Too Much Swinging

I gather than both of the intrepid girls from Saturday are still feeling a bit battered this morning. In her defence, L points out that in last year’s blog I mentioned that I wasn’t exactly 100% either and was suffering with aching arms, neck, back and shoulders from too much swinging on the monkey bars. Ah happy memories. The only thing is I don’t recall either of them doing any of the monkey bars.

Rather worryingly her Sis seems to have got quite a buzz from it and she says she is definitely on for next year... L wasn’t expecting that. She vows to pump a lot more iron and find something to practice swinging on.

I dump a load of books in the recycling that have been evicted (and about time too) from Daughter’s bedroom. Quite a few seem to be school library books... hmmm, some of them seem to be five years late but I’ll drop them in at the school, as long as they don’t expect me to pay the fines for them.

No training for the dogs tonight, so we hit the park instead. It’s packed even though it’s already starting to get dark. We pass a chap who is training his woman by making her run up the hills and hop around cones. I’m obviously too soft with L. Though I’m not sure whether he’s her loving partner or just her personal trainer, or perhaps both. It’s nearly seven o’clock and he’s making her do all this in near darkness. I’m impressed and take notes for my future personal training career. He obviously wasn’t very happy with her Survival Of The Fittest time.

(Monday 11th October)

Boredom Threshold

My first customer as a personal trainer is getting impatient. Well, my only customer, L. I’ve not got her PTP (Personal Training Plan) ready yet. I will finish it today and bring it home for her tonight. The question is... just how hard do you flog your nearest and dearest...

My brief is to help her take around 4-5 minutes off her 10k time. This means getting her to run at the required pace. So I’m starting her off running a km on the treadmill at this speed, then gradually getting her to increase the distance. Not that running too many km’s on a treadmill is desirable or even possible. The boredom threshold for treadmill running is very low.

In addition I’m trying to get her to do 5k bike sessions at a higher power level (getting technical now) than she’s used to, to strength her legs. Each week I hope to check progress with a timed km stretch on the road, to see how close we are. When I’ve got around to measuring such a stretch.

I’m reckoning that she already has the stamina to do 10k at the required pace, she just needs to acquire that pace... I reckon I can do it... and hopefully not fall out with my client. Particularly as she’s paying in kind.

Training is cancelled again. Yet I still go round to my father’s as pre-arranged, though was supposed to be after training. Its a sneaky way of letting someone else stand out in the rain and exercise the dogs.

(Tuesday 13th July)

Mr Consistent

It’s Son’s last A Level exam today. Then he’s a free man, until mid October. The holidays just seem to get longer. He’s also mega confident. He reckons if he doesn’t turn up to the exam he’ll get an overall C but if he turns up and puts his name on the form he’ll get a B. Hopefully if answers a question or two then he might get an A?

It’s the third of the four Grand Prix runs tonight and I notice on the results that I’m in 25th place overall after the first two races. Not bad.

L complains that she meant to bring a sports drink to work but forgot. Blimey, that’s taking it a bit seriously. She says her personal trainer's a tough cookie. Who’s that then? Me? Although she has been talking of two timing me with a more qualified model, a real personal trainer.

I’m on the bus and I notice at the bus station they’ve now put messages on the information screens telling you where to queue. This is after the managers complained that people weren’t queuing in the right place. So the screens now spend half their time telling you what to do rather than giving out bus times. Not that the bus times are right anyway. The screens are not linked to the live bus times service that tracks actual progress of the bus and are currently merely showing the scheduled timetable. This, and not where to queue, should be priority number one to be sorted out. We know the majority of this information is available because a lot of the bus stops in Derby (the Trent Barton ones) and all the stops in Nottingham already show live times.



L gets home with a box of biscuits that were a freebie from work. They'll be coming to me then. Yep. She hands them over. I’m required to save her from herself again and before she does something stupid with them post-race.

Race three, Wollaton Park and a mere 5k. It goes well. After we find the start that is, we both forget that last year they moved it to a different part of the park. It also means we get a good warm-up as we have to leg it to the start.

As ever this is a fast race. A lot of people see this as a sprint all the way from the start to the finish line. My times for the first two kilometres, both around 3:35, suggest I might even be one of them. The second half though is harder as the course gets hillier and is therefore slower. My sub-4 minute times become over 4 minute ones. It’s still a good pace though and my time at the finish is my fastest here, in four attempts, by ten seconds. After finishing in the same position at the first two races, tonight I’m one place higher. Mr Consistent.

It’s Enough To Make You Want To Retire

I run in. 4.4 miles. It goes surprisingly well and my new shoes are growing on me. It’s also a change to rehearse the Delays, yep them again tonight.

Yesterday Mo Farah set a new British 10k road race record at the Bupa London 10k. 27 minutes and 44 seconds. Ouch. The world record by the way is 43 seconds under that and the track record even quicker at 26 minutes 17 seconds. It’s enough to make you want to retire.

I’ve inadvertently turned L into a sweaty mess, with the fitness programme I gave her that is. She achieved the target pace I set her on the treadmill and for 1.5k, which is over budget. I only told her to do 1k at that pace. Not sure if, as her personal trainer, I should reprimand her for that.

