STEPPING UP THE PACE OF LIFE

By Blair Smith
Contact the author via the editor by e-mail at christopher.johnstone@ntlworld.com

Methlick Cricket Club (The MCC) goes from strength to strength. Last season we were undefeated in Aberdeenshire’s fourth grade, and this season we have not finished lower than second in any third grade match. Our official club headquarters, the Ythanview Hotel, now serves a new bespoke ale, “MCC Lairds”, brewed by the Atlas Brewery in Kinlochleven, from which the Club benefits by 16p for every pint sold. Charlie the Farmer, our Chairman, keeps a running total of the consumption required before our debts are paid off. This was a clear six-figure number when I last asked him, but may be substantially fewer since Peter Murchie’s recent visit.

Of course, there may be a moral issue here. Associating the consumption of beer with the finely honed athletes of The MCC may not be the image we should portray to the children of the village, or our opponents. It is well known that my teammates only drink a post-match pint out of a sense of duty, and to keep our rather grumpy Treasurer happy. There is a danger that beer and team sports become linked in a novel, if unlikely way. This is like winning sports kit in exchange for chocolate bars, or advertising cigarettes with Formula 1, and attempts to suggest that drinking, smoking and messing around with chocolate are healthy activities. Should we encourage a disassociation? In this case, I think not, quod erat demonstrandum.

McDonalds are giving away free pedometers – another dissonant combination. We are now supposed to advise our patients to walk 10,000 steps per day in the interests of their health. This recommendation is made for two main reasons: advising proper, strenuous exercise has proven a waste of time because nobody does it; and to increase the sale of pedometers (or McDonalds). Being, I thought, active and sporty, I scoffed at the pointlessness of advising such trivial exercise. Being also a sucker for gadgets, I bought a pedometer. As well as counting my daily number of paces, this converts these into total distance walked, distance walked aerobically, calories burned, weight lost, and the density of Jupiter’s moons. Unfortunately the last function seems to be disabled, but the others are interesting. The instrument sits on my waistband, looking like a sophisticated piece of communications technology, and represents an expression of my intended physical fitness.

However, the results have been surprising, and I did not realize how sessile my lifestyle had become. Here I am, after morning surgery and house-calls, and I have only walked 1,755 paces (1.66km), none of them aerobically. This has used 59 Calories or one third of my coffee break, and lost me 3.2g. The afternoon does not promise a greater level of activity, and the monsoon outside suggests that cricket training will be cancelled tonight. This is, in other words, a typical post-pedometer day. I do not believe I am atypical, in this respect at least, of many other middle-aged farts. We tell ourselves that we used to exercise, and convince ourselves that we still do. Yet my daily average is only around 5,000 paces, unless I make specific efforts to increase. But therein is the benefit of my purchase – I find myself making these efforts. The dogs have found themselves being walked at all hours of night, and now shy away from me when I approach. I am actually glad that the Health Centre is undergoing a prolonged renovation that “temporarily” (ie for nine months) requires a 500m walk from Reception to the consulting room. I’ve gone out for walks at lunchtime, and runs in the evening. I park in Stonehaven and walk the rest. I cut the grass with the push-along, leaving the ride-on depreciating sadly in the garage. A game of cricket is suprisingly productive (though more, in my case, from chasing balls than scoring runs). And it works – I feel better! Not, of course, because of the extra exercise (I’m knackered), but because my pedometer tells me that my total paces, distance and Calorie consumption have risen to acceptable levels. I can wear it with pride, and show the stored details to my wife, who is impressed. (She is, by the a community midwife, and scored twice my daily pace count, thereby demonstrating that GPs are more efficient than midwives.)

I have, though just found another, better way of racking up my scores. The pedometer has a sensitivity adjustment, which allows me to calibrate the amount of force required for it to record a step. By sliding this to the right, and wearing it while driving, every bump in the road is counted as a pace. I can therefore achieve the same recordings (and therefore personal benefit) as above without leaving the comfort of my car. For example, a drive to work counts as 1,843 paces (1.75 km), and loses me 3.4g of unhealthy fat. The bumpy farm track that leads from our house to the main road is a particularly healthy benefit conferred by our residential location. This discovery means that I have been able to recover the “lost” time I had been spending walking and running pointlessly. I have been able to stay at home and watch the Olympics.

Another, even better method of point-scoring will be tested tonight. A walk to the Ythanview Hotel adds 4,385 paces by the time I get back home, and loses 8.1g – approximately the same as I will gain in my efforts to refloat the MCC by drinking a pint of Lairds. And therefore fitness, beer and cricket are appropriately associated. Res ipse loquitur.

Other hoolet online articles by Blair Smith can be found at:
hoolet edition 49 - Ethics and Repression in the Bloo Toon
hoolet edition 48 - May The Best Team Win
hoolet edition 47 - Hunting Pink Elephants
hoolet edition 46 - Predictive Texting
hoolet edition 45 - Role Models
hoolet edition 44 - Time To Go Killorglin'
hoolet edition 43 - Salt and Shake
hoolet edition 42 - Stepping up the Pace of Life
hoolet edition 41 - Smoking out the Irish Question
hoolet edition 40 - Not Cricket
hoolet edition 39 - Anniversaries and Predictions
hoolet edition 38 - Is There Life on Mars?
hoolet edition 36 - Onwards and Upwards
hoolet edition 35 - Goal of the Season‘s Greetings
hoolet edition 34 - Chickens and Eggs
hoolet edition 33 - On Shifting Goalposts
hoolet edition 32 - Period Zero
hoolet edition 30 - Annual Appraisal
hoolet edition 29 - Working Towards Scotland's Healthier Children For Us All 2020 and A Framework for Maternity Services in Scotland
hoolet edition 28 - In Memoriam Admiral Byng. A cautionary Tale

hoolet is the magazine of RCGP Scotland. It is supported intellectually, financially and emotionally by RCGP Scotland.

This issue maintained by Robert Hallam.