BOOKS#001 The story so far...

I never read all that much before meeting Claire (my girlfriend http://paran0ir.blogspot.com), but she's opened up a world to me that I will never shut out.

I was one of these people that would prefer the film version of things, too impatient too read the "boring long winded" version. Oh how young and stupid I was. Now, you wouldn't catch me on my way to work without a book in front of me.

The commute is where I get 99% of my reading done. In fact, I'm not sure what I'd do if I worked close to home!

Since I started reading books I have opened my mind to many different lives and experiences, such as:

• Roland's journey towards the Dark Tower (Stephen King - The Dark Tower series)
• Harry's adventures at Hogwarts (J K Rowling - Harry Potter series)
• Alex Cross fighting crime (James Patterson - Alex Cross novels)
• Dr. Luke Rhinehart's dice therapy (George Cockcroft under the pen name Luke Rhinehart - The Dice Man)
  

...and a few more odds and ends here and there.

I never thought I would be one of these people that would read the same book more than once. I never saw the point. The Dark Tower series however, deserve the attention of all.

As Stephen King writes:

Life was such a wheel that no man could stand upon it for long. And it always, at the end, came round to the same place again.

This quote is from "The Stand", the latest book I have added to my "Books I have read" list (and a damn important one in there too). Anybody who has read the Dark Tower series can probably understand the significance of this quote and why it made me smile so much when I read it.

And that's the point. Whether it's because I notice cross overs in Stephen King novels (in particular with The Dark Tower), or it's something a character says while having sex in a Ben Elton book, I get pleasure from reading.

5 years ago, this would not ever have happened.

Claire, thank you.


M

MISC#002 Playing with blog gadgets

As you can see over to the left I have been adding gadgets to this blog. My growing DeviantArt gallery, my ever rambling twitter statuses, and many more to play with...

The fun you can have!

M

TRAINING#015 800m's all round

Went to the gym earlier and went 800 metre crzay! Once on the tread mill, then on the exercise bike and then back on the tread mill (with weights in between), it was a good session.

M

TRAINING#014 My first check point

Went to the gym yesterday and hit my first check point (1.5km) on my way to my first mile stone (5km). To some this might not be much, and when I had finished I still had energy in me, but in the spirit of taking things easy and not dying of an asthma attack, I think things are going well, if a little slow.

Next check point is 3km, which, by my very rough calculations, I should be hitting by mid-September.

Target acquired.

M

TRAINING#013 A review of the last 287 days

So, bringing all my previous blogs about training for the 2011 NYC Marathon has got me thinking. I am so fucking lazy!

Seriously, I should be doing more than this.

Now that I'm running distances rather than times, I have made up a plan for goal achievement that I'm going to try and stick to:

Distance Goal	Date to be achieved
5km	03/11/09
10km	03/05/10
20km	03/11/10
40km	03/11/11

Distances between goals will slowly increase, but still not wanting to push myself too hard too fast.

Last target I hit was 1.4km on 10/08/09 ... This must continue.

We'll see where I am Nov 3rd. I want to be doing better, just got to get up off my lazy ass!

M

MISC#001 - So, It begins

Right, I'm here. Let's get on with it.

Do not be fooled. THIS is my first blog entry.

I've currently got a blog on myspace about my marathon training that I'll be moving over here at some point, which is nice.

All other things will follow in a natural progression of time and effort. Although, this should probably be effortless, but again, that'll come. I hope.

You may notice the title of my blogs start very programmic like, this is my way.

Have yet to decide what indeed to blog about exactly. Will probably end up being a mix of random stuff that no one person will be interested in, but a few might find bits and pieces here and there. I'm mainly doing this for myself, to store the mind of now.

I don't know how successful this will be for me, but I can try.

M