Self-righteous indignation

"Confident of one's own righteousness, especially when smugly moralistic and intolerant of the opinions and behaviour of others".

I love this one. its so perfect for people who can only see their own point of view and no matter how much you try to enlighten them they just can't see past getting their own way. To such individuals, looking like they are right is more important than being right.

Indeed, this sort of person wastes so much time thinking the know all there is to know in the world that they never actually learn anything new or even anything about them selves.

Unfortunately so many people try to be who they think they should be or even who they think others would like or want them to be that they never actually discover who they are.

Often, i find myself in a conversation where i am thinking more about my response than listening to what being said, i have to stop myself, listen and think about what i am hearing, only then can i find a considered response. There is often pleasure in learning the point of view of others.

In my experience learning about your self, who you really are behind the veneer, this is what life is about. When you finally get on the journey of discovery you can really start to be your self.

I shall go online and see if Tickmaster sell tickets for this trip.

Neurosis

Not my words, i pinched them from someone else.

Neurotic disorders, defined as neuroses are mental disorders of varying base (e.g. emotional or mental).

Neurosis

People suffering from neurosis often behave strangely in contact with other people. They can constantly adjust everything, to bring the surroundings into a perfect state. They can also keep focusing attention on themselves and expect others interest. People with anxiety very often fall into addictions (drugs, stimulants).

Neurosis has many different symptoms. Some of them may be associated with severe pain of various internal organs. Other somatic symptoms are sexual dysfunction, abnormal functioning of certain organs and partial paralysis. Common symptoms of nervous disorders are obsessions (mental and motor) and phobias (e.g. arachnophobia, agoraphobia, claustrophobia). In addition neurosis may cause fits of anxiety, apathy, depression and sleep disturbances.

Up and running

I punched the air when the doctor gave me the all clear, i don't have prostate cancer, they think it was all down to the bladder infection. Still have to go back in a months time for some reason or another, i'm really not sure why but i already have the all clear so no worries.

After getting through the festive season relatively unscathed i decided to start training again, i suppose i am really just dipping my toe in the water as i have not worked at any strength training or Yoga or any of the many other things you have to do when you need to get fitter than you have ever been before.

I have started doing some speed work, a lap of my local reservoir is 2.8 miles, from home, around the res and back, but i run as hard as i can and try to include some hill reps at the end. The hill reps are very hard as my cardio fitness is so poor but that's why i'm doing the speed work, must improve my cardio.

I also need to drop and stone and a half as i am the heaviest i have ever been at 14 stone!!! This will be the toughest part of getting fit as my meds do tend to encourage weight gain.

A couple of weeks ago i had a walk up Skiddaw in the Lake District, my poor quads were very painful for a good 5 days, the weekend after i did it again and suffered very little in the following days. The weekend just gone i ran 16 miles in the Peak District and although a little tired i have had no aches and pains.

So my training has started and with a little luck i may get fit enough to take on a challenge or two this year.

Watch this space.

Changing the rules

So i have changed the title of the blog, not sure if it's permanent but it seems more appropriate as i rarely write about running these days. Although i have written a couple of stories about building our Camper van which is only being built for running support and accommodation when training etc.

Today i'm writing because life has thrown some things my way which i'm fining hard to deal with, no not hard, almost impossible. Early October my partner and i went to the Costa Blanca mountains in Spain so i could have a weeks training and try to kick start my training, which i have struggled with since running the Cross Britain way in April 2015. 295 miles in one week was just too much for my body to deal with and lets be honest, i'm no spring chicken.

Back to Spain, whilst in the airport at Liverpool i bought a sandwich and it didn't taste all that fresh, by the time we arrived in Alicante it was obvious that i was coming down with something and i spent the whole week with diarrhea.

Up on our return i came down with a bladder infection, pissing blood is really quite scary and i had to go to hospital for antibiotics. So two and a half months later and i'm just coming out the other side of it only to discover that the tests i had along the way show the i have an enlarged prostate with worrying lumps.

