A Marathon?

You hear the phrase "it's a marathon not a sprint" applied to many situations, and due to one thing and another this week , over Monday to Friday I have recorded over 100K steps which is about forty four miles, which for me is impressive.

Yesterday I wanted to better 26K steps , then I decided to hit 30K then 33K then 15 miles and finished on 35K. The fact I had done 15 miles got me thinking I could do 26 miles in a day, not as a continuous run , but just to hit twenty six miles in a day. Here's the details of the original and it is just over twenty six miles, but at my general speed of 2.5 miles an hour that would be eleven hours walking, so it is improbable that I will do it , but with a week off next week the thought is very much in my head.

Being on an effective staycation gives me a lot of potential routes that would serve my purpose but the amount of time it will take will probably mean that I don't do it.

Also Snickers chocolate bars used to be called Marathon and I think the new name is rubbish , Marathon was far better.

So to soundtrack this Edwin Starr's "25 Miles" is close enough for me.

Success

 Following on from my previous post. I had planned to do 25K steps at first , then that went up to 30K then I decided on 15 miles . 2,250 of my steps make up a mile so I need to aim for 33,750 steps which I thought I might not make, but in the end I hit 35,195 steps which is 15.6 miles.

That has smashed my previous days record (26K) and took me six hours to complete so the average speed of 2.5 mph is not too impressive , but the fact that I did it impressed me.

My legs are sore but I think they will be fine after a good sleep , and ready for more walking with Kirsty and Alexis tomorrow.

On the right is my "proof" from the Google Fit app which is now fairly robust for tracking my walking.

So the perfect song for this is "Success" by Iggy Pop. I always put a song into my post these days because it gives the reader the opportunity to have something playing while they read the post. The song comes from the David Bowie produced "Lust For Life" album , which is one of those that should be in everyone's collection.

Fifteen Miles

This year I intended to post maybe once every three days , January went as expected but February , well this is my nineteenth post , so it's more like two every three days this month.

I try to do 340K steps every month and most months 11.5K steps a day is enough for that, but non leap year February only has 28 days so the average has to be 12.2K and I haven't done that this month meaning that with five days left I needed to do 75K steps to hit my target. Yesterday I did 20K steps and today I am hoping to complete 30K steps. My record is about 26K but I would like to hit 33K which will be about fifteen miles. Again not a great distance and I have friends who do that on a daily basis.

I did this when Diabetes UK started it to raise money. I didn't raise any money but thought it was a good idea to sort of keep fit, as I hate gyms. The Diabetes UK task  was a million steps in three months but I turned it into a rolling three months which I am still doing now,

This morning I decided to forego my lie in and get a start of maybe six or seven thousand steps. I took a tour through Gosforth and across Newcastle United Golf Course and when I got back I had done 15.5K steps which is seven miles , so almost half way there.

My plan was to walk between 12 and 5 this afternoon which was originally going to be around 25K steps , but with this morning's walk 40K is a distinct possibility but highly unlikely, because basically I am lazy and I could be walking instead of writing this. But I'm writing not walking.

Tomorrow I am meeting my daughter and granddaughter and last week that ended in a 22K step walk so there is a slight chance that I could hit my February total tomorrow , but we shall see.

Thanks to my Google Pixel 2XL I can listen to a lot of music and today it's been the "More" soundtrack by Pink Floyd and "Another Day On Earth" by Brian Eno and while I love the whole album , and have shared "This" so many times , "How Many Worlds" is an absolute beauty so I will share a wonderful time lapse video with you for you to enjoy.

Why Fleetwood Mac?

I saw a video by Pete Wylie recently where in a preamble to performing "Remember" by Shambeko! Wah he explained his reasoning behind the various name changes for the various incarnations of Wah!  over the years which you can see here.

There's been two Fleetwood Mac's taking their name from Mick Fleetwood and John McVie but formed and led by Peter Green in their first incarnation, there was then a transitional period (read here) and eventually Mick Fleetwood met the duo Buckingham Nicks , and Lindsey Buckingham became the bands driving force with admirable support from Stevie Nicks and Christine McVie producing "Rumours" and "Tusk", the latter being my favourite Mac album and was remade by Camper Van Beethoven .

I also love the Buckingham Nicks album which I think is only available as a bootleg CD for some reason but you can hear why Mick Fleetwood wanted them in Fleetwood Mac.

The point of this post is given that Peter Green formed the band why was it named after the drummer and bassist?  I mean Green Manalishi would have been a great name for a band though that was the last song that he recorded with the band.

I will share the Buckingham Nicks album which is available on YouTube with you so you can judge for yourself.

My Alarums

Although I have an alarm clock , it's generally other things that wake me, and during the week I really don't want to get up for work, I want to stay in bed.

I tend to hear cars on the road outside that start around five am , and I think these people must get up really early to be driving at this time. The next thing is at around five twenty the heating comes on and you can hear water coursing through the radiators , then twenty five minutes later the actual alarm goes off and thein it is time to drag myself out of bed.

There will be lots of things that wake you up , the dawn chorus is a good one. When I lived in Shieldfield there was a lit yard behind the flat and the dawn chorus went on all night, although I slept through it.

My second job was as a computer operator for Peter Ctaig and I worked "continental shifts" which was days followed by nights and in a week you would work Monday day , then Tuesday night then Thursday day and Saturday morning , then the next week was Monday night etc. That taught me to be able to sleep any time anywhere.

So that's a few things on sleeping and stuff and I thought I would go with something by The Strawberry Alarm Clock , with then thought The Alarm was even more direct so we'll have "68 Guns". On tThe Best of The Alarm there is a song called "The Stand(Long Version)" that clocks in at 2'47" , not sure how long the sort version is.

Zigzagging

I didn't intend to post anything today after posting three times yesterday , but felt I needed to record what I noticed today. It is probably not anything most people will be bothered about but my lateral thinking mind immediately tied it up with Don Van Vliet (Captain Beefheart).

I've been out for a walk today mainly to get some jam from the Moorside Allotment shop for me and my daughters, but this meant a continuation of the walk across Nunsmoor .

No the EU forced Britain to keep driving on the Left Hand side of the road , despite most of the rest of the world driving on the right , and it's similar when walking on paths or escalators , you see signs that say "Keep Left" , and I always try to keep left, but people on paths seem to be all over the place which mean that when I'm walking it's not a straight walk but a zigzag , going from right to left to avoid people walking on the right , and the worst one was a guy who was on the right with his dog on an extendable lead on the left hand side effectively blocking the actual path meaning I had to walk on the grass to get past.

I think will some people it is just pure ignorance , they are the only ones that matter.

The walk was pleasant nevertheless and is an excuse to share "Zigzag Wanderer" by Captain Beefheart, just to show how off kilter my mind gets.

20221

Today is the twentieth of February 2021 , or you could say Twenty - Two - Twenty One like you are counting backwards. Over the last year or so there have been a lot of dates that fall into that category, and no doubt 2022 will provide even more. This is just an observatory post on how dates can appear significant when the reality is that it's just natural progression or coincidence.

One of my vinyl captures is "Numbers" by Cat Stevens and it is one of so many albums that use numbers as their inspirations as well as having a wonderful storybook and cut out cover as part of the package.

Another being "A Grounding In Numbers" by Van Der Graaf Generator, which is the sort of offering you would expect from Peter Hamill and company.

Although I could have chosen these artists to share a song with I am going to go for Ry Cooder's take on  Otis Redding's "634 5789"