Up and down. :|| And maybe...
Sunday, 27. November 2005, 15:13:02
(The last bit is an ascii-art representation of a musical repeat sign. I guess there is acutally the real thing in Unicode, but I couldn't find it yet (I was pretty lazy about searching for it, I admit).
North Carolina is far enough south that the weather is like a Melbourne autumn. It's sunny - not snowy like Montreal was when I flew over it. And where I am there is a wellness centre (what I grew up calling a 'gym'). Lots of treadmills for people who can't get enough of the rat-race and feel they want to spend some time running to nowhere. And bicycles that go nowhere. And skiing machines. Thre are masses of ways of doing things that people did for decades or millenia as transport, but now you don't move - you watch television and feel virtuous about the expensive machine that is helping you pretend you get out sometimes.
They also have a swimming pool. Apart from crossing the odd river, or other small waterway, swimming isn't really a means of getting somewhere else that is generally useful - since I don't live on islands or otherwise surounded by water. Maybe that's why I am happy swimming laps, while I get bored out of my brain running, let alone running on a treadmill.
The pool is 25 yards long. I never thought before what an inconvenient size that is, if you're swimming to some stupid target. Which I am - 50km by Christmas was the goal, and when I started on it it seemed pretty unikely. A few weeks later, it seemed positively ludicrous.
Yesterday I got into the 25 yard pool. As I puddled up and down, I started calculating what distances couldd be measured out in multiples of 25 yards. It turns out there are not many. If you take the approximation that 110 yards is 100 metres, then you cn do 22 laps for 500 meters. There aren't even fractions of a mile that make sense - you can do 1760 laps for 25 english miles, and I guess you can do 5 english miles, but that's a long way. And a lot of turning around. Norwegians have a metric mile, based on their old mile (which is like a country mile). It is 10km. So a fraction of that is easier. So far in my quest, I haven't accumulated one of them yet.
But I did manage to do 3200m - two english miles (and a margin for error). So I'm down to 42.6 left. If I swim today and tomorrow like that, the target suddenly seems possible. Now where's that widget for betting on me, Arve or the 50....
North Carolina is far enough south that the weather is like a Melbourne autumn. It's sunny - not snowy like Montreal was when I flew over it. And where I am there is a wellness centre (what I grew up calling a 'gym'). Lots of treadmills for people who can't get enough of the rat-race and feel they want to spend some time running to nowhere. And bicycles that go nowhere. And skiing machines. Thre are masses of ways of doing things that people did for decades or millenia as transport, but now you don't move - you watch television and feel virtuous about the expensive machine that is helping you pretend you get out sometimes.
They also have a swimming pool. Apart from crossing the odd river, or other small waterway, swimming isn't really a means of getting somewhere else that is generally useful - since I don't live on islands or otherwise surounded by water. Maybe that's why I am happy swimming laps, while I get bored out of my brain running, let alone running on a treadmill.
The pool is 25 yards long. I never thought before what an inconvenient size that is, if you're swimming to some stupid target. Which I am - 50km by Christmas was the goal, and when I started on it it seemed pretty unikely. A few weeks later, it seemed positively ludicrous.
Yesterday I got into the 25 yard pool. As I puddled up and down, I started calculating what distances couldd be measured out in multiples of 25 yards. It turns out there are not many. If you take the approximation that 110 yards is 100 metres, then you cn do 22 laps for 500 meters. There aren't even fractions of a mile that make sense - you can do 1760 laps for 25 english miles, and I guess you can do 5 english miles, but that's a long way. And a lot of turning around. Norwegians have a metric mile, based on their old mile (which is like a country mile). It is 10km. So a fraction of that is easier. So far in my quest, I haven't accumulated one of them yet.
But I did manage to do 3200m - two english miles (and a margin for error). So I'm down to 42.6 left. If I swim today and tomorrow like that, the target suddenly seems possible. Now where's that widget for betting on me, Arve or the 50....
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And what is surprising is that I felt batter the day after yesterday than I did before I started swimming. I wonder how I will feel tomorrow.
By chaals, # 28. November 2005, 00:36:43
I've found that I can remain interested if I get out and about for a walk. Even going through the same streets around my home, I still get to see different things each time. Plus, I get barked at by the same bored pooch
By cheshrkat, # 28. November 2005, 01:30:46