Wifi fly

Short post from me to just share how amazing it is that I can write and post this from mid-air! Flying to Norway with Norwegian and enjoying their inflight wifi…technology is just awesome.

The view out the window right now, in case you want to share in the excitement!

Here we go again

Earlier on this evening I blogged about my fitbit, my favourite latest toy. There’s been quite a lot of chat in my twitterstream this weekend about being healthy and exercising, not sure whether it’s the cold dry weather, just that time of year, the promise of Spring, the hopeful shedding of our winter layer of extra blubber (oh no, that’s seals not humans), maybe it’s watching burly men in the six nations, maybe it’s just contagious human behaviour, whatever it is I’ve been enjoying all the positivity.

Last weekend I was chatting with Betty who was telling me of her two marathon plans for this year, two I tell you. She’s never run further than a 10k race before, although she does do triathlons. Running is her least favourite bit so she’s facing her least favourite head on. I left her house, having enjoyed her home baked banoffee pie, feeling suitably sluggish and suitably inspired.

This afternoon @amcunningham asked if I fancied the Cardiff Half this year. I ran my first, and only, half marathon in Cardiff the year before last. Anne Marie and Chris gave us dinner the night before and came to provide support on the day. I would have loved to return to Cardiff and ran the half this year but unfortunately the date doesn’t work for me this year. Anne Marie did get me thinking though.

Yesterday I went for my first run in far too long. I ran in memory of Sherry, you can read more about that here. I was just grateful I could run and each time my legs have ached today I’ve felt similarly glad that I can.

So, thanks to the twitter chat, thanks to writing down what I’ve know (and denied) for a while – exercise makes me happy, thanks to the inspiration of Betty, Anne Marie and Sherry, I’ve bitten the bullet and signed up for another Half Marathon in 4 months and 11 days. Given my first was in Cardiff (where I went to University and worked for a number of years), I figured I’d come closer to home, so Torbados it is, the English Riviera, Torbay Half. Bring it on.

(cc) Photo by Lawrie Cate  

Fitbit – Jiminy Cricket on a belt clip

I got a fitbit for Christmas, it didn’t arrive until early January, but it was well worth the wait. I absolutely love it, in fact I think it’s one of the best pressies I’ve ever received…high praise indeed.

A what I hear you ask? What is it? Why is it so cool? And why does this post start with Jiminy Cricket?

Well the fitbit is a fancy pedometer, an activity tracker, my new found conscience and motivator all rolled into one. It’s not just a pedometer though, it counts steps and stairs (elevation) climbed, and calories burned. It also allows you to track your food consumption, weight and BMI. The fitbit works in conjunction with the website and an app if you wish to use that.

That’s not all though, it allows you to manage your data over time, so you can look back and identify trends. It also allows you to complete a journal, to measure your mood each day, and allergies if you suffer from those too. Even more excitingly, you can wear it on your wrist at night and track your sleep – telling you how long you sleep for, how long it takes you to fall asleep (or to lie still so the fitbit thinks you’re asleep), how often you wake in the night and judging your sleep efficiency. I love this aspect of the fitbit and it’s really helping with my challenge to myself to get more sleep this year. Here was my sleep on one night this weekend – I’m blaming a combination of Mogs and my partying neighbours for the interruptions, but it’s good to see proof.

The other thing I love about the fitbit is the trivia and the reward badges. Stairs are measured in fun terms eg 6 floors – you have climbed the Tallest Dinosaur, come on who wouldn’t want to measure the amount of floors climbed by dinosaurs, or pyramids, or buildings. I’ve included two sample days below:

In an attempt to convince you of how wonderful the fitbit data is I’ve included a day from a few weeks ago, when I was on holiday and out walking the Scottish hills. That said it is quite fun to challenge myself on days when I’m at work and less active, to see whether I can increase the flights of stairs I walk up each week (I’ve never been up and down to the photocopier as often as I have this year), or to see how many steps I can take. The other brilliant feature is that you can ‘friend’ people on fitbit and your data is compared on a weekly basis, which supports friendly rivalry.

My fitbit was a pressie so I didn’t spend £80 on it – that said I’d spend that tomorrow if I didn’t have one. In fact earlier today I thought I’d lost it (I eventually found it under my car – note to self, make sure it is clipped on properly) and would buy one in an instant. I’m not saying it would work for everyone, but it is definitely working for me. If you’re not sure go talk to the people at @fitbit and see if they can tempt you.

What makes you happy?

Am I happy? Yes. No. Maybe. Sometimes. Rarely. What makes me happy? Depends what mood I’m in. What the weather is like. If I’m hungry. Whether I’m working. Arrrgggggggggggh I don’t know, who cares anyway?

I feel like I *should* be happy, I have a loving family,  great relationships and friendships, supportive networks, I’m healthy, I have a great job that stretches me and rewards me in equal measure, I have a home, a feline companion, not as much time as I’d like but who cares about housework anyway! Some days I feel happy being happy, some days I feel at my happiest being miserable – and there in lies the rub with a happiness discussion. I’m never sure what we mean when we talk about being happy.

