The Clan of the Cave Bague

Well, I went for my “silly run” (as my wife likes to call it) this morning and feel a good bit better for it. No cigarettes since last night, but I was of course still gasping and wheezing by the end of the paltry kilometer. I did, though, manage to shave 1 minute 40 seconds off my time and not flag so much at the end, so that’s positive.

I’m doing a walk-a-bit-run-a-bit training course on the Nikeplus site, so that will hopefully help.

And here’s why. You just never know what you’re going to get from one minute to the next. See, the week ahead is going to be warm/sunny/rainy, cooler/sunny, cool/rainy, cool, warmer, much warmer and thundery. Probably all at the same time. Watching the dashboard weather gadget having a complete fit every time it updates is a thing of wonder and needs to be done by everyone.

So anyway, long-term nelefans will know that I’ve attempted to stop smoking many times. Well, it’s time to do it again, but this time with the help of my trusty ipod, a Nike+ running thingy, some science and some stats! See I’m a sucker for stats – nothing motivates me more than shaving a few seconds off my best time or adding another 1000 points to a high score. Oh, and I like graphs too.

Well, the Nike+ thingy sits in your shoe and a little wireless thing connects to your ipod. You go for a run and it records all kinds of cool stats about your pace, distance, calories burned, etc etc and there’s even a motivational voice that shouts abuse at you and tells you how near the end / near death you are.

Anyhoo, I thought I’d go for a run before stopping smoking, just so I have a baseline to work with. I didn’t expect to do great cos I can barely climb a flight of stairs without coughing and wheezing. One kilometer, I thought to myself, how hard can that be? I walk a fair bit, and 1K is nothing.

Oh yes it is something. Interestingly, my lungs and chest gave out long before my legs did, but I really struggled to do the last ten meters. But do it I did, and if you click the image at the start of this story, you can see the pace I went at.

Anyway, I’m now wheezing, spluttering, coughing and whining. A lot. After 1 measly kilometer. Let’s see if I improve after giving up smoking.

They all seem to come along at once! On the 9th of this month, my wife and I will have been married for 19 years. What a scary thought! Then, on the 12th, nelefa.org celebrates its 12th birthday! 

And they’re both remarkable events – the wedding anniversary because it’s incredible that my wife has put up with me for all that time, and the domain because it’s incredible I’ve managed to dribble so much crap on it for so long.

I’ve never been to Highland Games before (although I’ve seen them on the telly) and being in the town five miles down the road it was rude not to go. And it was completely awesome. We all basically just sat about on the grass for a couple of hours watching the larger and hairier variants of our countrymen lobbing random objects about the field. We also watched a bit of the pipe band competition – in particular, some of the junior bands were really good – playing some intricate music with multipart harmonies rather than the usual stuff you hear on Princes Street.

Surprisingly, it was also a pretty hot day weather-wise – to the extent that I managed to get myself burned. You would think, having lived in Australia, that I’d be savvy enough to plaster sun cream on, but apparently not. Anyway, brief respite from the sun was to be found in the liberally equipped beer tent!

 deKay occasionally posts a screenshot of his current desktop on his blog, just so people can see what wallpaper he’s using. Well, this is a bandwagon I’m happy to jump on, given how frequently my desktop wallpaper changes. It often has a picture of a member of my family on it, and on those occasions I won’t post, but this month it’s a nice neutral picture.

This was taken at Glencoe in the summer of 2007.