The Scales of Justice

The 'Bloated Elephant' symbol had to be wrong 

Two weeks ago, after several months of bad food, mindless drink and mind-numbing TV (I have yet to watch Jeremy Kyle pissed up with a burger and fries...although having just written that down it does actually sound like something quite rewarding) - I decided that enough was enough, and that the only way to rescue my mortal body was to do something completely foreign to me; actually exercise. This was a shock.

In past I have run two Leicester half marathons and one Lincoln 10k, yet despite this, the last time I actually went to the local gym - which I pay monthly and wilfully like some kind of capitalist zombie, I might add - was early March; a full, soul crushing 5 months ago. It was time to hit the road.

As of today, I have now run a total of 42 miles, burnt almost 6000 calories... and put on 3 pounds. Although this did make me - just momentarily - want to brutally punch the scales, Van-Damme style, into its smug, uncompromisingly-bleak face, I was quickly relieved to find out that my body fat had also apparently rocketed down from 20% last week, to 15.9% today. That's the beautiful thing about scales; just like the old adage that Murray's a Scott when he loses, and a Brit when he wins, so to do we mistrust the scales when the news is bad ('Ive put on FIVE pounds?! The fucking batteries have gone again!') or treat it as some kind of oracle when it's good ('Ive lost two pounds this week - I KNEW I was feeling slimmer. Glad I got those new batteries for the scales). So in this instance I'm inclined to agree with my new BBF and say that I have lost weight, even though I know it's damn near impossible to lose that amount of fat in a little over a week. 

How do you like them apples, RunKeeper?

As an aside, I've always thought that a great Dragons Den invention would be a set of talking digital scales.  Bear with me. They'd be called 'The Scales of Justice' (see what I did there) and would have a special button / switch... As the slightly desperate fatty, you would first enter your key stats and weight goals into the scales (or online - it could be a wifi version that linked up to a website ;) then - and here's the clever part - you could decide whether to switch the special button to either the 'harsh', or 'heavenly' setting.

If you choose the Harsh setting, it would degrade you loudly and brutally if you didn't reach your daily / weekly / monthly target ('You idiot - stop stuffing your face and get back down the gym. You haven't tried hard enough this week!') Or, if you were feeling a little more delicate and chose the Heavenly setting, it would instead comfort and support you ('Not quite there yet mate - keep working at it! Just a little harder next week!).  

There could of course also be a neutral option which just stated the facts. Similarly, you could have a series of celebrity options (just imagine the Schwarzenegger version on Harsh - 'You son of a bitch!' or - far more satisfyingly - 'I live to see you eat that contract...but I hope you leave enough room for my fist because I'm going to ram it into your stomach and break your god-damn spine!') There could also be a kids-friendly version (Dick and Dom anyone?!) or indeed an X-rated, truly foul mouthed version (I'll leave you to make up your own examples here). The possibilities are indeed endless: remember -you heard it here first.

So, anyway, over the two weeks of my newly found fitness regime, I have had the opportunity to do a little listening to some classic  (Blur - The Great Escape) and some less-than-classic albums (Now 79 springs to mind), as well as musing on the general highs and lows of getting back on the road.  Here's some thoughts on it all so far:

• Running without music is soul-drainingly shit.  Don't bother.
• Running with only one headphone working is still better than running without any music.  Although the fact that you can still hear the general public out of one ear does make you wish that all those years of listening to 'Use Your Illusion' on full blast had actually given you tinnitus.
• There is nothing more guaranteed to make you a smug bastard than running down a large hill towards the end of your run as you cross the person running up it, at the beginning of theirs.
• The opposite is also true.
• One time when I was running, a man shouted 'WOOOO!' aggressively out of the car window at me.  He was both fat and bald.  Correlation?
• There is no known smell more likely to induce a cacophony of epileptic fit-like gagging and coughing than that of cut wet grass mixed with dog shit.  I defy you to find one. 
• 90s Dance music is officially the greatest music ever.  Also, it's quite good to run to.

The half-marathon is on the 14th October this year... that's 60 days, 10 hours, 8 minutes and 30 seconds (or so RunKeeper tells me). Expect another update in a couple of weeks. In the meantime, I will be continuing to write the dreaded Masters Report, scaling Oadby's many delightful hills, and finding some raw materials to build The Scales of Justice. 

Anyone know Arnie's number?