March's Cake Chart of Confusion

This cake chart is confusing because it looks bad with a big chunk of yellow.

However, I went to see Diabetic Nurse a few weeks ago, who measured my HbA1c.  TBH I don't really know what that means (well, I know that TBH means to be honest, but I'm not so sure about the HbA1c bit.  I think the Hb is homo-goblin, but I might have misunderstood).  Anyway, this is a measure of your average blood glucose levels over the last 3 months.  In some incomprehensible unit or other.

A 'normal' person's magic number is ~ 5.5.  A good Diabetic who never eats cake should be 7 or below.  Anything above that and you're looking at dodgy kidneys & missing limbs, although you won't be able to see them because your eyes won't work properly.  Luckily it's normally the eyes that go first so you won't necessarily see any of the limbs drop off.  Or dodgy kidneys - although I guess most people can't see their kidneys.  The last few times I've been around 8.5, and been told that it just isn't good enough.  This time it was 53.

Now, I know I'm not good at mental maths, but 53 is a lot bigger than 7.  It's also quite a bit bigger than 8.5. And I'd been trying so hard and everything.  I was shocked and appalled.  Until I was told that they'd changed units.  Apparently, 53 is the new 7.  Spot on target.  Smug as a sausage.  Celebrated with cake.  Must learn to stop doing that.

The best way to train for a 3 mile race....

... is not to worry constantly about it for weeks, then go to a party the night before and drink all the booze you bought along to said party.  Especially if it was a six pack.  Of wine.

Ask me how I know.

One of the things about triathlons is that you're always going to have one of the 'disciplines' (I don't have any discipline so have to put the word in quotes) which is your worst.  Logic would normally dictate that therefore another one will be your best.  Of course I'm not logical either, so I'm pretty sure that all three of them are my worst.

However, if you were going to make me choose which one to skip, and not give me the option of saying all of them, then I would have to say it's the running bit.  It's the bit at the end, after you've swum your arms to exhaustion and cycled your legs to exhaustion.  It's the bit where you're tired and grumpy and have run out of serviceable limbs. Every single part of your body is screaming "STOP". In capital letters.  Well, every part except for your legs which not only aren't talking to you, but also aren't listening, and just won't do what they're told.

I used to be able to run a bit.  And when I say a bit I don't mean marathons for breakfast - besides kit kats are much nicer.  It took me about two years to be able to build up to 5k without stopping.  Yes, I referred to a kilowotsit (technically 5 of them) without flinching.  It is my distance of choice as it is the distance run by Parkrun.  Parkrun is a stroke of absolute genius.  It's a free weekly organised run round a park. I wonder how long it took them to come up with the name. Due to the wonders of technology and barcodes, you can track your progress online.  But the best bit is that if you complete 50 Parkruns, you get a free t-shirt.

I've managed 46 to date.  Yes, 46.  That's a total of <reaches for calculator> 230km.  However, before I get too excited, it has taken me since 12th December 2009, which works out at an average speed of <gets calculator out again> 1cm per hour.

Here's a pretty meaningless graph.

It shows that

a) I'm an Athlete(!) and

b) I have consistently run at about 50% of the retail recommended price for someone 'of my age'.

Each blob on the graph represents a Parkrun that I completed.  The space between each blob is an indication of time between Parkruns.

The observant amongst me has noticed two notable periods of absence.  I can proudly state the excuses for both of those periods.

The first one was when I got diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes, was in hospital for a while, and never thought I'd run again.

The second one was when I got hit by a truck, was in hospital for a while, and never thought I'd run again. Again.

What the graph doesn't say is that the last one was back in November last year.  I haven't run again since.  But this time I have no excuse.  No new handy chronic potentially fatal diseases or convenient trucks to turn left unexpectedly when you need one.

I had a long hard talk with myself at the time, but to be honest I wasn't really listening.  I tried again after a particular piggy Christmas, and my bum came out in support.  Due to its recently enhanced size, it formed a majority on its own, and so it decided there and then that I would get my t-shirt.

I'm still 4 runs short of a t-shirt, but I'm a bit closer, because today I managed to run the Sport Relief 3 miles without stopping or crying.  I even managed to overtake a pantomime horse.

