Life Things

Whew, that was a long accidental hiatus! Didn't realise how long it's been since my last blurt at the people who live in my computer. Too many Life Things have happened to me at once.  I can only handle one Life Thing at a time, and even then I need a ring binder of lists to keep me from cry laughing into a fistful of cheese.

1.  Hoose

A and I are packing our belongings, uprooting our lives and upping sticks... to the house directly behind ours.  It's actually attached to ours.  And it's literally the mirror image of the house I'm currently furiously typing away in.  

Differences: 

• It has a garden for the imaginary dog I nag A daily for.  The hours I work are too long for it to be fair on Future Dog, but it doesn't stop me from dreaming.
• You can see the sea from it! And horses. And grass. And rainbows. And... more grass!  Essentially Swansea in a nutshell. 
• It's decorated so much nicer.  Wallpaper and curtains and shit! Like what grown ups have!  I've managed to live in this shoe box for nearly four years and have successfully avoided making it look like anything other than a student hovel with a cat in it.
• The landlords are much friendlier and more relaxed.  We won't have to hide the WalterKat, devourer of human flesh (see below), and they are refreshingly supportive of Mission Get-Becky-a-Puppy.  Shame A isn't quite so on board with my desire to acquire another household fuzzy to bully into loving me.
  
  
  "Hold still while I gum you to death, human subordinate!"
   
  2. Jerb
   
   I got a new jobby!  I'll be moving from my position as a call centre lackey and going back to being and all around office bod.  Disclaimer: This is going to sound sarcastic, but bear in mind that you're reading the words of someone who gets lady boners at displays fresh new notebooks in supermarkets. Mmm.  Was going to make a joke about Back to School Season being sexy, but that would be wrong on so, so many levels.  I like stationary, not youths in education.  
   
  ...Shut up, Becky!!  God.
   
  I can't wait to get stuck back into admin! I bloody love forms and files and notepads and pens and being busy.  The job I'm in right now is plenty busy, but it's hard to avoid clock watching when you are literally sat down answering questions with very few breathers in between.  I need to be doing stuff with my hands as well as my brain, and it's in a smaller, more tight knit environment.  I miss working with a little office fambly.  Just hope my new carers (colleagues! My new colleagues!!  What is wrong with me today?!) take kindly to an eager-to-help stationary obsessive.  "Pick me, pick me!  I brought pens in eighty colours!"
   
  3.  Ow + Ew
   
  I must have a long distance race coming up, because I have a case of both man flu (complete with death rattle cough and a face that feels like it's taken a punch) and the ouchies.  I got a bit too good at running away from Zombies on Zombies! Run! And have since been shuffling like one of the undead since I resurrected my marathon training ankle/foot injury.  I have the Cardiff Half Marathon to "run" next week, and have trained for it by doing next to sweet chuff all for a month.  Should be a breeze.  Pray for me.
  4. Fun
  
  
  Seen two bands (more if you count the support acts) live since you've seen me last.  I know. Cultured Woman of the World, me.  I've also discovered that I have a natural talent (for want of a better word) for beer pong, but that's another story for another time.  I don't want to go into detail.  I just wanted to segway that into my post to brag about it (suck it, Phillip!!)
  
  
  Anyway, bands:
  
  
  Foos!!!! There waaas....Royal Blood, Iggy Pop, cameo from Roger Taylor off of Queen and that bloke off of Led Zeppelin, a throne with Dave Grohl on it (!!!), Pat Smear constantly grinning like he'd been caught doing something naughty and chain smoking, Taylor Hawkins singing, two hours of dancing and screaming, "Break a Leg" merch in homage to Mr Grohl's recent "stage dive", smiles, a LONG drive home from Milton Keynes... etc etc.  No big deal, like. NBDee...
   
  Wheatus!!  This was my fourth or fifth time seeing these guys.  My sister and I couldn't get tickets to see them in Swansea and so we traveled up to Bristol to see them play on a bar/boat hybrid called Thekla (pretty cool, no?).  This was also the fourth or fifth missed opportunity I had and blew to speak to Brendan Brown (lead singer).  The band always make themselves accessible to their fans, and every single time, I chicken out of saying "Hi!" and opt for awkwardly staring anywhere but at any band member when they're nearby enough to chat to.
   
  Wheatus were the first band that I decided all by myself that I liked aged 13. First album I bought, first single, first gig (Radio One's Big Sunday in Morfa, back when Morfa was literally all fields and not shops..."Oy remember when this was aaaaall fields!").  I wore the bucket hat.  I coveted the glasses.  I recorded their telly performances on video.. Jesus wept, I'm old!  Anyways, because they basically shaped my taste in music (they have a lot to answer for.  Oof!), I experience abject panic and terror whenever I get within greeting distance of a band member.  Wussy arse.  Anyhoo, the band performed with pure joy as per usual - it's quite rare that you see a band who clearly would still be doing it if no one was paying to see them.  Maybe if I see them a few hundred more times I might grow a pair and say "sup?"  For now I shall continue to do what I do best and stalk from afar, sniffing my notebooks and window shopping on Gumtree for puppies.
  
  
  I leave you with this beauty from Gabrielle Sterbenz, who supported the band and is my new favourite person to listen to when I want to pretend I'm the star of an early noughties chick flick.  Byee!
  
  
  
  
   Gabrielle Sterbenz - The Breakup
   
  
  
   
    
  
  
  
  

Zombies, Run!

I love a bank holiday! This is my first year in a few where I've not attended Reading Festival, so I've been busily distracting myself to avoid coming down with a case of the sads.  

Le sigh.

