Day 23 of London to Brighton Training: In which I have some surprises and become my Father.

Day 23 of London to Brighton Training:  In which I have some surprises and become my Father.

So, having been virtually crippled by my attempt to use my walking poles, I made the decision to avail myself of some proper training in the art of Nordic Walking, and went for a free ‘taster’ session with a local instructor, which led to some interesting revelations. 

The meeting place was a car park on the edge of the local forest, which is one of the largest open spaces in the London area and I pitched up there bright and early – well early at least – pleased that for once it wasn’t raining.  However, any pleasure soon turned to dismay, as I noticed the carpark was full of people on some sort of boot camp. I have never actually experienced one of these myself you understand, but my understanding is that they represent some sort of intense form of initiation into exercise, much akin to the Marine Corp training after which they are named.  They seemed to be split into two groups, each led by someone who, if not ex-military, certainly has a loyalty card at the Army-Surplus store.  Close-cropped hair, camouflage trousers and a propensity to bark like a pit bull who finds itself on the wrong side of the gate to the Postman all combined to make me feel that, whilst undoubtedly effective,  this was not the form of training for me.  Nor, judging by the look of horror on the face of one lady whose eyes met mine was it for all the participants, but I did not feel that my two Iaido lessons and a pulled hamstring from Judo really equipped me to perform an SAS-Style rescue mission, so I was forced to leave her to her fate.

Fortunately, I discovered that my Nordic Walking instructor, whilst resembling a lycra-clad whippet, was of a different breed, relying on enthusiasm rather than volume.  Introductions over, I proudly presented my newly-acquired walking poles, in anticipation of being told what a wise choice I’d made (thank you YouTube).  This was the first surprise.  Despite extensive research, I transpires that what I’d bought were ‘Trekking’ poles.  Now, I come from a generation where the syllable ‘Trek’ brings to mind strange hand signs and the expressions “He’s dead Jim” and “Beam me up Scotty”, but apparently not only was I not going to be beamed anywhere, having to rely instead on my flimsy legs, but rather more pertinently, I’d bought the wrong poles. They weren’t terribly wrong, just too heavy.  And the handle was wrong. And the wrong type of hand strap.

Apart from that, they were fine.  (Thank you YouTube)

However, the Instructor had anticipated and had brought poles with her for her new victims pupils to use.  She then proceeded to demonstrate the technique of Nordic Walking, which was the second surprise. As I have mentioned, I had spent quite some time viewing assorted videos on YouTube on the technique of Nordic Walking, so felt quietly confident as she explained where the poles should be planted, the way the arms were used.  As you may by now be expecting, I’d been doing it completely wrong.  Thank you YouTube.  I’d been planting the poles in the wrong place.  I’d been bending my arms when they should be straight.  In fact, the only thing I’d got right from my research was that the pole should be used in conjunction with the opposing leg.  The one thing I kept getting wrong.

However, in order to ensure that we got the technique right, we were started off by simply holding the poles in each hand, pointy bit forwards so you don’t ruin the chances of the man behind you having children, and walking up and down an extremely muddy path, swinging our arms back and forth from the shoulders.  Picture, if you can, three middle-aged men squidging up and down a path, a pole in each hand, swinging their arms like they’re changing the guard and you may begin to appreciate the somewhat bemused looks on the faces of the ladies and their dogs who had to get out of our way.  And yes, the dogs looked bemused too.  The aim of this exercise is to get you into the habit of swinging the poles from the shoulders, rather than with a bent arm, but it’s a highly unnatural action.  Consider when you (if) run, your arms are bent at the elbow, but this is wrong and leads to all sorts of issues.

Once you have got the hang of this sort of military double-stick relay, we progress to planting the poles.  Unlike my previous attempt, the tip is in fact planted behind you, which means that as your right leg goes forward, the left arm has to have swung all the way back to plant the pole.  This feels very odd.  You then repeat with the opposite arm and leg, by which time you seem to have got out of synch with yourself and stop suddenly to correct the mistake.

The man behind you meantime, is also concentrating, looking down at his feet and, as you will remember, swinging his poles back and forth, so the pointy bit swings up and forwards.

 This led to the third surprise, which I sincerely hope won’t appear on YouTube, thank you.  But as a means of spurring you on, it’s right up there with an ex-military pit-bull; and just as much fun.