Lies, damn lies, statistics and training

OK, there is no getting away with it any more.  I have a confession to make.  I really can't do mental maths.

I might have mentioned that before, so it should come as no surprise.  However I haven't said what I do/did for a living.   I am a Chartered Accountant with (mumble mumble) years of experience, and have a MSc in Astrophysics.  But I still need a calculator to tell me how fast I need to run if I want to complete 10km in an hour or less.  I blame the kilowotsits.

A few weeks ago, Inspirational Steve mentioned a statistic used to work out how good a swimmer you are.  He called it swimming golf.  He said that you count the number of doggy paddles it takes to swim some distance involving metres, add it to your PIN and square it.  And then feel inadequate because whatever the number works out to be, it isn't good enough.
Well, actually to be honest he lost me at the word "count" so I may have misinterpreted slightly.

However, as I also mentioned previously, I have a "poolmate".  It's a brilliant contraption that looks like a watch, but counts the number of lengths you swim so you don't have to.  I discovered that it does other things too.  It can record the number of times I wave my arms around manically for each length I swim.  And it can go one further - it can add that number to my PIN, square it, etc and give me an efficiency rating.  All I had to do was enter a very long very specific combination of buttons that would reveal the answer.

Interestingly enough, all you have to do to erase all the data is to enter a very long very specific combination of buttons not completely dissimilar to the ones required to calculate my efficiency.

Ask me how I know.

I went for a swim last week.  Mainly to get some data back into my poolmate as I was curious to know what my efficiency was.  To my absolute delight, not only did I press the right combination of buttons and keep my data this time, but I also managed to achieve an average efficiency of 110.  That's more than 100.  That's <reaches for calcuator> 10% better than 100.  That's 110%.  That's pretty awesome.

Actually, that's unbelievable.

I consulted the manual again. The watch counts the number of doggy paddles it takes to swim 50m, and then adds this to the time it takes to swim 50m.  The aim of the game is to reduce this number as much as possible.  So 110 is not a %.   It's a number.  It's also known as the swimming golf number.  And the reason why it's called a golf number is that it is normally around 70-72 to start with.  There aren't that many golfers with a handicap of <reaches for calculator> 38 are there.

In other news.....  My new sofa arrived today.  This one is the mother of all sofas. It cost more than all my triathlon gear put together (I know my priorities), and I've been waiting for it for over three months.  It comes with a poofe with an accent at the end, apparently because the word "poof" is un-PC these days.  It also has a matching chair which you plug in (no, not like that - it's an electric recliner).  I was supposed to meet Inspirational Steve for coffee, but had to cancel because I couldn't tear myself away from the sofa.  Really.

Stay tuned until next week, when I will have taken part in my first "proper" 5k of the season.  I got out of breath going up the stairs today, so that should be fun.  CS is going to watch.  Well, actually he's also taking part, but he will finish so far ahead of me that he will still be able to watch me waddle most of it.  And point. And laugh.

Multi-tasking

I'm a woman, right?  (Well, I was last time I checked).  So I should be able to multi-task, and laugh at men who can't.  At the same time of course.  However it appears that I can either write a blog about training for a triathlon OR I can actually train for a triathlon.  But I can't seem to do both.

Now of course most people find it difficult to type when swimming in a pool, so I don't actually mean at the exact same time.  But if, say for example, I finally manage to get my (new!) running shoes on and stumble around outside for a bit, I find myself completely unable to write about it that week.

So, if you're reading between the lines, sorry, if I'm reading between the lines, this implies that I have managed to get my (new!) running shoes on and then succeeded in stumbling around outside for a bit.  I did.  On Tuesday.  I then spent the next three days walking like an 80 year old who had just shat herself.

Here's "proof".....

It's a rather clever app which uses the GPS on your smartphone to map your runs, cycle rides, cross-country ski-ing trips and "other" activities.  It then tells you how far you've gone and how much of that involved going up things.
Unfortunately, it measures things in kilowotsits, which still confuses me. However I have worked out that if I want to ever run 10k in an hour I need to run at...... um ..... 10km/hr, so 7.06km/hr is pretty slow.   But it does include the time when I stopped a couple of old men and asked them directions to the pub.  Oh, and going to the pub.

