Of crucifixes and carpet burns

What's this? Another post within two weeks of the last one?

I'm spoiling you lot.

Anyway, before I collapse into a rather gratuitious wankfest of self-congratulation, I'd better crack on with a progress report, which brings me on the rather kinky and somewhat blasphemous title of this post. Rest assured it's nothing as filthy as it sounds, although pole dancing isn't exactly the most chaste of activities. Anyway, I rocked up to class tonight, feeling kinda tired after a long day (a.k.a. 3 or 4 hours) in the library hitting the books (a.k.a. reading this, convulsing with barely suppressed laughter and flinching away from the annoyed glares of everybody who actually takes their degree seriously). I'd actually already been to the gym in the morning, and I had an intense workout yesterday afternoon (more on that later!), so although I was feeling good, I wasn't really expecting anything major to happen, seeing as my body was pretty tired. But it did! Okay, I still can't fucking climb, I just kind of end up clinging limply to the pole like a sloth, but after weeks of managing to get upside down, and then just kind of chilling up there for a while before sliding back down to Earth and assuming a foetal position on the carpet, I finally managed to pull off this little beauty: the crucifix.

DISCLAIMER: THIS IS NOT MY BODY. My ass is bigger and I don't look that serene when my thighs are burning like the fiery depths of Dante's ninth circle.
(image from: thepolestudio.towerbureau.com)

Unfortunately I couldn't pull off the dropback I've been working on, which looks a bit like this, except it never occurred to me to put my hands behind me like that before. Normally once I've let go of my ankle I just dangle uselessly.

Unless you have the core strength of a fucking bodybuilder, do not try this at home.
(image from:  www.poleandfitnessstudio.co.uk)

I don't know if the hands would make it easier, because my problem at the moment is that my core just will not let me get back up. I've managed to get within about an inch before, but then I have to make a choice: either I succumb and grab back on to my ankle, levering myself back up to the safety of the pole; or I do what I did today and kind of slide down to the floor, awkwardly shimmying my back along the floor to give my legs some room to return safely to Earth. The former is definitely the preferably option, because the latter results either in carpet burns along the entire length of my back (this is what happened tonight), or a pole wedged up my ass, neither of which are particularly pleasant scenarios. Either way, tonight was a brilliant session, although my thighs ache and I just know I'm going to groan in horror when I wake up tomorrow and remember that I have to hit the gym before hitting the books. Such is the life and times of a third year undergraduate.

Okay, back to that gym session I mentioned. Last time I mentioned how I was easing myself back into the running after my ankle-related woes. Well, yesterday, I dragged myself in for a late session, having skipped out on Friday's planned run after the SlavSoc Maslenitsa celebrations (Russian Pancake Week, if you're wondering) somehow escalated into a house party where I consumed a mixture of vodka, beer, Pimms and some very cheap cider, followed by a Saturday night which saw me awkwardly chain-smoking whilst my flatmate hosted a dinner party which descended into chaos once they all ended up out of their minds on substances of questionable legality. After the abuse I'd subjected my lungs and liver to, I wasn't I'd manage a five minute jog, let alone a halfway decent run. However, by some utter miracle I managed to get back to where I was at in terms of distance, plus a little bit more - 5.3km in 30 minutes, and despite dousing my respiratory system with tar, it was one of the easiest, bounciest runs I've ever done. I've been messing around with the speed on the treadmill lately, and if it's a good song I'll speed it up a little, and generally keep going at that speed until another tune tickles me lugholes. I've gone from running consistently at 10kph to building it up slowly and finishing on 11.5kph, which I'm seriously happy about. The real test is going to be taking it outside, which I've been saying for weeks now... unfortunately the weather up here is so bloody erratic, and every time it's sunny I have other commitments, which seem to mostly involve me sat inside listening to a lecturer chatting bollocks about, well, bollocks, whilst bitterly lamenting the fact that I could be outside enjoying one of the very few times when it's not pissing down. Once I can go outside without it being either snowing, raining, or otherwise sub-zero, I'll start training in the park. Or at least that's what I keep telling myself. It's now the middle of March, though you wouldn't know it to look outside.