I also intend to give her a target for the bike. So I sent her off to find out what her usual ‘power rating’ was. The bikes give you this in watts, as well as your cadence and a resistance setting. It’s a combination of the latter two that influences your power rating.

She gives me two different ratings depending on whether she’s listening to ‘Popcorn’ (slower) or ‘Little Lion Man’ (faster). Clearly music selection is going to be the key here.

I have to rethink my strategy for running home as the Delays have announced, what turn out to be false, new stage times proclaiming they’ll be on stage at 8.45 rather than the usual 9.30. So I need to make it a fast run.

Thankfully the rain stops just before 5pm and I run the 3.3 miles to Spondon where I throw myself in front of a bus, just to stop it you understand, before hitching a lift on said bus to Bramcote. From here I run the 3.7 miles home. Amazingly I miss the rain again. The downpour arrived whilst I was safely undercover on the bus. Although I was that wet from sweat it probably didn’t matter (you probably didn’t wish to know that) and I could see the bus driver having palpitations about letting me on. I was expecting him to mutter something about Health and Safety and a no sweating rule but he didn't. He just gave me an evil look.

So that’s 11.4 miles today across three runs. Not bad and not far off the half marathon distance I’m doing at Buxton on Sunday, only I had a few breaks in between and there weren’t any hills. Although I did try and run hard up the few inclines there were to try pretend it was hilly. Don't think I fooled myself though.

We get down to the Bodega Social for 7.45, 45 minutes after the new door time of 7pm. Even this is a bit late if we want to secure a front row spot. Tonight we are ticket numbers 29 and 30 and traditionally we’re always 1 and 2 at the Social, so we’re expecting it to be busy. Who are all these interlopers? We have to be close. L’s aim isn't very good, so she doesn't want to have to throw her undergarments too far. Of course, she could just throw them at me rather than at Greg Gilbert. I’ll be the one stood next to her.

The doors to the Bodega Social are locked and there’s a mini queue of other folk who’d also heard about the new start time. Misinformation obviously and from an official source as well. We abort and head to Broadway for a pint, returning later.

Tonight’s support is Nottingham’s Amber Herd, last seen supporting That Petrol Emotion. I remember it well. They were a right mishmash of sounds as I recall but tonight they seem more sorted, more consistent in their music style. Probably because they appear to have dropped the keyboards tonight. Their new single ‘Red Gold’ sounds good to me as does a later track ‘Days Like These’ with singer Neil Beards sounding as if he’s got his Mick Jagger voice on at times.



By now there’s a healthy crowd inside the Social, all waiting for the Delay’s to take the stage, which they do at 9.30... so what was all the fuss about stage times...

As a band they are always entertaining, always alluring and always a good target for hurling underwear at (so I’m told), if you’re near enough. It also appears that they have now learnt a thing or two about how to hook an audience. Their first three tracks tonight arrive in an almighty hurry with little or no chat and they all go for the jugular. ‘Lost in a Melody’, ‘This Town's Religion’ and ‘Friends are False’ make a lively trio. The latter, tellingly being the only track tonight from their last album, 2008’s patchy ‘Everything’s The Rush’.

This threesome, combined with Greg Gilbert’s boundless energy and enthusiasm, ensures the crowd are well won over before they hit us with the first newbie. Even that’s not that new. ‘Find a Home’ has been out as a free download and features the Clangers on back vocals. Honestly! Just listen to that intro.



All the old faves are there of course, ‘Nearer than Heaven’, ‘Wanderlust’, ‘Long Time Coming’, with Greg’s voice on top form, as well as other tasters from their forthcoming fourth album, ‘Star Tiger Star Ariel’, in the form of the guitar driven ‘Lost Estate’, ‘In Brilliant Sunshine’ sung brilliantly by Aaron and the new single ‘Unsung’. Then Greg’s back to leaping around the stage again as ‘Panic Attacks’ ignites the venue.



It’s good to see a different oldie thrown in as 'Bedroom Scene' from 'Faded Seaside Glamour' makes an appearance but things get even more obscure as requests come from the floor. We seem to have a knowledgeable crowd tonight, who are shouting out for obscure album tracks that I’m not familiar with. Please stop it. That’s exactly the sort of annoying thing that I’d do. What’s even more annoying is that no band ever takes the blindest bit of notice when I do it but tonight Greg Gilbert actually takes on board the suggestions and steps up to the plate, adding an acoustic excerpt from 'You Wear The Sun' to the set list before the closing ‘Valentine’.

Then for the encore I’m hoping for ‘Hey Girl’, which apparently they’ve resurrected recently and been playing a lot but some other clever sod in the audience wants something more unfamiliar and of course, gets it. Greg apologises for barely being able to remember the words, or so he says, before obliging the fan and performing acoustic duties again for the requested ‘Overlover’. Can't complain, I do love an obscure oldie.



Then we’re back on familiar territory to close, with a lively ‘You and Me’. As always the Delays can be relied up on to put on a good show and tonight was no exception.