Breathless & Bemused is a very special spin-off blog dedicated to the exploits of Bearded & Bemused as he attempts to tackle the 2011 Virgin London Marathon.
There’ll be updates on training, video updates, possibly even the odd guest blogger! Hopefully keeping a blog will encourage the Bearded One to keep running, no matter what, and will help him cross the finishing line next April! Fingers Crossed!
It’s been about 4 weeks since I last updated my blog on my running exploits. For those of you kind enough to follow me on Twitter, you might have seen that my runs have still been logged fairly regularly – I promise I’m not faking them, I really have been running!
I’m now 6 weeks into my 13 weeks of training for the Barns Green Half Marathon on 31st October, and all is going well. I’m been running four times a week, on average about 25 miles a week, as well as going to the gym three mornings a week. Last weekend I ran 11 miles (almost without stopping!) and yesterday I ran a time-trial 10k practice race, cutting 30 seconds off my PB! I’m confident that come 31st October, I’ll be ready to tackle the 13.1 miles of Sussex countryside, and finish in a time that I’m proud of.
The only downside to all this training is that my body was clearly not ready to handle it. Although I felt fine for the first few weeks of training, in the last two weeks, the aches and pains that I’d previously avoided have appeared. Sore knees, bruised toes, the odd blister (yes, I share all the gory details on here!) – all making the training that little bit more difficult. I bought a knee support this week, which feels very strange and I’m going to have to make myself wear it, despite the discomfort. I hope that as I get used to the rigours of the training, my body will adapt and the aches and pains will go away!
I’ve got two weeks before I head off for a family holiday in Los Angeles, so I’m going to have to make sure that I make the most of them. This week I’m hoping to run 28 miles, including a 12-mile long run on Saturday. This will be the furthest I’ve ever run, either in a week, or in a single session – it’s both exciting and quite daunting, but as long as I make it round my route (Guildford – Farncombe and back again) I’ll be counting it as a very good week!
Once I’m back from holiday my final year of university also starts. It’s been great having a couple of months to get used to the rhythm of my training schedule (including the early starts), because once uni starts again, I’m going to have to be really disciplined with my running. It’s going to take a lot to motivate myself to go for a 10-mile run on a cold November morning, but laying some good foundations now will hopefully reap a good reward over the coming months!
Well I’ve finished my first week of half/marathon training, and I’m still here! Hooray! 25 miles run, 2 gym sessions, and a swim this morning. I can’t remember the last time that I’ve done that much exercise in a week, but I have to admit, I feel really good. Even the early mornings haven’t been too bad!
As you would expect, the training schedule starts off at a not-too-strenuous level – 4 runs, 1 short, 2 medium, and a longer weekend run. The training schedule told me to run 20 miles this week, which I would have been happy with, but being the impatient sort, I decided to start the schedule a day early. This meant that I actually ended up running 25 miles.
This weeks runs...
My highlight of the week was running for almost 70 minutes yesterday – I did an 8 mile run to the north of Guildford – on a hilly route to boot!
At the moment, with nice weather and at the start of the schedule, I’ve really enjoyed all this running. My hope is that I can stay focussed, keep hitting my goals, and continue looking forward to 31st October, when I run the half marathon!
On another note, whilst I’m running the half-marathon for the personal achievement, my hope is to run the London Marathon for a cause very close to my heart. On 9th January 2009, my very good friend and former schoolmate James Atkinson tragically fell and died during a climbing trip in The Alps. He, and Rob Gauntlett, another friend from school, who also sadly died in the accident were amazing people, who always pushed themselves in the things they did, and were both incredibly inspiring people. I’m hoping to raise money for the James Atkinson Bequest, which has been set up to support pupils at Christ’s Hospital (our old school) to participate in outdoor activities such as climbing and cycling, which both James and Rob were actively involved in during their time at CH.
So I hope that when it comes to it, you might think about donating to this really great cause, and help the memory of my very dear friend James live on in this way.
More blogging next week – I’m off to Somerset from Wednesday to Sunday, and don’t worry, I will be taking my running kit!
Today marks a big moment – it’s the first day of 36 weeks of training that will (hopefully) culminate in me crossing the finishing line at the 2011 London Marathon next April.