Aha.  I've just figured a way of posting blogs in the past.  No, I haven't invented time travel - it's hidden under Post Options at the bottom of the edit page.  Oh , that's going to confuse me........

Stay tuned until last week when I tell you about swimming golf.

Blog Time Travelling

As you may possibly remember next week, I will have worked out how to post in the past.  This is/will be/has been very confusing already, so I promise I won't/didn't do it again.

You/I may also have noticed the pants February's cake chart.  Not only because it vaguely resembles a pair of y-fronts if you have bad eyesight (which is almost a certainty for me at this rate), but because it really really needs to get better.  Really.  <insert serious face>.

There are two things I need to do.  One is eat sensibly.  The other is to train properly.

So, both last and next week I managed/will manage to make some progress with my training.   In no particular order (mainly because I'm so confused now I don't remember what the order is/will be/was)

I have OFFICIALLY signed up for the following;

• Sport Relief Mile (actually 3 Miles) run at the end of March
• Swimathon Mile swim at the end of April
• Inspirational Steve's Sprint Triathlon in June.  That's around 500m swim, 20k bike, 5k run

And.......  drumroll.......

• The London 2012 Olympic Triathlon!

Well, actually, not THAT Olympic Triathlon.  But the one organised by Virgin that takes place in September. This means that I have six months to get my arse into gear, as well as my arms and legs.

So far preparations have included the following;

Triathlon Club


I went back to the track.  This time I arrived in time for the warm up, which in retrospect was a bad idea as I was already knackered by the end of it.  However I got chatting to another new runner.  She said that she was really bad and was very nervous.  I felt sympathy for her, remembering what it was like for me the previous week.  I put my arms round her and said "I'm sure you'll be fine".  I even thought I'd run with her to keep her company.  Turns out that she runs marathons for breakfast.  No, before breakfast.

This time the plan was to do six of... actually this might require a bit of algebra... 6x(500+300)m. = 4,800m. (I KNEW it would come in useful one day).  The plan was to start 100m back from the official start line, run around to the finish (ie 500m), then walk 100m, then run 300m round to the finish again. I was confused just by the instructions.  So I just did the 6x500m bit. (That's my excuse and I'm sticking to it). But I decided to just smile lots no matter how bad I was or felt.  People then started smiling back.  Or were they laughing and pointing?! 

Within a few minutes I had already gotten in the way of a young whippersnapper, so from then on, I ran in one of the outside lanes to make sure I didn't get in the way of anyone again.  It meant that I ran at least twice the official distance. (That's my misguided belief and I'm sticking to it).

Parkrun

I knew I wasn't up for a full 5k run, so I volunteered to help out. I got to do a bit of marshalling and the barcode scanning which was good fun. A young whippersnapper (from "my" triathlon club) won it in less time than it takes me to make a cup of tea.  Sub 16 minutes.  He would have probably run even faster if I was a better marshal.  I thought he was waving at me, so happily waved back - turns out he didn't know which way to go and I was unintentionally pointing the wrong way. 

Brighton Half-Marathon

I stood and cheered for at least an hour.  That was hard work.
Inspired by the amazing runners taking part in the Half-Marathon (or should I say 7/13th Marathon - they actually measured the course wrong), I decided to "do something".  I've only got one pair of trainers, they are old, smelly, and I'm sure are the only reason why I'm not running sub 3 hour marathons already, so I needed another pair.  I normally go and see the wonderful Kurt from "Run" in Hove, who sorts me out nicely.  However I heard that Sweatshop were doing a special offer on trainers, but as soon as I walked in it just felt wrong.  I was cheating on Kurt.  So got on my bike and cycled to "Run", where the wonderful Kurt made me run around in odd trainers for a bit, and then eventually sold me a matching pair. They may look disgusting (violent blue and pukey green) but they feel lovely and squidgy.

Just Now

I've eaten a "share"-sized packet of minstrels.  By myself.  Ooops.

Next week I promised to tell you about swim golf, but that involves algebra too and my head is already hurting so I will save it for another time.  Einstein once said "you lose about 50% of your readers for every equation you put in a book". If that applies to blog posts I wonder which half of me is reading this bit.