progress report mar 07
March has been a pretty full on month and seemed like a long one as well. I have been teaching early morning classes, quite out of character for me and managing to fit in the web design as well. I have been able to keep up with everything really and bought myself a new laptop as well. Life is looking good and the sun is coming out. Read on for the details.
Fixed Gear Exercises
Now that I’ve finally managed to take a trip to the Herne Hill Velodrome, I’m sure that I will be getting more tips on riding fixed gear. My left and right balance seems to be getting better and I’m trying to use the pedals to slow down as I have been doing before. Pulling up as well to improve my spinning.
A couple of new exercises have been to speed up and slow down properly. So rather than sprint when I move off, I speed up a bit more gently which allows you catch up more with the speed of the spin. It keeps the body more relaxed than the sprint start and gives a faster cruising speed even if it takes longer to get up to that speed.
Mula bandha at the traffic lights
There was one week in the month where I noticed that I wasn’t doing it. I have been doing it a bit more slowly and definitely rather than just fast pumps as I did before. I guess I’m getting stronger down there.
Minimum of a 100 miles a week on my bike
Well I certainly managed this month. And I set a couple of personal bests as well. Largely due to the extra commuting but would rather have clocked up those miles by riding out in the country. Which I hope to be doing more next month. But now I know that I’m fit enough to do this kind of mileage on a regular basis. I can feel the increase in fitness and look forward to getting even fitter.
A yoga course for the drop-in classes I teach
The number of drop-in classes that I teach at the moment only come to two. And I’m thinking of giving up one of them anyway. So I don’t know if it’s really worth it. People seem to be happy with the class as it’s always well attended. But am I happy? Not really. I’m pretty fed up with these mixed ability classes. The experienced people don’t seem to progress especially when they are ready for something a bit more challenging and at the same time the newcomers are struggling.
And does anyone practise? I asked for a show of hands and out of a class of 20 I think 2 put up their hands. Somehow I have to communicate the idea that yoga is not exercise and that you have to work at it. So I suppose I’ve lost my motivation a bit with this one.
Press-ups and sit-ups upon rising
I’m getting into the whole superslow thing and I can feel the improvement is strength. It still only takes 5 minutes a week and it’s good to know that I can get so much benefit just from that small amount of effort. I have decreased the intensity of the exercises so that I can last a bit longer and improve my form. I use the metronome to keep time and also keep a note of the duration. But form comes first.
Meditation
Slowly but surely it’s starting to happen again. I plan to do it twice a week and once with a client. There are stirrings from deeper down, back to the time when I stopped. But I think that I will be able to integrate it back into my life. The best time that I have found is to do it immediately following my afternoon nap.
My own yoga practice - one class, one alone
I have been teaching a lot and so my own practice has suffered. Meaning that I didn’t do any. That’s right, none at all. Ok, so I did more yoga overall, but not on my own, just demonstrations with my students and doing postures with them. So the easy ones get even easier and I never get to work on the ones that I really want to do. I have to find another strategy. The best one that seems to fit and to work is to combine a bike ride and yoga session together.
Yesterday an old student phoned asking if I was still teaching in the area. I had the idea of doing a “practice session” rather than a teaching session. I would do my own practice and they would do theirs. But I wouldn’t be teaching. I wonder if that would work.
Diet - 5 a day, etc
I’m pretty much on target with the weight loss and I’m almost there. It’s as I had predicted, a loss of about 2kg a month. But the big surprise is no cravings. I really would not have anticipated that. Which of course has made it pretty easy. Cravings for food are the main obstacle to weight loss. So another couple of weeks and I should be at my goal weight. Then I will move onto my weight maintenance program. And the next time someone say that I don’t need to lose will have their head split with the new axe that I will be keeping handy just for that purpose.
Water intake has been more than adequate and reaching the 2 litre mark every day. But fruit and veg intake has been a bit low with an average of only 2 out of 5. I’m not happy about that and have to look at other ways to include fruit and veg in my diet especially when I want a quick and easy meal. Soups and smoothies perhaps.
Still taking the same supplements - cod liver oil and vitamin C, but have now increased the dose of vitamin C to 1000mg a day.
