Chartsengrafs

Hello there,

Time seems to be flying by this week and I don't seem to have done a great deal.

So today I've decided to think and blog about my goal to "Become a runner".

I use an excellent website called Fetcheveryone, where you can enter every run you do and say how well it went, how tired you were, what shoes you were wearing etc. This is perfect for me as I have a love of graphs and tables. I used to get my graph fix from monitoring my peak flow and Fev-1 score (to determine how my lungs were doing), but then my gadget broke and it didn't seem as fun on an old-fashioned meter. As soon as I started running I was on Microsoft Excel, writing things like, "Distance - 0.91miles, Time - 14 minutes 33" :-)

So, today I had a look at this beautiful graph (above) that very cleverly and usefully charts how much running you have done since the beginning of time. It all began in 2007 with gay abandon (the big red lines) before getting ill over christmas. Then another spurt before a miserable year of pneumonia and aspergillus and pseudomonas. 2009 was plagued with problems at work and an operation on my sinuses, and the result of all these setbacks is a very uneven graph. But I'm rather proud to note that the light blue lines are looking good. I have had my most successful January, February and March, in terms of distance run. But take a look at April. And May. And I guess June is also looking pretty sorry for itself. I'm a logical person but there's a niggling fear that there's a catastrophe just around the corner, readying itself to leap into my life and destroy my lofty ambitions. I know it's ridiculous. 2007 I hadn't started running yet, 2008 I was incredibly ill, and 2009 I had blood coming out of my nose. There is no reason why next month will be bad. No reason at all.

So, today I had a little think about where to go from here to make sure I don't bugger things up. Now Sport Relief is over and the pressure is off, I'm going to have another go at the 8 week 5k plan. I tried it in 2008 but it was just too depressing to have to keep going back to week 1 every time I got ill. As of next month, I will have been infection-free for a whole year, and this seems a perfect time to try again.

The Schedule

• Week 1 Run one min, walk 90 seconds. Repeat eight times. Do three times a week.
• Week 2 Run two mins, walk one min. Repeat seven times. Do three times a week.
• Week 3 Run three mins walk one mins. Repeat six times. Do three times a week.
• Week 4 Run five mins, walk two mins. Repeat four times. Do three times a week.
• Week 5 Run eight mins, walk two mins. Repeat three times. Do three times a week.
• Week 6 Run 12 mins, walk one min. Repeat three times. Do three times a week.
• Week 7 Run 15 mins, walk one min, Run fifteen mins. Do three times a week
• Week 8 Run 30 mins continuously

I'm ignoring week 1, as I think 3 years of running should have just about prepared me for that one. :-)

Today I attempted Run 2/walk 1. I started with 5 minutes of walking to warm up and then I did R2/W1 until I reached the 32 minute mark, when I ran the rest of the way to the 3 mile marker. That's 9 2-min runs and about 4 mins running at the end, with a "sprint" finish. I know that's more than they recommend, but I'm a very slow runner and there's no way I will ever cover 5k in 30 minutes. It was my fastest ever 3 mile at 36 mins 32 secs. And my body doesn't feel like it's going to crumble, which is a good sign after months of pain in my joints.

So a good start I think and hopefully I can repeat this a few more times before moving on to run3/walk1.

In other TYSIC news, I booked tickets to see Quasi this week. I can count the number of gigs I have been to on one hand, as I am a massive ball of anxiety about them. It's mostly the travelling to and from that worries me, but also the density of people that will no doubt have contact with me. Luckily for me, I have the best boyfriend in the world, and on the rare occasions that I simply have to go to a gig, he comes along regardless of how much he hates the band/singer. I've been a massive Quasi fan since I was about 15 and I simply had to go.

So that's 2 gigs in May booked. I also signed up for the MP3 challenge, which (if I'm correct in how this will work) will mean meeting two complete strangers and travelling. There is no way in a million years that I would have ever considered this a month ago.

