I’ve been in Leeds all day. Playing around in a data centre, configuring switches and firewalls. As happy as a pig in muck.

There’s very little to report. Drive there, drive back. I suppose that it’s noteworthy that I was able to get back in time to get the children from after school club. Leeds feels like a long drive from here – two hours. I still love the place, even though everywhere I look it seems different. Blocks of apartments everywhere, I’ve no idea if they’re occupied. I’m told that the city is awash with unsold apartments, which would be a shame.

This morning I did 25 minutes at 6:15, before waking the children. A brisk walk uphill on the treadmill. I increased the pace to about a 10 minute km compared to the 13 minute km yesterday. This led to a heart rate closer to 150 rather than 140. It’s hard work trying to increase it further without feeling like I’ll fall backwards off the treadmill.

I was going to try and get another session in this evening, but by the time we had done Brownies, baths and bed it was 9 o’clock. So just the one walk.

On the foot front, it’s felt less tender than on other days. I’ll still wait until Friday before running on it, but it feels positive.

Garmin stats

Today I ventured onto the treadmill again, this time for a proper walk not a ten minute try-out of the foot.

I had been reading a bit about heart monitoring. While unable to run it’s tricky to get maximum rate, but I’ve got an idea of resting rate – albeit while sat at my desk and not while properly resting. So I aimed for trying to get my heart rate up to 75% max and then have a bit of a walk.

I wanted to keep the walking rate down so that I didn’t further hurt my foot while keeping the exertion up, so I set the incline on the treadmill to 10, the highest it would go.

So I kicked off at a gentle walking pace of 3mph increasing to 3.5mph when my heart rate didn’t seem to be going up terribly fast. Once up to my target rate I slowly reduced the speed to stay at the same rate. Going from 3.5mph to 2.5mph by the time I’d gone 40 minutes.

By the time I’d reached my target of 60 minutes I was close to three miles, so I carried on for another couple of minutes to make up the distance.

It felt like a proper workout. My t-shirt looked and felt like someone had thrown a bucket of water over me – so I’m feeling good about getting back into the swing of things.

Garmin stats here

Brief update today – I didn’t really have a good chunk of time today, so I was going to give the rowing machine a go again.

First up, I did five minutes brisk walking on the running machine. Just to see how my foot felt without giving it a pummelling. It seemed fine, but I thought it best to step off and move to the rowing machine.

After five minutes I was finding it a bit dull, I can’t put my finger on it, but I looked around for something else.

So I set the incline on the running machine to the highest I could without feeling that I would fall backwards and set off walking. Goodness, that was hard work. I was able to keep it up for ten minutes and then I went off to do another five minutes on the rowing machine before calling it a day.

My right foot didn’t hurt and has been fine through the day. I could feel it very slightly immediately after exercising, but nothing bad.

So my plan is to try and mix the uphill walking, rowing and cycling over the next week and then see how my foot is feeling on Friday. If I haven’t had a problem for a couple of days by then, I’ll give it a run and see how I’m feeling.

I recorded stats for the last 20 minutes at the Garmin site.

After yesterday’s apparent meltdown – brought about by endless frustrations through the day and my continued hiatus from running – I realised today that I’d been way too grumpy and way too dismissive about things and the actions of others. I’ve got friends and family who I love dearly who I should respect a little more, it seems.

Rather than dwell, I just want to thank Jude, Matthias and Lorna for their support and loveliness, along with Ivan, Helen, Bern, Phil, Phill and others on Facebook who always seem to say the right thing for a bit of motivation.

If you’d told me six months ago that I’d be really frustrated about not being able to run, and that I’d be grabbing any old gym machine to keep up the exercise – I’d laugh in your face (just before having another pint). It’s only because of the awesome support from friends that I stuck at it in the first place.

So tonight while I’m still letting my foot get better I got back onto the rowing machine. The stats say 31 minutes, but it was 35. At about 5 minutes I realised I hadn’t put talc on my hands and went to get some (you can see the dip in the stats) and then I went on for another four minutes before turning on the watch again (sheesh!) There’s a second dip at around 20 minutes, where Lily came to tell me how mean Joel was being. Despite those blips, I was able to work harder with a heart rate higher at 127 average, and burn more calories 434 compared to Wednesday’s 376.

Much better all round, methinks.

Garmin stats

Here’s some Nirvana:

Nothing of any significance to report today. I walked to the school to pick up the kids, about 4km. I feel ashamed even logging this as an activity.

It’s been a struggle to try and get anything done. We’ve had a builder around today rebuilding a wall that was damaged (fell over) during the snow this winter. It’s taken four months for the weather to be decent for wall building, apparently.

I’ve had my head down looking at a scheduling database, moved forward slightly – but not as much as I’d hoped. Trying to sort out a website – not as much done as I’d hoped. Had a router and firewall brought around, great, but that’s something for the weekend. Some work that I really don’t fancy doing has started bubbling up and I’ve also had some IPR and licensing issues with some software that I wrote a while back.

It’s been a day of talking cross purposes and misunderstandings. Frustrations and set backs. Missing old friends and long forgotten haunts. Of feeling very low and wishing things could be simpler.