All this shitty weather is making me think of warmer times ahead. I have a date for my final deadline now, May 14th, which, wouldn't you know it, falls just in time for me to dash back darn Sarf and take part in Walk4Matt 2013, which is something I've been thinking about doing since I first decided I wanted to raise a thousand pounds for charity. For anybody who doesn't know, Matt Hampson was a former U21 rugby player who became a quadriplegic after he was injured in a collapsed scrum. He now raises money to help people who've had similar experiences to him, plus he still coaches, writes, etc. Basically, an all round legend. Anyway, the Walk4Matt is a 110 mile walk, from Rugby to Twickenham, along the Grand Union Canal. You live on a canal boat for a week, you drink pretty much anything you can lay your hands on, and you also get tickets to the Premiership Final at Twickenham. Despite my dad having been an obsessive rugby fan for as long as I can remember, I still don't have the first clue how the sodding game actually works, but then I've never been a girl to pass up any opportunity to see large groups of muscle-bound men running around in very small, very tight shorts.

I can overlook the cauliflower ears.
(image from: www.guardian.co.uk)

I haven't quite decided whether or not to do the full week or just the day walk, it depends what days my Dad's doing. Charity stuff is kind of mine and Dad's thing. We've done Crisis together for the past five years, he's done The Great British 10k a few times, and he does a lot of charity auctions and dinners, mostly with rugby memorabilia. I did one or two days with the walkers when I was on study leave for my AS exams (when I, err, should have been studying. I'm attributing my cocking up most of them to the fact that I was hungover after a very messy 21st down in Bath, rather than the whole being-on-a-boat-when-I-should-have-been-revising thing), and I absolutely loved it... but I was pretty pleased to come home and have a shower. Call me selfish, but I'm a bit fussy about personal hygiene and I cannot stand having a greasy face and barnet, it makes my skin crawl. I did have a shower on the boat, but it didn't compare to being at home, plus there was the slight issue of me managing to dye the tub in a hired canal boat an alarming shade of scarlet after I unadvisedly dyed my hair the night before going away. It looked like Norman Bates had been in there.

"What do you mean it won't wash off?!"
(image from: storiesbehindthescreen.wordpress.com)

I'm hoping it's not still snowing come May, otherwise walking 110 bloody miles is not going to be a barrel of laughs. I think I just need to get out of England altogether. I would give anything for a holiday right now. I haven't managed to come to any sort of decision as to where outside of the UK I want to head to, although there are vague whispers of a city break with my Dad and sister... not quite what I had in mind, but he did suggest Rome, which I'd really love to see (as would Jen, my little sister, still in the throes as she is of a serious Assassin's Creed obsession). As for in the UK itself, one of my closest friends from back home has just landed himself a cushy new job down in Bristol, and one thing that means is regular business trips to Dublin... there's a possibility there of being able to swing it so that I can join him for a weekend and cross Ireland off my list. Dublin has been somewhere I've wanted to visit for years, although whenever this friend and I get together and there is alcohol involved, it ends in sheer, utter carnage. Dublin, you better watch yourself.

However, before any of this comes to fruition, I need to get this sodding degree out of the way. I'm now on Easter break, but far from gorging myself on chocolate eggs and hot cross buns (if only!), I'm slaving away in the library working on the dissertation that I've abandoned for far too long. I've decided that once I've handed it in, I'm finally allowed to treat myself to that new piercing, though I haven't decided what to get yet. I'm kind of torn between navel and tongue. I know my parents will hate both, but I think they'd have considerably less hate for the former, plus they're less likely to find out about it. I never get my stomach out because I don't like it, and while I don't make a habit of poking my tongue out, I do talk. A lot. The chances of me getting rumbled, resulting in an argument that I can't be arsed with, are very high indeed. I'll have to think about it some more. However, before I get needles shoved through my flesh, I need to have one shoved into my vein. Yes, I need to donate blood before I get any bolts in my body, seeing as you can't give blood for six months after any sort of body modification due to infection risk (there are a lot of infection risks, apparently, most of which I think are completely fucking stupid, but that's a rant for another time). I'll try to book an appointment this week, and prepare for it by drinking water by the bucketload, seeing as last time it was, quite literally, like getting blood from a stone.