Oh, well.  Busy month ahead of me!  Foo Fighters and Royal Blood in Milton Keynes next week (uh huh, much smug), Wheatus towards the end of the month (much love) and a 22 mile walking marathon mid September along the Gower Coast with Outcast Swansea (much...snacks? It's for Macmillan, so if you'd be so awesome as to sponsor us...?).  This weekend's come with plenty of ups and downs to keep me distracted while I've not been paying a billion pounds a pint and getting sufficiently mucky in my welly boots.  

It wouldn't be a British bank holiday without an ill advised night on the tiles.  Saturday night/the wee hours of Sunday morning were spent at Swansea Beer and Cider Festival and in my favourite sticky local Irish bar, Jack Murphy's.  All the best bars have sticky floors.  The more time I invest in my trainers, the lower my tolerance for booze plummets, so let's just say that just being within sniffing range of locally brewed (strong!) cider ensured that I ended the night as cock eyed as I began it. Believe it or not, this is the "before" shot:

 Much classy. So lady.

Sunday was meant to follow on in pretty much the same fashion at a friend's wedding do, but a stomach tantrum (seem to be getting a lot of these of late, but so far am choosing to ignore them as I suspect they stem from something delicious like cheese or bread.  No one's ever intolerant to muesli or liver are they?) meant that I had to miss out.  Plus side - no hang over today... Which meeeeans....running!

During a nine miler I attempted earlier on in the week, I decided that I hate running.  Hate. It.  It's uncomfortable.  I'm slow.  I'm bored and my butt hurts!  Whine whine blah blah.  I spent more time sulking and walking than actually running. After all the mileage I put in to get round Liverpool without my legs falling off, I've fallen fully head over heels back in love with CrossFit's short, sharp and shitty (in the best possible way!) approach, meaning that my brain's ability to endure runs upwards of an hour is now pants, and I have the Cardiff Half Marathon to get around in October.  Bollocks.

I know I'm fit enough to do half the distance I did back in June, so the problem was/is clearly all in my fragile little mind.  I needed to remind myself that I run for the enjoyment of it, not as a form of torture or simply a method of burning off some of the cake I eat.  So, I decided to turn it into a game.  Not like in Saw.  The sort of game where you still have limbs at the end.

I remembered an app that I tried on my phone when I first got it into my head that I wanted to learn how to run more than two miles in one go.  It was called Zombies, Run! and it cost me about £6 in the Apple Store (also available in Google Play). It plays out a story in which you're immersed in a post apocalyptic, zombie infested world and your job as Runner 5 is...pretty self explanatory.  You run around, automatically collecting things for your camp as you go and if you have them enabled, you occasionally enter into a zombie chase, where you have to put on a burst of speed lest you become a human jerky.  Actually, you just drop a few items and don't actually get eaten because it's  all pretend, but it bloody well got me going!  You hear the moans of the undead in your earphones, making it sound like they're close enough to give you a shoulder massage.  I don't think they want to give you a shoulder massage.

The reason I've waited so long to pick it up again is that the first time I tried it, I didn't bother to look up the instructions (which are pretty idiot proof, really).  I got so immersed in freaking myself out that I blindly ran out into traffic, terrified I that was about to be eaten.  Turns out I didn't even have chase mode enabled, so I would have succeeded my "mission" alive, even if I'd been lying down on the floor the entire time, face down in a bowl of Doritos.

I'm only a few episodes into the game, and I'm quite enjoying being the mysterious Runner 5, who has just appeared in the township and whose purpose is so mysterious that even I don't know what my own deal is yet.  I've had a crack at an interval run (one of the few different modes available outside of the story), which is made up of shorter bursts of speed, jogging and walking, and I've been using the items I've picked up on my travels to help build my little vitural town in the app when I'm not actually running.  My town has two playgrounds so far, because that's how I roll.  Now that I've figured out that you can choose roughly how often the zombies chase you (I've set it at about 5 times an hour) and how fast or slow you want the story to progress, I feel much less like I'm going to soil my pants and more like I'm actually having fun because I'm in control of the game.

...Though I still get nervous when I'm approaching an incline.  Hills may slow me down, but they apparently have no effect on the imaginary zombies' athletic ability.  Jammy buggers.

I ran seven miles today without the urge to walk.  Not even once.  It may be that I'm rediscovering the joys of running for fun thanks to this genius game.  It may be that I'm less concerned with my overall speed because I don't want to have a cardiac arrest when the next zombie chase could happen at any moment. I think I'm going to use that in future, actually.  I'm not slow.  I'm saving my energy so I can get away from the zombies when I need to.  

Happy weekend, and if you choose to have a bash at being a zombie evading badass like me, please read and listen to the instructions and stay the hell away from cars!

 

Fitbit is Life

Happy Sunday to you!  Happy Sunday to yoooo!  

I don't have any candles for you to blow out.  Maybe just blow on your fry up to cool it down if you are currently enjoying one?  If you're not, then I would like to know just what the chuff is wrong with you because Sunday is Fry Up day and your lack of greasy meats offends me.

Just kidding.  We're okay, buddy.

I'm in a good mood today, so I'm going to talk about one of my favourite things.  Data.  *Dorky snort*  As you are probably aware if you own a phone or a body (hopefully both if you are not a ghost), activity trackers are everywhere.  If you're interested, there are apps and electronic doohickies in overwhelming abundance that will happily track your every move, bite and snooze.  I'll admit that there is a creepy, Big Brother-esque undertone to the whole business, but personally I'm obsessed with having every little, insignificant thing I do tracked and fed back to me.