I’ve done a bit of running in the past, and have a few 10km races under my belt, but this training is going to be a massive step up. I’ve been running fairly solidly for the last month or so, and I’m feeling pretty good – so I’m actually really excited about starting this training schedule!
I thought it would be quite nice to keep track of how the training goes on here, especially when the training gets tougher as I get into the marathon schedule this winter. A lot of running websites/forums say that it’s good to keep a blog, as so much of running is about the mental preparation as much as the physical, and it’s a good place to take stock of what’s going on. So that’s what I’m going to try and do!
I won’t be overloading the blog with a new post every day, but hopefully this can be a bit of a diary of how the next 36 weeks progress.
So today is Day 1: 5 miles around Tooting Bec Common. Here goes…
Monday night marked hustings #16 (at least that’s what Andy Burnham told me) for the candidates in the Labour Leadership contest. The 16th time that they had used the same lines, the same jokes, probably the same ties.
But this hustings had a bit of a difference. The audience was packed with, wait for it, Christians (dun dun duuuuuuh)! The Christian Socialist Movement is a group affiliated to the Labour Party, with members who are MPs, councillors, and members of the public. I joined CSM a few weeks ago, not long after I joined the Labour Party.
I’ve always had a very clear understanding that my faith and my politics are inseparable, and a lot of the things that I try to outwork in my faith, are things that I believe the Labour Party also want to achieve – especially in terms of community, equality and compassion. So naturally the CSM hustings was the place for me to be, to hear how those vying for my vote would answer the questions that I had in my mind.
The event was packed; with well over 200 people there, including a number of MPs and more and more people who I recognise from the various leadership campaigns (I was sitting in the same row as the famous Ed Balls-backer Ellie Gellard, and was giving her a run for her money in the ‘tweeting-from-the-event’ stakes).
I was pleased that the questions the candidates were asked were not those that some might expect – abortion laws, gay adoption, Christian ‘persecution’ in this country – but were rather questions about the big topics up for discussion at the moment, but from a different perspective. I was pleased because I was reminded that not all Christians are obsessed with these questions, and are actually interested in being active citizens.
Although the questioning was at some points a little chaotic (the quick-fire round towards the end of the evening was particularly fun), I was pleased to hear all the candidates give strong performances throughout the evening – my impression of all of them has risen during the last few months.
It would be difficult to do a step-by-step reconstruction of the evening, significantly because my memory is awful and I can’t remember everything that everyone said. So here are a few highlights from the evening:
1) A fantastic opening statement from Ed Miliband. Those of you who follow my tweets will know that I’m backing Ed Miliband for the Labour Leadership. I think he has the passion, conviction and ideas to take the Labour Party forward, and his opening statement reaffirmed this belief. He talked with passion about the failure of the market (for more about this, read his speech on Social Democracy in the 21st Century – it’s a cracker), the fairer society that he wants the state to foster, and the values that he wants to underpin the party. It was the best I’ve heard him speak over the last couple of months, and made me proud to be supporting him!
2) David Lammy, MP for Tottenham and CSM Member, asked the candidates which part of Christian Socialist history had had the biggest impact on the movement – to which David Miliband (to his credit) answered “The Sermon on The Mount”. The audience enjoyed that one (us Christians are easily amused).
3) Ed Miliband’s answer that yes, the UK is ready for its first Jewish Prime Minister. For those of you who say that the honour should fall to Benjamin Disraeli, whilst he was of Jewish origin, he was actually baptised into the Church of England as a child (A-Level History paying off there).
4) The CSM giving all the candidates a gift at the end of the hustings –in a lovely pink bag! Apparently this was the first hustings where the candidates had been given a thank-you gift – hopefully the practice will catch on!
So a thoroughly enjoyable evening, topped off with a lovely reunion with some of my former colleagues who were also there. Good luck for Hustings #17 to however many there end up being!
I sat down in front of my laptop this morning determined to write about the events of the last two weeks – the final days of the election campaign, the result itself (including the Streatham result not being called until 8am on the Friday!), the ensuing bartering between the three main parties and my eventual joining of The Labour Party.