Other plans for the near future include a possible midweek sci-fi quiz (don't take this to mean I know the first thing about sci-fi, because that would be a complete lie) and a dinner party on Saturday night. Totally irrelevant to my goals, but I like cooking, and I like food blogs, so chances are I'll end up on here crowing triumphantly about my success, or shamefacedly recounting the tale of how I poisoned some of my dearest friends. Either way, it'll hopefully be accompanied by photos of dishes you can either drool over, or thank your lucky stars you weren't subjected to. When the time comes, I'll let you be the judge.

I suck donkey balls

Well, not literally. But I think you get the sentiment.

I am the world's shittiest blogger. When I first started this, I had visions of blogging weekly, more if anything exciting happened. Then nothing exciting happened for a while. And then when exciting things did happen, I was too busy/tired/lazy to actually blog about it. And then more time passed. And then I lost track of things, exciting or otherwise. And then it got to today and something kind of exciting happened, and I thought... yeah... I have that blog thing.

Anyway, this is my vague attempt at an apology. To be honest, I'm not entirely convinced anybody reads this, and as such maybe an apology is totally unwarranted. But my conscience is now clear. Ish.

So, on to progress updates. If anybody is reading this, you're going to have to forgive me for the rambling, mostly incoherent post that is about to follow. It's been over a month now, and I've totally forgotten what most of my 21 goals even are, let alone how I'm doing on them. Oh well. Onwards and upwards. I'm also, for the first time, actually including photos. Sorry about the glare - I'm using my rather old, crappy phone. Hopefully I'll be sorting out a new one with a halfway decent camera sometime in the next, I don't know, decade.

I made reference to an exciting thing happening somewhere further up, so I should probably start with that. My gym at uni has this weird little system where you have a key, kind of like a USB stick, that you plug into each machine, so it records your usage - calories, distance, time, and so on. At the beginning and the end of every session, you plug your key into this little touch-screen thing, and it tells you about your whole workout, and everything you've done the whole time you've been using the gym. I have data on there dating back to when I first started working out, which was February 2011, I think. Anyway, after a good cardio and weights session (more on that later), I plugged in my key... and this popped up.

BOOM.

In about 2 years, I've burnt off over 200,000 kcals. That's the equivalent of 100 days worth of food for the average adult female, and that's without factoring in basal metabolic rate, workouts at places other than my uni gym, etc. I'm amazed! It might not be completely exciting to you, but I'm ecstatic. To me, that's proof of how hard I've worked. Plus it makes me feel slightly better about all the vodka I drank last night.

So, I've burnt a fuckton of calories, but how am I actually doing in terms of all the fitness/lifestyle goals I set for myself? Well, it's been a bit up and down. Last time I actually bothered to write anything here, I mentioned how I'd finally managed to run 5km indoors.

That lasted all of about 2 days.

You know how I mentioned my ankles were caning? Well, I went out and bought some new running shoes and fancy socks. Let me tell you know that these are the ugliest fucking shoes I've ever seen in my life. You want proof? I'll give you proof.

Told you so.

"If they're so ugly, why did you buy them?" I hear you ask. Well, they were cheap, and they were (supposedly) designed for people with flat feet like mine (how gross do 'flat feet' sound? My feet aren't actually that gross, I promise). After buying these shoes, despite them being a crime against good taste, I was super-pumped, and figured all my problems would be solved.

Wrong, Kate. Oh, so very wrong.