And on the Ulysses front, I have read the first 3 chapters, but need to re-read chapter 3 about 8 times before I'll be able to write about it on the Ulysses blog.

That was a long post.

Cheerio! Amy. xxx

Everything beautiful is far away: Ulysses

This blog is made especially for my reading of Ulysses so I can keep returning to it to ask questions and ponder.

I have so far read the first two chapters, and was beginning to think, "What was all the fuss about?". But then I reached chapter three and remembered why I found it hard to read last time. :-)

Essentially, my problem is that I'm not well-read enough to understand 95% of the allusions. I know who Iago is and I have a vague understanding of the potato famine (from a TV drama with the McGann brothers that I saw when I was about 7), but otherwise, I'm lost.

Thankfully, my edition of Ulysses (the library's edition to be exact) has explanatory notes, and after a few confused minutes, I now understand how to use them. They include the greek myths (or is it Roman?) that go with the chapter titles, and more usefully, have an explanation for almost every obscure reference. By obscure, I mean obscure to me. I'm sure Stephen Fry wouldn't have a problem. I'm also reading with a dictionary next to me.

So, let's sum up the first two chapters, as I understand them.

Chapter One

We meet Buck Mulligan and Stephen Dedalus, who are living together in Martello Tower. Buck is quite loud and domineering, whereas Stephen seems quiter. Stephen has recently lost his mother, and feels a certain amount of guilt for not praying by her side as she was dying. This isn't helped by Buck. Haines is also staying. He is an Englishman who can speak Irish, which very few Irish people can do. He makes lots of noise at night, which displeases Stephen. They eat breakfast and a lady comes with some milk. Then Buck and Haines go for a swim and Stephen goes to work.

Chapter Two

Stephen is teaching a class of boys about the Pyrrhic victory. I was interested to discover that a "Pyrrhic Victory" is one where the winning side loses so much in the process that it may as well be a defeat. The boys go out to play sport and Stephen goes to get his pay packet from Mr Deasy. It turns out Stephen owes a lot of money. Mr Deasy asks him to try to get a letter published in a newspaper as Stephen knows some editors. Mr Deasy isn't a very pleasant character and wrongly makes statements about Ireland and Jews.

I'm sure I've missed out some central theme that's glaringly obvious. This is in no way a critique of the novel, I'm just hoping that by writing down what I remember, I will understand the book better. I've read the first few lines of chapter three and it's a tricky one because it's a stream of consciousness but hopefully my trusty notes will help.

Huzzah!

Today was an excellent day TYSIC-wise and life-wise.

I made progress in two of my categories.

First up was the Sport Relief 3 miles. The weather was perfect. Blue skies, sunshine and a light breeze. I started to feel incredibly nervous when we got there and saw the route, which looked about 10 miles long. But then 4 of my friends turned up to support me, bearing sponsorship and lots of positive words!

As 1pm approached we (me, my Mum, my sister and my boyfriend) made our way to the start line and tried not to be sick with fear. My Mum and I had decided to run together so we started steady as dozens of people whizzed past. Halfway round the track some people were already stopping to walk but we carried on. We soon latched on to a man with two kids, who seemed to be running at our pace. The original plan was to run a minute, walk a minute, but we felt okay so did loads of running. After the first mile I was feeling tired in my legs but okay. After the second my lungs decided to give me trouble but we kept going. Our tiny pacemakers gave up at 2 miles and left their dad to continue alone! Fortunately, a 7 year old boy appeared and we couldn't let him beat us! We struggled on, doing much more walking on this lap and my lungs were screaming by now. The stewards were great, shouting encouragement, and as we approached the stadium I started my sprint finish, and a small child stopped right in front of me! After dodging her, and tweaking a muscle in the process, I managed my sprint to the end. I received a shiny medal, a bottle of water and a goody bag.

