So it’s update time. And this one is about exercise.

I am FULL of exercise mental blocks:

• As SOON as I step foot on a treadmill, I’m convinced I’m too tired to go on
• I then mistake boredom for tiredness, which leads me to watching the clock like a hawk – I’m talking 30 second updates here (’39.5 minutes to go… puff puff… 39 minutes to go… puff puff…’ etc etc) and assuming that at some stage I will be too tired to go on, and that stage is probably NOW.
• I believe that I am a slow runner and I will NEVER get any faster
• I believe that EVERY ONE in the world is faster than me, which then makes me feel like a loser

Exercise is an emotional NIGHTMARE for me. I feel like I’m REALLY bad at it. And even if I manage to run for 40 minutes, I generally finish the run feeling like a loser, because I am too slow, too tired, too bored… And don’t even get me started on the panic attacks I experience when the necessity to run alongside someone else is introduced into the equation… Or (as Im sure alcoholics feel a far worse version of) when I think that I have to do this EVERY DAY for the REST OF MY LIFE. The whole thing breaks me out into a sweat before I even tug on my leggings.

BUT.

This time, I stuck with it. I ran through the pain. I walked a bit when I felt tired. I tried desperately to stop judging myself and to start feeling proud of myself for simply getting my butt to the gym.

And eventually… And for me, it took MONTHS, I started to get exercise highs, and I IMPROVED.

Case in point. One hungover, rainy Sunday, it was decided that a small group of us would go to the gym for a run then spa.

I stepped on the treadmill with trepidation. Then I started running

5 minutes in, I was feeling uber energetic, and not AT ALL puffed. I felt like I could run forever. I upped the treadmill speed more and more over the 40 minutes, until I had knocked over 30 seconds off the time it normally takes me to run a kilometer….

And when the clock ticked over 40 minutes (another mental block)… I kept running.

And for the third time in my life, I ran 10kms. The whole way, I was on fire, I was loving it… and I did it in just over 58 minutes… which is about 4-5 minutes faster than the other times.

Now, about 20% of the time, I still hate running
60% of the time, I work on gradually improving my time
and 20% of the time, I am like a spring chicken.

That is some drastically improved statistics from the days I limped along feeling like my lungs were about to burst, and my legs fall off… 100% of the time.

So in conclusion, I now believe that a good exercise routine is nothing to do with your fitness, it’s all to do with your head and overcoming mental barriers and not being afraid to be TERRIBLE. I can honestly say that after you get your brain into gear, your body (eventually) follows. And it IS worth it.

I’m no sports fan, I can’t even claim to have staunchly supported our All Whites until the day they made it to the world cup, but I am perfectly happy to watch re-run upon re-run of our last-minute goal against Slovakia, I’m even happy to watch reruns of the drunken fans screaming and hugging and crying is their overdramatic, middle of the night celebrations.

There’s nothing better than being part of a small country in moments like these. It makes up for all those times we watch other countries pile up gold medals in the Olympics and all those times we don’t even make it to these sporting events.

One thing you can say about New Zealand, is that we are GREAT underdogs.

I just feel like I have to say that to avoid being accused of underhanded self-promotion.

I LOVE the idea of getting bargains through amassing crowds, and I love the bargains they are giving out. I just referred all my friends and we are going bowling en masse.

I know it’s not unique in the world, but most times you hear about sites like this and are super excited, but NZ is ignored, so you have to sit there and wish you lived in America.

I hope they do well and despite the fact that I will be missing my $10 referral fee for everyone who signs up through this blog post, I hope everyone signs up and we get lots of cool stuff dirt cheap.

Another disclaimer: The only addiction I have discovered that I have is for cheap internet shopping sites… so there is a mild chance I get overly excited when I find them.

ANZAC day is a joint celebration with Australia, and technically is a day of remembrance for the anniversary of the first major military input from us in World War I in Gallipoli. In this place and time alone, New Zealand lost 2,721 men. That was a huge whack out of our young population, and they were the kind of people we would have done well to keep around. The loss of them has probably changed the course of our history more than anyone really realises.

Over time ANZAC has become a day to remember ALL our troops who have served anywhere. I think it is very hard for well educated, left leaning, intelligent people who lived through the last several years to not put a negative spin on the idea of spending an entire day focusing on war.

But there is no glory in ANZAC day.

Gallipoli itself has started to openly become recognised as a dismal, avoidable and badly managed loss of life. A grave lesson in our need to stop leaping to arms without just cause, planning and consideration of every life that could be lost. ANZAC day, for me, is not about the glory of the military and the big brass, it’s about the men on the ground. And we need to remember that these men did not have the luxury of living through what we did. The world was a different place, they were the ones who taught us the lessons we should take a lot more seriously than we do.

