Big J

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Same here. Every month warmer than average, with lower than average rainfall too. Fire is on this morning. House is 16-17c. It's just not comfortable.

It's been a fairly good week for exercise. I visited a foot specialist yesterday due to pain in my left foot (second metatarsal-phalangeal joint - where big toe enters foot) and I have degradation in the joint there. Corrective orthotics to try, but despite the fact the running doesn't seem to aggravate it, he advised against it. That is fair enough. In all honesty, my enthusiasm for running is firmly stuck in Sweden at the moment and I already couldn't be arsed here. But got out onto the bike 4 times. Have a gravel/road bike now (slightly fatter tyres, more robust construction - you have to think about these things when you're 108kg) and that's a lot better than the MTB. A total of just under 140km in 8 days. Also 4 times in the gym. Just shorter (30 minute or so) free weights sessions with more of an upper body focus. Eating like a horse at the moment and feeling good.

Ah, I mastered that when I was a kid, naturally! 🙃

It's that difference that is so stark being one side of the border or the other. Most of my UK swimming has been done in Scotland, and with the right to roam, you can legitimately swim anywhere. That river does look stunning, if cold! The warmest spots I've swim in UK rivers have been deeper pools on upland rivers beyond the trees. If the river flows through shallow, rocky channels in full sun, it's likely to be very warm on the right day.

Rivers tend always to be colder. The water doesn't separate off into thermoclines, so they aren't often over 20c. Best bet for a warm river swim is a small beck/river, late in the afternoon after a very sunny, warm day. The sunshine is the key. Small river, deep pools and you're sorted. Don't disregard reservoirs. Still water is my personal preference for swimming. Much more relaxing. Also a lot warmer. Stay away from the dam end though. Also, if any of them have aeration, stay well clear of the bubbles. The cavitation means that your body is much, much heavier and you'll sink like a stone. It's one of the main reasons people drown in waterfalls. And also the reason on extremely high diving that they aerate the water. It's a lot less dense when you hit it at speed.

I am planning to become semi aquatic over summers. My older daughter is similar. I had to drag her out of the lake to catch the plane on our last day at Easter! 😁

Very good But where does the Swedish summer swimming fit into all that?!

Any kind of martial art (I'd put boxing in there, to an extent) is fantastic for blended strength, fitness and flexibility. I'd say that the precision and skill required adds an additional dimension. I did taekwondo for a couple of years as a teenager. Pretty seriously too - won a couple of National sparring competitions at my belt level - being 6ft 8", fit as a flea and very light meant my reach/speed was more or less unbeatable. I only stopped because having moved to Manchester, I couldn't find a decent semi contact club. The full contact version of the sport was no full at all. I am however far too broken to even contemplate the idea of TKD now! So hats off to anyone my age or older who steps up

Thanks for that Jan. It's embarrassing how quickly I gas out on FC, which is nothing like any of the other sports I've done. I shall work on it over the late summer and revisit this thread. I might also work on my backstroke given that I have a good half mile of open water before I bump into any islands or the other side. I had a good bike ride last night - 23 miles split into two. Went to my brothers for a couple of beers and averaged 16.05mph on the return journey. I'm fairly pleased with that as I'm on a MTB with slicks. I reckon I'd be 18.5-19mph on a road bike (which I'll pick up tomorrow). Properly suffered for it last thing last night though with a bit of cramp afterwards. Fine today, albeit tired. I calculated that I burned about 1550 kcal on that ride, and consequently I've been stupidly hungry today.

Very sensible advice. It's building it into your daily routine - I remember once reading someone say that exercising for one hour a day makes the other 23 much easier. I don't even think an hour is necessarily needed. Listening to Radio 4 a few weeks back, they were talking about the health benefits of resistance training (especially in the elderly) and the amount you have to do per week is so small to have the full benefits. 45-90 minutes is all that's needed. Once you get over 180 minutes, it's actually detrimental (to mortality rates, at least). I'm planning to build swimming, running and cycling into my daily routine in Sweden. Even if I'm at work, it's unlikely that I'll be far from water, so I'll run/cycle down to the lake in my lunchbreak and swim. I'm pretty tolerant to cold water so can do this whenever it's ice free

No, it's true. I always felt really good physically when I was cutting. I like playing piano though, and the two are almost mutually exclusive. HAVS and fine motor control of your fingers don't go together.

