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- By Stuart Mathews
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Yesterday was Halloween. Halloween is new to me, I never celebrated it growing up. The thing about Halloween is that's sorta not that serious in the UK as it has always been in the US but recently it's kinda creeping in(see what I did there?) and becoming serious, which is super fine by me, I kinda like the change in the same way Valentines day against the norm. With Halloween, you just got to prepare 'just in case' - one year I forgot and when I got in back home from work, a few minutes later I got a ring at my door for 'trick or treat' and I had nothing to give the poor little devil. The little dude and his mom was kinda disappointed. I was very disappointed. Then the next time, I bought some(read: lots!) sweets and no one came - word spread in that town! I ended up eating all the sweets and distributing it my house members at the time. Wasn't that bad then, I suppose as far as treating yourself goes but I'm not eating a whole bucket of sweets this time. So I'm going to grab a few packets of sweets and give a sweet or two to every devil that rings my door bell and if I run out I'll start giving out stationary and books! Now I could have dressed up a little today for work as they said we could but I didn't and I'm kinda wondering if that makes me boring and unfun. I guess it might, but I'm going to give myself a break this time. I did however bring in a skull plasma lamp in the who spirit of things - it's sitting on my desk at work. It also doubles up as a handy headphone stand - looks like the skull is listening to music! Pretty cool, worked out real well.The day before, I went for a run last night, pretty usual. Loved the run, loved the rain and love knowing that I did it again. 6.6km this time which is about right, you know average. It's been getting awfully cold recently both in the mornings and evenings. I like the cold. I like getting warm. Recently I've been concentrating on my body and health more and more. This initially was more as a consequence of my running as I wanted/still want to run more easily and effectively. Now, it's more a concerted effort.
Instead of the day rest I usually have between runs, I've decided to spend those days being active too but in less strenuous ways - swimming or upper body weight training however I've yet to do much weight training this way-I've tended to opt for the lesser impact swimming which I quite like but in theory, I guess, targeted weight training should be ok provided I don't over do it so that the next day I can't run. That'd be pretty lame. It's pretty important to cut down on fat, so I've done that in in a big way and to pick my food types/content pretty religiously.
The idea is that I should be able to feed myself pretty full on low/not fat foods provided you eat enough and get enough carbs, fruit and veg and protein to sustain and maintain me. Also I'm pretty much on a low/no sugar/salt routine which is pretty much second nature to me now. The no salt thing was easy, the no sugar thing I had to work at.
Swimming is my new thing. It's tougher than running but might be better than it! I'm swimming today and I'm pretty psyched about it. I find that while running is tough at times, it's something you can push through by calibrating your pace, breathing and technique. Swimming, well half the time I start sinking or swallowing water when I get tired. Also I've noticed that one length in the pool can shoot my heart rate right up. So much so, I think damn, I can actually feel it drumming away inside me. The other pretty cool thing about swimming is that it's cool and I don't overheat, duh, but I do get tired. It's probably the best thing I can do between runs really. My Suunto Ambit is a real godsend, it's with me in every run, every swim and keeps me motivated that every move I do is tracked, logged and accounted for and all counts towards my conscious effort to contribute to my body's performance. Currently my goal is 0.5km of swimming each time. That's hard, while running I can do that near 12 times in 30 minutes. Swimming I can just get by with 0.5km every 40 mins! Outrageous right?? Anyway, I'm getting there and know my technique will get better and do will my time and performance so I just gotta, like Dory said in Finding Nemo, "just keep swimming..."
My running is improving though also with every run which makes me actually want to run more as I know it contributes so much. I've been eating a ship load of fish, sweet potatoes and grilled beef patties at home. At work, it's either a salad or whole grain rice with something non fatty. No sodas, no sweets and no cakes. I say that, but yesterday I had some sweets...it's an endless battle of self restraint. Honestly. I've had to bring in my left over treats from Halloween to the office so I don't eat more tomorrow when I get home...watching everyone else get fat is fun...
I went to the dentist on the weekend and he gave me a 9/10 for my teeth and general state of my teeth which is good because I've been working on this. He did say though that I have a forming cavity on one of my top teeth due to my dental enamel being a but weak. He gave me a fluoride toothpaste and recommended a mouth wash to 'remineralise' the enamel. Plus, it tastes real nice! Cool.
Work recently has been good, sleeping is now,at a couple of weeks in, a nice 70-80 and sometimes 90% quality sleep ratio - according to my sleep monitor and regular sleeping habits I'm newly forming. Just thinking...though sometimes I still wake up a little tired but get over it much faster than before.
It's Friday, it's a run day so that's pretty good. Didn't do any weights yesterday because my abs are burning, and have been burning since so I'm gonna let my body just chill until its gone - gonna run though, just need to calibrate this weight-training business carefully.
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Well, I've started consciously going to bed at a reasonable time. According to my sleep no monitor, today I had 96% quality sleep. That's pretty good I think. The idea is to give myself enough sleep to ensure I don't strain my body during my daily exercise. The only problem is that I've got to be fairly well prioritised in the evening as I can't do as much as I could.
