MY FAT CHANCE

Take Note of What is Around You

I present my blog post with this piece of music to listen to as you read because I believe that it’s one of the greatest songs ever created. Nujabes - Reflection Eternal.

I’m currently trying to find myself, seek fulfilment in my life and the more that I have thought about it the more it has made me realise that it’s fine to be searching. It’s fine to ask questions and it’s fine to wonder what is beyond the steps currently in my life. I may not know which specific job role I want or how high up in an organisation I want to reach. I am sure of one thing though, and it’s something that I believe will help me live a more fulfilling life - I want to help people.

Before I sat on my bed and started typing away on my iMac I went for a walk around my area. I had been thinking about going on this walk whilst cooking dinner (Spaghetti Bolognese btw) and how this one, 15 minute walk could change my life. I pictured myself standing above a motorway crossover and being enlightened and suddenly shown the path that I must take to help people.

That didn’t happen, I got to the top of the crossover, looked around for a bit and proceeded on my route home. I did have an experience though. I got to breathe in cold air, look at the stars and even heard a neighbour practicing the violin. I walked past maybe 30 people, 2 families, 6 cyclists & 1 lone runner. I saw nearly 1000 cars, counted 20 stars and then realised that I had experienced so much on my 15 minute walk.

I had been a part of some 30 peoples lives for a brief moment and more. The 15 minute walk made me realise that I was a journey to find myself. I may not have found the path to help people atop that crossover but the experience showed me that there’s so much in my life that I don’t immediately take note of. For that 15 minutes, I got to live in the moment and appreciate my surroundings.

When I got home I went into my living room, closed my eyes and spun myself around for a few seconds simply because I felt like it. That showed me that doesn’t matter what you’re doing because it can all change in the blink of an eye.

Right now, I might not have the job, or the fulfilment but  know it’s there.

Have a great weekend.

Being Sick (a year old intro)

(image credited to the NHS)

I really don’t like being sick. I have this perfect vision of myself (if I don’t believe this rubbish, then who the hell will?!) but when I’m sick that confidence takes a knock. I feel weak and a lesser version of myself, I bloody hate it.

^ I typed that up some time last year, in December I think but I never actually posted it. I guess the sickness just passed but I kept it in my drafts, just in case. Well now I have a reason to use it again. Last weekend I came down with Conjunctivitis (or Pink Eye). No I do not know how I got it. I went to the pharmacy and got some eye drops to cure me and stuck to the dosage. Then I got Laryngitis (there’s a pattern here somewhere). I’m not sick with both and trying to recover.

I’m highly contagious so can’t be around anyone, although my Girlfriend seems to be immune to all of this (for now) and haven’t really found the strength to run. This means I haven’t been able to go to work, see my friends, celebrate their birthdays or see my crew. It’s dark, dark days! I’ll get better though, I know I will. Whilst I’ve got all this time at home I’ve been catching up on a lot of tasks I had to do, writing up versions of my CV and Portfolio so all is not lost!

When I recover though, I’m hitting the road.

A Weightless Weekend

You’ll understand the title at the end, it was just a regular 2 day weekend. You know? A weekend…but I did get up to 3 different activities from Saturday to Monday and it felt like a fitness treat!

I kicked off Saturday with an unexpected 11 mile run with Toby, Steve and more crew. We met at 1948 and were testing out a possible new RDC route to the lovely heights of Primrose Hill. We were expecting the run to roughly be 7 miles. Now i’m not blaming anyone but lets say that for one reason or another, we had ran 6 miles by the time we got to the top of the mount!

Read more or click the crew!

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Cheetah Dem Crew

Image credited to DaddyDark

Last week I talked about my long awaited return to Run Dem Crew in the Baby Cheetah group, fast forward a week with more running, smiles and Body Check’s galore I decided to see if I could step it up to Cheetahs again.

Before I stepped out of 1948 after counting our 145 strong crew I’ll admit that I was nervous. All of other groups were still around, baby cheetahs, greyhounds and more. I still had time to back out. I was afraid. Afraid of letting the group down, not being able to keep up and not having my oyster card to get back to HQ if I really couldn’t go on. I didn’t want to do that at all.

The other groups slowly started to disperse in search of Big Ben and suddenly I was left with the Cheetah group only. No pressure, then. Whenever we start a run I try and make myself smile, open with a joke like ‘oh why have I done this’ and so on. It eases my mind at least. We set off down Bateman’s row and I immediately felt the faster pace. Tonight was a sub 8 minute night.

I had to keep my mouth shut and get on with it. When I was lighter and fitter I used to be able to fly through at the front of the pack but now I accepted that those days lay in the future for me and I have to accept that right now, it will be hard to run. I couldn’t summon the vocal energy to shout ‘BOLLARD’ or dish out directions either, there were others that could take care of that tonight, I just had to run with my crew and not let them down.

