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Weekend Waster.

Posted 21:13 CET Sunday January 24th, 2010 (47 days ago). 115 views. No comments. Tagged with Computer Games, Exercise, Personal.

For most of you it’s still Sunday, which means that it’s still weekend. For those of you who has entered “Monday” or “the working week”* as it’s also called: Good luck with that. You consolation should be that you’ll hit the next weekend before the rest of us. And how did you spend the precious weekend? Personally, I wasted most of it, and to be honest, it actually feels a like a bit of a waste, too. I used to be able to waste an entire weekend without even thinking about it, but not anymore, it seems.

I did manage to drag my ass to the gym today, though, and had a great workout, too. On the first weekend of the new year, the NRK gym was totally crammed with people starting a new life. The weekends after that have been rather quiet and today I turned on the lights in the men’s locker room and the gym when I arrived and turned everything off when I left. Didn’t see single soul anywhere. I was supposed to go to the gym yesterday, but somehow managed to leave one of my jogging shoes at home. When I waited for the bus, it struck me that I might have left one of them at home, but shrugged it off and got on the bus to the gym. Bad move. Well, at least I got to ride the bus a lot and I usually enjoy riding the bus.

Among other things I’ve done this weekend is to play a little Company of Heroes, a great strategy game that I picked up at one of the many Steam sales last year. If you like WWII strategy games, it comes highly recommended; the single player campaigns, multiplayer and skirmish, which I prefer since I really can’t stand loosing at strategy games. Beat me in any other type of game, not a problem, but don’t beat me in RTS games! I have no idea why it is like this.

And that’s about it! Next week is crammed with social activities, it feels like I really need it.

*Or, as it’s also known, “the workweek”. Now even the yanks should be satisfied.

Sports.

Posted 21:19 CET Monday July 20th, 2009 (235 days ago). 115 views. No comments. Tagged with Exercise, Sports.

Every year I try to catch a little cycling on TV during the Tour de France.

There’s about a week left of this year’s tour and I must say that I’m very impressed by how well these top athletes perform. The race is around 3,500 kilometers (2,200 miles) and lasts for 23 days. Out of those 23, three are used to rest, meaning that they are racing in 20 days. That’s an average of 175 kilometers (110 miles) every day. On all the stages I’ve seen so far, the average speed has never been below 40 kmh (25 mph).

Let’s put this into perspective. I took my bike to Nordstrand today for a surprise visit to Ola and Hege. The thing with surprise visits is that both the visitor and the “visitees” might end up surprised. Today it was me, the visitor, since they weren’t at home. I probably should have called first, but that sort of ruins the whole surprise thing.

Anyway. Continue reading "Sports." →

Shoulder Crunch.

Posted 17:51 CET Monday July 13th, 2009 (242 days ago). 111 views. No comments. Tagged with Exercise, Work.

When I start in my new job in August I have to travel considerably further to get to and from work. Today I’m biking 2.5 kilometer each way, the new distance will be 6.6 or 5.9 kilometers one way depending on the route. The shortest one will take me through downtown Oslo, while the other will take me around central Oslo on one of the three ring roads. The longest route will probably be the quickest one, though, depending a little on the number of red lights I hit.

That I’ll be biking at least 11.8 kilometers each day, five days a week, has made me decide to stop running on the thread mill. The weekly 59 kilometers should be more than enough stamina work out for me. I very much welcome this change, because running on a thread mill has turned out to be one of the most boring things I do, right up there with shaving.

While we’re on the subject on working out, here’s a quick update: My left shoulder is acting up a little, so I didn’t go to the gym today even though I planned to. I’m using my shoulder in virtually every exercise I’m doing, crunch being the only one where the shoulder is not involved.

I’m considering taking the entire week off to give the shoulder some rest. Kind of like a summer vacation from the gym. It probably wouldn’t hurt.

Roger says “We’re Taking it to the Next Level”.

Posted 23:48 CET Thursday May 28th, 2009 (288 days ago). 109 views. No comments. Tagged with Exercise.

A thing I like about my gym is that they provide free exercise mentoring. Whenever you like, you can book half an hour with someone who knows a lot about working out correctly and they help you set up a personal exercise schedule that covers your particular needs. I did this in October last year, and I’ve been using the hints and tips I got ever since.

I also got a sheet where I could write down various stats to track my progress and the dates I was at the gym. A couple of weeks ago the sheet was full and I asked if they had a blank one I could use to replace the old one. Unfortunately, they were no longer using the sheets, everything had been moved to an electronic platform on the interweb.

Cool! The only problem was that they’d made the transition to the electronic sheets a month after I had my half an hour of mentoring, meaning that my data was not registered in their system. I had to book another half an hour with a my mentor to register my data.

So yesterday I met with my man Roger. My intention was to just register my current schedule, maybe add another exercise and leave it at that. But that was not gonna happen on Roger’s watch! Continue reading "Roger says “We’re Taking it to the Next Level”." →

Work. Out. In.

Posted 22:25 CET Sunday May 17th, 2009 (299 days ago). 109 views. No comments. Tagged with Exercise, Personal.

We’re now in the middle of May and I’ve been working out regularly for over five months. The result? I’d call it “acceptable”, but no more. Since New Year’s I’ve been at the gym at least every other day on average, some months more often, some a bit less – like in April, when I was out traveling. Still, I’m pleased with my own effort. I pay about 600 NOK* (92 USD) in a monthly fee at the gym, and with an average of 15 visits a months, that’s 40 NOK (6 USD) for each work out. Not too bad, considering a ticket to go to the movies costs the double. It is a tad more relaxing and a bit more entertaining to go see a movie, though.

Anywaaaaay… Continue reading "Work. Out. In." →