My target was to finish in 40 minutes and I did it in 37 minutes 50 seconds! My boyfriend almost lapped me, at 10 minutes faster, but it was nice seeing him leaving for his last lap as we were just approaching. :-)

I'm pretty chuffed, if a little sore, and even more determined now to enter a 5k parkrun. Ideally, I want to be able to run the whole 5k (regardless of speed) before I enter, but there are two vertical hills so a few walks would be okay.

My only concern is that my lungs still hurt! 8 hours later! I guess the poor things aren't used to running outside.

So, to the next bit of progress...

In my goody bag was a single prune. I've never eaten a prune for obvious reasons. They look horrible. I'm not sure I've ever really eaten a plum (I may have nibbled one) so I had no idea how it would taste. But my boyfriend encouraged me to eat it and I did! Tentatively to begin with, but then I ate the last quarter in one. It tasted okay, but the leathery skin was a bit odd. Apparently 3 prunes is one portion of fruit, so maybe in the future I will attempt to eat more.

To top it all off, it's my boyfriend's birthday so I got to eat cake and chocolates for dinner. :-) I guess I'm still working on the runner's diet.

I'm here today and expected to stay on and on and on, I'm tired, I'm tired.

Hello there!

With 3 days to go until the Sport Relief run, I am ill. Not so ill that I can take time off work, but ill enough that when I drag myself home again all I want to do is sleep. I'm horrendously tired.

Now I've got that disclaimer out of the way (i.e. please don't judge any spelling errors or hideously poor phrasing - it's not my fault, I'm poorly and tired), I'm going to go through my four main goals and see what progress has been made.

Become a "Responsible Adult"

Although I haven't been able to actually do anything for this yet, I have been planning. I've discussed with my Mum how much she can comfortably lend us towards a house and tried to work out how quickly we'll be able to repay her. I have looked on auto trader to see how much cars are and just how ugly I'm willing to go to get a cheap price. I've also found a few websites with tips on how to check second-hand cars are okay and not stolen.

Become a runner

A big part of running for me is keeping my lungs as healthy as possible. I went to the North West Lung Centre on Monday for a check up and got very good news. My lung function has gone up slightly from last time, which means it has been improving for a whole year. I've also managed to avoid chest infections for a whole year, which is amazing when I think of the year before when I was ill about 50% of the time. I'm slightly concerned that I have a chesty cough at the moment but I'll wait and see how it progresses.

This morning I felt knackered but I knew that today was my last opportunity to run before the day of the race (where I'll be running 3 miles). So I put my eenie weenie teenie weenie running top on (that may as well have the words "Look at my fat belly" written across it) and my Asda shorts and I got on the treadmill. This may sound bizarre, but I've discovered that I can run for much longer when I imagine there's someone with me. Over the past few weeks I have found that Rich Fulcher works best. :-) He's very loud and he makes me laugh and it turns out he's an excellent running coach. So I got through 2.5 miles with lots of walking but did manage 5 minutes of running at one point.

Do Things that Scare me

If we count different cheeses as different foods, I have tried 5 new foods since the challenge began - way more than I had planned. This morning I ate a pear. Pears look a bit more rotten and dirty than shiny apples, so I've always been a bit put off by them, but my Mum loves them so I thought they can't be that bad. The texture was odd, a bit like a peach (which freak me out for being so hairy) but the taste wasn't too dissimilar to an apple. I ate most of it anyway, as I was starving after running.

Other than food, I haven't done many scary things. I've been pondering going to a stand-up comedy gig as I've never been to one before. I used to argue (with myself) that it was a bad idea because laughter brings on coughing, which brings on phlegm, which makes people disgusted. But seeing as my lungs have been behaving so well recently, that's very unlikely to happen. And I know that Mark is slightly anxious (but still optimistic) about his shows not selling, so I'm pondering going to see Mark's gig. I'm not sure where I'll be living yet though. I'll look at the dates anyway - that's a start.

