Angel of Death

I am become death, destroyer of worlds and runner who an old lady thinks has Covid 19
Angel of Death, Thin Lizzy (live version, 1983)
I saw Lizzy on this, their farewell tour, at my first ever concert. They were awesome.

A funny thing happened to me when I did my lunchtime run last Friday. I'd rounded the last turn at the top of Summer Lane, with about 50 m to go to the sandwich shop. I approached an elderly lady and as I drew near, she moved to the far side of the pavement and covered her nose and mouth with the collar of her fleece. I mean, if I'd been coughing like a 40-a-day docker on his first fag at 6am I could understand, but, no. I was simply running along the pavement and this woman thought I was Typhoid Mary. Maybe it was my outfit.

I don't know why the elderly lady I passed on my run seemed to get offended at me. Was it my outfit?
This is actually Typhoid Mary, John Romita Jr's original incarnation of the Marvel villain from Daredevil. Besides, who wears ripped fishnets when running? I'd be devastated if I got a hole that big in my Tikis.
Source: https://comicvine.gamespot.com/typhoid-mary/4005-1536/

Now, obviously, at the time of writing, we are still under the shadow of a global pandemic and it continues to have a major effect on pretty much every aspect of daily life, including everybody's fitness regime. Being a gym bunny, my own was stymied when the gyms shut during the first lockdown. I had also been running with my running club, but that's still in abeyance. I kind of fell out of running at the time because the government regulations stated that you could only go out for one trip a day for exercise so we were going out for family walks. Exploring the local area and its trails with my wife and son was fantastic and showed how lucky we are with these sort of places on our doorstep, but it also meant I couldn't go out running as well. This means that, given the gyms were also shut, I was limited to doing workouts online. After a few tries of the couple of Les Mills Body Combat workouts that were available for free online, I decided to take out a monthly subscription to LM Online and ended up doing Body Combat at home numerous times. I think I addressed why in a previous post, but it did the job. Over a long period of last year I saw more of the LM presenters than I did anyone outside my immedate family. They became part of my online fitness family, in fact. I particularly like Rachel Newsham, one of the directors of the Body Combat programme as she is hilarious and doesn't come out with too many vacuous cod-philosophical cliches about motivation you get trotted out by fitness professionals. Indeed I logged on to do a live class with Rach one time, though the connection was dreadful and the time was difficult also as she is based in New Zealand, but persevered because she's ace. I enjoyed the new workouts that came out every three months or so especially the United one which was made under lockdown and featured the main LM presenters surrounded by others from around the world in a Zoom collage

A still from Body combat United with Rach in the middle
You'll need a subscription https://watch.lesmillsondemand.com/browse

So summer proceeded and exercise was BC in the house, or occasionally in the garden. In actuality, I did BC all over the house. In the living room (only once, because that's where the telly is, but there's not much space), in the dining room, in the kitchen, in my boy's room. I've christened most of the rooms in my house with my sweat, not to mention the patio outside.

The dining room is my my faux-jo
As you can see, Boris Johnson visited to watch. This helped me focus some real aggression

Of course, I can't do a fitness/running blog about the Covid period and miss out the fitness phenomenon that encapsulated the first lockdown: Joe Wicks. Half the world seemed to be tuning into this Messianic, high-profile PE teacher (a world away from PE teachers when I was at school, as exemplified by Brian Glover in Kes) doing squats every morning. It was aimed at kids but adults were doing it with their crotch goblins (though some adults did it without children, which should probably have had them enrolled on some sort of register). To be fair, the workouts were actually not that bad, I discovered having tried them a couple of times until our son decided he didn't want to play. That doesn't change the fact that Workout Jesus was as annoying as hell, though. It earnt him an MBE, making him the first person ever to receive a medal for services to burpees. I'm sure his franchised health and wellness brand didn't do to badly out of the exercise as well. I'll come onto my inflammatory opinions on some personal trainers in a later post (and I know I have some PTs who read this blog, but don't worry, you're lovely and will be spared my razor-sharp wit).

PE teachers, then and now
(Brian Glover in Kes, Joe Wicks as Workout Jesus in Lockdown 2020)
Sources: https://theartsdesk.com/film/blu-ray-kes https://www.wired.co.uk/article/joe-wicks-fitness-big-tech

As lockdown proceeded, there were an increasing number of online workouts via Youtube, my LMOD posse, Teams and Zoom. I did some live online classes with some of my favourite instructors, particularly in the second lockdown and loved them, happily paying for the privilege in a lot of cases. Live classes online are actually great fun. My Saturday morning double Body Combat and Zumba was just fab. It got to a stage where I wondered how it was even possible to do an exercise class without the sound dropping out, the screen buffering or just getting plain disconnected. 