Any men out there who have gone through these tests will know that its not pleasant and having someone mess around with your back door is no fun at all. A prostate biopsy puts you back where you started, pissing blood and scared that "the end is nigh".

 I have to be honest, the Cystoscopy i had a few weeks earlier was also pretty tough, i walked into the room where it was to take place and there were 5 women present, all involved in the procedure. Laying on a bed with your genitals exposed to the room is pretty bad but to then tolerate a camera being pushed down your penis takes it to a whole new level.

2 and a half months and some very difficult procedures leave me a month away from finding out the results of this biopsy, now i'm sat here writing this blog as a way of managing my feelings and trying to get through the day, i can't think straight and i'm struggling not to break down. I have way too much going on and am concerned that i won't cope with it all.

Its Christmas and as usual our house will be full of family for the next 2 days, normally i manage to get through this without upsetting anyone but i'm just not sure i can do it this year.

Is running away a possibility? If only i was fit enough.

Certainly the last 12 months have been very challenging and although i have had to fight for my sanity there have been some positive's.

Lets get through the next couple of days and perhaps i will write about the good things in life, it is easy to focus on the negatives.

Building a Campervan part 3

The kitchen units.

What a bloody job this stage has been, i bought a full sheet of light weight furniture board to make the units, 1 upper and one lower. This stuff is amazingly expensive, the best price i could get for one sheet was £115.00 and i had to drive 50 miles to collect it.

Anyway, once i had the board i set about designing the base unit and it soon became apparent that i would need 3 sheets, which the budget just would not allow.

After some consideration i decided to use the expensive board for the outer skin of the unit and the rest of it with 12mm exterior ply. The 12mm plywood is much more hard wearing and once painted black it will blend in just nicely.

The next problem was how to make the doors, Youtube provided the answer to this and i can highly recommend a series of video's i found which explain the important parts step by step.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X244qd2NhBg&t=518s

I bought a router for a good price, made a template and set about cutting the doors out of the main front panel. I had decided on three as i require one for the water, one for the Cooler and one for the gas bottle.

I made the template out of 6mm plywood as that is the material i have most of, this was my first mistake. My second mistake was buying a cheap router bit and my third mistake was using the template with a cheap router bit.

The plywood was just way too thin so the force required to guide the cheap router bit around the template caused the ply to bend and the router gradually veered off line, unfortunately i missed this as i was busy trying to breath through the dust that soon filled the garage.

This happend in several places and i have been forced into repairing the damage as best i can. To be honest only one of the repairs is easily visible and some work with a black marker will hide it reasonably well. In the end i used the jig saw to cut out the doors for the top unit. Much easier for an amateur and i achieved a much better result.

The doors have a plastic trim all around the edge which fits is a 2mm groove, this groove has to be cut with a router so i simply bolted the router under my work bench with the cutting tool (good quality this time) poking through a hole. It worked a treat.

Although a little difficult to fit, the plastic trim finishes off the edges perfectly and also allows for a certain level of inaccuracy in the router work. Luckily.

We bought a Smev 9222 sink unit with all the necessary fixtures and fitting, after a cup of Yorkshire tea and a good think, i set about fitting it. To my amazement i had it all done in a day. Fitting the sink unit, water system, cooler box and gas fittings.

The water containers, one for clean and one for waste, are only 10 litres as full they will weigh 10 kilo's. This is heavy enough when it is my partner Debbie who is most likely to fill or empty them. If they prove to be insufficient i will upgrade them to 20 litres or even add proper tanks under the van.

The gas compartment requires a drain through the floor in case of leaks and this was a sod as the floor is 2 inches thick, however i used some plastic pipe and angled it towards the back of the vehicle to ensure i don't get any road spray ingress. We will be using a 6.5 kg bottle as this will be sufficient for our needs but have yet to buy the bottle as it is £65.00 for the first instance with the £40.00 deposit included.

So, kitchen unit complete, now its time to finish the wiring, this is definitely my week area, i have little experience with any wiring and find the logic of it difficult to grasp, however i don't have any money left so i am going to spend some time reading about it and will have to work it out myself. It does mean removing much of the sink unit, however that will give me the opportunity to improve some of the area's that i feel i could have done better.

