My partner says „well, he‘s from Saarland“ (almost France)
Sounds like a good show 
4 Likes
I went for my first couple of runs since catching Covid late last year. This was vaguely disheartening in terms of how hard I found it, but I’m treating that as simply a low bar for the improvements-to-come! I believe I’m over the effects of the virus, but at the time I caught it I’d only been working on my fitness again for a few weeks (following the months (years?) of doing far too little exercise during the pandemic), and I feel any progress I’d made has all gone in the interim.
My initial goal was “reach the plateau of the first uphill climb without having to stop”, which I promptly failed at. I managed it today after setting out at a very relaxed pace, though. I’m not sure whether to continue being more relaxed about it, or to push myself and fail until I manage to stop failing. I think I might do the former for the next couple of outings, but I’m pretty sure the latter is the best way to improve (in the past I’ve mostly tended to see improvements when pushing myself harder than I would if I didn’t have a goal).
Edit: I’ve been doing the ‘relaxed’ version so far. Tonight I’m not sure whether I set out faster or if I just had less in the tank, but it was pretty rough… I made it to the plateau without stopping, but I was “running” slower than a normal walking pace by the time I got there! I’m calling that a win to me, though.
Edit 2: Cautiously optimistic about seeing some progress. A couple of runs on from that previous one, I had my most comfortable outing thus far, such that I was able to carry on pretty much immediately from that plateau without having to stop completely to recover. I also had enough legs on the way home to push myself to run faster when I got into the final climb. A long way to go, but hopefully some good early signs!
7 Likes
Depends on what kind of fitness - If you’re going for me HIIT, then you should push yourself as hard as you can for short periods of time. If more, longer duration cardio is your goal, you’re probably best staying relaxed, going for distance and gradually increase your speed.
3 Likes
In the specific case of recovery from viral infection, pushing too hard too early can often do long-term damage. (Usual provisos apply, I’m a failed medical student who reads a lot.)
4 Likes
3-months post-Covid here and sometimes it feels like I’m a little way off from where I was at the gym.
I’ve been trying not to rush it and it’s been nice to work in some other exercises.
4 Likes
Ha, I wasn’t invited to the forked discussion but I got all the email notifications. One thing of value to share:
This is textbook behavior for insecurity/inferiority. I do think it is good to try to make the world a gentler place but, at the same time, we have to acknowledge it is not. Even if we could all be nice to each other, miscommunication and acts of nature still have a way of slamming us sideways.
Much of today’s youth has been raised in an environment that is artificially gentle, or at least aspires to be and when that aspiration fails they are peddled the falsehood that they can find perfect gentleness if they just hop one block over, metaphorically. At some point, often when you leave college, those walls come down.
So this is the point - I think a lot of these kids are (to a greater or lesser extent) terrified and (to a greater or lesser extent) ashamed. It puts all this blame, procrastination, and skulking/avoidance in a different light that might be more approachable to a manager/mentor/employer.
My 2 cents.
6 Likes
Following up on “I tried to catch a glass cup as it broke.”
Yes, it appears one piece of glass is still stuck in my knuckle.
Oops.
Word on the street is that hot compresses will bring the lump to the surface? It is small and not too painful but the digit is still stiff and there’s definitely a bolus.
9 Likes
If it helps, the good thing about glass is that it is not precisely a terrible source of infection…
Complete coincidence, back in December, I had something stuck in my heel when I was in a water park with the kids in Spain. I thought it might be a little spike from a palm tree or similar, it irritated me for a day or two, but it was just on the back edge of my heel, and after a day trying with my tweezers (unsuccessfully) I gave up, as I was not feeling hardly any discomfort. So much so, that I forgot all about it for a couple of months
Today I was scratching it as I felt that some dead skin had accumulated there, and voila, a little bit of dead skin came off as a little lump. Something in my mind went: ping!! Is it? No, it cannot be…
Indeed it was, a little capsule of less that a couple millimeters contained said spike fragment when I looked closely. The spike was still slightly brittle, and my body eventually had got rid of it.
As an old teacher of mine used to say: animals tend to heal besides the efforts of most vets. I believe I must be one of such animals…
So hopefully the same happens to your hand?? I must say, the skin there is not so thick as on the foot, but who knows…
6 Likes
Yeah - I had a bone fragment from when I shattered my wrist come out about 6 months later!
5 Likes
Reminds me of a song lyric…
hook in my leg that I lost as a kid
hook in my leg sweat it out sweat it out
hook in my leg that I lost as a kid
fish hook in my leg sweat it out sweat it out
3 Likes
Excited for World Book Day tomorrow, or, as it is now called ‘world parent feels embarrassed about lack of craft skills and buys the kids cheap disposable costumes and then feels bad about the environment day’.
The kids dress as their favourite characters from books, and tomorrow I get to go into school and read with them. Maybe I won’t bother changing out of my pyjamas and say I’m Arthur Dent.
13 Likes
Trying to be light-hearted about it but it actually frustrates me a lot, because no one actually gives a shit about which book or what, they just dress up. It’s a well-intentioned thing to promote the love of books which has instead become a hassle for parents, bad for the planet and a very long way from reading. I’m glad I get the chance to sit and read with them but I do that every day I have them anyway.
In the UK the supermarket shelves are full of book character costumes this time of year. It’s become just another thing for capitalism to feed off.
11 Likes
That is bonkers, and I am so confused by it.
3 Likes
Is that Beyonce or Beiber?
3 Likes
We managed to get most of our costumes sorted from existing stuff or charity shops. My wife has rented her costume for the first time ever.
But generally I agree, it’s another fun thing that’s been pounced on to make some money.
2 Likes
I guess I feel that if the point is to celebrate books and reading, something to do with actually reading would be cheaper for the parents and better for the kids… a visit to a library, reading a passage from your favourite book, swapping books, writing or explaining your favourite bit of it? That sort of thing.
8 Likes
Yeah, but you can’t commercialise a library visit.
(Who am I kidding, they’ll find a way)
4 Likes
As a writer, I am a weak proponent of NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) but a huge proponent of the idea of NaNoReMo (National Novel Reading Month).
I think we, as a general human race, would be far better if fewer of us thought we could write a book and everyone read more.
Which isn’t to say people shouldn’t write! They should! But the idea that “Anyone can write a novel” is lightly infuriating…
5 Likes
This always catches me out. In Spain Book Day is on the 23rd of April, due to the shared date of death (to the same year, even)for Miguel de Cervantes (Don Quijote) and William Shakespeare. I believe it coincides with St. George Day, so that may be why it hasn’t been a thing in England (and therefore, the rest of the English speaking countries).
EDIT: By the way, there’s no dressing up at all, but book fairs and authors on stands doing book signings, conferences, discounts in bookshops etc.
4 Likes