Blogging: Good For Your Health
I’ve never been very good at sport. I’ve tried Judo, Karate, swimming and T’ai Chi and given up very soon afterwards. My football-playing nickname was Talentino because I had none. I was the kid that got picked before the last kid for a football game (that’s soccer to the rest of you). I was the penultimate sporting failure.
I hated games (or physical education or physical training or whatever you call it) at school. I have vague memories of horrifyingly cold, damp afternoons being forced to run distances my legs could not carry me and my wheezing lungs could not cope with. I still can’t believe that teachers actually made me attempt high jump, long jump, discus and javelin! I have no co-ordination. I am not a good dancer.
I am moderately good at chess and slightly better at Scrabble; I scored 110 points in one move yesterday playing the word flaxseed for a BINGO across a triple word score. I have learned, somehow, to throw a Frisbee. My sporting prowess ends there. Or it would have done if I hadn’t joined the gym…and started this blog.
I joined the gym when I arrived in New York two years ago as a counterpoint to the fact that I would be quitting my 15-year heavy smoking habit. For an unathletic asthmatic I was a champion smoker. In the days when I smoked cigarettes by the pack I could chomp through 20 Benson and Hedges in less than a day. When I moved on to rolling tobacco I was smoking a 12.5 gram bag a day. To do that you have to smoke more than you don’t smoke.
So here I was in New York. Jobless. And there was no way I was letting my then girlfriend (now wife) pay for my habit. So I quit. And I joined the gym. Since then I have lost, gained and lost something in the region of eight pounds. Not much. I have considerably fewer chins than I used to have but still more than you will see on Broadway billboards or the cover of magazines. It’s my mini, unremarkable victory.
What is remarkable though is that in the past year I have started to enjoy going to the gym a few times a week to mull over story ideas or to forget about writing completely. I usually run for ten minutes and then workout in the weights room for half an hour.
Last night, in anticipation of today’s calorific Thanksgiving feast, I decided to skip the weights and concentrate on cardio, starting with a little run. So I hopped onto the treadmill, I pushed the button for the 5km track, gave myself a slight incline, and I ran.
At six minutes I noticed that I was not out of breath and that my legs felt fine. At around 12 minutes I was still in pretty good condition; I noticed that at my current speed I was less than half way around the course. At 18 minutes I was approaching the longest time I had ever run on a machine and I started to think “what if you ran around the whole bloody track?” I remembered all of those cross country runs at school that I could never finish and I thought, “I might just be able to do this…and when I get home, I can blog about it.”
Yes, dear readers, knowing that I would be able to blog about it the following day pushed me on for the next 14 minutes to an EiNY record. I ran five kilometers—three puny miles—that most fit people probably run three or four times a week. The last six minutes were hell but I did it in just under 32 minutes. And it felt good!
Now on with Thanksgiving! On with the turkey and potatoes with huge dollops of mayonnaise! On with the wine and the beer and the chocolate! Bring it on!
Thanksgiving Links:
Clive Davis provides Christopher Hitchens’ take on Thanksgiving.
How not to cook a Thanksgiv-ing tur-key in a deep fat tur-key fry-er. (Via boingboing)
Blogging, sport, the Gym
The vision of those little stumpy legs trotting along at a medium pace, like a human hamster in the wheel, filled me with a warmth rarely encountered.
If my memory serves me correctly, Talentino used to occasionally make his way onto the Rugby League stage down the Rec on Friday afternoons. The most memorable of moments being that cheeky little sidestep to burst through the gap, only to collide with ‘Mugger Myers’ who subsequently dumped you to the floor snapping your collarbone in the process. A sparkling career extinguished in its infancy. But sports loss is Blogging gain… although it must take a natural strength and physical ability to carry those ears around!
Happy Thanksgiving EiNY. And congrats on your awesome run. Good for you! I’m one of the runners/anti-gym people I guess. I find it hard to work out on a machine but find it much easier to run outside. Thank goodness for Central Park. And I quit the bad habit recently myself-so far so good.
I celebrated Turkey Day yesterday because I had to work today (like the show, news must go on…) and I too woke up and was compelled to run in an act of weight-gain prevention. After exercising you don’t feel so guilty after eatin that extra slab of mashers and stuffing. I only feel slightly guilty:)
The vision of those little stumpy legs trotting along at pace, like a human hamster in the wheel, filled me with a warmth rarely encountered.
If my memory serves me correctly, Talentino used to occasionally make his way onto the Rugby League stage down the Rec on Friday afternoons. The most memorable of moments being that cheeky little sidestep to burst through the gap, only to collide with ‘Mugger Myers’ who subsequently dumped you to the floor snapping your collarbone in the process. A sparkling career extinguished in its infancy. But sport’s loss is Blogging’s gain… although it must take a natural strength and physical ability to carry those ears around!
Nice run, Paul! Would you believe I also had a blogworthy workout, except mine was fueled by a lowercase?! Greetings from VINElAND!
Pavvers, of course I wanted to write something clever in response to your other post below on The Guardian and Ms. Bunting and being an immigrant (or son thereof) to Britain. But I’m too old, and hung over, and as I sit here with a fag on the go, I thought I’d comment on your sporting prowess instead.
So many revelations in one post. You stealth asthmatic. I never knew we had that in common. But Pavvers, you were a top footballer in Petrozavodsk. You happily took part in those Russia v the West (I was going to say England, but I think there were probably a German and a Swede on the team) internationals. Only I was exempt from playing, on grounds of homosexuality, and I sat with the girls on the sidelines, doing the Russian equivalent of cheerleading (we probably cried and said how bad football was for the soul). And haven’t you inherited the rugby gene? In any case, well done for being an ex-smoking gym fiend, and glad you had a good bash on Thursday.
[…] Since EiNY appears to be veering towards the realm of personal confessions this week I might as well add that my sporting inability is easily matched by my musical incompetence. I failed miserably at mastering the violin, the keyboard and the recorder. My singing sucks. I trust my ear so little that I often ask people around me whether the singer I am listening to is good or not, although rather than straight out asking I generally use a tactically placed question mark such as “she’s quite good, isn’t she?” or “is it me, or is he slightly off?” […]
Well, well, well…now that you’ve discovered that you’re not completely allergic to all sport, how about finally joining us down at the Uncoordinated pitch sometime, eh? Come for the frozen footie, stay for the beer.
Hehe. I’d love to but we leave for Europe on Saturday for three weeks! Do you play in Jan/Feb?
[…] I normally wouldn’t post a personal gripe on a conservative blog, but since my friend and site proprietor, PD Berger (as Paul now prefers to be addressed), has written his share of intimate confessions here, I figured he wouldn’t mind if I do the same. […]
“…I think there is a world market for maybe five computers…” - Thomas Watson, chairman of IBM, 1943.
LoL !