21 Jan 2005, Yorkshire
Priscilla, Queen of the Road, is mine no longer. She was fun for a while, but a high maintenance woman (or camper van, if you want to be pernickerty). So I sold her back to the Irishman I bought her from, and am now smugly vehicle-free again.
It's nice, now, to actually get to meetings on time - there were SO many occasions when I had to phone people to say, sorry, broken down, will be late or may not make it at all...
The worst incident was when I was moving from London up to Leeds just before Christmas. Had all my worldly goods in the back of the van. And Priscilla utterly disgraced herself on a busy roundabout - she stalled and flatly refused to restart.
I had a good idea what the problem was - she had a loose connection into the starter motor, and I knew that if I jiggled the wire I could probably get her going again. The problem was that to get to the starter motor, conveniently located underneath the bed in the back, I had to deposit aforesaid worldly goods all over the road so I could get to the engine bay.
The police found it all very amusing...
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20 Jan 2005, Yorkshire
I'd scurried back to Yorkshire after a hectic few days in London, keen to get back to serious training and a healthy diet. But 'twas not to be. After a mere 36 hours in Leeds, I had to dash down to Devon to shoot some footage of my rowing boat for the showreel that we're putting together in hopes of selling a documentary. But I wasn't TOO reluctant - it was good to have an excuse to see the beauteous Solo again. She was every bit as gorgeous as I remembered her, despite being liberally spattered in birdshit due to unfortunate location below a beam of the boatshed.
Once we'd scrubbed the poo off I shot a few minutes of video, of me trying (and failing) to clamber elegantly in and out of the cabin hatch, me burbling on about the boat, and me keeping my gob shut (for a change) and wandering around the boat admiring her sleek curves. My favourite bit is the Woodvale slogan emblazoned just in front of the rowing position: One Life. Live It.
Absolutely.
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18 Jan 2005, Yorkshire
Had a very productive time at the Boat Show and Adventure Show down in London last week, schmoozed lots of sponsors, had lots of interesting conversations, ate and drank all the wrong things. No money forthcoming just yet, but lots of promising-looking leads.
Going back to the food/drink issue, it's very frustrating - I had a good month of being virtuous here in Leeds, eating healthily, not drinking, and training like a woman possessed. And how much weight did I lose? Not one single sodding pound.
On the flip side, while I was in London eating all the wrong things (although I did somehow manage to cram in my training around my other commitments), I didn't gain any weight. Maybe all that talking burned off the excess calories.
I'd like to think I'm converting fat to muscle, but no. I had a quick fat test at the Fitness Exchange, and I was exactly the same as I was two months ago. Time for more drastic measures, methinks. My sports science guys assure me that I should be able to lose weight on 2000 calories a day, but the evidence suggests otherwise.
I wouldn't mind so much if my new healthy regime was resulting in limitless energy and a radiant complexion. But no - I look/feel no better or worse (although less frequently hungover) than I did when I was living on a diet of coffee, cookies and white wine.
Maybe I just have a uniquely robust constitution that can metabolise anything into bodyfat. Could be useful if I ever find myself in a survival situation. Not quite so useful when I want to fit into a slinky catsuit for a party next month...
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06 Jan 2005, Yorkshire, England
I've been reading up about Ellen Macarthur, the round-the-world yachtswoman, and how she has worked with Dr Claudio Stampi to train herself to sleep less. While she's racing, she gets about 4 hours sleep in 24, taken in short naps. It's called polyphasic sleep as opposed to the usual monophasic. It's also known as the Uberman Sleep Schedule.
Apparently Leonardo da Vinci, Albert Einstein and Winston Churchill all thrived on napping (although Winston Churchill also allegedly thrived on two bottles of champagne a day, and I don't propose following his example in that respect.)
I'm keen to experiment with it - in the lead-up to the transatlantic row, having a few extra hours in the day would be seriously useful. And once the race starts, it would be handy if I can sleep less and keep lookout more - a big disadvantage of being a solo rower is that while I'm asleep, there's nobody looking out for big ships looming on the horizon.
There are quite a lot of weblogs by people who have tried it out - mostly nerdy male computer programmers in the American Midwest. Whether it's going to be compatible with my lifestyle is debatable, but it's worth a try!
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