg for movements that didn't include legs. Not feeling too bad today so I pitched it right. Hopefully reintroduce normal levels within a week or two, really hated having to be so gentle.
Don't know reps just kept doing different things for around 20 minutes.
16kg
Swings both arms, then single arms release switching at the top.
Single arm snatch
Clean and press
Pass arounds
Clean, goblets squat, push press
Figure 8s through legs with short swings
8kg
Shoulder raises, side then front
Curl and high tricep press
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