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Jogger's Log |
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January 2015 2015-01-02 10:52:35 Friday morning... I woke up quite early this morning and decided it is the start of a new year. I went for a walk of about 10km over the fields and down by the river. A bit muddy, but nice. I also started a short daily exercise programme which I used to do every morning years ago. It's a graduated programme and since I'm just starting again I started at the very easiest level. Even that felt quite strange. I'm really very un-used to that kind of exercise. Anyway, the plan is to take some exercise every day, at least some in the morning, but if I don't have time then later in the day. I'll aim for a half hour at least either walking or jogging or cycling. I could say I'll definitely do a certain distance, but that's counter-productive I think. The main thing is to do some every day. It might be nice to document the distances so I can monitor progress, but only after-the-fact. Planning a certain distance every day will tend to make me procrastinate and rebel. 2015-01-04 03:19:59 Saturday night... A 10km bike ride at 2:30am in the freezing fog doesn't sound fun, but it was really nice. It turns out the freezing fog sparkles beautifully in the bike's headlights. Tiny ice crystals suspended in the air. My beard became drenched, as did the bike. I've been doing some work on this bike and it's riding quite nicely now. I replaced the bottom bracket and crankset/chainset a few days ago. This evening I centred the chainring so as to be able to cinch up the chain so there's very little slack but also no tight spots. The rear hub and internal gears are not the smoothest, and the whole hub really needs stripping down and re-building, but I'm inclined to just build a new rear wheel for the bike, and use that while the original wheel is being operated on. As Gerome K Gerome wrote in 1900 in 'Three Men on a Bummel'... "There are two ways you can get exercise out of a bicycle: you can "overhaul" it, or you can ride it. [...] The mistake some people make is in thinking they can get both forms of sport out of the same machine. This is impossible; no machine will stand the double strain." |