There are a bugger-ton of trackers on the market.  I've been into them ever since the  days of rudimentary pedometers the size of bricks that made you sound like you were dislocating your hip every time you take a step.  I even had one of the early health and fitness coach type Nintendo DS games that came with a slightly more subtle, but still pretty massive clicky-hip style step counter. 

I'm now a big, big fan of the Fitbit franchise and have been for a few years now*.  I've recently swapped my Fitbit Flex, which you wear on your wrist and sync with an app your phone for the even niftier Fitbit Charge HR.  Like the Flex, it tracks how well you sleep, steps taken, general activity levels in the day etc, but it also comes with a game changer for me - A heart rate tracker in the wristband itself.  No need to wear a stupid band around your ribs.  I suspect my Charge HR may believe that I'm dead today, as I fully intend to be as sloth-like as humanly possible.  I will move only for the Krispy Kreme I've been fantasizing about since I opened my eyes**.

I love having a fitness tracker for a bazillion reasons.  No time to name them all, so I'll just pop a few up:

•  Being able to monitor how much/little I've done gives me a feeling of control over my own well being.
• It makes my day-to-day life feel like a game I can win.  I enjoy victory.  Of course I'm going to pat myself on the back for every little thing I achieve.  You got out of a chair today, Becky?  Well done, champ!  Have a biscuit!
• I am secretly a huge narcissist, and being able to see my actions broken down into pretty graphs and charts is a whole new, geeky level of vanity. And I LOVE IT!

 I've learned a lot about myself as a Fitbit user, so I'm going to share some that knowledge with you.  Right after I've run up and down the stairs three times to raise my heart rate.

....NOW WE'RE PUMPED!  Woo!  Let's get crackalacking!

Things my Fitbit has taught me

1.  I am a terrible sleeper

I already sort of knew this.  I often wake up feeling like I've been at an all-night rave, and I have punched and elbowed A in the face on more occasions than I care to admit while I'm off partying in the land of nod.  How he doesn't look like he's gone ten rounds with Rhonda Rousey (yes.  I am comparing my sleeping self to Rhonda Rousey.  Unconscious me ain't no do nothing bitch) every morning when he goes to work is beyond me.  Am grateful that he doesn't bruise easily, and that he doesn't ever feel the need to accidentally-on-purpose return the favour while he's "sleeping."

My Fitbit tracks how well I sleep by keeping an eye on how many times I move or get up in the night.  The graphs are easily deciphered.  Dark blue equals sleep/stillness.  Light blue equals movement/disturbed sleep.  Pink equals awake.  I'm just going to leave this image here...

 
  By day I fall over my own feet.  By night, I'm a freaking gymnast.

2.  I love tracking my heart rate.

I enjoy tracking my heart rate for two main reasons.  It gives me that extra nudge to get my ticker thumping at least once a day, lest it get complacent and stop altogether.  It's also quite amusing watching the kind of stuff that sets it off outside of physical activity.  My job is a sedentary, phone based one.  More often than not, the people I speak with are nice, normal folk who are grateful for my wise, wise wisdoms.  Very occasionally, as is the case with any telephone job, you get the odd person who seemingly enjoys trawling the phone book until they find a suitable conduit for their screaming.  Each to their own.  

I like to think I'm pretty unflappable in my work.  I had one of these calls recently and decided to poke at my Fitbit and have a nose at how my innards were getting on.  It was startling.  My voice was saying "Please thankyou, yes, no, I understand", while my heart was shouting

HELP! HELP! PREDATOR! RUN AND HIDE! MAYDAY! MAYDAY!!! 

My heart is such a drama queen.

3.  I walk a LOT, even when I'm sat down.

Because I am a magician.  Actually, it's probably more to do with how much I move my hands.  Fitbits are pretty good it determining what's an actual step and what isn't, but when you talk with your hands (gesticulating.  Not with sock puppets) and fidget like someone's going to remove your fingers with pliers at any given moment, it's going to track a little extra movement.  Or in my case, a lot of extra movement.   

4.  I expect to be rewarded for everything.

Activity trackers allow you to set goals for everything from number of steps taken to number of hours slept.  It gives you a feeling of purpose. It also makes you become so accustomed to getting "well done!" messages for things like simply lying in bed for a given period of time that I now fully expect commendation for everything. 

I put socks on this morning.  Where's my damn medal??  

5.  Having stats for everything I do makes me feel like a cyborg.  

Pretty cool, no?  I don't have to wear a tin foil on my arms and a colander on my head to feel part woman, part robot.  Wearing a snazzy little plastic band with a chip in it is all I need.  Also, a tracker won't land me time in a padded cell.  Winner!

 I heart you, Fitbit (at exactly 81 beats per minute at this exact moment.  Subject to change). <3

* Not sponsored. Just obsessed.

** Still not sponsored. Just hungry. 

  

To Do or Not To Do

Writing this blog is very difficult for me.  

Not because I'm about to broach a sensitive topic.  Nor am I physically incapacitated.  Unless you count being severely creeped out by an ice cream van playing the most terrifying melody known to man (Greensleeves) on repeat as it does loops of the neighbourhood as incapacitation.  I hope that if he does try to kill me, I'll at least get a Fab lolly out of it.

My conundrum is that I've had the house to myself for the whole weekend.  A has gone to a stag do in Geordie Land (Newcastle, not a theme park where Mickey and Minnie Mouse have been replaced by Ant and Dec... But I would go to that theme park), leaving me do what I do best when I have more than a couple of hours alone:  Panic about not making the most of it by being at a perfect, unachievable combination of productive and relaxed.  To conquer the free time crazies, I wrote myself a sort of To Do list.  Because that's what cool people do:

 

This list is precisely why writing this is so difficult.  Free time plus listy thing should equal calm Becky.  Instead, two opposing trains of thought in my brain are now clashing:

• The one that wants a pat on the back and a cookie for completing said list.
• The one that thinks list is bullshit, because this is my time off, and I shouldn't have to do anything!!  Not even writing this stupid blog, because that's still doing something!!!

