Reappraisals

I’ve not been blogging apart from to note my running. Thought I’d catch up in general.

Wendy has just brought it up, about my boat. I’ve not been to the club in ages as it’s the middle of winter and freezing. My last outing was when I turned turtle and found my mast embedded in the lake bed and was contemplating possibly dying trying to swim to shore. I’ll not lie, that has taken a bit of the shine off. Then Wendy has said it took her mate years to learn how to sail. Huh. I thought the few lessons would suffice with a bit of practice. I’ve not given up on it yet. When it warms up I want to get back to it. I’ll see how I get on.

The other thing that’s not about running is my cheapo ‘phone. I like the long battery, but it is just too cheapo. I’ve had to change my home screen picture because the screen can’t do black convincingly, and the camera is awful.

I mean seriously bad.

I can’t be doing with that. I’ve been trying to buy a second hand one on Gumtree. Luckily in my searching I came across a few adverts saying it was the fake ‘phone. Huh? I googled a video on Youtube and they are the spit. They arrive in sealed boxes, with all the Samsung branding, and fake barcodes and such. The guy opened the box, the ‘phone looks exactly the same, open the home screen all the same settings inside. It is a brilliant copy. Then you try to use the 4 cameras and only one of them works, and it’s terrible. You go to other features that are in the ‘phones menu, like on the real one, and they just aren’t there.

The genuine, top of the range model, with 100x zoom camera and all the bells and whistles, sells for over £1000! Over a grand! Incredible. Which is why I was looking at second hand. I asked the people selling the four cheapest (still £400 or so) if all the cameras worked, as I’d want to test them. (The cast iron fake-detecting test.) No reply. The adverts are still up, so they’ve not sold them, so they must be fakes. How gutted would you be to spend £400 -£500 for a worthless bit of crap?

So glad I watched the video. You would never know to look at them, and you see the perfect replica box, you just wouldn’t suspect.

In the end I’ve plumped for a lesser spec, but brand new, ‘phone, off Amazon. It’s the same price bracket, £419, but it’s got good reviews and I know I’m not just throwing money away on a scam. Wendy said I should just get the model we had, an earlier Samsung, but still with a great camera. As they are quite old (in ‘phone terms) now, they don’t make them anymore, and a reconditioned one was £350! Which I thought was a bit of a cheek. Nah, pay a bit more, get newer tech (longer before it’s obsolete) and a brand new battery. So I’m all excited about that. It should be arriving from Monday. Lots of snaps to follow.

I’ve been having trouble sleeping lately. Not sure what that’s about. I was relatively OK last night. I nearly got up and did my run at 05.30, because I’d been awake for an hour and was bored, but I stuck with it and had a lie in until 09.50. Hopefully I’m over whatever it was.

I’ve been desperately thinking of things to say that aren’t running related, but I am all out. I am focusing the whole of my time, energy and will into my goal. Which is going to represent another problem when it warms up, for my sailing. I can’t afford a single distraction. I had to get up at 05.30 (even thought I’m tired from not sleeping) to fit in a 10 mile run before starting work at 08.45, I’m fully committing.

The running news, in brief, is that I started the plan at the beginning of January and my first long run was 12 miles. I slacked off the pace at then end because it was just too far and too fast for me. I finished with a time of 8.15 m/m.

I ended January with a 15 mile run, it was blowing a gale,I was strong throughout, no dropping off the pace, with a time of 7.50 m/m. 3 miles longer and 25 seconds faster per mile in a month. That is encouraging.

I’ve lost 8lbs now, (10 to go) and 2″ off my waist.

Everything is moving in the right direction.

Oh, and I had a bit of a blip on the not buying motorbikes front, when I decided I needed a Swedish style chop. I’m over it now. Mostly. But just look at them! Beautiful. And the last word in motorbike practicality.

Right, my life is run/ sleep (badly)/ repeat at the mo, so nothing of interest to report. Seems I’ve not done a general blog for a bit there has been some good twitter.