West Sussex By Bike!

Last Friday, after a tough day training people I decided I would embark on my first big training run.

I also thought it would be an awesome opportunity to practice a bit of night riding! So at nine O’clock I put on my whitest T-Shirt (safety!) and cellotaped my back light to the Eagle before setting off home.

By “home” I am refferring to my parents house in deepest West Sussex, 85km from London. I had never done the trip before so I had the trusted atlas of the UK in the ruck sack, along with a bike pump and some vegetables and Organic mince (No sugar!) I also had my brother’s ipod with three hours of Ricky Gervais Podcasts on it (featuring Carl Pilkington)!

As I set off I was revelling in the feeling of adventure. I knew where I wanted to go but I really wasn’t sure how to get there or how long it would take. Along the way I saw drunks coming out of pubs, chatted with a tramp in horsham, saw sleeping cows in west sussex and cycled right by a horrific car crash. All this to a Ricky Gervais Soundtrack!

But what a journey! How great it was to cover ground at the speed that nature intended, enjoying the journey as much as the desination, although I will admit my butt was very happy to get to the destination when I arrived at 2am!

Having completed the journey I certainly felt a sense of achievement and slight fear as to the amount of cycling we will be doing on the tour (Five times this much) . Oh well…..Bristol this weekend.

Running Wild

Me and the Eagle!

As part of my commitment to “Green Fitness” I make it a priority to train outside in nature at every opportunity I can.

Last saturday during a run round Richmond Park I can explain why this is so cool. The sun wqas shining, I could see people from all walks of life relaxing and enjoying there day and 15 minutes into the run I ran into a herd of young stags! I think that is what they were, anyway they had antlers!

Now this is something you just don’t get with a treadmill! I urge you to use your training for sightseeing and getting in touch with nature as much as possible.

Life is surely too short to be stuck on a treadmill just passing time.

Wish I had my damn Camera!

Television is good for you!

Over the weekend I was feeling slightly exhausted on my Sunday, having decided to RIDE to an east London House party over the weekend, and then RIDE back.

In theory this sounded fine however it ended up with me beginning my 1 hour journey home at 4:30am! (This will be awesome training for the sleep deprevation side of the main event)

Anyway, so I am finding taking action towards my goals somewhat difficult on the Sunday. I don’t want to sleep but I am feeling to irritable and tired to do anything constructive. Now what promotes constructive action???

Inspiration or Desperation.

 Now where can I find these! Ahh the TV! Now I don’t normally watch that much TV but I was opting out somewhat and was past caring, (yes it’s true) and then I was struck by some awesome Inspiration!

On one channel there was the Volvo round the World Yacht Race, and the other the London Triathlon! Bingo! I was suddenly all focused again!

I had a really productive day in the end, all thanks to the TV!

More food Required!

Spoke to the local papers today and they all seemed interested which is good. Will go national next week! Many of them are going to be taking the ten day sugar challenge as well, I’ll put the details on this Blog for you all as well.

 Ran another ten miles to Richmond Park today. The run itself is fine but I really feel as though I need to eat a lot more food! I have been eating my normal amount of food but found myself needing more and more food. I normally eat about three and a half meals a day plus snacks but this is definately going to have to go up to four and a half and possibly five!

I could be spending upwards of 90 mins a day cooking! Oh well here goes! 

(I am actually really getting into my cooking as I am doing this so it isn’t a bad thing)

The Starfish Appeal At King’s Hospital London

Today things started to move properly. I cycled to Camberwell in london and visited Paul Munroe who is in charge of fundraising for the refurbishment of the new liver transplant ward at King’s Hospital. After a 90 minute cylcle I arrived, sweaty!, but Paul was awesome and showed me the reason why we are going to be doing this thing.

When we arrived in the current ward it really did take my breath away. King’s hospital has established itself as the No 1 place in the world for a child to have a liver transplant yet they have only a make shift ward and are REALLY Cramped.

It was really tough to see families obvioulsly going through a seriously traumatic time with their children and not even having there own room to deal with it all. The ward is cramped and once a child has had their transplant they have to be moved to another ward miles away from intensive care because of a shortage of beds.

 Paul explained to me that the money we would be raiseing would enable the ward to be reorganised so that the beds could be closer together and families could have more space and a better envirnment to look after their children.

King’s is now the No 1 hospital in the world for liver transplants, and families come from all over the world to be here, yet the ward really is cramped messy and according to the nurses tough to work in.

The star fish appeal is funding a refurbishment of the ward to help bring it up to the standards of the 21st century. It may not sound like much but space and more beds do save lives. Seeing these poor children, who through no fault of their own, are fighting for their lives is awful. Seeing their families cramped conditions is nearly worse.

The starfish appeal really can help this amazing ward maintain it’s amazing work and help give these children the very best chances of survival.

This is where it begins!

Finding the time to train…

At the moment I am doing about two hours training a day and to be honest, one of the hardest elements of this is finding two free hours in the day. I realised this was going to be an issue and have bought a couple of books on the subject. The First one was, “Getting things done” By David Allen. Awesome!

Among the tips I have picked up from this book are the , set up data buckets for you to collect all the loads of information you have in your life. My data buckets are my paper intray, my email inbox, my answerphone and my task list. I empty these buckets three times a day at set times and for the rest of the day I ignore them and concentrate on what I am suppose to be doing.

This way I have a clear head and can actually get things done. I have found I have more downtime this way and can actually get my two hours a day for training. It does require a degree of discipline to NOT answer your email and text messages every two seconds but it is definaltely the most effecient way for me to get everything in during the day.

BTW Trioed Bikram Yoga yesterday. A form of Yoga carried out in  haeated room to aid flexibility and deep cleansing. Muggins, that’s me, was the last one in the room so I ended up positioned directly under the air conditioner. The hottest place in the room. Awesome for stretching out lower backs and hamstrings however an hour and a half was quite a marathon, especially in that heat.

 If you are looking for a good rest day activity I reccomend it highly. 

Training in your Zone

Completed another 1km swim in the morning and then left my running and resistance training to the evening. I am currently adopting Stu MItleman’s technique of training within a heart rate zone rather than against the clock.

This method is certainly less demanding than my previous sessions and I am leaving the session far more energised than before. Today I worked in the MAP (moderate aerobic Pace) zone 114 bpm – 124 bpm for 30 minutes before doing two sets of resistance work from my own release sequence exercises.

I feel this way I am less likley to Burn out and am actually enjoying the training so much more! For more information on this method read Stu mittleman’s book reviewed by me here…  (go to book reviews)     http://www.theurbanvitalitycompany.co.uk/blog/

Welcome!

Just a quick note to say a massive welcome to my own Personal Health Blog – Physical Wisdom.

As many of you may know I run a Health and Fitness company that advocates the latest techniques and skills in achieving optimum health in todays busy world. Like much of my competitiors I advocate a number of advanced ideas on movement stress management and nutrition in order to help my clients to get more from their lives and bodies.

However unlike some of my competitors I believe that living and breathing what I preach about it integral to what I do. Therefore I will record my own health and wellness battles here in order to show you what can be achieved with honest application of the FORCE and TBI.

In order to make it all a bit more exciting I have entered two hugely demanding physical events this year, the brighton triathlon and the snowdonia marathon in order to see how effective my philosophies are!

If I am talking a load of BS you will know by my performance in those two events!

However, this blog isn’t just a road test for my theories about health and wellness. They get tested enough by my clients! This Blog is really about inspiring you to push your selves further and get more out of your lives so that you can give more to others.

“You can have anything you want inlife as long as you help enough people get what they want”