otrops: jeff van campen’s personal blog

Today I went for a run on Clapham Common. I ran on the Common last weekend, but I hadn’t run outside since I sprained my ankle. I have been spending a fair bit of time on the treadmill at the gym, though, and I’ve been using the heart rate monitor David gave me to do a lot of heart rate training.

Today was great. I managed to make it around the common twice, running the entire time. Well, I say running. It was more of a very slow jog. I had set myself the goal of keeping my heart rate at about 85% of my maximum heart rate. I mostly managed to do this, though it became more difficult towards the end of the run. I kept having to pull myself back because I was exceeding 85% by a few bpm.

Now, before you get too impressed, I should point out that twice around the common is about 5k, and it took me over 50 minutes to do it. In order to keep my heart rate under 85% I had to run pretty slowly. Nevertheless, I’m enormously happy about this. Before I sprained my ankle, I could only make it around once, and I was absolutely exhausted. Today, I felt fine. I was only slightly out of breath at the end, though my legs are a bit sore at the moment.

I guess all that time on the treadmill is paying off. I’m pretty sure the excellent wicking socks that Ingrid, Patrick and Jude sent me for my birthday helped, too!

As you may or may not remember, last year Joanne and I ran the Tree-athlon 5k. You may also remember that before we ran the 5k, we begged you for money.

Well, we’re doing it again. Last year, we set a goal of £200 (later updated it to £250). We eventually raised £190. This year, we’re setting the bar a bit higher: we’re trying to raise £300. We would greatly appreciate it if you helped us to reach this goal by donating to the cause. Thanks to everyone who helps us (and Trees for Cities) out.

Joanne and I went to Clapham Farmers’ Market and bought some plants — mostly lettuce, some flowers and a funky shrub. We spent much of the afternoon in the garden repotting most of the plants and planting seeds.

The most exciting part about this afternoon was that we got to use the compost we’ve been making for the last year. In doing so, we learned a few things about compost:

• It’s dark, wet and stinky. Actually, it’s whole lot like manure.
• Corn cobs really need to be smashed to bits before you compost them.
• Whole fruit or veg needs to be crushed or at least cut up. Most fruit and veg will be mush after a year, but it won’t be dark, wet, stinky compost.
• Paper — even shredded paper — is probably not the best idea. It doesn’t really compost. It turns into a slick, stinky mass of very wet pieces of paper. We might try mixing the paper around next time.
• Those “compostable” plastic bags that Sainsbury’s puts Fairtrade bananas in? They’re not really compostable. We found one at the bottom of the compost heap. It didn’t seem any different from the day we put it in there almost a year ago.

This is what we learned from using our compost for the first time. Your mileage may vary. Despite some hiccups and the smell, it was really exciting to see everything we threw into our composter turn into actual compost. It wasn’t perfect, but the earthworms seemed to like it, which I took to be a pretty good thing.

I came home to find a message from Tim on facebook. He asked if I’d heard about Penguin’s Blog a Penguin Classic program. I hadn’t. I have now, though, and I’m pretty excited about it.

You go to the site and fill in your details. They choose a book randomly and send it to you. You read it, and submit a review. Sometimes the simple ideas are the best ones. Actually, computer book publishers have been doing this for a while. So have film studios. I’m wondering if this is the first time a mainstream publisher has done something like this.

My randomly selected book was In Cold Blood, which I’ve always wanted to read. I’ll be posting a review soon.

I should mention that I’m not sure if this is a UK-only program. If you’re in the States and you register successfully, let me know in the comments.

I’ve just noticed that I’ve been keeping this blog for a year now. My first post was on the 22nd of April last year. After my recent posting spree, I’m a grand total of 52 posts, which means I’ve posted an average of one post a week. Though I managed to post something every month of the year, some months were pretty sparse. I should really try to avoid those long periods of silence, since this blog is meant to keep friends and family up to date with what I’m doing. From now on, I’ll try to post at least once a week — even if it’s about something completely random. So expect more of the same, then. Just a bit more of it.