But I feel slightly saturated by it all. There’s no way that I have totally digested everything that has happened in these past weeks, and I imagine (being a bear of very little brains), that it will take some time still. So I have decided to jot some thought down about one of the other things that get me as animated as politics – film. (The only other thing that gets me this animated is sport – but given that my football club have just suffered back-to-back relegations, and the cricket county I support are playing fairly hopelessly, the less said about sport, the better).
First off, I don’t want this post to become a self-serving list of all the great films I’ve seen, and why that makes me über-cultural – because that’s frankly rather dull and will make you think that I’m a pretentious snob (which is sometimes true, but I wish it wasn’t). I just like the having the opportunity to share some of the films/actors that have firmly planted themselves in my mind.
My family watch films. That’s what we do. To give you some idea of how much we love films, take a look at these photos.
Nope, that's not Blockbuster's
My Film Collection
No, that’s no our local Blockbuster, that’s our living room. And the photo opposite? That’s my film collection. So that gives you an idea of where we’re coming from. No, I haven’t watched every film that we own, but I’ve watched enough to wonder whether I might have used that time more productively. Surprisingly, the answer to that question is probably no.
I think that story-telling is one of the greatest attributes of humanity. To let your imagination create something that is vivid, moving, disturbing, or downright bizarre – I love that. Thinking about it, I think that my three favourite films highlight all of these attributes and more – and in terms of genre, time period and cast, they couldn’t be further removed.
1) It’s A Wonderful Life (1946)
My favourite film of all time is Frank Capra’s wonderful story of a man who has touched the lives of more people that he could ever imagine. For as long as I can remember, my family have sat down after dinner on Christmas Eve, surrounded by various snacks that have also become tradition, and watched it, each time finding it more magical and heart-warming, and always shedding a tear or two by the final scene. Being a creature of habit, I refuse to watch the film at any other time of year, but I won’t shackle you with that pre-condition; if you’ve never seen it, please watch it. I guarantee that you will love it.
And what makes it so good? Well first off, it is directed by Frank Capra – one of the greatest directors of all time (he also directed Mr Smith Goes To Washington and Arsenic & Old Lace as well as countless other classics), who just has a gift for very truthful storytelling. There is no scene that deserves to be cut, no line that shouldn’t be said, no character who shouldn’t be part of the story.
Secondly, it has a cracking cast. James Stewart plays George Bailey, the lead character who is given the chance (by his guardian angel no less) to see what the world would have been like if he had never been born. James Stewart is a great actor, but the film wouldn’t be anything without the perfectly-cast characters around him – his wife, Mary; his absent-minded Uncle Billy; the villain of the film, Lionel Barrymore’s Mr Potter; and of course George’s guardian angel Clarence Oddbody.
Finally, I think what makes the film a masterpiece is the simplicity of the story. This isn’t a film with confusing twists and turns. Yes, there’s an angel in the midst of it all, but it’s still totally believable. The film simply asks (and answers) a question that I’m sure many of us have asked ourselves “What difference do I make?” George Bailey is given the opportunity to see what his world would have been like if he’d never been born – and it’s not pretty. I won’t spoil the story for you, but there’s no doubt that the world was a better place with George Bailey in it, and the same goes for each and every one of us trying to make the world a slightly better place in our own small way.
So please watch the film! And on a little aside, my personal highlight of this movie is that the policeman and the taxi driver are called Bert and Ernie – I always hope that Sesame Street did name their characters after these two.
From the sublime to the, well, still sublime. Anyone who knows me reasonably well knows that I love the Back To The Future trilogy. I’m a big fan of Michael J. Fox, and I think that they’re his best films. While I know that some people really don’t like the films – I can’t understand what’s not to like! Time travel, goodies, baddies, flux-capacitors, romance, comedy and a bit of action – it’s got them all! And whilst I don’t think that the film has such a message of truth and hope as It’s A Wonderful Life, there’s still certainly some interesting thoughts that come out of it.
First off, just to highlight my geekery, some BTTF trivia. Did you know that in early drafts of the script, the time-machine was actually going to be a fridge!? This idea was eventually scrapped in favour of the Delorean because the film-makers were concerned that this would encourage kids to try it out and end up trapped in the fridge!