 

As before, I found myself really struggling with the coordination required, until all that swinging my straight arms suddenly dredged up a childhood memory, of being in something called ‘JLB’. This was a little like the cadets and being in the late 60’s & early 70’s, benefitted from the fact that most of the officers and many of the NCOs had been through the mill of National Service, with the consequence that ‘Drill’ was a frequent and persistent activity.  I learned to quick march, slow march, wheel, dress right (no, not that), and salute – “properly” (longest way up shortest way down).  It’s amazing how something from so long ago can be retrieved from your memory.  Or it was.

In this case,  what came back to me wasn’t the act of marching, so much as the act of marching as an NCO barked “ ‘EFT__,’EFT__, ‘EFT-‘IGHT-‘EFT”.  That cadence, so hated in my formative years, suddenly reappeared with such clarity that I could literally hear him rapping out the cadence behind my left ear.  Unconsciously, I felt myself straight (“Stand up straight you ‘orrible little man”), shoulders back and felt my arms swinging with the correct rhythm.  In short, I was marching to the beat of a different, and imaginary, drum.  I continued in this manner for some minutes, actually feeling rather pleased with myself, not least because all those years of training were finally paying off.  Actually, it was probably only a couple of years, but it FELT a lot longer.

And then, as I marched, I had surprise number four.

As a child, I would sometimes walk with my Father.  He had been in the Royal Air Force and, far more than my recreational square-bashing, had had drill, err, drilled into him.  As a consequence, when we walked, he would often forget himself.  A distant and strangely focussed look would come into his eyes and his back and stride would lengthen and his arms would swing back and forth as he determinedly marched along the street, me scurrying along in his wake like a forgotten Pekinese.  I found it terribly embarrassing, imagining people would be looking at this man marching along the street, no matter where he was.  Yet, here I was, walking through a quagmire of a forest, swinging my arms in exactly the same way and I realised with a great clarity that not only in walking, but in every way, I AM my father.  It was a strange sensation and yet, in a way, quite a comforting one.  If nothing else, it made me swing my arms with pride and, I like to think, a certain panache. 

 Panache isn’t easy when you’re up to your knees in mud.

I didn’t really feel that my 45 minute taster had really been much of a workout, but as I got back to the car the heavens opened, which rather put paid to any thoughts of extending the walk, so I now have to consider whether to try the full 4-week course.  If I do, I may well get the hang of it and feel the benefits of Nordic Walking.

Or maybe I’ll just end up with a job at the Ministry.

 

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Day 20 of London to Brighton Training: In which I bring modern technology to bear.

Day 20 of London to Brighton Training: In which I bring modern technology to bear.

I work in technology.  Specifically in computer software and, although I’m a semi-geek (or semi-real person, depending on your viewpoint), I am a man and, as such, LURVE a gadget, so it seemed natural that I should seek to deploy technology to aid me in my preparation for this challenge and my quest for fitness.

When I was young, the closest thing to technology in fitness was a drinking fountain. Putting your thumb over the nozzle as people walked past was a sure way of encouraging them to run faster, so I was intrigued to see how things had moved on.  I’m not talking about the development in machines at the gym or even the fact that training shoes now seem to employ technology that would have been the preserve of the space program the last time I ran for ‘fun’, but rather the proliferation of hi tech aids to support the budding athlete in their quest for performance.

Some years ago, I bought a heart-rate monitor watch. This was a mistake.  Actually, this was in fact TWO mistakes.  The first mistake was that I hadn’t actually realised it was a heart-rate monitor watch at the outset.  I merely needed a watch, ideally waterproof so that I could swim in it and this one seemed to be a good deal, plus had images of people doing all sorts of athletic feats on their athletic feet and importantly, judging by their expressions, enjoying them.  If a watch could do this for me, then it certainly seemed worth the investment.  I then realised that this had the advantage of telling me how strong my heart was beating, and I was sold.  I don’t know if you’re familiar with these devices, but basically they consist of a digital watch, combined with a strap that secures around your chest with Velcro.

Important tip: – if you have a hairy chest, ensure you get the Velcro the right way round.

This strap contains a sensor which, when positioned over your heart, transmits a signal to the watch, which then displays your heart rate on the watch display – assuming of course that:

1)      It can measure something with a rate measured in MHz

2)      That the display on the watch can handle numbers that large.

