Day 664 – An Incident

There was a bit of an incident yesterday involving a bridge, some wet leaves, some inappropriate footwear for the conditions, and a known quantity of gravity.

9.81ms-2

Gravity did prevail, as it always does eventually, but there was at least something of an short-lived fight put up before its victory, during which brief period, I threw shapes like a shellsuit-clad, late-80s, Albanian break-dancer.

The fight (such as it was) did mean that my actual fall was mercifully underwhelming, but the amount of sheer energy immediately expelled – together with the extreme contortions on my way down – have left me rather jarred today.

Everything (and I do mean everything) hurts.

I was already having a bit of an iffy week. Nothing too terrible, but there were some noticeable LC symptoms about. Odd aches and pains here and there, some degree of excess fatigue and a memory like a… like a… oh, whatever. I don’t think this had anything to do with the fall: anyone wearing those sort of slops on that sort of wet leafy surface (and under the seemingly omnipresent force of gravity) would also have gone down like Jessie Lingard “near” a defender.

I’m hoping that some extra rest this morning and some sensible activity will prepare and re-condition me for this weekend’s crazy plan, which I haven’t dared mention on here yet, but will elaborate upon over the coming days.
Suffice to say that – given my condition (even pre-yesterday) – it will be the biggest physical challenge for me for quite a while.

I can’t wait.

Right now though, more painkillers.

Day 650 – Run

A couple of months ago, fresh from a bizarre but promising appointment with a physician, I wrote this post, in which I declared:

I’ve set myself a goal: I’m going to run 5km in 30 minutes with my son on his birthday next year

With hindsight, I probably should have asked him first, but if it becomes necessary, I’ll just pull parental rank on him.

Anyway, that run seemed like a great idea until the next two months happened and I was – once again – rather unwell. Regular readers will recall that I even chucked myself at a local pulmonologist in an effort to get better.

It didn’t work.

But the last few weeks have been better, and so I thought I’d push myself with my first run since Covid: my first run since June 27th last year.

This was never going to be a pleasant or pretty experience. BTV, I was at a level of fitness which meant I could knock out 5km in 30 minutes with not too much nastiness involved. Those days are gone (for the moment, at least).

Today’s effort was a reasonably paced 1.5km around the neighbourhood in the summer sun, including some hill. Quite a lot of hill, it seemed, although the stats seem to suggest differently.

Could I have managed 2km? No. The lights were beginning to go out at the top of the third incline, and so I thought it better to come home.

It’s quite depressing when you compare it with last June, but it’s nice to still be able to do anything, and it’s a big improvement on that first doctor’s appointment above, in which:

I got up to 6kph on a slight upward slope, for a whole 150 seconds

For the record, this was 8.8kph – including some slope – for 615 seconds. Better.

I’m really not used to starting over like this (although…). It’s clearly going to take some effort.

But I am up for the challenge.

Day 637, part 2 – Immunity

That didn’t last long, did it?

Ugh. I’m not having a good day.

Many reasons for it, but the shifting sands of Covid policies, together with the shifting plans of the next couple of weeks, a touch of added crappy service from the local Amazon wannabe, and just a soupçon of just sheer meh as a garnish.

I turned to the internet for amusement and escape.

Mostly, that was a very bad idea, but there was this from xkcd, which is so simple and so perfect:

Comic

In related, better news, it looks like I might be able to go heterologous with my booster vaccine. Which is great, but does bring up the awkward question of why we have to wait until after the period of maximum benefit to actually get it again.

Day 636 – America’s most robust COVID data tracking system

Much as we used to look at how many people were googling the symptoms of influenza to follow influenza across the USA (ok, that didn’t end well, but those mistakes have now been ironed out), so perhaps we can look at other web trends to track Covid. This one uses bad reviews for scented candles on Amazon to provide when one person calls:

Here are some bad reviews for scented candles on Amazon:

The thing is – if you don’t get it (and many commenters didn’t) – the lack of smell associated with having a Covid infection. So track the bad reviews and maybe you can track the Covid.

One individual with an interest in statistics pointed out that the figures always peaks at this time of year – probably because many people get scented (or unscented) candles as gifts at that time of year or they are buying them to make their festive house smell (or not smell) nice for the holidays.


But if that was the case, where is the peak from Christmas 2019 going into 2020, when notably, there was no Covid in the US?

So maybe it needs to be America’s most robust COVID and Christmas data tracking system.

But then here’s another look at those same data, but plotted as a percentage of reviews, rather than an absolute count.

Image

Again, no peak at the left hand side. But a little one in June 2020, another (as we know) at Christmas last year, and an upturn from August 2021 to the present day.

And here’s a graph of new cases in the US.

Of course, correlation is not causation. But as a starting point for a nice, fun little study on different ways to track Covid, this seems to fit quite nicely.

And why would this be useful instead of looking at the actual Covid-19 data? Well, because that latter option relies on people actually creating those data in the first place. And these are Americans:

Er… you go and have a Covid test.

In fact, even if you have a good sense of smell, if you think you might have Covid, going and having a Covid test still ranks as Number 1 in the best ways to tell if you have Covid.

Not that anyone would tell you differently. Oh wait.

Er… I’m not sure that would…

I… but… what if…

Ah Jesus.

Yes. Yes. This is it.
Keeping rotten food in your fridge is definitely the best way to tell if you have Covid.
It’s also a great predictor of whether you are going to have food poisoning.

Two birds, one very stupid stone.

Day 633 – It me

Spotted yesterday, this:

If you look at how other people gained their super powers: getting nibbled by a radioactive spider, being born on Krypton or having shedloads of cash and a cave under your mansion (is this right? – Ed.), most superheroes have had it fairly easy.

I haven’t had a spider bite, I was born on earth and I don’t have a mansion or a cave. So it looks like I’ll have to go via this route. And looking back at the last 5 months of my life, I would absolutely argue that this so-called “super immunity” – if I even have it – is absolutely not worth the effort.

I can’t even fly.

Rubbish.