Category: Life

I was thinking about a Rush track today. The Trees. I’ve not heard the rock yodelling of Geddy Lee in a yonk, but I used to love it as a teen. Anyway, I’m not so fond of this track. Not because it fails to rock, but because of the subject to which I believe it alludes. Allow me to elucidate; “There is trouble in the forest, unrest amongst the trees, For the maples want more sunlight, and the oaks ignore their pleas" …”So the maples formed a union and demanded equal rights” …”Now there’s no more oak oppression, for they passed a noble law, And the trees are all kept equal by hatchet, axe and saw.”   A clear cut polemic against the unions and the scourge of socialism then. If there was such a thing as a meritocracy, or one that could survive more than one generation without nepotism and the special favour that wealth and power bestows, then maybe that would be a fair analogy, Mr Lee.   Anywho, it struck me today, perhaps there is more to it than that. The maple is a symbol of Canada, the oak a symbol of Britain.   Could this be Mr Lee’s acknowledgement of  the native superiority of we Brits, and a call to his countrymen to fight to remain part of the Empire?   I think so.   Buck. (PS The above entry was to wind-up my Canadian chum on Twitter. She didn’t over-react. *sigh*)

If you don’t want to read about one man’s struggle in the face of the insuperable; about sweat, blood, and grit (whilst humming the montage music from Rocky, preferably) look away now. *tumbleweed blows across blog* O.K., just me then. Still recording it for posterity.   Before I went for my assessment weekend for the T.A.,in April I’d knocked out a few 1.8 mile runs. This I sporadically doubled up to my last blog entry  (June 13th) when I had managed one run of 7.2 miles. That was pretty heroic. I then started loosely following a training plan to get up to half marathon standard. The plan gave distances, but not speeds. Knowing nothing about it I was basing my time on the one person I knew who ran, a Twitter chum, @Suzywong30 who said a good speed would be about 8 minutes per mile. (To be fair she said that because on my shorter runs I thought I was averaging about 7½ minutes per mile.) The other snippet I gleaned was from the half marathon website where I read that up to a cut off point of 1 hour 40 minutes, you got an exact ranking and time in the race results. After that just position. The implication being, it seemed, that that was a respectable time, anything over than that was just ‘also ran’. The maths on that seem to say that if you are running over 7 minute 40 second miles, you are not going to get a time.   So I was aiming for 8 minute miles as I built my stamina. It said on the plan to up your ‘long’ run by 1 mile a week. I was at 7 miles. I did an 8 miles, again nearly killing me. Then, fairly soon after I tried for a 9 mile run (that was the 10th July) which I was really pleased to have finished in 1 hour 13 minutes. I was nearly dead by the end of it, but just chuffed to get that far. The more I was running the more daunted I was becoming by the prospect of the full 13 miles. There’s only one way to get over that kind of apprehension, so on the 13th instead of the planned 4 mile warm up run I went the distance. 13 miles, 1 hour 46 minutes of graft. Go me!   In less than 2 months I’ve gone from a sweaty, wheezing unfit bastard who could barely manage to run 1.8 miles, to a sweaty, wheezing unfit bastard who can barely run 13 miles! Yay!   The twist in the tale came yesterday. Some other newbie runner was asking advice on a training plan. I suggested the plan I’d been loosely following, someone else came back with the BUPA training plan.They said it was better so I took a look.   It says newbies should aim for a run time of about 11-12 minutes per mile, which you can knock down to 10-11 […]

