bragging

I tried to be a bit subtle about it, but there’s no getting away from it – the little orange icon down there on the left of screen is bragging.

I’ve done the hundred pushups challenge. Admittedly, it took me a lot longer than 6 weeks, but it’s done.

More importantly, I’m a bit stronger, and have no problems doing 250 – 300 pushups in sets of 40 or 50.

Running
12.85 easy on Monday, to recover from the weekend’s long run. Last night was just under 15km, including a hill session and 6 strides at the end.

V. satisfying.

(Sorry – there I go again, bragging. Must stop!)

ripped

Well, it’s finally happened. Some three months and god knows how many thousands of pushups later, but my wife has finally noticed I’m looking pretty buff. Thankyou hundredpushups.com

It happened last weekend as I was disrobing, preparatory to sponging the nether regions. The spouse was passing by and said, with something of a shocked quaver in her voice:

“You know, you are pretty strong now.”

She advanced closer and, taking her life into her own hands, gave the shoulders a bit of a squeeze.

“You are! You’re all muscle!”

Very gratifying. Very gratifying indeed.

I’m not sure who’s responsible for commissioning the next Rambo movie, but whoever you are, I’d like you to know: I’m available.

The funny thing is, I can’t actually do 100 pushups in a row. I can do the week 6 of the program no worries, and I can get to 70 or 80 okay. 100 still looks a bit hard.

Running
None yet. I’ve been working from home. Cough. Yes. Working.

Really.

I’ll try to fit in a gentle 12km tonight.

worst ever

The only good thing I can see about Channel 7 is (to my knowledge) they’ve never actually employed Eddie McGuire.

That’s it.

And, if you were hoping I’d say they’d redeemed themselves with their Olympics coverage this year, think again my friend.

There have been plenty of other people lining up to bag them, and why not! They show the damn thing about 23 hours a day, and presumably have thousands of cameras littering smog-city, but mysteriously manage to miss anything remotely interesting.

What’s more, they still give substantial air-time to Sandy Roberts, a man with the charisma and insight of an inebriated wart-hog.

I could go on, but there’s one thing in particular I wanted to mention. This chick: Johanna Griggs:

She looks a nice enough sort. I’m sure she probably is a nice person to have around for a barbecue or something. But, Jesus H. Christ, she has THE WORST VOICE I HAVE EVER HEARD.

It’s the vowels, particularly the “a” sound. “Yaaaaaahoo”. It makes me cringe, a super-human industrial-strength cringe that starts somewhere in the depths of my soul and reaches up to the heavens, passing through every vertebrae in my back on the way.

Running
No running today. No time.

I will do some push-ups tonight. I should technically have finished the 100 push-up challenge. I actually have finished week 6 but I’m nowhere near being able to do 100. I decided to start again from week 5.

people are stupid

Specifically, the people who write the instructions on Coles crumpet packets. Yes, you read that right – instructions.

“Cook in a toaster until golden”

Phew, thanks for telling me, Mister Coles. Up until now I’ve been waiting until they go black.

The worrying thing about this is that, presumably, the people who write these things aren’t stupid; that somewhere out there are people who can’t figure out what to do with a crumpet. Have they been burying them in sand? Blending them in a food processor? Freezing them in an ice-cream maker?

The mind boggles.

Running
I have a couple of laps of the tan on Friday. Today I have a long-ish run planned, always assuming it stops raining at some point. I’ll let you know.

Pushups
I took a week off in my last bout of sickness, so I’m a bit behind schedule. I’m currently in week 5 and managing 160 in a session. I managed 45 in a row a couple of days ago. The arms hurt, but there’s not noticeably muscular development.

Cycling
Cadel Evans seems to have bottled it overnight. Again, I slept through the thing. I had a feeling that would happen. There were too many people airily assuming Cadel was the fastest thing on two wheels and that he’d “of course” smash Sastre to smithereens in the time trial.