It is our job to stop one day a year and remember them as the heroes they are and the teachers they should be. Even those who survived, sacrificed their lives to the belief they were making the world safer for the rest of us.

In this age of climate change and our inability to alter our actions to affect future generations, the concept of literally giving your life for people you will never meet is hard to imagine.

That’s what these guys did. And that is why it is so important to not forget.

This weekend, her dreams of farming free range chickens have come to fruition. While I was out on my yearly Guide Dog collection (failing dismally at generating the kind of funding I have come to expect), Sarah was in the country, selecting hens.

Some facts:

She had an 80% egg laying rate on their first morning in their new home.

All the chickens look the same but one. There is one ugly white hen in amongst a flock of brown. They peck her shamelessly. This has caused comments from those who have experienced forms of racism that it is nice to see the white chicken suffering.

It appears that several family members were never explained The Birds and the Bees, and the poor hens keep getting referred to as ‘he’.

My mother was the hen house artist.

There are now 10 chickens. They live in Ngaio and have a very subtle impact on Sarah’s property. They live in a large fenced area and I believe they have had their wings clipped to stop them flying out.

Sarah eats about 6 eggs a fortnight. Within one day, she had her full quota, so I am open to bribes for connecting people with eggs.

It’s CHOICE. I know I’m not really able to say that unbiasedly, but if you don’t believe me, download it for yourself. Yup, there’s a few issues, there’s probably a few more we aren’t aware of yet, so go on download it, if you are coming to Welly, try it, if you live in Welly, explore some areas you have so far been to lazy too venture to… And send through any feedback :)

While the rest of you were sunning yourselves (I love Wellingtonian’s unblinkable belief that there WAS sun even when there is no proof or evidence), a group of us were busy putting the final tweaks on our launch version of All About the Story.

All About the Story is the brainchild of Julie Starr, its a marketplace for QUALITY news stories, images and (more recently) cartoons. The point being that in a media world that is increasingly dominated with freelancers and an internet world that makes bad content easy to come by, we fill a vital piece of the puzzle by enabling great writers to connect with high quality publications.

It’s still early days and we know there is a lot more we can do, but we’ve got some pretty cool publications keeping tabs on the articles that are listed, and some pretty nice articles and cartoons on offer.

Would love to hear your thoughts on anything from the design, to your browsing and listing/purchasing experience.

Thank goodness my mother is the reincarnation of Florence Nightingale and as soon as she heard a whiff on the grapevine that I was not feeling crash hot, the tyres were screeching outside my house and I was whisked away for a weekend of lying at her house instead of mine. This worked well because I am not the best at cooking in the first place, and when I couldn’t really move, there was the real risk that my weight loss strategy would accelerate quickly.

Anyway, so while I was doing my dying swan routine, my younger, fitter and more healthy sister was prepping for her third half marathon. Sometimes you would not think we are related.

I managed to get out of the house on Sunday to go watch half of Wellington run (I now understand that half the city goes to bars, the other half runs. Weirdos.)

Before

During – this was actually 100 meters before the end. You’d never know it.

After – and they even managed to pick up a guy!

And some socialising – Apparently Gary was very excited by the free food at the end.

Emma has read the whole thing many times and it is jam packed full of useful information. If communities are you thing, then the Read Write Web team have what you need to take it to the next level!

I have a MacBook which is about 2 and a half years old. It’s battery recently died so that when the power cord was removed the computer shut down immediately. I figured that I had got a pretty good run out of my trusty Mac and was ready to fork out the $240 to get a new battery to keep the little guy pumping for a couple more years.

I had been recommended Toucan computers from a friend and went down to see if they had any batteries in stock. Rob went out the back and concluded that it was indeed the battery but instead of selling me a new one, offered to sell me a second hand one for much much cheaper. Given my current attempt at saving, this was very well received. He sold it to me and said to come back if it didn’t seem to be working.

I tested it this morning and got 2.5 hours out of the battery and called Rob to see what he thought. He was happy to give me another one to try this weekend to compare. Maybe I have just come to have extremely low expectations when it comes to customer service, especially computer related dealings, but I have never been such a happy customer as I am with them. They listened to my problem, provided me with an absolutely perfect solution and have continued to get better – even after the sale!

I love good customer service. Sometimes I love it so much that I want to give my life to working in call centres and places where angry customers are rife so I can spread joy around in the same way Rob from Toucan computers did.