Stuff is happening again. Since I went away for that weekend to play soldiers everything has been up in the air. I have been having the same postal conversation with them over a form they sent me, requesting my employers details. Four times I’ve sent it to them. First by email and post, then by email twice more, and finally (I hope) by post again. The thing I failed to notice when my emails replies were coming through, was that the army’s firewall software had read my attachment as dubious and quarantined it. My bad. Hopefully that is sorted now.   Then there is the ongoing issue of my basic training dates. Since I returned from that weekend I have arranged time off at work for the dates I wanted, but the army hasn’t confirmed I could train on those dates, or how indeed I could apply to train on those dates. At first I wasn’t worried, I had loads of time and there were other matters to sort out first, ID card, documents, etc. As the weeks have rolled by I’ve been getting nervous. Work are saying that there are only a few holidays left to book before October (but I couldn’t book any, in case I couldn’t get the desired dates and had to change courses) so they were going to be less than chuffed if I announced with days to go (it’s about 25 days until the start of my first choice course) that I didn’t want those two weeks after all, give me some others on fully booked dates.   I got a ‘phone call on Friday of a Staff Sergeant responsible for recruit training saying I’d ‘slipped through the net’ and that he was going to make me his ‘personal project’. Apparently he’s going to email me tomorrow with all the course dates and will make sure I get whichever I want. Just email them back to him. That seems to be sorted.   Which means I can try to book some civvy holidays now. Get on to that tomorrow.   I got my tattoo done. It has come out a lot better than I anticipated. My favourite response being ‘Radical tattoo, dude. Kudos’ from someone on Twitter. That made me smile! It’s looking better and worse now. Not as black and shiny, but less taught. It’s been itching horribly for two days but thankfully that seems to being easing off now.   The other thing I’ve been doing of late is getting into running. Well, jogging. Well, wheezing, shambling and staggering. Another chum from Twitter is a keen runner, (doing the Glasgow half marathon) and she’s been giving me some top tips and encouragement. About four or five ‘long’ runs ago I was looking at extending my 1.8 miles run to a 3.2 . This I did. The next long run I did two laps of the ‘short’ (1.8 miles) course, nearly killed me. Then I got my funky new really lightweight running top […]

The T.A. Physical Training Instructor gave us all a brief before we left. He made a point of going on about buying decent trainers for running as your knees take an immense battering. At the time I was scornful. We used to do all of our running in Boots, Combat, High. O.K., so we had a lot of shin splints, and I tried to get Premature Voluntary Release because the pain in my knee was so unbearable, but that was 20 years ago and mainly forgotten. Besides, it was character building. I thought I was being a bit precious running in my old, flat soled, unsupported trainers. As you can see, not really high tech running shoes. I bought them whilst practising Taekwondo so I would have some lightweight footwear, the better to kick people in the head. As running shoes go, not really fit for purpose. Before I went to the T.A. assessment weekend I bought a cheap pair of Asda trainers, so I would have not-scruffy footwear in case the army was being sniffy.I wore them once, didn’t like them (I thought they were rubbing my toes) so never actually ran in them. I was looking at them earlier in the week, considering what the PTI had said about lots of padding on the heels to absorb the shock on the run. They fitted the bill so I went for a run to try them out. Revelation! The PTI and I were both right! It felt massively more comfortable running in trainers with padding and they rubbed like a bitch. Yesterday, being a day’s holiday, I went up town to the a sports shop. ‘Give me proper running shoes now Mr trainer pimp!’ I went in and my heart sank. The whole of the back wall of the shop was given over to row upon row of trainers.A myriad of different styles, presumably for different purposes, most I suspect just for Chavs to flash labels. Woe onto the Buckster. I was envisioning the scenario; ‘I want some running shoes’. ‘You must get these, here fill out the mortgage repayment plan, you’re so down with the Chavs.’ A mild sense of panic was setting in as I wandered up and down the row. I ended up at the end of the section, as that was where the assistant was. She was serving some chap, so I looked on bewildered, like a stereotypical chick in a car showroom ‘ I like that one, it’s black.’ Anyway, this chap was umming and aarring, trying on different styles, sizes, half sizes etc. In short, he seemed to know what he doing. In desperation I said to him ‘you’re not a runner, are you?’ He was! He’d just done the Manchester 10k, and was off to do the Glasgow full marathon! Joy! I asked him what I was supposed to be looking for in a running trainer, he said ‘Aasics’ or ‘Balance line’. “Anyone who’s anyone in running gets Aasics.” Spot on! As […]