Strive to Learn

Well, I've read 3 of the books on my list since the challenge started and technically I've read a non-fiction, but it was Rich Fulcher's "Tiny Acts of Rebellion", which never set out to teach anyone anything. :-) Yesterday, my mammoth copy of Ulysses arrived, and after perusing the explanatory notes, I realised that I don't understand what the hell they're going on about, so I may ignore them. I think I'll do a separate blog for Ulysses, so I can keep commenting on chapters and get help when I'm stuck. It seems funny to be "stuck" on a book at the age of 25. I don't think I've ever been stuck before, not even as a kid.

TV wise, I seem to be fixated on parenting programmes. 'Really' seems to have bought up lots so I tend to turn to channel 267 most days. I've also been watching 'One born every minute', which is harrowing. I'm not planning on giving birth unless adoption fails but I'd like to be there for my sister in the future and hopefully I won't faint or be sick.


So, some progress but could do better. This weekend falls into the running category and the fear category. I have never run 3 miles outside. Apparently it will be raining and windy, and there may well be people I know there. I need to stop being so negative and cheer the hell up. :-)

And in non-TYSIC related news, I put pink streaks in my hair to match my purple dress that I'm wearing for my sister's wedding. Clearly I wash my hair too often because it's fading too quickly and is very unlikely to last until April 1st. I like it though. Even if it does make me look 15.

Big Cheese Challenge results

Okay, so it turns out flooding isn't the best approach for trying to like food. It was probably the least fun few minutes I have had in a long while. This picture is the ridiculously optimistic amount of cheese I had hoped to eat. Cathedral City, Grana Padano and Crumbly Lancashire.

The challenge started off badly because I was all ready for it and then people came home who don't know about my eating problems, let alone the challenge, and they started saying, "Why don't you have it with crackers?" and giving me funny looks. So I had to take my plate upstairs.


So, Cathedral City. I honestly thought this would be okay as I have eaten it melted so many times. I was wrong! Believe it or not, the picture on the left is two bites. Admittedly small, but two bites nonetheless. The taste was atrocious and my anxiety about eating the other two shot up.









My boyfriend kindly recommended that I leave the Grana Padano until last, because it's like parmesan and strong. But looking at this crumbly monstrosity my heart was beating ten to the dozen and my stomach was preparing to throw it back up before it was even in my hand. So, I picked up a small amount and put it in my mouth, and it was horrible, as I expected, but no worse than the last. I managed two small fingerfuls.





So, time for the last one and my boyfriend's advice was making me think this was a bad idea. I got a Penguin (chocolate bar, not animal) ready next to me. I closed my eyes, and took the tiniest nibble (as you can see) and attempted to chew. About 2 seconds later the retching began and that Penguin was unwrapped very quickly.





So, in summary, I ate three cheeses, and I kept them down. It's unlikely that any adjudicator would count the last one as a "big boy bite", but I hadn't realised just how strong it would taste. I'm feeling pretty disappointed as I genuinely thought that I would taste it and realise how silly I had been, but I guess it doesn't work that way. The next step is to do what Ricky Gervais did. He once said in an interview that he started with a tiny bit of cheese on a ritz cracker and built up from there. Probably wiser. I shouldn't be too sad though. This morning I ate a whole bowl of porridge with syrup and I almost enjoyed it, then I finished reading "As I Lay Dying" from my list, and then a few hours later I went for a run outside, which I rarely do, and didn't have any pain at all. I can't expect 25 years of dodgy thoughts about food to just vanish because I want them to and I should be pleased that I'm at least trying to vanquish them.

So there's my pitiful entry for this week's little challenge. :-)

Big Cheese Challenge

Yesterday Mark Watson posted this:

Who can do the best/most spectacular/most difficult/weirdest thing in pursuit of their TYSIC, and post some sort of proof of it (picture, video, emailed copy of prison bail certificate etc), by next Wednesday?