A conversation in the pub last week with @gerrynos and @fergusbisset got me thinking about this even more. We concluded (nothing earth shattering here folks) that happiness was a very personal construct, partly cultural and likely also to be related to upbringing and what was attributed value within that. Throughout my entire life my parents have been very focused on us kids being happy, the focus of my childhood was very much about doing your best coupled with happiness. Success in my parents eyes (I think – I might double check with them, but I’m 99% certain) is measured by being happy, it’s not about careers, exam results, fast cars, exotic holidays, having stuff, but more about how life feels. As an adult I think I live my life with similar standards, to be honest its challenging to always do your best (in fact I’m beginning to think near impossible but that’s a blog for another time) and hard to always know whether something will lead to happiness, but I try to focus on keeping a balance – I’m not happy all the time, I don’t even try to be happy all the time, but I do monitor life and know when it is out of sync. My latest theory for my own happiness is that a few basic things count. These are as follows:

1. Time spent sleeping – I can survive on 4 hours a night, I was renowned for it in college and nicknamed Maggie for the privilege. I’ve always been rather proud of not needing sleep, I’ve had an almost constant refusal to accept the fact that most humans function best on significantly more than that, until recently. I’ve come to realise that I quite simply perform better when I’ve had more sleep, I’m aiming for an average of 7hours a night, more at weekends.

2. Time spent outside – I am convinced that there is a direct correlation between the amount of time I spend outside and how happy I feel. This is unfortunate as I have a job that takes up a lot of my waking hours, and most of them are spent sat at a desk, or sat on a train, or sat in a meeting (I’ll come on to the sitting in a mo). I’m trying to get out more between meetings, walk around the building, soak up the oxygen to recharge and I’ll move to my outside office (the picnic table) as soon as the weather allows.

3. Time spent moving – this is another obvious one, I simply feel better (and I suppose happier) when I’ve exercised regularly. I’m in a constant battle with myself to overcome all the excuses I have for not running, but I simply have to do it because it works. It wont be running for everyone but it definitely helps me and I know that, so I’m going to start scheduling my runs to see if that helps.

4. Time spent singing – little left side for me this one. I’ve not really sung much since leaving school at 16, except weddings and funerals and in the car on the drive to work. I love it. I don’t (yet) love it enough to join a choir or do anything that’ll put pressure on me to perform at singing, but I have realised lately how much better I feel if I’ve had the chance to sing – so I can often be seen bopping along the A38 exercising my lungs of a morning!

5. Time spent achieving – this comes back to the do your best mantra I think. Basic human psychology and behavioural conditioning – I like rewards for doing something well. I’m a little obsessed by statistics and data and measuring progress. Few thing make me feel as content as seeing my blog hits on a good day! It’s the relativity that counts, and changes over time, not the numbers in themselves. I know my blog gets insignificant traffic by some people’s standards, but I like to compare day to day, week to week and see what has grabbed people’s attention. I got a fitbit for Christmas – best pressie *ever*. It’s an activity tracker that counts your steps, stairs climbed and calories burned – it also rewards your progress, I’ll do a post on that another time, but it’s really brought home to me how much I like little rewards.

There are other things that make me happy, such as feeling like my life has a purpose, holidays and time out, wearing hats, cold dry weather, postcards – sending and receiving, feeling connected, and perhaps most significantly relationships with friends and family but these are slightly more complicated than the five things I’ve outlined above. They are all things that I know improve my sense of happiness the more I have or do of them, my own recipe for happiness that works for me I guess.

I know that research tells me some of these things matter, but others do as well. A quick look at the Action for Happiness website tells me that yesterday was World Happy Day and they put together a Happiness Action Pack. The pack contains ten keys to happier living, as follows:

I’d love to know what makes you happy. Whether any of the things I’ve mentioned, or the research highlights, work for you. Better still I’d love to hear of alternative suggestions, however wild and wacky. Look forward to hearing from you.

Get up and run – for Sherry and yourself

As I was sat on my sofa today perusing twitter earlier I saw this tweet

I followed the link and read Sherry Arnold’s story, just over a month ago Sherry went for an early morning run in Montana, a town where she lived with her husband and children and worked as a teacher. Sherry never came home from that run.

The article was written by Beth Risdon, who writes the Shut Up and Run blog – she was asking people to dedicate their run on Sat 11 Feb at 9am to Sherry. Beth is also collecting donations for Sherry’s two children, Holly and Jason.

Those of you who know me will know of my love-hate affair with running, and with exercise more generally. I am a completely sporadic runner, and even the word runner is an exaggeration, I guess more of an aspiration but I’m through with defining myself as a jogger, someone who plods the streets, I’d rather delude myself for now and aim high. I’ve hardly run at all since I completed my first half marathon in Cardiff in October 2010. I briefly fell in love with it again in November last year, but life got in the way, work got busier, family members got older and sicker, the mornings were darker, the weather colder, Mogs cuddlier….and a million other excuses for not running.

This afternoon, inspired by the reality that I can still get out and run, and that is something I should celebrate, and the name of Beth’s blog, because let’s be honest as I’ve written several times before, they are just excuses. I got off my arse and ran, a short 2.18 mile run, in the cold and I loved every minute of it. Thank you Beth and thank you Sherry.