Jude missed the train home, and so was late getting back home on my bike. Plans for getting out earlier in the evening were scotched. In any case, Beavers and Brownies nights are always tricky to work around. It’s not J’s fault. If my foot was better I’d have gone out for a run in the day, I needed some fresh air and something to clear my head.

Realistically, Juneathon ended for me on the 2nd when I wasn’t able to go out and run. I’ve been told as much by the organiser.

My plans for going to the gym have fallen through as well. I’ll have to ring them and cancel the appointment with the personal trainer that I had for 8am tomorrow – booked for 8 when I didn’t realise that the builder came super-early. Hopefully will get out on the bike, my diary looks clear from about 7pm tomorrow. Yay.

It’s been one of those days. It’s felt very long and very snoozy. Particularly after picking up the children at school.

Wednesdays are a whirlwind of piano lessons then Tai Kwon-Do then dinner then trying to get the children to bed. I’ve fallen asleep on at least two occasions since getting them. Today had the added fun of picking up Jude from the train station while the children were learning to kill; taking her back home and then heading back to pick the two of them up. Both a little closer to being able to break my neck with one swift kick.

Jude went out this evening for knit night – one of these knit and natter evenings (I think). So I was left to put the kids to bed. I couldn’t leave the children in bed, home alone. so I used the rowing machine again.

Thirty minutes felt like much harder work than the other evening. Average heart rate slightly lower – 115 compared to 123, although max heart rate up slightly from 139 to 142. Listened to LCD Soundsystem, which kept me going nicely.

Here’s the Drunk Girls video:

I went to the hospital this morning to have my foot checked out. The local minor injuries unit rather than the local A&E. I couldn’t really justify going to A&E given that non-participation in Juneathon didn’t seem like a reasonable emergency.

The nurse was lovely, poked and prodded my foot and then sent me for an x-ray. After reviewing the resulting images it was clear that there wasn’t a fracture and there wasn’t anything more serious than a soft issue injury. I was told – very sternly – that I mustn’t run until it was better, but that it should only be seven to ten days. This seems to be the best possible outcome. Well, not having hurt my foot in the first place would be the very best, but it’s the next best thing.

Later this morning my cycling helmet arrived. It seems tiny, perched on top of my head like a flat cap, but it makes me feel safer when I’m on the bike.

So this evening I went out for a short bike ride. Cycling isn’t something that I do, so it felt difficult. Being on a bike seems to magnify every incline and decline – hurtling down declines and slowly battling up gentle inclines. Still I went around 12k in about 40 minutes. The amazing thing is that I really felt like I was pushing as fast as I could and there are still people out there who can run faster than that. That just seems incredible.

Sadly I forgot to turn on the GPS on my watch, so while there are heart stats, I didn’t capture the glory of the route and the ‘hills’. I might try the rowing again tomorrow and the cycling on Thursday. Friday I’ve got a session at Edge Hill Uni gym with a personal trainer. So my week’s exercise seems to be unfolding nicely.

The Garmin stats (for what they’re worth)

The foot was sore again when I woke up. I called the surgery and got a doctor’s appointment for this morning. Like a good boy I pottered along expecting her to tell me that it was Plantar Fasciitis, having worried about it all yesterday.

She had a prod and a poke and told me that I need to go for an x-ray. The form says to check the metatarsal. She then explained that it would take two weeks for results to come back from the hospital and if I wanted results quicker that I should head over to A&E and just sit and wait until someone x-rayed my foot. I’d find out what the problem was there and then. So that seems like a plan for tomorrow.

However, I was told very firmly that I shouldn’t run – not at all – not until we know what the problem is.

Back home I remembered that many years ago I’d bought a rowing machine and that it was probably buried somewhere in the garage. After digging through the layers of home brewing equipment I found the contraption, I brought it back into the house and cleaned it up.

So this evening I’ve tried using it again after well over 10 years. It’s only a cheap old thing, but I thought it would at least get my pulse up and feel like some exercise. I strapped on the heart monitor from the running watch, turned off the GPS and gave it a go.

Observations – well, it’s certainly hard work. I was pushing with my heels so that I didn’t hurt the bottom of my feet, which seemed to work; I certainly didn’t feel any twinges. It took a lot longer for my heart rate to pick up than when running. It took about twice as long to get up to a decent rate and I couldn’t really get it pumping.

Having said that I’m really happy simply because I got around to doing something. I did 31 minutes in total. The watch tells me that I burned 395 calories, which seems reasonable, given that I burned 441 calories when I did the 5k run on Saturday. All good stuff for what is essentially a sitting down exercise.

Tomorrow my cycling helmet arrives and I’ll try to get out on the bike. That’s if I ever get out of A&E.

Part of me really hopes that the doctor has got it wrong. I mean, what does she know? what with her many years of intensive study compared to my gut feeling? The last thing I want is some great lumpen cast on my foot just as I’m working out alternatives to running, and just a couple of weeks before Glasto.

I’ll leave you with The Gap Band – because despite my best efforts, I couldn’t get this out of my head while exercising.