Archive for Rambling
August 14, 2008 at 10:01 pm · Filed under Rambling
Kelly Sotherton makes her bid for Olympic gold at the Heptathlon starting this Saturday. If positive thinking is anything to go by she is going to bring home the gold for team GB.
Nike interviewed Kelly about a month before the big event, nothing too unusual about that except this time she was connected to a lie detector to have her ultimate self-belief tested. Here’s the Nike promoted video, explaining the test:
Pretty convincing I think, the full test can be seen here, it’s worth watching just to see how to answer the question “do you ever hope one of your opponents chokes?”
Popularity: 51% [?]
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Tags: heptathlon, kelly sotherton, Nike, olympics
February 18, 2008 at 9:43 pm · Filed under Rambling, Running
The weekend was supposed to be slothful and despite a few forgivable false starts I am still left wondering what the heck went wrong. How could I arrive back home and find myself sitting here on my sofa with multiple athletic injuries?
I arrived at Rach’s house on Friday and was immediately forced aboard the cross trainer to build up an appetite for the evenings festivities. A whole 4 calories later the Chinese take away arrived and I was allowed to kick back and enjoy my crispy shredded beef. Later, under a drunken haze I was introduced to the Nintendo wii and challenged to a ten pin bowling showdown.
Now, I have read books on ten pin bowling so like to think of myself as a bit of a bowling rockstar, you can’t just challenge me and expect to be let off lightly. Three hours later I was still calling for a rematch and was only persuaded to lay down my plastic bowling ball for a showing of the latest L Word episode (a particularly good one I have to add!).
I was up again at dawn practising on the alleys, Rach didn’t know what had hit her. Unfortunately she still beat me so I practised more while she slept. The next morning I had perfected the technique, I could get my ball to stay out of the gutter and actually managed to topple a few skittles. This perfection came at a cost though. By this point I could barely carry the weight of my own arms, I would yell out in pain every time I sent the ball bouncing towards her tv screen and even managed to pull my left hamstring as I adopted the power crouch position. I was glad to go home for a rest!
Back at home today I planned to sneak in my long run between meetings at work, they were held 10 miles apart and I thought I could probably pull off the distance quicker if I avoided public transport. I was aware of my rather tender arm situation and knew that carrying a water bottle was off limits so packed the bladder into my backpack. Setting off on a light trot down the canal I was reminded what a gruelling weekend it had been. I had to tie my arms into my rucksac just to hold them up, my triceps and deltoids were completely shot and I would have signed myself up for a full body cast at the drop of a hat.
Just to add insult to injury or even more injury to injury, my toe nail has started to peel off again. I sellotaped it up this morning in the hopes that it would help but I think I over tightened it. Even before I started running it felt like someone had dropped a darn bowling ball on my toe, I could feel every beat of my heart pounding through my nail bed. It’s like Japanese water torture.
My long run turned into a rather lame short run with a very long walk attached and I blame Rach and that silly little console.
Popularity: 27% [?]
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Tags: back, backpack, bowling, injury, wii
January 19, 2008 at 4:23 pm · Filed under Rambling
For those folk that enjoyed the tale of the early morning wake up call by the nearly naked runner, here’s a quick update to show you that she still hasn’t learned her lesson.
I was out of the house early this morning as I was volunteering at the running (RPTT). My plan was to do a minor sweep of the neighbourhood collecting food scraps for the allotment compost bins so I rang Shakti to make sure her bin was at the front of the house as I passed. She was still sleeping and I obviously flustered her a bit. As I passed by with the trailer I found her hovering on her doorstep, wrapped in a towel and pushing on her firmly shut door.
At least she had the foresight to take a towel with her this time, you never know, she may take the house key next time. I refused to hand over my spare key til I had taken photographic evidence. It’s a tough life having a friend with a blog - no privacy.
Popularity: 22% [?]
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Tags: allotment, RPTT
August 17, 2007 at 6:43 pm · Filed under Rambling
Oh dear, I’ve been had, EatDrinkWoman tagged me the other day and although I did my best to ignore it, I now notice that Kathy got in on the act and tagged me too. Clearly no escape, I have to answer a list of questions, boring you all senseless in the process and then make folk like JogBlog and NoWetsuit Girl repeat the chore - I’m sure they’ll love it.
Jobs I’ve Held: Newspaper gal, fruit picker, sandwich maker, factory worker, care assistant, packer, merchandiser, van driver, supply chain assistant, SBO analyst, SBO manager, data analyst, web master, personal tutor, management accountant. A little eclectic selection of jobs many of which all of which have been carried out between studies. So in addition I’ve been a medical student, a chemistry undegrad and a postgrad astrochemist.
Movies I Can Watch Over & Over: None, I can’t imagine anything more torturous than watching a film I’ve already seen. I might come back to this though, there is perhaps something I’d be prepared to watch again. I’ve been to see the musical Blood Brothers 3 times if that counts?
My Guilty Pleasures: Gadgets and Stella, and for a very guilty pleasure I might combine gadgets, stella and a box set of the L Word - joy for a week!