So...what do I do in response to my warring mental faculties?  I procrastinate of course! And I half ass more or less everything by using flawed logic to get out of it.  Thought I'd give you a lowdown of what went down on my super cool, not-at-all worrisome weekend home alone to give you an idea.  Am like Macauley Culkin (spelling?!) with boobs.  Sort of.  That's a mental image to give you nightmares, isn't it?

CrossFit
Done, dusted and kicked it in the arse!  Or I was kicked in the arse...Both?  Even went to an impromptu extra open gym session today, where they let a few of us in to play with big tyres for a while.  After several failed attempts, I managed to flip the big bugger!  So far, so good.

Long run 
To my credit, did a run.  By "long", I did have about 8 to 10 miles in mind, what with the upcoming Cardiff Half in October.  I did 6 and a bit and called it a day because there was a two mile stretch of hills at the end.  Each hill adds on an extra two miles, right?  Dubious reasoning aside, I did really enjoy this run.  I tried for the first time to keep within a comfy heart rate zone thanks to my Fitbit Charge HR, and it was blooming magical!  Didn't worry about my speed or lack thereof even once, and only needed to stop moving when I needed to avoid being squashed by cars.

Go see mum - there'll be cake
Mum's birthday yesterday.  There was cake.  There was also a doggy bag of leftover chilli and crispy bread rolls.  Happy mum's birthday to me! Also happy birthday to mum, who is likely to be sat in a foodless kitchen as we speak.  Standard protocol for one of my raids visits.

Avoid spending money
Walked in a daze around Tesco after open gym.  Wanted a sandwich, came out with coat hangers, bath salts (because I'm eighty now?) and a whole bunch of other shit that I don't need. Regretting not getting this, though:

"Yolo hair and body wash - for bathers that don't give a fuck!"

Scuse the grubby hands.  I may never wash my hands after flipping the Big Bugger (Heehee. New euphemism?)

Watch films that Andy won't

This translated as getting more pissed than anticipated on two teeny glasses of wine in front of Bridesmaids/The newer Hunger Games one and idly stroking the cat with an issue of Glamour Magazine on my lap.  Apparently when I'm home on my own, I morph into Bridget Jones.  All that's left for me to do this afternoon is get into my pyjamas (*cough* remain in my pyjamas) and lip synch ballads into what's left of my wine.  Ooh, I haven't watched Bridget Jones for a while, have I...?   

Sort out stuff for jury duty (food)

Doing jury service for the first time tomorrow.  Excited as it'll be a new experience for me, but concerned that there will not be ample feeding intervals.  Handbag apples and wads of cheese oatcakes it is, then.  Mmm, transportable food.

Clean house

Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha.... heee.  *slaps knee*

Write something fictional

Have decided that to do list is inaccurate enough to be considered a work of fiction.  Good job, Becky!  Excellent weekending!

 

In a Minute Now: Growing Up in Wales

My mother sat me down as a child and shared something with me:

"Becky, we found you in a bin and decided to keep you."

She also strapped me in my pushchair with a loaf of bread and pissed herself laughing as the ducks swarmed towards me while I screamed (I can't have been too bright a kid.  Upon reflection, I should have just lobbed the bread away from myself), but her questionable sense of humour is beside the point today.  I think she might have been right about the bin thing.

I sound nothing like any of my family members.  Dad was a moustachio'd scouser (is there any other kind?), Mum and the youngest sis have strong Welsh accents, and even the middle sis, who is only two years my junior, has a hint of a Welsh twang in there, even if it is only a subtle one.

I, however, sound like I've just come from a Victorian tea party, which prompts the question

"So...Where are you from, exactly?" or, from those more rude and/or drunk 

"You're not from around here, are you?"

The answers are Wales and yes, shut up!  I've lived here for twenty odd of my twenty seven years.  Before that, I was an army brat living in Germany, but the vast majority of my memories are here, as well as half of my family, who give me biscuits and tea when I visit so I ain't going nowhere!  I belong in this sheep strewn patch of green as much as anyone who was born here.  I loves it, I do.  I have no idea why in two decades my accent's not even remotely deviated from that of a BBC newsreader, but I'm proud to have been brought up here.  Hell, my first name even featured heavily in an infamous welsh riot masterminded by cross dressing locals (see: BBC Wales History - The Rebecca Riots) !

I love Wales' industrial history and its deep roots in art, literature and music (Dylan Thomas may have been a roaring drunk, but that bastard was a clever roaring drunk!), and I love the fact that even if you are in a city, everywhere still has that local feel.  I live in Swansea right now, and my favourite thing about it is that even though it's a city (albeit a baby one), you can always find refuge in the greenery of lakes and trails when you're out running.  Oh!  And I'm seldom further than twenty minutes from a beach!  Not bad, eh?

So..thought I'd use today's post to share with you some things I've learned growing up in South West Wales.  Here goes:

1.  The smaller the town you grow up in, the less need there is for surnames.  My hometown is called Penygroes, which translates to "top of the cross".  Probably because there are more churches than actual families there, which meant that everyone was named by their neighbours after where they worked.  Pete the Petrol Station, So-and-so the Shop.  And so on.  Don't think it works as well these days.  Becky the Call Centre doesn't quite have the same twee feel to it.  Becky the Blog does, though... Might have to pedal that one and see if it sticks.  Sounds a bit too much like "blob", though...Hmm.