The "Fell bus" is getting close to use-able which is important, all of this hard work and money is for a reason. I have started training again and will need the Camper van (Fell bus) for all the weekends training next year. It has to be ready for early March 2017 when i start training properly for the coming season.

There are many challenges on the menu for next year, some of which i have been talking about for a few years but there are two which i would really like to complete. One is the Joss Naylor challenge. The other i will talk about if and when i get fit enough to consider it, i will have to be fitter than i have ever been and not just physically.

If you have been daft enough to read some of the rubbish on this blog you will have worked out that my mental fitness is the weak area, hence this will be the area i work on most.

Now, where is the book on Camper van wiring?

A room with a view

Its actually an office with a view.

The office where i work these days has a great view out across Burnley, Lancashire, England. (In case any non UK readers happen to stop by).

Worsthorne Moor and the Mary Townley loop, within spitting distance, where much of my running has been done in the past and hopefully in the future, we also have a nice grassed area outside the front of the office, all of which makes it idea for bringing Eska our dog to work each day.

As i type Eska is laid out on the office floor, exhausted from chasing her ball around in our lunch break. (Yes, a real lunch break). Eska is only 18 months old so much fitter than me, however that doesn't stop me from trying to beat her to the ball.

Our Campervan sits at home on the drive as i usually get a lift to Townley park in the mornings where Eska and i walk for a while before starting work. The route home is a little harder as this usually involves jogging up hill for 3 miles and then over the moors to home.

 I have yet to measure the whole route but in fair weather it usually takes us about 2 hours and 20 minutes, when i start training again i'm pretty sure i can get that well under 2 hours.

Currently i only run the whole route once a week and walk parts of it while waiting for my partner to pick me up along the way.

First things first, get well enough to train.

Building a campervan part 2

You wouldn't believe how much work there is in converting a van into a campervan, so far i would guess that it has taken 2 months of evenings and weekends and cost way too much.

The problem is very much one of familiarity, i have not converted a van to camper before so had very little idea about what was involved, obviously i knew it would need insulation and carpet lining, a bed and kitchen but i did not intend to do each job to such a high standard. There seems very little point in doing this unless i do it the best i can.

I bough 24 square metres of smoke coloured carpet and have since bought another 4 metres, add in the 36 cans of contact adhesive the cost is around £200.

When it came to the carpet lining i started with the ceiling and used one piece of carpet for the whole ceiling (as you would expect). The sides are covered in one piece again and i also covered the wheel arches with the same piece. This stretch carpet is the dogs bolloxs, although not a simple job it really isn't that hard and with a little thought and forward thinking the bigger sections where completed.

The hard part was all the little parts and joins, the C posts by the back door i had expected to be difficult but all went smoothly, i carpeted right up to the door seals. I also carpeted the wheel arch boxes on the inside as i figure this will reduce any rattles from stuff stored in there. 

The door panels are screwed on with the screws enclosed in plastic caps, i have done it this way so these panels can be removed to gain access if needed. It must be a nightmare for mechanics working on some of these campers.

Although i have carpeted way more than i needed, i do very much like the (nearly) finished job, the carpet starts half way across the B posts and ends at the door seals on the C posts.

Just behind the front passenger seats is the Rock and Roll bed, i travelled to Bridgend in South Wales to buy it,  although expensive the quality of the finish is very good. 

Its way too heavy for me to remove from the van on my own so i just keep shoving it out of the way and working around it. Eventually it will live near the rear doors.

The boxes around the wheel arches will be used for storage on one side and the other contains the leisure battery and any tools we may need to carry. Both boxed area's will also form extensions for the bed to make it full width.

Since taking this picture i have made carpeted panels for most the the white area's and boxed off the rear door check straps. Although the carpeting is almost complete there are still a couple of little jobs remaining, these need to have the kitchen units in place to finish and i still need to figure out how i'm going to make the door for the storage compartment above the bulkhead.

Next job, that will be making the kitchen units. That should be interesting - honest. :)