A return to the fold …
I have not exactly troubled the scorer much with the frequency of my blogs to the Rust recently but today I thought I’d share a pair of reflections upon things that have happened or occurred to me in the past week or so.
TEN THOUSAND STEPS PER DAY
Firstly, yesterday I reached the milestone of achieving the “generally-accepted accredited daily fitness goal of 10,000 steps for adults of all ages” for the 300th consecutive day without a single miss or break.
In one sense it is a thing to celebrate – and in another, it is not. I’d guess that most human beings probably manage 4,000 to 5,000 steps in a day by just getting up in the morning, making themselves breakfast … doing what they do all day … and then going to bed at whatever stage of an evening they choose.
The fact is that, in order to “get” the second 5,000 steps, a period of some form of dedicated activity/exercise is almost certainly necessary.
Having (1) in my thirties ruptured the Achilles tendon in my right leg and (2) in 2016 having a hip replacement on the same limb I am banned by the medical profession from jogging – as a result, my main cardio activity is walking.
Looking back at my fitness activity records (the keeping of which in itself imposes a helpful discipline) I have had bouts of variously passing 10,000 steps in my day without even noticing that I’ve taken any exercise at all; of doing so by deliberately walking to a local garage to buy a newspaper and return via by a circuitous route and all before 9.00am in the morning; and (as has happened far too many times for comfort in the past three months) by noticing at some point between 4.00pm and 6.00pm in a day that I am still anything from 2,000 to 4,500 steps from my target and having to “go out into the lane” for a walk of between 40 and 80 minutes in order to reach it.
Is 300 consecutive days without a break a prompt for great celebration?
Not really. In my own case, I first took l note of my “consecutive days” achievement when I reached 17 or 18 and decided to aim for 25. When I reached 37 I remember thinking that it would be a shame if I didn’t make it to 50. Once I passed 100 I rather forgot all about “keeping the record going” but nevertheless did so.
Then again, I heard the media money-saving personality/guru Martin Lewis – a bit of a fitness fanatic – being interviewed on Radio Five Live a few weeks ago: in passing, he announced that he’d achieved 10,000 steps per day without a break (mainly via jogging) for six years now!
SPEEDING UPON BRITAIN’S ROADS
Regular Rusters may be aware that although I consider myself a reasonable competent motor vehicle driver – and indeed a safety-conscious one – historically I have had an unfortunate habit of picking up speeding fines. My kids – both in their forties – tease me about my attitude and say the cure is quite simple (“Keep a look out for ‘maximum speed permitted’ signs and obey them”), but I tend to concentrate solely upon keeping my distance from the vehicle in front and maintaining a hawk-like lookout for rogue and/or totally incompetent fellow motorists and/or pedestrians who might cause me danger … and/or might cause me to endanger them!
Almost all my speeding convictions have involved me speeding by only 5mph or 10mph over any prescribed limit on the road I’ve been travelling upon.
But, of course, that isn’t the point.
As a matter of fact, within the past seven years I have been banned for amassing 12 speeding penalty points upon my licence upon two occasions – and, upon both of them, being disqualified for a period of six months.
When I completed the second of those disqualifications – in February 2022 – it effectively took me a further year to find a British insurance company that would agree to insure me on a fully-comprehensive basis on any car – and then only for an eye-wateringly high amount of money.
Faced otherwise with the prospect of having been forced to give up driving forever by the UK Gestapo Motoring Police at the tender age of 71, I had no option but to grit my teeth and “pay up”. Which I did.
Fast-forward to Thursday of the week before last, when I happened to be driving through a hamlet called Hunston on my way to Chichester in West Sussex.
The road concerned has various speed limits advertised upon it – i.e. 30mph through a place called Sidlesham; 40 mph between that and Hunston; 30 mph actually going through Hunston itself; and then (after a roundabout) a return to a 40mph maximum speed.
It may not surprise you that I followed each of those speed limits to the letter.
In my circumstances – and at my stage of life – I cannot possibly take the risk of going any quicker.
Back to my tale. After proceeding through Sidlesham for about half a mile at 30 mph, a white van came up behind me, at first remaining a respectable distance behind but then gradually coming much closer, eventually to the point at which he could be described as “tail-gating” me.
I deliberately took no notice of him and proceeded as you might expect, speeding up when I reached the next 40mph sign … and then down again to 30mph upon reaching Hunston where that was the speed limit. At this stage Mr “White Van Man” honked his car horn.
At first it was just the once. Initially I thought nothing of it. But then he honked again after about a minute. And then again, after about 30 seconds. Eventually he was honking at me continuously, presumably because I wasn’t driving fast enough for his liking.
At that point, I decided to take no notice of him – especially as this would probably annoy him more.
Which it did. I stuck religiously and exactly to the speed limits concerned, with him honking away right up to the roundabout – at which we then went our separate ways.
Isn’t it ironic that – with me now (for the first time in seven years) restricting my speed absolutely to the maximum permitted by the law on the route I am following at the time – I am being “bullied” (or attemptedly being bullied) by a “road-rager” behind me for going too slowly!
“Same to you, Fella!” (as I believe American comedian Bob Newhart once quipped during his famous “Driving Instructor” stand-up routine).