2.  Rissoles are a delicious treat from the chippy, and not balls of offal in breadcrumbs (or "lips, arse and teeth" and I heard someone say not-so-inaccurately once).  So much so that my local nightclub served them alongside burgers at the end of the night.  It's been a while since I've gleefully torn into a glob of questionable "meats" at 3am.  I miss that nightclub.

3.  "Butt" is a term of endearment and not just another way for someone to call you an arse.

4.  It is an important tradition to dress your children in old timey Welsh ladies' and men's clothing once a year on St David's day.  You  might think it's cute to see your offspring in a little bonnet and pinny, but I remember what a whole day dressed in fabric made from Satan's beard felt like.  It felt itchy.  And hot.  However, I ever choose to replicate my genes, I know for a fact that I was inflict this on the poor sod too.  "Ahh, look!  You look like a tiny adult!  Stop scratching and smile for the camera - it's not that itchy!"

5.  It is also tradition on this date to eat cawl.  (Pronounced "cowl") - a watery soup made from what tastes like salty water and moist, soft vegetables. Mmmmmm.  Okay, maybe I'm not as Welsh as I'd like to be.  Can't stand the stuff.  It's like drinking armpit water with lumps in.

6.  The Welsh language is the best.  The alphabet is all kinds of fucked up.  We have all the English letters... A, B, C...etc... but this isn't good enough on its own.  How to we make an alphabet our own?  I know!  Let's throw in a handful of extra letters, to trip the foreigners up!  Here we go.  How about... A, B, C, Ch, D, Dd, E, F, Ff, G, Ng, H, I, J.... I never liked K, can we get rid of that one?  Cool...L, Ll, M... etc.  Language is much more colourful, but try and sing that one to the alphabet tune and someone might have to gently guide you to a corner and quietly sit you down with a snack so you don't strain yourself too much.

Here are some words I like:

• Pili pala (pill-lee-pah-la) - Butterfly
• Popty ping (pop-tee-ping) - Microwave
• Guto Ffowc (git-oh-folk) - Guy Fawkes (I love this one.  When I learned it, my mum, who isn't a Welsh speaker, thought I'd made it up and was just using it to say mild swear words)
• Cacen (Cack-en) - Cake (same reason as above.  "Haha, I get to say "cack" and no one can tell me off!)
• Coch (Co...spit all over everyone making a noise I can't write down phonetically) - Red

7.  There is no sense of urgency in Wales.  Everything is done "In a minute now."  So, now, then?  Or in a minute?  "I said I'd do it!  In a minute now!" 

8.  You cannot move for castles.  If you go on a school trip, you go to a castle.  Fancy a walk?  Let's go to a castle!

My house

9.  No flag can top ours.  We have a mother lovin' dragon on it.  Anyone care to claim their design is cooler than that?  Anyone else got a badass red DRAGON?  No?  Didn't think so.

10.  Wales is effing gorgeous.  This next picture is just a generic view from the area I went to comprehensive school in, taken on my phone.  In South West Wales, this kind of view is standard:

My garden

Sudden urge to go outdoors now.  No idea why.  I think I'll leave my list there and get my shoes on.  Hwyl fawr, pawb! Cymru am byth! =)

Come to the Wrong Side. We Have Cookies.

Oh my lawd.  It's the weekend.  Sort of.  I still have to work a teeny tiny pretend shift on Saturday, but I'm relieved to be seeing a chunk of leisure time on the horizon at least.  It's not been a bad week as such.  Just a never ending merry-go-round of minor, avoidable mishaps.  For about one week in every four, I'll have one of these stints where every boiling hot coffee I make ends up more on my knees than in my mouth, and I turn up to work only to realise that I've got my underwear on backwards.  Not inside out.  Backwards.  I knew I hadn't put a thong on this morning!  

Tomorrow, resident man-boy is going on a night out and I'm excited to have the house to myself.  On a Saturday night, I plan to sit in my PJ's on the sofa, (where am less likely to encounter corners and things that I can trip over) watching 500 Days of Summer despite the fact that I know it back to front.  Much like my pants.  

Realising that the above (500 Days and a night of heavenly hermitude, not wearing underwear wrong) is my idea of a glorious Saturday night surprises me.  Only two or three years ago, I would be necking JagerBombs in panic at even the idea of having to spend a weekend *gasp* indoors(!).  

People sometimes casually drop the idea of being "the wrong side of [insert age here]" into conversation, which is stupid, because how can any age be wrong unless you're terrible at counting? However, I'm recently starting to see a noticeable difference between pre and post 25 me.  I wouldn't say I'm on the "wrong" side of 25, but I'm certainly on the comfier one.  I am going to document some differences between pre and post 25 year old me, because post 25 year me likes documenting things and lists.  Excuse me while I push my invisible spectacles up my nose:

Hang Overs

Pre 25: Hits pubs at every available opportunity (i.e "night time"), soldiers on through work four hours after last "sesh" ended with a bit of a headache and maybe a slightly more intense craving for McDonalds chicken nuggets than normal.  Worth it.

Post 25:  Still suffering the after effects of one night out that happened several days ago.  No amount of burgers and milkshakes can appease her.  Hates everyone.  Is never drinking again.  Wants another milkshake.  GET HER A MILKSHAKE!

Sleep

Pre 25:  Can get by on a few hours.  Bit grumpy, but will live.

Post 25:  No one who dares cross her path after less than seven hours' sleep will live.  You have been warned.

Emotions

Pre 25:  "I HAVE SO MANY FEELINGS THAT I EVEN HAVE MULTIPLE COMPLEX FEELINGS ABOUT THE FEELINGS!!!!!