Places I have lived (in order): Aldershot, Cyprus - Larnaca & Limassol, Bridlington, Sheffield, Nottingham, London
Shows I enjoy: L Word, Desperate Housewives, The Apprentice
Places I Have Been on Holiday: Good grief, I can’t imagine anyone would be interested in this stuff! Cyprus, N. Spain, S. Spain, Portugal, France, Austria, Italy, Germany, Switzerland (I know, I should have just put W. Europe and be done with it), San Francisco, Madeira, Borneo
Favorite Foods: Chilli, Spag Bol, Curry, chilli prawns, listen I’m salivating now and this list could go on for ages, how about we say I like every type of food except Celery!
Websites I Visit Daily: The pages that open automatically on my browser are: admin pages for my blog, iGoogle,Bloglines which then leads me to read as many of your updated blogs as I can manage, Flickr, Facebook, Runnersworld and PhysicsDiet. I couldn’t live without Bloglines and facebook though.
Body Parts I Have Injured: Skin and right side from hip to toe. Nothing to really moan about though.
Awards I’ve Won: got a few judo medals in my prime and the odd consolation academic award
Nicknames You’ve Been Called: Deathwish, warriorwoman and Wolfie - take your pick!
Popularity: 24% [?]
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Tags: Diet, OGB, runnersworld, Stella
April 6, 2007 at 2:13 pm · Filed under Rambling
Well I’ve resisted announcing it for a few days but I’m afraid the magazine article is now out. One good thing about it is that I reckon I am completely unrecognisable in it. My dad managed to find the relevant page in the magazine and then flicked past it as he didn’t think it was me.
The article is a bit non-descript, it doesn’t exactly say anything. I was under the impression it was aiming to motivate people to get out and exercise but I can’t say that it did anything for me. Mind you I’m just pee’d off because the fitness instructor claimed I had no upper body strength and said I ought to take up rock climbing AND they didn’t put a link to my blog! The only reason I agreed to put myself through this humiliation is because I thought it would be fun to see if that sort exposure would drive any traffic here.
The pictures are quite nice though:
Popularity: 14% [?]
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March 18, 2007 at 10:46 pm · Filed under Rambling, Technical stuff
This post is surely asking for trouble but here goes. A recent plugin - Firestats - has opened my eyes to the wonders of google searches and more specifically the search terms that lead visitors to this site.
Some are quite painful:
- Iliac crest pain in back and hip
but others are darn right uncomfortable:
- Pictures of Bushy legs of Women
- Very Big Girls Bums
- Bulging Underwear
- Women’s blogs of underwear
Popularity: 19% [?]
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February 14, 2007 at 7:43 pm · Filed under Rambling
Just heard a statistic from Thorntons, the watering hole for romantic chocoholics. Apparently in the run up to Valentines day, 1 in 5 gents are buying two identical chocolate treats at each transaction and having different names iced onto each.
That’s giving me anxiety just thinking about it - it’s just going to go so badly wrong.
Popularity: 12% [?]
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November 4, 2006 at 9:27 pm · Filed under Rambling, Running
I had my viva examination yesterday and I’m pleased to say that I passed and can now finally call myself Dr Ang.
The dust has settled after the gruelling day and I’m already starting plans for new challenges. The guys got me a marathon training guide as part of my celebratory gift so perhaps that should be number 1 on the list. Everything seems to have been on hold for the last few weeks while I’ve been panic revising all my astrochemistry but now at least I’m free to go out running and start enjoying myself again.
Popularity: 10% [?]
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September 3, 2006 at 7:35 pm · Filed under Rambling, Technical stuff
It’s great knowing that folk are actually interested in reading the random scribblings that make up your blog but I find that it comes with a worrying sense of responsibility. All of a sudden I feel like I am writing for an audience and have to consider what it is “they” want to read. All the more concerning when you know that your most regular audience comprises your mum and your dad.
Anyhow, I am pleased to announce that my dad has now started his very own blog, so I can now check up on him on a regular basis too. So far he is writing about the characters he comes across on his allotment and has already educated me on the reason why Pythagoras avoided Fava beans. Check him out at The Nearly Good Life.
Popularity: 17% [?]
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Tags: allotment
August 27, 2006 at 6:33 pm · Filed under Rambling
Sorry to keep blogging today, I’ve had a wee drink and now I can’t stop nattering away.
Yesterday I added a little world map image on my blog, it shows the position of all my visitors, the large view can be seen here and you can get your own here. I have little red blobs almost all over the world, I find it fascinating. One nice blob smack in the centre of India, another in New Zealand and a whole smattering across America.
I’m afraid I am completely intrigued, who are you guys? I want to know who that person was in India, what do you do, where do you live, where do you run? Blimey, I may have to remove the map, its throwing up too many questions.
So here is a plea to all viewers that stumble across this blog - please leave me a comment, let me know where you are, what you are up to and where your favourite run is. Put me out of my misery.
Popularity: 10% [?]
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