And although I have no delusions that I would ever do the best, most or weirdest anything, I thought I should at least make the effort to do something I wasn't planning on doing. Hence, the Big Cheese Challenge.

I was going to work on cheese next month, but why wait? I was also going to use a gradual exposure approach, but instead I will be going for the flooding method.

Now, eating cheese may not sound difficult, and if I were to tell you that I eat cooked cheese regularly, it may sound even easier. But, as far as I can recall, I have never put a piece of uncooked cheese in my mouth. It's crazy I know, but even the thought of there being a tiny bit of cheese in a sandwich sends shivers down my spine. It's inconvenient and it's embarrassing and it's just stupid.

So, this weekend I shall eat cheese. But not only that, I shall attempt to eat 3 types of cheese (the three we have in the fridge at the moment).
1. Cathedral City Lighter - I eat this melted on toast or in omelettes all of the time so I'm thinking this will be easiest
2. A hard italian cheese - this looks a lot scarier
3. A crumbly cheese - short of goat's cheese, this is terrifying. I won't even eat this melted and disguised.

The idea is to have a "big boy bite" (as heard on The House of Tiny Tearaways" of each, and keep it in my stomach. As for documenting, I guess I'll have to take photos.


In other TYSIC news, I finished reading Graham Greene's The Heart of the Matter. I really enjoyed it and found the main character Scobie very interesting. Wilson was also funny to read about, like a little child acting grown up.
I've made a start on William Faulkner's As I Lay Dying and I have ordered Ulysses (again), which I will be attempting to read for the second time with a little help. :-)

Jumping hurdles

Hello there!

It is ridiculously glorious outside and I'm feeling similar inside. :-)

Last night I had an idea. I watch loads of tv programmes about raising children so I should know every trick in the book to get children to eat. I thought, well maybe it would work for me. So I told myself that dinner last night was going to be a bowl of porridge. If I didn't eat it, I wouldn't get anything else and if I ate it all I could have a chocolate chip brioche.

Admittedly, it was about 20% sugar, and it took a very long time, but I ate the whole bowl! I had a few moments where I had to breathe slowly to stop myself feeling sick and I still haven't got over the texture, but I was pretty chuffed that I ate it all. The plan is to try again at the weekend but with syrup instead of sugar, and if I still don't like it I can officially say I have tried.

Riding high on my achievement, I watched Eddie Izzard running his marathons last night and I was so impressed. This morning I got on my treadmill and did something I've never done before. Usually, I run for a minute, walk for a minute and so on. This gives my faulty lungs time to recover. I have in the past run a whole mile without stopping, but never any more than that. But this morning I had Eddie Izzard in my mind and I decided to just keep going. After a 5 minute warm up walk, I ran a whole mile without stopping (or indeed slowing), walked for 5 minutes to recover, and ran another mile. I was out of breath but it didn't feel out of control and my legs were surprisingly okay. During the last 4 minutes of running, and the 5 minute warm down, I thought I was going to be sick, but I kept going and I was fine. I can't explain how happy this makes me feel. I have this mental block whenever I get to the one minute point and feel that I have to slow to a walk, but I smashed it today and suddenly my desire to run a proper 5k race seems a lot more possible.

I know from experience that the first run after a really great run tends to be terrible so Saturday's run is going to be outside. Outside running is really hard for me and I struggle to regulate my breathing, so there's no way I can compare the two and be disappointed.

So, two successes. But I wasn't quite ready to stop there. I had a phone call to make. And I didn't want to make it. I have a hospital appointment on Monday and I needed to phone ahead to ask the nurses to put some filters aside for my nebuliser. I've had a few bad experiences where nurses have been really rude to me and suggested that I'm a drain on the NHS so last time I didn't even bother ringing and got told off in person for not ordering. But I phoned, and it was fine, and she was nice, and the filters will be waiting for me on Monday. :-)

I am having an excellent day!

Cheerio! Amy. xxx