I am Roborunner

The deeper integration of mobile technology into virtually every aspect of our lives is seemingly an unstoppable force and in many ways is a welcome development for society. For example, how else could I possibly get know the eating and TV watching habits of hundreds of people I don’t know and have no desire to meet in ‘real life’, via Twitter and other such social media platforms.

Gone are the days when that term, social media, meant handing somebody a copy of the paper you’d just finished reading on the train and when you arranged to meet somebody you made sure you made it, as there was no means by which to send a message with some lame excuse because you couldn’t be bothered. Having said that, one or two incidents of waiting several hours for people who didn’t turn up could have been easily avoided. But I digress.

Original social media

Frankly the digital revolution couldn’t have come sooner as far as I’m concerned. As a consumer and purveyor of information at the rate that would make me obese if it was food (some parallel there methinks), it is a truly exciting time. And when, in years to come, our kids ask ‘what did you make of this amazing transformation in society which changed forever the way we work, live and experience life’, I for one do not want to sit there and say, “It was a load of bollocks really, all that internet crap, I preferred to actually talk to people”. You know how people wear that level of ignorance like a badge of pride as if they somehow elevate themselves above this foolish pursuit of ever increasing technology like it’s the emperor’s new clothes. And in any case they never actually talk to people anyway because they’ve got no friends. They would have probably been against the development of the written word several thousand years ago.

Anyway, the point is, I have realised that I am using a lot more technology in my training at the moment, most of it based on my iPhone. Whether it’s the iTunes to keep me motivated (Eye of the Tiger still inspires) or the several apps to track my progress.

In my head, this is me on training run

I was introduced to an app called My Fitness Pal by a friend at work and it’s basically a calorie counter, but for the first time probably ever, it has enabled me to get to grips properly with portion control.

My weight gain has not always tended to be because I eat a lot of rubbish, it’s simply because I eat a lot. I always cook dinner at home and enjoy cooking as a social activity. The problem has been that I would always fill my plate to over brimming and probably be eating enough for two. Not in the pregnant sense of course. I have the same issue with booze to be fair, so bingeing on both of those will inevitably lead down the road to fatness.

Now, this will not come as a revelation to anybody remotely sensible, but I have now discovered that if I stick to the daily recommended calorie allowance (2050 in my case), and do more exercise, the weight starts to come off. I know this is obvious, eat less and move more is the mantra. I had always thought I would just be hungry all the time if I ate less, however, lo and behold, it’s not the case. So I’m now a bit of a slave to the calorie counter, always filling it in after every meal and it could do with a little more male-focussed content, but it’s definitely working as I’ve lost 9lbs since Christmas and feel on my way to hitting weight loss targets.

In conjunction with this app I am also using Run Keeper on my phone to chart my distance and calories burned on my training runs.

Long gone are the days of pulling on the trainers and heading out with a quick glance at the kitchen clock to gauge how long I’ve been out. Nowadays every step and heart beat is recorded and analysed with interactive maps of where I’ve been, average minutes per mile and all sorts of telemetry.

I think it’s an age thing. Being a couple of years older I feel I need to know more about my progress than when I was a spritely 31-year-old with much springier legs. But it does work and despite feeling like Roborunner (although if I was a robot I probably wouldn’t need to run anywhere on account of not being capable of gaining weight, saying that R2D2 is basically short and round) being able to chart the progress means I can keep to the training plan for the Edinburgh Marathon with any luck.

Fat robot: R2D2

I think Nike do something similar which is embedded in their training shoes, which would be good. But I have actually done quite a lot of running down the years (you may find that hard to believe) and the best trainers I’ve ever had are my Asics Gel Nimbus. They are totally amazing and have carried me through several half marathons and the London Marathon in 2010, with not a single injury or even blister. If they did something similar to Nike I’d definitely be interested in trying that out.  If only there was some way to alert the Asics PR machine to this, I could perhaps shamelessly endorse their TOTALLY AMAZINGASICS running shoes for instance. It wouldn’t be dishonest, I already use them. Let’s see what happens.......No, nothing yet. Maybe the SEO will do its thing and they’ll pick up on it. As I was saying, ASICS ASICS ASICS ASICS........