I agree. If there was just one lift to do in the gym, it would be squats. Unless you have patella tendonitis! I did a lot of cycling as a kid, as well as some running. I think that because I did that in my formative years, it's left me with a big CV capacity, so cardio isn't too hideous, even when I'm unfit. That being said, cycling now at 108kg is a different matter to when I was competing at 65-68kg (albeit, I was 6ft 5" then, not 6ft 8"). Any tips on front crawl? It absolutely wipes me out after about 40m, whereas I can happily swim a mile breast stroke.

I hear the exact same thing all the time! 😁 I'm working on getting back to squats. I totally overdid them in 2020, and in September of that year gave myself double patella tendonitis. Takes sodding ages to rehab them, so just squatting with the bar at the moment and doing wall sits. It's so frustrating as they are my favourite compound lift. I was doing 2x20 reps three times a week at the time, hence the tendon problems! Do you incorporate any cardio?

As someone who doesn't use a great deal of fitness or strength in my work, if I don't do something to maintain it, I get 'skinny fat' in reasonably short shrift. It's been a bit challenging here in Devon, as the winter weather doesn't encourage you to want to be outside, so I've been largely gym based. Weights and indoor rower were the default, but the rower (and probably because I pushed myself too hard) impinged both my shoulders. That's now gone and my shoulders are 95% better again. I've a list of niggles and injuries as my arm. A combination of growing too fast, doing too many sports to a fairly obsessive/high level and manual work. There isn't much that doesn't hurt at some point. But at the moment I have a goal. Moving to somewhere with extensive outdoor opportunities (including some I've never tried before like skiing and ice skating) is encouraging me to get in shape. So each week now I'm doing a couple of runs, a couple of bike rides and three shortish weights sessions. Some stretching and shoulder rehab too. I'm hoping that once we're in Sweden (94 days and counting), I'll be able to incorporate plenty of swimming into the mix. The forest trails/roads are hugely extensive, so however much running/cycling I want to do, I can without ever really needing to go on a tarmac road. I'm 37, nearly 38 and reasonably strong and fit, but also quite broken. What have others done as they've approached middle age to stay active and healthy? Photos of our daily swimming hole and running trails, for reference:

Good news! The car has been retrieved and most of the notebooks found

It's turned into a nice enough day today. 35km on the bike this morning, albeit with a stiff north easterly. Sunny and pleasant

That's such a British thing to say! 😁 Good weather in Britain is defined by the absence of bad weather. I remember sitting adjacent to a couple in a car dealership in Armadale in Scotland (if you've not been there before, consider yourself lucky). They were looking out the window at a gusty, grey spring day remarking on how the weather was 'nae too bad'. It was bemusing!

It's been a winter of lower than average rainfall and higher than average temperatures. The ground is certainly unusually dry. Just wish is wasn't so windy and grey. It's not pleasant weather for being outside really.

It's all on Youtube. Start at the beginning if you can. It's much funnier if you listen to it in sequence.

I'm a great fan of the comedy writer and performer John Finnemore (if you're unfamiliar, do check out the R4 comedy series, Cabin Pressure). He's had his car nicked in Sheffield, which more importantly contained quite a lot of his work. If any of you happen to stray across his car, or indeed any of it's contents, I am sure he'd be very grateful. He posted this on his website: Oh, rats. My car has been stolen. Full of luggage, including several notebooks full of my work. Unlikely, I know, but if anyone sees a pile of dumped bags in the Norton Lees area of Sheffield, please let me know! Or unlikelier still, the car itself: red Mazda CX-30, LL70 GJF.

The parity in cost with heating oil is probably part of that. And the energy security of having your heating bought and paid for at your back door.

Not overlooking it at all, but I understand what you're saying. I'm actually not trying to make an environmental case for them, though the zero emissions aspect is pleasant. I like the idea that they are massively cheaper to run (after a higher 'buy-in' cost) and I can possibly produce my own electricity to fuel them. That energy independence and having less to go wrong is appealing.

That's a very cynical viewpoint! 😁 The subsidies are already pretty meagre. There will of course have to be an alternative form of taxation to cover the lost revenue from the road fund licence and fuel duty, but it's not going to increase the cost per mile. The price of electricity should be coming down now as we transition to renewables, but stupid decisions by the Tories are hindering that. The effective halting of new onshore wind projects for the last 7 years, for example. The UK has massive renewable potential, and with electric vehicles the possibility of fuelling our cars in a zero emissions fashion. Either way, after filling my VW Transporter yesterday in Sweden at £1.91/litre and it costing £154, I am looking forward to getting at least 1 EV!