Drastic times call of drastic measures

It's been a long break from blogging again. Part of it is due to a certain increased level of self-consciousness stemming from the fact that it turns out that apparently more people are aware of this blog than I had anticipated. And that in turn has unconsciously caused me to become slightly more critical about what I write (= I've started writing on multiple occasions but then abandoned the pursuit in a streak of self-censorship). But another, perhaps bigger part of the lack of activity has been the refocusing of energy to other pursuits, namely work and exercise. But because work is work, we'll just discuss a bit about exercising instead.

I recently signed up for the Helsinki City Run, a half-marathon, for the second year in a row. I'm hoping to make it a habit of sorts in an effort to keep myself at least somewhat fit. This was caused by the sudden realization that I had weighed 79 kg after the surgery last summer, but more recently my weight had popped up to 91 kg. This in turn created an imminent issue with my wardrobe, namely that my slim-fit shirts and aggressively cut suits would soon have to either make another appointment with the tailor or just make room for better fitting clothing. And with the economic downturn, going to the Zegna-shop just seemed like too suicidal, the logical conclusion was that we'd of course take aggressive measures driven by vanity to curb the trend of increasing waist size.

Actually the situation isn't as hopeless as this might sound. The only real measurement of size that you want to use these days is in fact the aforementioned waist size, and a perfect measurement for that are your jeans. And I still fit into the same jeans as well as I did five years ago. The other measurement, in light of the HCR, is how long and fast I can run. I have occasionally been doing some running on the treadmill at the office, but last Wednesday I went out for the second actual jog outdoors this year. The target was to run around Lauttasaari, but then halfway through I was feeling so good that I decided to extend the jog to cover also Keilalahti. In the end I managed to do about 16 km in pretty much exactly an hour and thirty minutes. So on that dimension the HCR should not be that big a problem as long as I continue doing some running before it.

But more importantly I've again found the drive to actually do some training. Running outside has turned out to be more fun than I remembered and I've also been averaging a couple of times to the gym per week. And best of all I am actually seeing some improvements in strength and stamina, which further motivate me. So hopefully this pre-emptive strike will have more positive effects and ensure that the basic backbone of my wardrobe will be safe for years to come.

On a completely unrelated note, I watched Geraint Anderson's documentary on investment banking and bankers in London last week and got interested in the subject again. I also ordered his book along with some others that I had been meaning to get. Check out his somewhat provocative and very much hilarious music video below...