Enough of that. I’m off to roast a chicken, mash some potatoes and make real gravy for dinner to give us fuel for a long run tomorrow along the banks of the Avon. In my Asics. 

My amazing Asics. Which are much more knackered now.

Do I look like I eat curry every day?

I had to laugh earlier this week after checking into a hotel for a work-related overnight stay in Banbury.

Having parked my cock horse (whatever that is) in the car park and got myself settled, I enquired of the helpful receptionist as to the proximity of the town centre, having never spent any time there myself.

She informed that we were indeed close to the town centre and there are number of Chinese restaurants, kebab houses and Indian food establishments, in fact the best place for a curry is just a short walk from the front door.

Now, given that I hadn’t asked about the best place to get junk food, and setting aside the fact that I’m sure her boss would be delighted to know she was actively pushing potential customers out of the door to the nearest curry house, I could only reach the conclusion that she had taken one look at me and decided that all I was interested in was access to the nearest and least healthy eating option. And fortunately the best Indian in town was just a short waddle away, that even somebody of girth and rotundity could manage without getting too out of breath.

How could she make such an assumption? Perhaps I had asked the question because I was interested in getting to know more about this historic Oxfordshire town, its place in English folklore and the cultural heart beating within its ancient buildings? Just because I may look like I eat curries and drink lager all the time, doesn’t mean it’s necessarily so.

Turns out the Indian take away probably is the cultural centre of the town, but I could be doing it a disservice. A quick stroll through the darkened shopping centre on a cold and darker January night probably doesn’t do it justice.

Either way, I managed to avoid the lure of the numerous take aways (she wasn’t wrong), and settled for a lamb tagine from the less-than-extensive hotel menu. Which tasted a bit like a curry anyway.

Feeling good after first run of 2013

You know that point where you are running, or jogging slowly in my case, but feel like the engine has finally kicked into life and instead of lurching and spluttering from one step to the next, you're actually purring along quite nicely. That's just how it felt last night on the first big run of 2013 and the start of training for the Edinburgh Marathon.
Having spent December doing nothing more active than growing a beard, as part of my fundraising for Decembeard (which was a huge success btw), I was a little apprehensive about trying to run for an hour on Sunday. But somehow we managed to pootle along quite happily for four miles or so in the dark afternoon along the banks of the Avon.
I think I'm feeling more optimistic about achieving some running goals this year than I have since 2010.
But it's going to be tighter than a Tory public spending policy to make the Edinburgh Marathon on May 26, but the recent new that my very good friend Kirsty Hemming will be joining me to take on the half marathon as part of her preparation for the Loch Ness Marathon in September, is a tremendous boost.

Based on little more than a bit of a hunch and past experience, I have devised the following rough plan to get me to the start line in Edinburgh. Any comments/suggestions welcome.

End of January - Be able to run 5 miles
End of February - Be able to run 10 miles
End of March - Be able to run 15 miles
End of April - Be able to run 20 miles
End of May - 26 mile marathon.