I think not.

hungry

It’s been something of a busy week. I’ve started a new job, so I’ve been meeting people left-right and centre, pestering the new team with a million questions and trying to banish a horrible feeling of incompetence and ignorance and avoid embarrassing myself too badly.

Mood-wise, it’s been a bit rollercoaster-esque. Moments of absolute dread followed by thoughts like “oh, this is easy. I have this under control” then straight back to “oh my god, I’m f***ed”.

It’s now Friday afternoon, and I’m reasonably content with how the week’s gone. I can feel my blood sugar levels dropping way down low. Thankfully, the new office doesn’t seem to have chocolate machine.

Running
I had an odd run last night. It was dark and slightly rainy and I was doing a whole series of hill repeats over about 10km. So, all things being equal, I should have been pretty focussed on the task at hand. Not the case: I spent the whole time mentally rehearsing what I was going to say at today’s staff meeting and didn’t really notice the uphills at all.

Perhaps that’s the secret: stress yourself out of your brain at work and run better.

Pushups
The night before, Wednesday, was week 3, day 1 of the 100 pushup challenge. All up I did 101 pushups, in 5 “sets” – 25, 17, 17, 15, 27. That was pretty good. The 15 felt a bit jittery, but the last set of 27 was fine.

Doing 100 in one set seems a fair way off, but we’ll see.

more pushing

Andrew‘s got me onto this 100 push-ups challenge deal you may have heard of. It has its own website, natch, and a snazzy little logo, which I will reproduce here for your enjoyment…

There’s an amusing quote on the homepage saying:

This is awesome! I started the challenge today and my arms are tired but my soul feels pretty good!

I’ve done 2 weeks so far and my arms feel more or less the same. My soul feels a little insubstantial.

Yesterday I did the exhaustion test again, and I did 38. I still have some work to do, obviously.

Running
Last night – 12.5km around the local streets. Dark, cold, windy but curiously enjoyable.

push ups

No running today, boohoo. As I’ve been saying this week, when you’re doing two jobs at once, something’s got to give. Today, it was running.

I left work in the dim dark past, sometime in the Jurassic period. It’s 7:26pm in the year 2008, or so I’m told, and I’ve finally made it back to home-sweet h.

Call me crazy, but I don’t feel like going out for a run in the middle of a wind tunnel. That’s how it feels out there.

So tonight, I’ll start week two of the hundred pushup challenge. Today looks pretty easy: 12, 12, 9, 7 then Max. I have no idea who Max is, or why I should push him, but we’ll see how we go.

Muscles: prepare yourself for a shock!

By the way, I’m doing a sort of experiment – I’m waiting to see how long it is before the lovely w. makes a comment about my new-found buff-ness. Nothing so far – she has drawn my attention to the bags under my eyes, how tired I look in general and the desperately filthy state of my jeans, but my well developed musculature has strangely escaped her notice.

Maybe by week 3 or 4 she’ll notice something’s up.

let it go

Ahh me, readers please feel free to file yesterday’s post under “monumental whinge”.

As you can tell I was pretty thoroughly fed up with life in general. I guess it happens from time to time.

Cruel and unusual exposure to the works of Celine Dion tends to exacerbate things greatly. I must learn to avoid her in future.

The truth is, life’s pretty good at the moment. I have a new bub and a new job. Things are on the up and up, you might say (if you were my Dad).

I just don’t have much spare time and it’s becoming increasingly difficult to persuade the lovely W. that 30km runs are a valid way of spending Sunday mornings.

The frustrating thing about running is, the wonderful sub-3 hour marathon level of fitness you might have had last October doesn’t last. What takes 6 months to build can be lost in 2 weeks.

Running
A vaguely pleasing 14.2km this lunch-time. Here it is on mapmyrun.com.

Pushups
I’m doing the 100 push up challenge with Andrew. Well, not actually WITH Andrew, I don’t schlep out to his side of town to do push-ups – that would be wierd, just at the same time. I finished week 1 last night.

So far it’s okay. No injuries. I’ve been secretly checking myself out in the mirror, looking for muscles. No sign of them yet, but we live in hope.