Which was my second mistake.  These watches may be ideal for athletes who are using them to monitor their heart rate as the train, aiming for specific target rates at key points in their workout.  What they are not designed to do recognise that the mere act of giving yourself a depilation worthy of a Chippendale - the dancer not the cabinet (although some would say I move like one) –by misuse of Velcro is enough to raise your heart rate to that of a 4-minute-miler. I was fully expecting the numbers on the watch face to disappear and be replaced by the words “I think you should go and sit down somewhere quiet, and wait for the ambulance”.  Besides, the last thing I need when exercising is something that provides a tight feeling across my chest.  Nature does that for me free of charge.

So when the chest strap went missing and the battery died, the watch was consigned to one of those drawers which exist solely for the accumulation of things that you don’t throw away “because it may be useful one day”.  I’m surprised Ikea don’t do a complete range of furniture just for these items.  They could call it Yooshlessstufinboxen.   Perhaps I should suggest it?

However, this experience has done nothing to diminish my love of gadgets or my determination to deploy them in to good use in this endeavour and those of you who may have read any of these posts of Facebook may be aware of periodic posts made from my phone, using one of the ‘Apps’ specifically designed to monitor and improve your training and the one I am using is called ‘Runkeeper’.  There are a great many of these applications available, each with their own specific strengths, weaknesses and functions, sometimes geared towards a specific form of training.  I selected this one on the basis that someone said “Hey you’re walking you should get Runkeeper it’s really cool”.

I am of an age where I remember the Fonz, so am a sucker for ‘Cool’.

You enter personal information such as height and weight, select the relevant type of exercise and the phone uses its GPS functionality to track where you’ve been, your pace, the amount of calories you’ve used and many, many more functions.  It is, allegedly, possible to set up training plans and if you don’t exercise it sends you an email reminding you that you haven’t kept your promise to it, but the last thing I need is yet another conscience, particularly one that I can’t have a rational argument with. I’m not totally convinced about the accuracy of some of its calculations – on a  recent walk it calculated the calories burned, which seemed to equate to around 240 bags of crisps.  Naturally I took this with a pinch – or rather a little blue bag – of salt and did not eat all 240. 

Look up little blue bag of salt if you’re too young to understand.

Incidentally, following a talk at A’s studio last month, I have forsworn crisps in some sort of training equivalent of Lent.  Everyone had to give up something and it was that or, in truth, Brighton. The talk discussed techniques such as “EFT” (Emotional Freedom Technique) which involves tapping yourself on various points on the head as you repeat positive and negative reinforcement statements.

I’m told it’s very powerful and effective.

But then I’m told by our ruling elite that “we’re all in this together” and I don’t see THEM giving up crisps.  I listened and tried tapping, but being honest, I don’t think I was really trying very hard.  I did find myself repeating a word, but as it wasn’t a very complimentary one, I won’t mention it here.  I am sure that there IS a way that tapping me on the head would help dissuade me from crisps, but it would take more than my finger. 

 

However I do know people who say it’s very effective, so please don’t let me dissuade you from trying this rub…. interesting technique, if you feel you want to try it.

One issue with Runkeeper, apart from its tendency to announce exactly how you’re doing in a loud American accent, is that it relies on a GPS signal to work.  This means that it neither works in the gym – much like me – and also that it tends to get through batteries the way I used to get through crisps.  This means that the already rather paltry battery life of an iPhone is reduced to something even more pitiful, which is not ideal when contemplating walks of many hours.  Of course, being a geek, I have an assortment of external batteries and charging options, but one does not really want to carry 3Kg of additional weight, just to be able to see how many steps one is taking in 15 minutes.  I’m trying hard to take LESS weight with me on walks, not more!

Which led me to my next impulse purchase, which is a fitness monitor.  These come in a range of types, some of which you wear on your belt, round your neck or indeed fixed to your trainer (the shoe, not the lycra-clad terrorist one employs at certain gyms). Some connect wirelessly to your phone, others have dedicated displays built in.  Think of them as the Pedometer for the iPod generation.