All seems quite simple sat on my hairy backside writing it out in a list, but there is so much work to go into achieving those five little goals.
However, what is really encouraging is the first run of the year was almost four miles and although we did stop a few times to walk a bit, it was a lot further than I’d thought we’d get.
Also, I’ve hit upon a great little app called My Fitness Pal, thanks to a recommendation from a work pal, which is helping me to count calories as I need to lose so much weight to make the running happen. Since my Christmas seasonal high I’ve now lost six lbs, which is great progress and means I’ll be able to access an entire wardrobe of clothes by the time the marathon comes round if that keeps up. In fact at six lbs a week I’ll be the size I was at primary school by the end of May, so I expect that won’t necessarily last, but it’s another good start.
Anyway, that’s all the boring stuff out the way for now, as there are so many running/weight loss/fat bloke blogs out there that there is really little point adding one more drop to the ocean. And besides, I’m boring the arse off myself writing this so I’d be buggered with a fish fork if anybody else is going to find it either remotely interesting or illuminating.
Therefore, as of the next blog post, I’m going to reflect more of the interesting bits to this mission, the sort of things we talk and think about while running, the thoughts we have while munching on a bowl of cous cous and salad while perusing the Mail online at lunchtime wishing we could look like Ryan Gosling, well, Ryan Giggs perhaps, or even just the person we looked like 15 years ago. I think that’s more interesting that calorie counting or talking about how many times I ran slowly round the Downs.
And also, most importantly, there are many reasons to donate to Cancer Research UK and St Peter’s Hospice, which I also want to share as cancer is something that has taken too many people I love, and I’m sure it’s the same for anybody reading this. So let’s see how we can make that difference.

The best of starts

In the oh-so-slightly OCD world I live in, there is something wonderfully ordered and correct about the fact that tomorrow is Monday, and it is also October 1.
Not only does that bring together in such joyous harmony both the start of the working week and the start of the month, but in doing creates a very real point to identify heading into the next season, which is awesome autumn of course.
It’s the new school term, it’s getting back to work after the summer hols and it is very much the start of that whole new time of the year. The garden furniture which we kept out so hopefully through the sporadic summer months is consigned again to the shed, the jumpers that have lain at the bottom of laundry baskets are now coming back out and of course, the interminable run up to Christmas has started, signalled by the launch of this year’s Strictly Come Dancing and bloody X Factor. The advent for the 21^st century, it seems.
But, as well as all this, I do feel that it is the perfect point at which to really start putting in the hours in training for the Edinburgh Marathon challenge coming up next May. Not least as I have been feeling a tad guilty today about letting my Bristol Half Marathon entry slip past untroubled yet again, sleeping off a rather boozy weekend this morning while 14,000 lithe and hardy Bristolians put all us slackers to shame.
So, spurred on to a point, I did head out for a stumble around the Downs and spent 35 spluttery minutes walking and jogging round.
I am looking forward to getting my head properly into this, and hoping that some clear goals along the way will help, but this afternoon, while I swigged down some welcome water and stood heaving my chest more violently than at a TOWIE casting session, I couldn’t help but make a mental note of the scale of the challenge ahead.
Still, it is of nothing compared to the challenge faced by many millions of people around the world battling cancer, including some very dear people we have known and loved, and for that reason I know there really is no excuse now. As they say in distant colonies, let’s roll!

Going in search of Shakespeare

Just a week into my marathon challenge and I’ve decided to go on holiday!

So far last night I consumed half a pizza, swilled down with Prosecco followed by a couple of glasses of Pinot Grigio and a cheeky Peroni. Nothing beats an Italian theme to dinner. As we are spending a few days in Stratford-upon-Avon, and seeing as Shakespeare had a love of all things Greco-Roman, (to the point of plagiarism some might say), I’m sure the old bard would have approved.

This morning, we have started the day in more English fashion with bacon sandwiches and pain chocolate to set us up for some serious sight-seeing later, which I’m sure is likely to include some kind of sumptuous lunch and perhaps an ale or two.

So, in terms of sticking to a rigid diet and exercise plan, things have gone more off course than a Prospero-induced shipwreck in the Tempest. But as this is likely to be the last holiday until the Spring, it seems only right to enjoy things before everything goes flax seed and fresh veg.

I’m also looking to source some inspiration for my own theatrical performance, coming up in Bristol in November. As part of the St Paul’s Players, I get to play a pompous, bigoted, gently corrupt barrister, a QC no less, in David Hare’s Murmuring Judges.

It is a great play and I’ve been a big fan of Hare’s work ever since being younger and more angry about the world than perhaps I am now. One of my favourite Hare plays is Skylight, which I saw while at university starring Bill Nighy, before he became the global megastar he is now.

