Something that needed urgent attention if I was going to finish the 2013 Moonwalk was my feet. Twenty six point two mile walks take their toll not to mention the countless miles of training walks that come before. Feet are much neglected things. We stuff them in socks and shoes when we get dressed in the morning and then forget about them unless they cause us pain. Then again that could be just me. Anyhow, part of the Moonwalk master plan included a bit of foot pampering.
13 November 2012
Last night I watched I’m A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here. Hardly intellectual viewing I know. I’m not a fan of reality TV but I have to admit I’m quite partial to I’m A Celebrity. It was interesting to hear David Hay say he normally eats five thousand calories a day and then say “it’s not that much.” My calorie allowance, without any exercise calories is one thousand two hundred, I can’t begin to imagine how I’d eat five thousand, not even in chocolate. There aren’t enough hours in the day. When I was at my fattest I don’t think I ate anywhere near that much, mind you, I never counted them so who knows?
The Z list celebs in the Australian jungle all appear to be living on rice and beans at the moment so I’d imagine there’s going to be some rather large weight losses going on unless they start winning some challenges and earning real food, if you can call the rewards they get that. Maybe they should combine the show with Biggest Loser and have a group of obese people in the jungle working for their food. I might even sign up for that, as long as I didn’t have to eat any kangaroo testicles or witchetty grubs. Come to think of it I’m not all that keen on creepy crawlies so maybe not.
While I was watching I began operation foot care. I have to admit I tend to neglect my feet and, if I expect them to hold up through another Moonwalk, I suppose it’s about time I made more of an effort to look after them. Last time I had some horrendous blisters, at one point I even had a blood blister under the toenail on my big toe, that hurt like hell I can tell you. These days I have blister plasters in my bag at all times and I wear proper double skinned walking socks so I’m hoping I won’t have too much trouble with them. My feet are a mess though, I won’t go into detail or I might put you off your dinner, but I’m trying to remember to moisturise them properly every day and I cut my toenails last night. They still had the remains of some nail varnish that was on there when I was walking on the beach in Agadir back in August which goes to show how much attention they normally get. I guess it’s about time I lavished some loving care on them, I expect a lot out of them after all.
My right shoulder was a bit achy when I woke up this morning. Maybe I went a bit mad with the star jumps yesterday, It been a while since I’ve done that workout and I did really push it. I’ll have to keep an eye on that. Last autumn I had a car accident and ended up with whiplash in my right shoulder and neck. It took several months for it to heal, I was off work for six weeks and had months of physiotherapy and pain. The physio warned me it would always be a weak point, hence the concern about a little shoulder pain today. Whiplash is one of those injuries that has people rolling their eyes and sniggering because everyone thinks its an excuse for an insurance claim. Having experienced the real thing I can tell you it’s no laughing matter. The money I got in compensation was nowhere near worth all the pain and suffering believe me.
Today’s Moonwalk training plan was forty minutes walking at 70%, meaning a fast walk, pushing myself a bit but not to exhaustion (that would be 90/100%). As I was working today that was a doddle. The walk to work is between thirty five and forty minutes and I usually walk home again at the end of the day too. To make sure I got the full forty minutes in in one walk (which I’m figuring is what I’m supposed to do) I tried to take a slightly longer route. Ironically it took me ages to find the shortest route to work and now I was looking for longer ones. Still, all the accidental ‘long cuts’ I found when I was looking for short cuts came in handy. Before I reached the Big Bridge I turned off the road and walked along beside the river which added a bit of distance and I took the longer route through the estate for good measure. Even so, because of the pace, I still ended up outside the office with five minutes to spare so I walked round the block. Lucky it wasn’t raining really, although it was a dismal morning.
One of the Cruise Directors was in the office today, along with another member of the crew. Both of them had birthdays this week and both birthdays were big ones, you know the kind, the ones with a big fat zero on the end. It was good to meet them as I’ve spoken to them on the phone and had quite a lot of email contact but not so good when a cake was produced. It was a chocolate cake too. I did try to get out of eating any, honestly I did, but they wouldn’t take no for an answer. Somehow I managed to keep it to one small slice.
Thankfully the shoulder pain seems to have eased over the course of the day so fingers crossed it will be back to normal by tomorrow. By this afternoon I’d more or less forgotten about it until I went to the photocopier to copy some expenses claims and receipts. While the ancient photocopier warmed up I had a good stretch and that seemed to do the trick. The photocopier is right by the window and there was a glorious sunset tonight. It was so good I had to dash back to my desk for my iPhone to take some photos. There was quite a bit of copying to do so I got a good few shots in as the sky changed. There are some advantages to working right at the top of the building.
Just as I was winding down ready to go home my phone rang. My first thought was, “oh no, I’m going to get caught on a long call and be late leaving.” That is a throw back to the Mad House days where every night it was fingers crossed you wouldn’t get a call at two minutes to eight and be stuck on it for ages. We all developed strategies to avoid those at all costs I can tell you, but they didn’t always work. I’ve lost count of the times I’ve tried to drag a call out an extra few minutes just so the clock would tick over to eight o’clock and I wouldn’t have to pick up a new one. I mean, who calls a call centre with a complicated query at two minutes to closing time anyway? You’re not going to get the best service for sure as the person on the phone just wants to get rid of you and catch their bus.
Anyway, it turned out it was Commando calling to say he’d been to the train station to pick up my tickets for Saturday and, as it was almost five thirty he was parked outside to give me a lift home. Bless his heart, even if it did mean lost exercise calories. Do I sound obsessed with exercise calories? Don’t answer that, I know I am.
My father used to have to stand on a cement floor all day so he used to soak his feet quite a lot.
Feet are far more important than we give them credit for.