I think what I enjoy about the films so much is the constant reminder that we make our future through the decisions that we make in our day-to-day lives. As a Christian, lots of people might expect me to believe in straight-up pre-destination. But I don’t. I believe that things are far more complex than that. I believe that a real and active relationship with God leads us to places and situations that are good and happy, but that we have far more freedom to choose how and whether we get to them than we often realise.
Without wanting to horrendously over-analyse the film, I think what I often get out of them is the fact that what I do today, how I treat the people around me, these aren’t things that happen in a vacuum – they can have an impact tomorrow, next week, even next year (even if you don’t have a time machine!). So maybe we need to be a bit more purposeful about our actions today, and realise that the consequences hang around for far longer than we might expect.
3) The Godfather (Parts 1 & 2)
As with the Back to The Future trilogy, I find it difficult to separate the first two parts of The Godfather, or to decide which I prefer as a film. I’ve never watched Part 3 and I’ve been told that I never should – so I’m not even going to mention it for fear of diminishing the awesomeness of Part’s 1 & 2.
Again, you might notice that there’s a fairly big jump from light-hearted 80s time-travel to the dark, sordid and complex world of the Mafia in the first half of the 20th Century. I don’t have any fancy link between the two films apart from the fact that they demonstrate the eclectic nature of the Palmer Family Film Collection.
So what makes these films great? Why is Francis Ford Coppella’s offering to the gangster genre considered to be so superior? I think the reason is simple. Over the two films, as much as you don’t want to be, you are drawn in to ‘the family’ yourself. You can’t watch the movies objectively. You take sides, you anxt over who has betrayed who, and you fear for who might be next. And at the end of Part 2, when you see that Michael (Al Pacino) has lost everything and is totally alone – you recoil. You realise that the film hasn’t glamorised the life of a gangster, it has shown the brutality and pain that has spread like a virus to those you thought couldn’t be infected by it. That is the mark of a great film – one that draws you into believing one thing, and then forces you to totally rethink it.
Add into the mix three of the greatest performances of all time (Marlon Brando and Robert De Niro both playing Don Vito Corleone, and Al Pacino playing his son and eventual heir Michael), and you’ve got not only the greatest gangster film of all time, but a film that tells a story of America too.
I’m sure many of you will have watched the films before, and if you have, I’d really recommend watching the The Godfather Saga or The Godfather 1901-1959: The Complete Epic, which puts the films into chronological order and adds some previously unseen scenes. Well worth a viewing.
So three very different films, all with something to say about who we are. Hopefully I haven’t turned watching movies into an academic or physiological event for you, but I think it’s really important that we do see movies as a medium for saying some pretty important things about us and our world. Apart from The Transporter. That’s just an awful film.
This is only a short entry, but I needed more than the 140-characters of a tweet to get this thought down.
I’ve been intrigued by the way that politicians, media types (the greatest hat tip goes to the Daily Mail – or “The Daily Two-Ply” as I like to call it) and members of the general population hone in on the ability of ”illegal immigrants” to rationally and systematically cheat the benefit system that is in place in this country.
I have this very amusing image (at least it’s amusing for me) of this family in a war-torn country – Zimbabwe, Afghanistan, Eritrea etc – gathered round together with a globe and a specially published book they’ve been out to buy – “The Illegal Immigrant Guide to The Benefit System”. The book boasts that it will “match your needs with the poorly enforced benefit systems of dozens of countries”, and it’s “step-by-step guide will have you living the high life in a council house in Bradford in 6 weeks – or your money back”.
Somehow, I don’t think that this is quite the case. The vast majority of the people who enter the UK via the back door are not coming here for an easy ride (although I think many of them deserve one after the torment that they may have faced in their home country). They are coming here, as people have for centuries, because they hope that they will be treated with dignity, be able to make a decent life for themselves and be respected as a human being – welcomed as someone in need.
I have no doubt that my own Christian faith has impacted on this outlook – the Bible clearly says that we should look after the foreigner (or alien, as many translations say) in the same way that we care for the widow or orphan. But I also think that my outlook has been formed with the help of a belief that Britain is a naturally tolerant country, one that has a proud national heritage, but also recognising that we are just one part of a bigger, global society.
This is only my outlook, and I respect that other people have had different experiences. But I firmly believe that when we talk about immigration, we need to stop dehumanising people with the label ‘illegal’ and start treating them like the unique and wonderfully-made human being that they are.