.....FEELINGS!!!!!!!!" 

Post 25:  "Something doesn't feel quite right inside.  Must be hungry."

Exercise

Pre 25:  Considers "dancing" (i.e flapping arms higher in the air to music with each drink) enough to burn off excess energy.  Also lifting heavy bricks of cheese to face is excellent weight training.  With this much calcium intake combined with all the lifting, am never going to get osteoperosis.  Hurrah!

Post 26:  Requires daily sweat-fest of some variety in order not to go ferile.  Bit like a dog.  Requires regular walkies and enjoys finding out new stuff that can accomplish with own body all the time.  Still enjoys flappy-arm drunk dancing, but not as solid a staple to exercise routine as once was.  Mostly because has to wedge feet into silly high heels to carry out activity.  Heels are silly. Wants cheese brick.  Mmm, cheese brick.

 

Example of what body can accomplish #1:  Becky prepares to lift the moon.

Self Image

Pre 25:  Is convinced that own body is betraying self by visually screaming its own flaws in poor onlookers' faces.  Spends inordinate amount of time hoping that no one notices how many things are wrong with own appearance and that dying hair a different colour every month will help to achieve this.

Post 25:  More concerned with what body can do (marathon/lift stuff over own head/open  jars to unlock gherkins and chilli peppers) than how it looks.  Occasionally disturbed, but mostly just amused at how funny looking self can be from certain angles, but would feel weird if suddenly had perfectly symmetrical features and/or massive boobies.  Wouldn't be self.  Brain no longer fights with body most of the time.  Too old for that shit.

...I'm so mature and wise now.  If I could only learn how to dress myself and not share my beverages with my lower body, I'd be a fully fledged grown up.

Now, who moved my colouring book?  I've got some serious art to tackle.  Did you know they do colouring books for adults now?!  I didn't until just this week.  Adult colouring books take the title of July's Best Discovery!

Pros & Cons of Being an Introvert

Whoops.  Been a little while since I wrote a thing, hasn't it?  My bad!  In all honesty, I've struggled to think of something to write about that doesn't involve clocking up mileage in my trainers.  In the last couple of weeks, I've gone crawling back to CrossFit (SO happy to get back to it!) and have discovered that I'm almost back at square one when it comes to upper body strength, which is fine.  Means I get to go back almost to newbie status where every minor improvement I make blows my tiny little mind.  

Miraculously, I have a Monday off work today - insert smug and gloaty comment here - so I've decided that now is the time to hop back aboard the blog train.  Choo choo!  Still struggling to think of something of actual interest to blog about, so I'm going to do the next best thing and write about myself.  When in doubt... thinly veiled narcissism!  Hurrah!!

So...me!

I am a keen devourer of anything remotely touching on psychology, especially if it has self help-esque undertones in it.  Think Bridget Jones, if she was drawn in by dubiously sourced percentages and stats.  I enjoy reading about personality types, even though I do have enough brain cells to realise that a lot of it needs to be taken with a pizza-load of salt, let alone a grain.  Said brain cells may be lying dormant, tucked somewhere behind my ears, but they are there nonetheless.  

There are a billion and twelve different categories you can fall into in the murky world of personality testing, but I'm going to touch on one of the big two - introvert and extrovert.  After much extensive reading and reflection (internetting and reading pop psychology books like the true psychologist I am), I have determined that I am the former.  Introverts aren't necessarily just quiet and/or shy.  Although on the sliding scale of social ineptitude, I often lean towards the "cat stole, devoured and pooped out your tongue" end, given the right combination of familiarity/excitement/being in comfort zone (drunk.  Being the right amount of drunk), I can be a tough one to shut up once I get going.  Where you are in terms of being an introvert or extrovert is on a spectrum, but from what I gather, introverts:

• Internalise much of what happens to them (check)
• Express themselves better in writing than verbally (check?  I haz the words good?)
• More energised by time alone than social occasions (went to a brilliant wedding this weekend, booked the Monday immediately after it off to hide in my house eating cheese toasties away from humankind.  Case in point)
• Especially chatty internal monologue (shut up, shut up, SHUT UP!!)
• Sensitive and shit.

All of the above applies to yours truly.  Now that I have decided what I am (sadly, dinosaur wasn't an option.  Or unicorn warrior princess), I must be an expert in introvert...ism(?), so I am like, totally qualified to dole out some information about what it's like to be an introvert for those who aren't or are unsure of which camp they should be pitching their tents in.  Ahem...

Pros and Cons of Being an Intovert

Heehee, I love Cyanide and Happiness.  Click here for more funnies - http://explosm.net/

Pro:  When people have decided that you're one of "the quiet ones", anything you do that isn't avoiding eye contact and hiding in the office fridge from human interaction is mightily impressive, considering how you're so shy and all.  "Oh, my God, guys, she told a joke!  Let's all laugh uproariously to show her how brave she is!"

Con:  Sometimes people don't expect you to be able to handle as much as you can i.e confrontation, responsibilities etc etc.  They are forgetting that we are prepared for every single fathomable outcome of every situation because we have already over thought them all.  Raptor attacks included.  Is chatty Bill from accounts prepared for raptor attacks?  No?  Didn't think so.

Pro:  It is so easy to entertain yourself! Days off work are gold dust.  The less I have planned, the better.  I shit you not - after a busy week at work, I like nothing better than having twenty minutes to sit alone in the living room with the TV off.  Who needs recreational drugs when you have stifling quiet, solitude and snacks?  I think that part of my affection for long distance running is that I get to spend ages just being.  It's easy to appreciate the little things in life when you get off on just being alive at any given point in time.  We're a cheap date in the long night out that is life!