It’s a simple piece centring around the complicated love lives of a restaurant owner and his lover, which I remember mostly took place in a kitchen while somebody made a Bolognese sauce. It may be telling that the food is the thing that I remember mostly, but actually I loved it for the fantastic performances, vibrant dialogue and sense of place, seeing as at the time I was in London myself and aspired to that kind of lifestyle. (It was a couple of years afterwards that I fell in love with Bristol instead).

So, for that reason and a few others, I’m really looking forward to our production and I get to have enormous fun playing out all those latent prejudices that I’m acquiring as I get older in any case, mainly due to an unhealthy addiction the Mail Online.

Performances of Murmuring Judges are November 15, 16 and 17, at St Paul’s Church, Southville.

For ticket info, go to: www.spptheatrecompany.org.uk

Running and stuff

Pic caption: Running the London Marathon in 2010 was a great day, post-race recovery, not so great.

For the first time since I hobbled home after completing my first London Marathon in 2010, I am feeling excited about training to do it all over again - this time in Edinburgh.
Running the marathon in 2010 was one of the most uplifting, life-affirming moments of my life, when I conquered not only 26.2 miles but several demons along the way.
Afterwards, it was shite.
I never wanted to think about running again, hated the thought of poncing around in lycra shorts and the idea of begging my friends and online acquaintances for hard-earned cash was unbearable.
It is a universal truth, according to me and Marc Cooper, that once you have achieved that impossible task, whether running a marathon, or cycling from Bristol to London, or fathoming a self-assessment tax form, doing it again is actually twice as hard.
Or as those multi-championship winning football managers will tell you, winning the league once is one thing, defending the title is a whole other challenge.
Anyway, for those reasons and many others, mainly involving cake, real ales and a general aversion to stretching anything other than my waistline, running anything more strenuous than a virus scan on my laptop has been out of the question.
But, rather like the memory of childbirth, (I'm told) the pain has receded far enough for me to forget what a particularly stupid and unnatural thing running 26 miles really is, and I'm back in the saddle/running shoes and looking forward to taking on Edinburgh next year.
I do quite enjoy the challenge, and I kind of wish I could say that I deliberately piled on four stone since the last marathon in order to make it all worth doing again, but really, that was mostly down to the aforementioned cake and beer.
Over the past few weeks I have been back into running and today managed just over 3.5 miles up and down the picturesque River Avon Trail. Only 23 or so to go.

So, aside from wanting to get back into a whole wardrobe of natty M&S shirts and suits that haven't seen the light since the last Labour government, I have also been personally motivated this year to raise money for cancer charities.
Both myself and Amy, my long-suffering other half, have lost family members down the years, and 2012 has seen good friends and loved ones also lost too young.
I am looking to raise £1000 to be split between Cancer Research UK and Bristol charity St Peter's Hospice.
I wish I could do more, I wish I was a brilliant research scientist or a gifted surgeon, but as those career paths (as well as any others half way useful) are closed, I can do something else, like run a marathon. And you can help me, by supporting my effort in any way you can.

I am fundraising through Virgin Money, as all the donation goes to the charity, and you can find the page here: www.virginmoneygiving.com/SimonPeevers

But, in addition to the usual tales of the tribulations of training, I will also hope to offer a bit more in terms of useful information about running, what to eat, how to fit your training around a busy working schedule and asking for any tips on how to achieve all of that.

If you are taking on a similar challenge, get in touch, would be great to hear about your experiences too.

Breaking news...breaking news....

Okay, so, I have now entered the Edinburgh Marathon, which takes place on May 26 next year.
This is a serious attempt to take on the greatest challenge in long distance running, following what I felt was a successful run in London two years ago.
But also, we have lost too many good people recently to cancer, and I am looking to raise as much as I can for the charities which work so hard to care for those living with the disease.

More updates to follow soon, as well as fundraising stuff, but also trying to think of ways to make this more interesting than every other running blog out there, suggestions welcome!