Familiar sights from online gym classes #105
Source: https://tenor.com/search/loading-gifs

Then, later last year (25th July, as it happened), the gyms were allowed to reopen for a while. As great as online classes are, they are no substitute for live classes in a studio. It was great catching up with my gym buddies and getting back into my usual routine. My Clubbercise instructor had just returned from maternity leave as well and it was fabulous to see her again and get a glowstick-illuminated sweat on. I still didn't get back into running again though as my running club was still on ice and didn't really have the motivation. Still, I managed to do these classes and not get Covid, or at least not a symptomatic form. Then they shut again as part of a short lockdown, then reopened for a couple of month, then shut in the new year (4th January), to reopen about 6 months later. It was a long time coming, but I got back to my classes early in June this year. Not that the UK government was indecisive, generally inept, or possibly criminally corrupt, heaven forbid the thought.

2+2=5 by Radiohead
Apropos to nothing in particular, least of all the last sentence of the previous paragraph

Having not taken to the roads for nigh on a year, running started again for me in January this year when I did RED January and I needed some activity to do on the odd day when I couldn't do BC. I managed to fit in a few runs for that month. I carried on into February with the fitness streak though that I only did one run. I also ran only once in March. Then in April I resolved to try and be a "runner" which is where this blog started. The rest, as nobody says or probably cares, is history.

The fact remains that we are still under the spectre of Covid 19 and are not out of the woods by any measure. If you haven't already, get the vaccine if you're able to, and don't listen to conspiracy theories. It works and will help prevent you and the people you love getting ill. It's not ging to go away anytime soon so, whatever happens, whatever the virus and the government throw at you, you can maintain a fitness regime if you're adaptable. It has felt like the end of days. Maybe the Horsemen of the Covid Apocalypse are actually Death, Famine, War and Joe Wicks because Pestilence is a little tied up with admin right now, but you can do it.

This week's activitites
My fitness routine was devastated by the football, causing me to miss not one, but two days. Given that I think I've missed no more than 10 days all year prior to this, it was quite an event and made me sad (or possibly gave me endorphin withdrawal). As usual, all activities were powered by Tikiboo

Track of the week is another opus from my current running playlist, a fantastic song by Nick Cave which is a fantastic track for running through over-grown trails at this time of year

Nature Boy by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds
I know very little about Nick Cave, apart from his duet with Kylie, because, well, she's Kylie, but this track has been played on 6 Music a lot and I just love it and it's a great running song.

Runs

Friday: (5.44 km, 423kacl,. Shoes: Asics Roadhawks) Lunchtime sandwich run. After last week's mud-fest, I stuck to my usual all-road 5km loop, freaking out the elderly lady near the end as mentioned above.

Just back from my sojourn, hence the glowing look

This made it all worthwhile

Sunday: (9.96 km, 772kcal, Shoes: Asics Roadhawks) Not quite so long run day. I'd promised my son a MaccieD's breakfast, so had to get back in time to get there before they stoped serving them. Gutted my Strava was 40m shy of 10km. Also, I used the Zombies, Run! app for the first time which I mentioned last post. It was kind of fun, but I'll cover that in a later entry.

The Calder at Horbury Bridge

A bit of canal action (or inaction, more to the point as it's so calm)

It's like a jungle sometimes it makes me wonder how I keep from going under

Post run, post MaccieD's (see coffee cup on table). Zigzag Tikiboos FTW

Other stuff

Saturday: Step Aerobics at Real Group X (45 minutes, 354 kcal)

Post-aerobics car selfie

 Saturday: Walk with Alex and his friend (2.34 km, 178kcal)

Monday: Rest day. It bugs me there's nothing on at the gym on Mondays that I want to do. I mean there is a Body Pump, but that really bores me. Didn't get a chance to do anything at home either

Tuesday: Rest/football day. There was no way I was going to be doing any exercise on the day of England v Germany in the first knock-out stage of the Euros. Ironically, I'd normally do Body Combat at the gym which is taught by a German guy

Wednesday: Body combat at Total Fitness (mixed tracks, 60 minutes, 431 kcal)

Looking sweaty post-workout

Thursday: Clubbercise at Total Fitness (45 minutes of glowstick illuminated fun, 380 kcal)

Out of shot: those lovely glowsticks.
I remembered my own this week, having forgotten them after replacing their batteries last week. Also bodged up some plastic jobbies to insert between the batteries to stop them swtiching on in my bag and running down the batteries