Con:  Whenever an introvert is having a quiet day, it usually means that there's a full on brass band/fireworks display/Rammstein concert of an inner monologue going on in their brain.  Not necessarily always negative thoughts as such, but always, always so bloody LOUD!!  It's hard to concentrate on speaking to people when you have a voice on loop in your mind going "Oh, they think I'm being rude because I'm not talking, maybe I should say something, it's been too long since I've said something, oh, here's your opportunity to say something, oops, you missed it, I'm hungry, what time is it, what are they talking about again, look how rude I'm being, say something, not that, something else..."  On some days, I would find having the Crazy Frog song stuck in my head easier to cope with than my own inner voice.  She's a pain in the ass.

Pro:  Sometimes people assume that you've got more of the clever than you actually has because you must spend all that time alone/sat with your gob shut, thinking.  Hahaha fools!  *chews TV remote*

Con:  Small talk makes me want to set my hair on fire just so I've got something else to do.  I hate the idea of coming off as disingenuous, and strongly feel that conversations should be for:

a. learning more about each other
b. sharing opinions and information, or
c. lolz

I'm acutely aware that the purpose of small talk is to make slightly awkward situations feel less awkward to those involved.  This in itself makes me feel so uncomfortable that I'm convinced that one day, I will spontaneously combust out of discomfort and/or embarrassment when someone innocently points out that it's rainy.  At least if it's raining, I won't cause accidental arson on a large scale.

I would continue, but I have some serious pottering around the house to attend to.  It's going to be MENTAL!!  Party on, friends.  I will take less than a fortnight to write the next one, promise!

So, I Ran a Marathon...

Ran a marathon on Sunday.

No biggie.

I RAN A BLOODY MARATHON!!!! HOLY SHIT, IT ACTUALLY HAPPENED!!  

After nearly a year of boring my friends and family about injuries, mileage, food, trainers, posture, gels and that all encompassing fear of not finishing, I only went and bloody finished!  Proof? They wouldn't have given us shiny, shiny medals, a free pint and bright yellow T-shirts if we hadn't!

....I'm the one who looks like I'm on my knees on the left.  I am, in fact, stood up and, no, the marathon didn't shave a few inches off my legs.  If it had, you would be seeing only my forehead.

The last time I had that level of sick-maky fear before I did something was when I was seventeen and about to take my driving test.  I giggled, babbled, nearly wept through bouts of swearing and had to pee every two seconds.  Sunday was no different.

"HahahahaHAHAHA, what are we doing? Where is my gel belt? What if I don't finish?! HAHAHA this is so stupid! Fuckfuckshit hold my things, I have to go pee!"  

Didn't help that with each wave of nerve induced nausea I felt, my knees went a bit wobbly.  Like in a cartoon.  I kept having flash forwards of myself getting to the start line and my knees just giving out under me.  

"3, 2, 1... Nope!"  

Mercifully, that never happened, and myself and Amy (my long legged compadre from above picture) made it over both the start and finish line without incident.  I say without incident.  At one point, I jabbed myself in the eye with my own finger whilst trying to remove a fly from my face, and a small child sprayed me right in the gob with a water gun.  Oh, and I went to gleefully high five another small child on the side of the road and in the process knocked a big bag of marshmallows out of its hand... Sorry, tiny human.  I hope most of your squashy treats stayed in the bag!

The most surreal thing about the whole experience (bar the fact that we actually managed to travel 26.2 ACTUAL MILES on our own, human feet) was how it didn't suck.  At all.  I spent the whole thing waiting to hit the wall, but it never happened.  I took my time and walked when I needed to...Which was often, and I was more than fine with that.  

I firmly and comfortably (and proudly - I've learned that it takes a fair bit of grit to keep moving for that much longer than the speedsters already enjoying their pints at the finish line while you're still sweating in places you didn't know could sweat. finished at the back of the pack with the last few hundred marathoners (eek, I'm a marathoner!!).  Perhaps the trick to never hitting the wall is running behind it.  Maybe the wall has little wheels on it like a trolley, and it's pushed along by all the faster people?  Thank you, faster people for keeping the wall a safe distance away from me!

The route was lovely - dipping in and out of park lands so I got my greenery fix, and threading around ginormous, significant looking buildings that screamed "I am historically important, even though you have no idea why, uncultured swine!"  And those hills I feared for the first 8 miles?  Come on!  They were mostly gentle inclines in the end. When you grow up in Wales, your expectation of what a hill is is a little squiffy compared with others'.  Liverpool has merciful, friendly hills that don't want to see your legs shredded into a thousand tiny, hurty fibres, and for that, I am grateful to whatever deity is responsible for hills.  It's nice to have the odd incline to keep your brain from flat lining, but not so much when you feel like they're breaking the laws of physics and never actually coming back downhill.  I'm looking at you, Tenby Half Marathon!

*glare*

The finish line was awesome.  After three miles of the longest flat I have ever traversed, I somehow managed to find the energy to sprint through the resilient crowd who should have been given medals for clapping for over five hours straight, and into the Echo Arena, where I fell face first into my goody bag and pint.  

I still don't quite believe it's happened, because I'm not hurting as much as a tough CrossFit session would be hurting me, and I suspect that the two days of pizza and napping that followed the event had more to do with the Jager Bombs and wine that I happily chugged right after it.  Amy and I somehow had plenty of energy left for some Sunday night merriment (still wearing our medals, of course). I think that the slight soreness in my backside is more due to my showing off that I could still slut-drop after that kind of distance than as a result of the race.  Weird.  Adrenaline and the  musical stylings of Kesha have a curious numbing effect when combined.

