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Archive for May, 2012

I was recently told that my banter had plumbed to hitherto unknown depths of mediocrity. I replied explaining that I had, in fact, once had such good banter that I was a league of my own, but I got relegated. My mate, agreed – to the Vauxhall Conference League. Ouch.

I think that pretty sums up this week’s endeavours in the gym. I have been to the ‘box’ as those in the know call it (it’s still a gym to me, though) 5 times since Sunday, and have had some quite good results, breaking Personal Bests or PBs as ‘crossfitters’ (making up words left, right, and centre here) call them.

The first was smashing a Clean by 15kg – that was Sunday. This bought much cheer, and made the transition into getting back in the ring easier after two weeks off.

Monday welcomed in a decent enough WoD (of Workout of the Day – something that is an integral part of each gym session), and I was quite happy with my times. The weight session had been focused on the Overhead Squat, something that I am not so good at, so I made a bit of progress there too – not a PB, but certainly not a waste of time, either!

As with success, so comes failure, and I failed at reaching a previous PB of 150kg in the Deadlift on Tuesday. This is quite agonising as you know you can do it, and yet also know that you can no longer lift the same weight. I was pretty bummed as I’d reckoned on PB-ing it as well.

Wednesday saw the Romanian Deadlift, but with a strict 3 reps of 10 sets, so there wasn’t much scope for a PB there. However, we also worked on the Press and I got my PB up to 59kg – again, agonisingly close to 60kg, which would have been a far nicer number for completeness’ sake, but I’m more than happy with this as I have been trying to get above my previous PB of 56.5kg for over a month now, and I sailed through!

Thursday, I was pretty tired not having been to the gym for a while now, and so took the day off. This was pretty cool and allowed me to focus on some work (professional) that I needed to finish up. It also provided a bit of scope and distance, and I figured that perhaps I was a bit fatigued, as I wasn’t quite recuperating as fast as I normally do.

And finally, this morning. I was psyched to be there (7am), however it shortly became apart that I was in a grouchy non-competitive, non-energised mood. Which sucked. Big. Time. I am not usually like that as a person, and don’t like to feel that way. That being said I had a good enough result with the Power Press - getting a PB of 72kg (with a bit left in the tank). By the time the WoD came around I was toast and made it through it begrudgingly and in a woeful time.

I guess that’s the nature of the beast, though, and I’ll focus next week on getting out of the relegation zone, and back to the Premiership. But for now, I’ll leave you with the Dude’s compadre, “Sometimes you eat the bar, and, much obliged, sometime the bar, well, she eats you

*part of the title may have no bearing on actual events.

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My wife is currently working in Vienna, Austria, at the NPT PrepCom for a project called ‘Reaching Critical Will‘. This has nothing to do with me or my ersatz ‘bamboobike’, and it means that I am also in beautiful Vienna looking after our daughter.

I hadn’t realised I had got my mojo back until earlier this past week, when I went out for a run. In terms of distance and time it was relatively ‘short’ at 50 minutes and around 9-10km. This is nothing like as long as the insane long-runs I’d been doing pre-marathon last year, nor as long as a random 21km I did the other week, but it was one of those monumental runs where everything just falls into place:

Light, airy steps, quick fore/mid-foot falls, and felt like I could go all day.

So after about half an hour, I decided to up the ante and mix-in some fartleks: 30, 60, 90, 120, 120, 90, 60, and 30 seconds with 60 second jogging ‘breaks’ in between them. Since then I have run two half hour negative splits – first time I have tried this, but a really good way to stay focused for a fast finish.

Culminating in today: fastest 5km ever,  25:15.3!

I put this down in large part to Crossfit, a fitness regime that I started in February. Furthermore, this is reawakening my competitive spirit, and I have found myself, running notwithstanding, doing series of skipping (1000 yesterday), push-ups (100 today, 80 the day before), sit-ups (50), and squats (50).

Orwell said, “Sport is war minus the shooting.” In running and in Crossfit, as in life, and indeed in every individual endeavour,  there is only one person who you actually have to beat: and it ain’t the person in front of you.

It has taken me years to appreciate this: if Orwell is right, then I am fighting myself. The battle is uphill, and I am coming back stronger.

Reaching Critical Will

Reaching Critical Will (RCW) is a project of Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF), the oldest women’s peace organization in the world. WILPF was founded in April 1915, in The Hague, Netherlands, by some 1300 women from Europe and North America, from countries at war against each other and neutral ones, who came together in a Congress of Women to protest the killing and destruction of the war then raging in Europe.

WILPF created Reaching Critical Will in 1999 in order to promote and facilitate engagement of non-governmental actors in UN processes related to disarmament. The project was designed to increase the quality and quantity of civil society preparation and participation in UN disarmament processes and of NGO interaction with governments and the United Nations; to provide timely and accurate reporting on all relevant conferences and initiatives so that those unable to attend can stay informed, and to maintain a comprehensive online archive of all statements, resolutions, and other primary documents on disarmament.

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