The route was all kinds of crazy, we were supposed to get to Big Ben via Farringdon, lets just say that we went on our own journey to Covent Garden instead and headed back before it got too late! After the first few miles at roughly 07:40 pace I was feeling it. Savouring each traffic light and stop that the crew was haulted by. Welcome rests for my body to recuperate, I really regretted forgetting my Lucozade in the car! Charlie asked me if I wanted us to split up and I said no, I thought that the gap between the front and back wasn’t too big yet so we were good.

We stuck together and I kept on chugging along with the hope of being finished soon. The run taught me a lot. It reminded me why I run. It challenged me and showed me yet again that if you don’t put the work in you will never receive the plethora of benefits available to you. It’s the same for life. You have to put hard work in now for what you want, otherwise you will never reach it. So I kept on pushing on because I know that one day (…in May…around the time of the Copenhagen Marathon… shhh!) I want to really be working towards being the best I can be. Best physical shape, mental shape, everything. If I want to be anywhere near that sort of level I need to use the experiences I have had in running so far, runs like Tuesday just gone to get me to where I need to be.

I will do it because that it was I want and I will work hard for it.

Before I knew it we were well on our way back to 1948 and on Batemans row yet again, sprinting to the finish line. Thank you Cheetahs for getting me through that run and Charlie for the constant words of encouragement along the way.

My Return to Run Dem Crew

image credited to Run Dem Crew

I haven’t been to RDC for a month. I am a RDC Younger and have gone every Tuesday since last year June but because of holidays and other things I haven’t been able to see my running family. It’s a very odd feeling that’s never happened before and if you look at my nike+ history you’ll see that I run mostly on a Tuesday evening.

I was back and I was ready. I wasn’t scared or worried about my speed like before I just said, “I am going to go to Run Dem Crew and enjoy myself then see what happens”.

I went into Baby Cheetahs because Cheetahs has been way too hard for me lately. I just wanted my runners high and I did get that in Baby Cheetahs. I’m not ready for Cheetahs yet. I’m 14 stone, extremely far from my peak but I feel like I can run again which is important.

I like running again. I am happy again. There were about 140 in the house on Tuesday, it’s really nice to have new people down. Once the season locks off there will be 140 people seeing each other for 3 whole months and that is a great thing.

We put our hands up for baby cheetahs and I managed to miss who was leading our group. We were heading to the Emirates stadium, after the weekends results and me opening my mouth on twitter I guess that was the only place to go. I hate running to the  Emirates for 2 reasons.

1. I support Chelsea
2. I support CHELSEA!

2 very good reasons to not want to go there. We set off together and once I checked the pace that we had to go I just set out to try and help out with the group, make sure people were ok, especially at the back. Once we got to the mini wembley half-way point everyone was warm and really ready to go. We stuck together and really ran as a pack, footfall together. We were like a school of fish on the concrete. We were in the zone.

The guys at the front seemed so comfortable, I told them to go into Cheetahs next week. When you hit your stride it’s weird, you can talk and run hard but relax at the same time, all in one motion. I talked to them about the races that I have done this year and it was very interesting to talk to people who are new to Run Dem. People who aren’t quite sure about everything (yet) it’s great to build those early relationships and who knows, I may be working with them sooner or later.

After RDC I moved straight on to my crew RDCY Hackney which you can read about here.

Body Check

On this run you can see that I had a somewhat stuttered start which is normal for people regardless anyway. It wasn’t a normal stutter for me though, it started out with great pain in my lower back that I couldn’t explain. I had seen my Ostepath recently and things have been looking good for my back so this intense pain was both unexpected and unwelcome for me.

I wanted to keep on running but not with such discomfort. I figured that I had to be doing something wrong. I did a body check and readjusted myself. I learned about Body Checks when at a special pre VLM talk that the organisers had put on for us. An ex marathoner told to do a Body Check every 10 or so minutes. You start from head to toe and ask yourself the following questions:

• Is my head up?
• Are my shoulders back?
• Is my back straight?
• Are my hips beneath me?
• Are my knees landing below me?
• Am I heel striking?

Saying those questions back to yourself let you readjust pretty quickly and then start running how you want to again. I took a step back, looked at myself and readjusted.

I ran tall and proud. With that, the pain eased and I maintained a comfortable 8 minute pace after that. I felt lighter and my run just got better and better.

This got me thinking about how I could apply this to my life outside of running. At the moment I am looking for a job, so I’m at home a lot more now. How can I make sure I stay positive and motivated?

I do a mind check.

• Am I looking at the right job?
• Does my CV reflect the skills that the job requires?
• Am I being proactive to find work or better myself with my free time?
• Am I happy?

Never doubt yourself when you run, just look for solutions to your problem whilst you’re out on the road. When a problem is presented to you in life try to resolve it and you may be surprised by the results.

Do a body check when you run and at work do a mind check. Stay positive and see the light that’s out there, even when you really don’t want to.