The one I selected is called an ‘Up’ band.  I’m not sure if the name influenced me, but I thought it somewhat ironic, given that one of the features that interested me was that it claimed to monitor your sleep patterns as well as exercise.  The idea is that, just before bed, you press the button in a particular sequence and it then monitors your movements, presenting you the following morning with a graphical analysis of your sleep, divided into ‘deep’ and ‘light’ sleep.

This is heaven for the geek.

It also allows you to log how you’re feeling, so this can be correlated with your sleep patterns and used to identify any trends.  You will be astounded to learn that less sleep = feeling tired and grumpy.  OK, I had begun to suspect this, but as any teenager can vouch for, in this day and age something isn’t true until it’s displayed on your phone screen.  It also has a ‘Power Nap’ feature, allowing it to be set to wake you up at the most opportune point in a short sleep cycle, which is does by vibrating.  I used this feature.  Quite a lot actually.

Unlike some of its competitors, it’s not actually unattractive, which means it’s with you all the time and, being based on movements of your body rather than GPS, it works indoors as well as outside.  This is also useful because it can be set to vibrate if you’re sedentary for more than a certain period.  The idea is that, if it vibrates, you get up from your desk and do some exercise, thus avoiding your chair from becoming permanently grafted to your you-know-what.  It can also be calibrated to measure the distance you walk which was actually surprisingly accurate, and only suggested I should eat 174 packets of crisps, which is wholly more realistic.

So all in all, a highly practical and useful aid to my training.  Or it would be if the flipping thing worked for more than a few weeks.  The first one was rapidly becoming my gadget of the year, when for no apparent reason, the battery refused to charge.  Oh well, these things happen and the nice gentleman at Tesco Direct replaced it without a quibble (another word right up there with Addendum).  The second one seemed fine, right up until it too, refused to charge.  So now I am faced with a double quandary: Do I replace this with a third and hope that I have simply been unlucky, or do I replace it with one of its competitors which, whilst offering the possibility of greater quality control, somehow have an air of ‘sports’ about them.

I think it’s the rubber.

 Perhaps I should see if I can buy a good old-fashioned, mechanical pedometer online and give the replacement UP band they have offered me to someone else as a present.

 So you never know, you could find yourself being given one of these wondrous gadgets by me.  But, in the words of Virgil:

 Beware of Geeks bearing gifts.

 (If you’ve enjoyed this post and  you’re feeling generous, you can sponsor me at http://www.justgiving.com/Richard-Stanton2 - doesn’t matter how much, every penny is really gratefully received.  Thank you.)

 

Day 18 of London to Brighton (Cont.): In which I am reminded that I have forgotten someone.

Day 18 of London to Brighton (Cont.): In which I am reminded that I have forgotten someone.

I have been remiss. I was reminded by a close friend that I had omitted one of the gym membership demographs so, rather than edit the previous post, please consider this an addendum.


What a nice word. 'Addendum'. Sort of bounces around your mouth like it's made of rubber and entices you to add a stream of other, similar sounding words. Which could be awkward, but I digress.

As mentioned, in conversation with the aforementioned friend, I identified another type of person at the gym, which I shall call the LAM (Look At Me). This type will be familiar to even the most casual of gym attendees - and they don't come much more casual than me. Dressed to kill in top of the range sport clothing and with so much make-up that taking it off would make most of us rejoice in losing that much weight, their objective in using any of the facilities is measured not in weights lifted, miles run/cycled or balls hit. No, the LAM is much like a website and their success is measured by the number of 'views'. A glance is like someone clicking onto the page but then moving on, whilst a surreptitious stare, perhaps from the corner of the eye, is like someone staying to browse. Eyes tracking like radar or, from members of the same sex, bitchy undertone comments are the holy grail - someone adding the page to their favourites.

The LAM does not use the equipment to excess - any true exercise is done in the privacy of their home, where, like space, nobody can hear them scream, although just enough is done to allow them to be noticed, before decamping to the cafe area, to be seen as having come from the gym, but still looking like they have been dipped in liquid nitrogen.

The one true way of identifying the LAM however is the pony-tail. Hair pulled back and secured in a way that says "I am here to exercise. I'm not concerned about anything so banal as my hair.", it only took 45 minutes to coax into its perfect, casual and careless style. This pony-tail is the defining factor of the LAM for, as she walks in studied nonchalance through the room, it swings from side to side in time with the rhythm of

LOOK-AT-ME...LOOK-AT-ME