Within a few days, I pretty much couldn't walk. There's a valuable lesson to be learnt here - never, ever overtrain, especially when you're in pain, because you will end up walking with an exaggerated limp on both sides. It felt like I had trenchfoot. When I eventually made my way pitifully to the GP, I was told to lay off the running for two weeks. Now, I never realised this before, but two weeks is a long time in terms of training. When I eventually returned to the treadmill, it was like I'd taken a giant leap backwards in time, back to when I couldn't run full-stop. This in turn made me feel kind of dispirited, so I'd avoid running in favour of other cardio. Luckily,  it also seems that when you're training properly, although you'll lose a lot of ground in a short space of time, it's pretty easy to recover. Yesterday I managed to get back up to a 20 minute run, and for the first time in weeks now, I enjoyed it. I felt like my lungs had been filled with highly concentrated sulphuric acid, but I felt great. Other than the burning sensation. That didn't feel so great.

In the meantime, I've been working hard on other fitness goals. I had pole on Monday, and after a couple of weeks where I was so shit it was like I was a beginner all over again, the past few weeks have been good. My climbing is slowly improving, and I'm adept at getting upside down now. I'm hoping to start getting some pictures from class online soon, seeing as I'm now good enough that I don't look like I'm participating in a reenactment of that scene from Bridget Jones' Diary. You know which one I'm talking about.

Yeah. That one.
(image from: wheniwasjoe.blogspot.com)

I might not be able to climb to the top of the pole, but remember that bike I mentioned? After many protestations about how I was embarrassed/scared/etc, and much cajoling from The Lad, we finally took 'er out. In doing so, we learnt one or two lessons about why you never buy things on a whim from Gumtree. The front brake doesn't work, and The Lad snapped the gears while trying to make them, you know, actually work. It's not so much a bike as a death trap, but I'm never going to be Victoria Pendleton, so I think I'll cope. Here she is.

What a beauty. Bike's not bad either.

You see that goofy grin on my face? That, ladies and gentleman, is a grin of triumph. For this picture was taken just after I managed to ride my way around Hyde Park. That's right, I can legit cycle now. So long as there's nobody else on the path, it's a pedestrianised area, there aren't any hills, and nobody's watching me. But that's okay. Baby steps. What you can't see in that picture in my skinned hands after a short but vicious argument with a hedge, which the hedge won hands down. We won't dwell on that.

Enough about fitness and lifestyle now - how am I getting on with my other goals? Well, I've managed to keep up with writing to my grandparents (good), my grades were excellent but are now beginning to slip somewhat after a very stressful cluster of deadlines (worrying), my nails are pretty much bitten down to the quick (disgusting), and I haven't read a single book (outrageous). In fairness, with the amount of studying I've been doing for various essays, let alone reading a bloody book, it feels like I've written one. Speaking of reading, I'm actually supposed to have read The Brothers Karamazov by... shit, tomorrow. It's over 900 pages long. I have read about thirty. This is going to be a fun seminar.

One last thing. I put giving blood on my list of goals, and a few weeks ago, I popped along to the donation centre with the aim of getting that crossed off my to-do list. Now, I'd have thought this would be pretty straightforward - you book an appointment (easier said than done, since the phone is constantly fucking engaged and they have some weird opening hours), you go along, ideally not hungover (I'll admit to scheduling said appointment around my social calendar - bad Kate), you sit around having blood sucked out your arm, you get free biscuits (bonus), you go home. Piece of cake, right?

WRONG.

I went along with a friend to donate, and in the end, both of us were turned away. Why? She's recently started some long-term medication and she needs to settle into a regular dosage pattern before she can donate. As for me, I thought I was fine. I'm healthy, my blood sugar and haemoglobin were fine, all perfect. They strap me into a chair, they tighten the tourniquet, and they look for a vein. And they keep looking. And they poke my arm a bit, and look again. And then they call someone over. And then they switch arms. And then they look some more. And then they give up and send me home.

So, apparently I have the circulatory system of a seasoned heroin addict. On the bright side, I got a free Club biscuit. Every cloud...