Tag Archives: London

Old Fart Fitness-Extended, Blog Version

. Fitness, Mental Fitness, Physical Fitness, Spiritual Fitness . , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

I love exercising (LOW IMPACT), and I have all my life. My body wasn’t designed for sprinting, but years ago I discovered that walking was good for my fat. As a middle-aged, overweight adult, I discovered that I burned more calories especially if I was trying to lose weight… like for the 1000th time in my life … if I jogged.

=>Tangent: you wonderful friends who say my body is just fine, I SO MUCH appreciate that, but according to age, height, & body size crap, I’m 10 pounds overweight. I’m 145 yet I should weigh 135 … I digress <=

Since Sean and I moved to our house and property here in 2004, we’ve taken advantage of our fields to keep a periphery mowed for a jogging/walking track. It is awesome, and the whole route takes approximately 12 minutes to complete. However, we appreciate diverse surroundings. Weather permitting, Carter, Ammon, Sean, and I also walk as a family every day and in various, surrounding locations. We walk approximately an hour. HOWEVER, Walking doesn’t help me lose weight, and if I choose to indulge a bit, I gain weight while STILL walking an hour every day. So, poor ol’ Haven who destroyed his metabolism by abusing his body with crash diets over 35 years ago needs to jog to help burn extra calories. The best part is that I do enjoy jogging especially in nature. When I jog by myself, it’s an introspective treat. Jogging invigorates my body, mind, and spirit whether in the hills of Southeast Tennessee, on the beach in Daytona Beach, Florida, on sidewalks along the shores of the River Thames in London, England, or down the Medieval streets of Gdansk, Poland.

I recently started watching some YouTube videos for the mind and body. The soul is still filled with prayer and daily Bible study with God’s word…. Haven’t used YouTube for the soul any. A mind over body motivational speaker, David Goggins, is on both YouTube and Instagram. I understand his motivational speaking and even SOME of his cursing because sometimes a good curse word has an IMPACT no other synonym can match. His motivation to me says, “Get up & Get at it! Stop the whining refuse (arrrgh, I want to curse!) and excuses!”   This “Get up & Get at it” is all about mind, body, and soul (my relationship with God) for Haven, but, for today’s entry, I’m sticking to the topic of PHYSICAL/CARDIO EXERCISE.

At some point every day, my lower back hurts, my right knee hurts (it has off and on for almost 20 years… Sean say’s it my meniscus), my right shoulder hurts,  and I have a 3 feet long varicose vein on my left leg that looks HORRENDOUS like disfigured looking- yet not the least bit painful. LOL. Like David Goggins discusses staring at his running shoes before he runs, I do the same: it’s like an event. This event sometimes takes 10 minutes to complete. I look at the socks, I put on the socks, I look at the shoes (sometimes boots), I tie the shoes, and I sit. I prefer jogging in the mornings. Honestly, my lower back and legs are sore the majority of the mornings, and if I have my coffee first then wait an hour, the process goes a lot more smoothly and happily. Now, after saying that, I don’t want to wait 2 hours after getting up to run. I want to do it as early as possible. Okay, okay…. Moving along… I’ve had my YouTube channel for 10 years, and after watching some mind and body influencers on it, I decided that this 55 years old fart, Haven Caylor-Brown, could diversity his YouTube channel and socialize with other old farts regarding their physical, mental, and spiritual fitness.

DANG! Those are MONSTER Crows’ Feet! Geez!

This morning I jogged for 1 hour and 5 minutes. It was 4.47 miles, and I burned 662 calories. It was awesome, and I have been jogging this route at Enterprise South for about 2 weeks now jogging it 3 times a week. There are plenty of spacious, paved roads with sights (deer, foxes, trees, squirrels, chipmunks, & birds) and sounds of nature, but the ground of the wooded paths are “padded”, and much easier on my knees, legs, and lower back. I do hope my jogging adventures will inspire / influence some folks to get some cardio exercise or exercise more, and as the days and weeks go by, I will be using my jogging and walking videos to weave some mental and spiritual thoughts, inspirations, and positive influences as well.

Jogging on the River Thames

. European Destinations, Family . , , , , , ,

Jogging on the Thames

I truly enjoy exercising in both cardio and strength
training. Physical exercise invigorates my body, mind, and spirit. My favorite
cardio is jogging. I started jogging on a regular basis about four years ago.
We have approximately 13 mowed acres, and we utilize about 8 of those acres “manicured”
to use as a jogging track. In fighting middle-age fat, we’ve also had to up our
jogging time to approximately 45 minutes to help keep our weight off. The
sights and sounds of the mountain and fields keep us occupied, and often times
the 45 minutes pass by very quickly.

The deck of the Crown Princess we were on two weeks ago was
very “cut up”, and did not have an extensive track to jog on. Its only complete
track was tiny: 16 laps made a mile! It was terribly
boring. Sean and I started jogging up and down stairs and meandering around the
decks to make the 45 minutes go “faster”. When we returned to London for our
last two days, I needed a place a jog. What was I to do?

We were thankful to get a motel (the Park Plaza at
Westminster Bridge…I recommended it to everyone) in an excellent location. It was a block behind the
London Eye and the Thames River. Parliament, Westminster Abbey, and Big Ben
were in view from our motel room. We had seen joggers
every day and at all times of the day in that area. On Thursday morning
(6-16-2011) in London, I woke up about 6:00 a.m., and I decided to jog around
the river.

For 30 minutes, I jogged from the Westminster Bridge, beside the
London Eye, over the Embankment Foot Bridge, back along the river, and returned
to the London Eye side.

It was awesome! The two things I kept imagining were the Elizabethan era ships coming and going from that area, and all their Age of Exploration
cargo ships emptying their riches from “newly found places” and the Ancient
Female Warrior, Boadicea. Boadicea is on the Parliament side of Westminster
Bridge. Boadicea was queen of the ancient Iceni who fought against the Romans
who had taken over their lands. She lost and was killed in A. D. 60, but she was heroic none the less. I jogged under her statue and thought of the courage of this beautiful and regal lady.

File:Boudiccastatue.jpg

When I finished jogging, I couldn’t help but consider the
stark contrast of my house’s calm, quiet fields with the ancient, rich history of London’s
River Thames, but it didn’t matter. Both are awesome places to jog! ;o)

Busy, busy!

. Family . , , , , ,

Vacations can be so enjoyable and relaxing, but preparing
for them can be exasperating. Before
listing what I have to do, I have to say that I am so glad we have our
dear friend Guy to come and house sit while we are gone (the animals appreciate
it too). We are also so grateful that my mother and my sister come several
times a week to check on things as well. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Now,
leaving home for a vacation is better in the winter when we do not have as much
yard work to do, but mercy, mercy: The mowing (13 acres), the weeding, the push
mowing, and spraying Round Up. If we didn’t do the before mentioned things, we
would come home to a jungle with copperheads and rattlesnakes running through our
yard. We also have the cleaning, the washing of clothes, the carrying out of
trash, making sure the four hound dogs have plenty of food, making sure the
cats are taken care of, making sure the dachshunds will have all the exercise
they need, and a whole list of things I am forgetting. If it isn’t bad enough packing
my own things, I have to pack Carter and Ammon’s  things too . You all who are parents know whatI’m talking about! Oh, me, it will be so nice when we are finally on that plane
to London this weekend and all this preparation is over! Wish us luck and pray
that we have a SAFE and enjoyable trip.

luggage 1