Bike rides eg London to Brighton etc
As I’ve mentioned before, I’ve booked on the London to Brighton ride and the bumf has all come through. But no weekly rides due to extra commuting. Hopefully I can have a go at that forty miler down into Kent in April. I have also been toying with the idea of Lands End to John O Groats. That would really require a step up in fitness levels.
Keep a log of monthly achivements
I’ve been doing that. It’s not just the progress report but the other things that I have achieved. You can find them all under the achievements category.
Reading
Not much happening in this department. I did finish “Mother Tongue” by Bill Bryson. But other than that nothing very intellectual or stimulating in the literary sense. Been reading about PHP programming and a bit of RoR but that’s not really what this goal is about. Hopefully more next month.
Trips to visit friends
I did pop down to Brighton in Feb but this month I’m just too busy and tired to do that. I was planning to go this week, but the mrs is away and I need to stay home to look after the cat. I did see one friend last weekend who was visiting me and another yesterday by accident. And I’m seeing another one tomorrow. So I guess that counts.
Selling things on Ebay and having a clear out
Once I get out of the groove of ebay I find it hard to get back into it again. I don’t know why, but I find it to be a real struggle to sell things on ebay if I haven’t done it for a while. Taking the photos is always a bit of a hurdle and then adding the descriptions. I know some people just write a one liner and I’ve done that myself in the past. But it’s just the idea of selling on ebay, which I always think of as a great big chore.
I have managed to sell my wheel building services so that’s a start. I have made a short list of things to sell and have taken a few photos as well. So the next step is to optimise those photos a bit, reduce the files sizes and upload them. I prefer to host the photos myself so that I can put as many as I like and have some control over the file size and image sizes.
So I might just manage this one before the month is out.
Pampering and ‘me’ time
I had a sports massage this month. I’m doing a swap: sports massage for web design. It’s pretty intense and painful at times. But I felt great afterwards. And I need it too, especially as I do so much cycling. He thought that I should have one every week. That would be great wouldn’t it. But have to see when I could fit it in.
Reviews in the blog - films, books, exhibitions etc
I have been watching lots of movies but haven’t reviewed any this month. I have a couple of drafts waiting to be completed but that’s about it. The time to do it would be soon after the movie. If it’s left for too long then the ideas will have evaporated. I haven’t really been reading that much nor have I visited any exhibitions. As I said at the top of the page, it’s been a pretty busy month.
Selling more wheels on ebay
I’ve certainly been doing this and getting lots of publicity and interest for my wheelbuilding services through ebay. There seems to be a greater interest in riding fixed gear so I have updated my wheel building site so that the focus is on converting your existing bike to fixed gear. It’s an honour to be able to help people to convert their bikes to fixed.
Checking out the Herne Hill velodrome
I did it! Finally after 4 years of pondering and prevaricating I actually did it. I think I might go again this week. Great fun. I also wrote a post all about my first trip to Herne Hill. you can read the full post here
The bump on my head
Been there, done that, but decided not to get the t-shirt.
Working on my Svenska
Jag studerar bara lite Svenska. And I’m going next month. I will have to write to our caretaker friends who look after the cottage to tell them that we are coming and that will force me to write a couple of paragraphs in Swedish. But what happened to the podcasts from SR.SE? Don’t know. Got out of the habit. I’m sure that I’ll get motivated again once I’ve been there. But that’s the whole point, to be ready to go and hit the ground running before going there.
Contributing to Songfight
No time for music this month. But my goal was not to do it every month but to submit a few tracks over the year. So that’s fine. I did have a look at the titles and listened to my old entries just to recollect what I had done in the past. Maybe next month, but no pressure.
Songfight
Songfight entries of Bell Green
Business Plan
No real focus here but jotted down a few ideas. There wasn’t really a slot for this. So what I’ve done is to combine the planning of the new business with the planning of the existing business. And that makes a lot of sense. I usually allow about 3 hours on a Sunday afternoon for this so there is plenty of time and I’m in the right frame of mind as well. So even though there is nothing too concrete, I’ve certainly made a move in the right direction.
Ruby on Rails
Haven’t read anything or tried anything but have got some hosting that supports RoR. The hosting is for a client but the server space allows for multiple domains, so there is room to mess around.