Thursday, December 17, 2009

Marathon

Sore knee. Didn't run for a week. Ran on the treadmill in gym for 3km. About as far as I could manage. Weight on gym scales 86.9Kgs.

So, lessons are: buy proper running shoes, run more frequently, run on treadmill till I get proper shoes.

That is all.

Bastards

Grumpy post: Those bastards in the Government take money from the blind and their carers, cut the public service to shreds and then order a Dail holiday till 19 January. And they wonder why people are cynical about politicians. Scumbags.

As for Paul Gogarty: what a self-serving wanker.

Thursday, December 10, 2009

Budget

It is difficult to believe that a Government can take money from people with disabilities, from carers,from special education provision and can reduce a range of other benefits for the least well-off, and give it to the motor industry (to benefit Fiat, Toyota and BMW) and to the drinks industry, which have been ripping us off for years.

The Government pretty well left the private sector alone. No additional tax band, minor tinkering with tax reliefs, no raising of criminally low Corporation Tax.

What a bunch of scumbags.

More progress ...

4.4Kms (2.7 miles) last night. Longer periods running than last time. I discovered why one needs proper running shoes though. It's pretty hard on the knees.

Sunday, December 6, 2009

Progress ...

... is being made. Today 2.4 miles (3.86Kms). Didn't run constantly but enough to do it in about half an hour. I'll need to run faster eventually because I really don't want to take 5 hours to do the marathon.

Weight about 87/88K. Not a good week for losing it. Letterkenny and Tralee. Restaurant food and a humungous sandwich on the train back from Tralee.

Today ...

Grrrrr!

Saturday, November 28, 2009

Marathon

A few weeks ago a friend asked me to help her cheer on some people who were running the Dublin City Marathon for an initiative with which she's involved. Good fun. Standing at the side of the road cheering, clapping, encouraging, picking out names on t-shirts and the like. All shapes and sizes ran, walked, wheeled, staggered past. Some faces were smiling, some were grimacing, some were in agony, some were expressionless.

After I went home I began to wonder what it might be like to run a marathon. And, more interstingly, what it would feel like to cross the finishing line.

At around that time too, I went for a check up with my GP. After the requisite tut-tutting, and blood tests, it emerged that, in addition to being somewhat overweight (which I didn't need the doctor to tell me), I have high blood pressure and high cholesterol and, given that my Dad died at 56, I tick too many heart disease boxes.

So, to cut through the crap. I've decided I might have a go at running the Dublin City Marathon next year. This is a reasonably big deal. I'm not a slob (I do go to a gym pretty regularly) but I'm not a runner. So I've decided to start getting myself prepared from now. I'm going to keep a bit of a blog/diary of my preparations as a record.

So, when I went to the doctor a few weeks ago, I was 92K, my cholesterol was 6.5 and I can't remember the figures for my blood pressure, but it was a bit higher than it should be. On a treadmill, I could run about 1km before I had to stop.

A few weeks low fat eating and treadmilling later, I'm about 89K and I can run 2kms without stopping. Only another 44K to go.

Sunday, November 1, 2009

Sketch


Garden of Remembrance, Dublin. Monument by Oisin Kelly representing the Children of Lir.

Saturday, September 5, 2009

Sunday, August 30, 2009

Munter, Gabriele (1877-1962) - 1917 Meditation

Wow. I love this: the strong colours, the use of light and the contemplative look on the subject's face.

Have a look through RasMarley's photostream on flickr (click on his name above). Amazing collection.

Saturday, August 29, 2009

Edward on Oblivion (Alton Towers)

I hate these things. I'd rather have my legs broken than get on this. Edward didn't seem to mind ...

Monday, July 27, 2009

Education and Creativity

I couldn't agree more with this guy ... schools punish mistakes and stifle creativity, especially at second level. He does take 20 minutes to say this however. Funny, though.



Friday, July 24, 2009

Chiquitita

This version of Chiquitita by Sinead O'Connor, is ... well ... em ... great.

Sunday, June 14, 2009

Layer Cake

'Aria' featuring Michael Gambon. Genius.





Weapon of Mass Destruction

Ed, now one step away from getting a black belt in Karate. Scary!
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Barry


EDM 6: Favourite toy, originally uploaded by David M dot.

EDM stands for Everyday Matters, from Danny Gregory's book of the same name. The book gave rise to a list of sketching challenges and it's kind of fun to do.

My older son, Tom, said that it's great that I've chosen a mid-life crisis hobby that's cheap.

Saturday, June 6, 2009

It's June. It's Summer. It's lashing. Nothing else to do but start a blog ...