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.

Sketch

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

Tom Matthews

Munter, Gabriele (1877-1962) - 1917 Meditation

Munter, Gabriele (1877-1962) - 1917 Meditation, originally uploaded by RasMarley.

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.

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 ...

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.

Chiquitita

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