This week though, I've felt pretty ominous. Still waiting for the home office to make a decision and had to depart with £991 because of it. I'm coming down with something - morning sniffles. My guitar box won't work on my mac. I fell on my ass while running on Wednesday. Got an unfinished assignment to do. Didn't meet a deadline. Though, on the plus side, I've done all my running on schedule with good times, got some good swimming in at the gym. I'm eating right and body is responding. Life's a balancing act, just wondering if its balancing well enough this week - now, that right there is what's got me feeling ominous.
It's Friday, yesterday I made a brief appearance at a birthday drinks, said hi, cheers, happy birthday and goodbye. Pretty standard. Bought our new Japanese visitor an Ale, and had a few photo ops with him in the Pub. Only had one but that Ale had enough on it to unsuspectingly set a small, unsuspecting dog alight. Rough stuff, that or I'm a light weight - yeah that's what it is. I guess, that one can go on my plus side things...
Things have gone fairly well today having said all that. I finished my piece of work(predictive text said 'dork' -ha!), had a good trott around the City during my lunch break, just finished my 6.9km run and well, it's Friday. What's not to like?!
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That initially got me a bit panicked. I downloaded all the forms from my parents cottage on the East Coast and read it with a rather intense attention. From what I had worked out, roughly, was that I had about a 6 day window in which I could make the application once I had made it back in the UK(I have 1 month left on my visa still) which seemed good and everything except that as part of that application I needed to pass a "Life In the UK test" which I always knew I needed to do at some point but that point just made itself abundantly apparent! Doing it within a week and studying for it seemed a little outside my cautionary and comfort boundaries. Adding to that, I needed various original documents that I didn't immediately have. Thankfully I was able to arrange for these to be with me on my return to England, either arriving after me or coming with me. Getting better? Yeah maybe; that still didn't sort the fact that I had no pass mark for the test. I had 5 minutes to think about it, figuring that surely there must be another option...There was.
I could've apply for an extension on my visa which was pretty great. That said, I would still cost me £700 and wouldn't require the test to be taken. The ILR costs £900 plus I needed to take the test. So initially my plan was to extend my visa and then apply and study at a later stage, during the extension. I booked an additional week off work when I got back to the UK. That was to get my application in order and underway and I figured that with this additional week I might as well study for the Life In the UK test...I thought having a week to prepare documentation might as well be a week studying - it's good to give yourself options, I learnt that recently - I booked one sitting for the week after. During the week I realised that if I could pass the test, then the extension would not be necessary and the ILR really was what I wanted anyway. I also figured that if I made my application for ILR on the same day that I pass the next week, I'd meet the deadline. If I failed, I could still apply for the extension.
So I studied and passed the exam, applied for ILR with my shiny new pass certificate and well that was last week.
I knew that about a week later, I had to submit another varsity assignment. I did that too.
On Saturday I had a fantastic day of exercise. I had s rather sluggish 6km run but a great gym session coupled with a great 20 minute swim. I think my swimming technique is getting better. I still can't quite swim lengths back and forth without stopping. I need to practise on my endurance but I'll get there. Having my new watch is so great for this, especially as my stats say that I'm a wuss in the water, though I feel somewhat like a hero.
I watched a movie at the cinema also on Saturday: Hotel Transylvania. I enjoyed it. I think I should grow up more but I've always known that so whatever, I liked it. Cool thing about doing stuff like this, and other tendencies and stuff that just feels inherently you, is to really enjoy these things that might be suppressed if you don't give yourself an opportunity to experience them. For example, being serious, worried, concerned and limiting oneself to ones circumstance might prohibit this.
It's definitely getting colder now, I battled to escape my warm cacoon of a bed this morning and now I know that I'm going to have to come around and figure out how the heating works in my new apartment. I'm going for another run tonight from work which after my day of study is, for lack of a better word, sorely needed. I got my beenee out too so I do t get too cold. I'm really looking forward to the run - its feel good and liberating and as I mentioned earlier, it's an option I've given myself. I also brought in my kindle today into the office as I got a new book to read: Shantaram, which was recommended by both my mom & dad so thats something. I think I'll start reading that...
I had soup like most of the weekend and well if that doesn't say it's winter then well I guess it doesn't but I'm pretty convinced: this morning while walking to South Wimbledon tube station, I wore a beenee... Maybe I'm being accustomed to being warm, I dunno. That's an adaption right there.
I've been scouting about rather casually for a BMI type of body composition monitoring machine. I think that with me monitoring my running stats, the prospect of gathering more is just too good to pass. It's only recently that I started to watch my weight as a result of my regular running change and now actively monitor my VO2 max values. Pretty interesting, well for me anyway.
Cut my hair in the weekend. Now the length of hair on the top of my head matches that which is on the bottom and well, I liked it. That or my I don't care adaption has kicked in :-)
The other day I finished up at gym, got to the front door - no keys! Searched frantically for them. Niet. Nadda - nothing! Thankfully I had the foresight to make backup copies and keep them at the office. But I had it to travel to Liverpool street London at 23:00 on a Sunday when all i wanted to do is have a shower and goto bed! I had my access cards and ID badges with me so I could get in when I got there but that wasn't the real concern. That was missing the last tube back home. Luckily that didn't happen and I caught the 2nd last one. Some careful planning and scheduling saw to that.
Today I learnt how the Japanese language works, pretty interesting.
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