The fact that I managed to do this insane thing has more to do with other people than myself.  If it weren't for the Run Like a Ninja course at Outcast Crossfit Swansea I was able to sign up to, and regular trips to Rosie the Magical Osteopath at Swansea Body Kinetics, I would never have made it to Liverpool, let alone the finish line.  Same goes for my nearest and dearest who put up with my months of blathering without once telling me to take my moaning elsewhere and take up a hobby that required less effort (despite my already having watching TV box sets, sleeping and eating in my list of passions).   If I could break off bits of my medal and chuck them at you like that bit with the tiara on Mean Girls ("A piece for Gretchen Wiener..."), I would.  But I can't.  So I'll just have to keep it for myself!

Wanna see the medal?  It's got glitter on it!

 You go, Glen Coco!

So... What the hell do I do now?!

Marathon Training Week 15/ Taper (or tapir) Time!

Morning!  

Iiiit's taper tiiiiime! Taper.  Not tapir, as I just misspelled it.  Tapirs are weird elephant-pig creatures that zoos keep in order to baffle the public.  There's something simultaneously cute and disturbing about those strange, melty faced beasts.  Kicking myself for not owning a picture of a tapir to put on here now.  Never occurred to me that I might need one.  You'll have to use a search engine of your choosing. 


Tapering, on the other hand, is reducing your mileage a couple of weeks before a big race.  I've read countless books on running marathons since I took up recreational bimbling as a hobby, hoping that I would gain the ability to run one via osmosis. In my reading, I've learned that people usually have a hard time cutting down the miles.  Probably because they've grown used to doing "what-the-fuck?!" length jaunts around their hometowns over several weeks and suddenly have to go back to sensible distances like what sane people do.

Well, I've had no problems in reducing mileage.  In fact, I think I might be a bit too good at it.  This week has been a big ole nightmare from start to finish.  On Monday, I was missing CrossFit profoundly and feeling a bit cocky (always a winning combination), so I had the not-the-idea-of-a-dumb-frick-at-all notion that I would be able to attend a WOD (work out of the day in sensible speak) that was incredibly squat-heavy, and still be okay to run for the rest of the week, despite my near total lack of prowess when it comes to weighted squats.

WRONG!!

Cue three days of the worst case of delayed muscle soreness I have ever experienced.  In normal cases where this happens to me, I am a bit of a wobbly mess when faced with a simple staircase and may have to lower myself onto the loo by placing my palms flat on the seat and wincing until I'm sat down, but this was a whole other level.  

Because of the weakness in my poor, battered pins, I teetered like a Weeble (Google it, millenials. They wobble...but they don't fall down! This is how we entertained ourselves before the internet) whenever it was required of me to just be stood up, and the basic act of walking made me look like a drunkard on a pair of the world's shortest stilts, sporting an aggressive facial twitch.  Not pretty. 

Also, I had/have a pretty nasty cold, which would have floored me even with all of my limbs functioning.  Colds are another thing that I have learned is common to experience towards the end of a marathon training plan, when your immune system finally gets a look in as your body starts to wind down. Luckily, my legs are now working, and I'm seeing the light at the end of the tunnel where I can run again without coughing my lungs out and jogging over them.  It's a sexy light, too.  Check this beauty out from one of my runs:

 

Phwoar.  Jealous much?

This morning, I had a revelation that makes me think I'm going to need a lot more underwear than normal this week.  It's dawned on me that at the time of writing this (midday-ish), at this time next week, I will be two whole hours into the Liverpool Rock 'n' Roll Marathon.  That's not even halfway for this stubborn tortoise.  I know I'm excited, but I'm having difficulty in accessing that emotion under the sudden onset mist of panic that has clouded my brain.  I feel like I'm in that part of Silent Hill where all the sirens go off and everything's going dark, and the baddie with the big cheese grater for a head is coming to get me.

I am terrified.  Terrified of two things:

1.  Not finishing

2.  Hating every second of it

Logically, I know that I won't hate every second of it.  There will be moments where I want to cry, tantrum and pray for unconsciousness, but without those moments, the elation, joy and sheer awe at just what the hell I'm doing will seem even more enhanced in comparison.  Those emotional peaks are pretty much exactly why I run, so I know I'll just have to take the bad bits with it.

It's the idea of not finishing that's sending me into a tailspin.  I can think of a billion reasons why I might not:

• Hating the experience so much that my body just sits down without my permission and refuses to get back up.
• Getting so hungry that I eat another runner and end up being arrested before I can finish.
• Taking a wrong turn and getting lost.
• Actually drowning as I forget I can't multitask and try to drink water and run at the same time.
• Suddenly morphing back into my pre-running self where running more than a few metres makes me want to keel over and immediately find consolatory ice cream.
• Falling down a man hole/tripping up/piano dropped on me from building/any other ridiculous scenario that results in me being horribly injured.
• Going so slowly that I can't finish inside the cut off time.
• Spontaneous human combustion.
• Remembering I suck at running up hills.
• Stampede of wildebeest like what happens to Mustafa in the Lion King.
• My feet fall off.
• My head falls off.
• My clothes fall off.

 I could go on for hours.  Deep, deep (DEEEEP) down, I know I have it in me to finish, because the thought of having wanged on about it for so long and then turning around and going "oh, no, I didn't do it in the end..." is about the worst thing I can imagine.  Also, after reading so much about it, I really want to have this transformative experience for myself.  I actually believe it will change how I feel about my abilities as a human in general.  I've never thought of myself as someone who could run marathons, which makes me want it a bazillion times more.  It's a club that I want to belong to!  

Still fucking nervous, though.  S'pose I could go for a run to calm myself down... Novel idea.