Goodwood Revival 2009

Last weekend I spent a fantastic day at the Goodwood revival. There was supposed to be four of us in total, but sadly two had to drop out. One because something else cropped up that he couldn't get out of, the other person was ill on the day so stayed at home in bed.

That didn't stop the two of us left having one of the most fun days out I've had all year, and that is a year that includes the F1 GP at Silverstone!

We arrived really early after being told you need to be there as soon as possible if you don't want to spend half your day sitting in traffic. The fact we didn't have to pick up the third person meant we also saved ourselves an extra 20 minutes on our journey time. I think we actually got into the circuit at about 8:30am so had plenty of time to explore before the first race at 10am.

I always like to walk round a circuit to get a good idea of the track so that was the first thing we did. Even though it all opened up at 7:30am, it was still pretty deserted when we arrived so it was nice to be able to wonder around freely and easily. It probably took us about 45 minutes to complete a lap at a leisurely pace, just a tad slower than the 1m50secs the car were lapping in a bit later that day!

While we were walking round lots of aircraft starting landing on the runway in the infield. Some amazing planes were showing up and as there is fairly open access every where we decided to take a trip into the infield for a closer look at some of the classic planes. We also found the Earls Court mock up with a fabulous car show inside the hanger.

Seeing all that the infield had to offer meant we actually missed the first race at 10am and once we escaped we discovered just how busy the place had become! We didn't bother with stadium seating as they were quite expensive, but it was becoming evident how valuable they were. We started to make our way round the track again to find ourselves a suitable vantage point to view some on-track action. We ended up walking over half way around the circuit again before we decided to rest our legs for a while. It wasn't a great spot but we needed some recuperation time having walked non-stop from 8:30am until what was now gone 10:30am.

One race later, from our less than ideal position and we felt it was time to set off again to find somewhere we could see a bit more of the racing. This done we settled in for an hour or so of spectating until we got hungry, time for lunch!

Another trek to the nearest grandstand to find some food wagons, but massive queues everywhere. It was going to be busy regardless of where we went, so we just stood in line for about 20 minutes and ended up with a slightly pathetic burger for an extortionate price. Never mind though, nothing could compare to the £12 they were charging for the programmes!

After lunch we experienced the worst renditions of "Happy Birthday" and "Rule Britannia" I've ever heard. It really was quite embarrassing, it was Sir Stirling Moss's 80th birthday over the weekend. I was great to pay tribute to him, but they seriously couldn't have found anyone with a worse voice to do the job! What was quite amusing was watching the faces of all the spectators, I wish I'd got that on film.

Later in the afternoon one of the highlights of the day was seeing the Vulcan bomber doing a fly past, which you can see below. There really was nothing to spoil the superb day though, we spent over 12 hours at the track and loved every minute of it. If you've never been I really can't recommend it highly enough to you. There's something for everyone, whether it's the racing, aircraft, fairground, live music, dressing up, stunning scenery or the merchandise tents with all manner of period paraphernalia available to buy. They manage to cater to the whole family!

I took my Toshiba Camileo P10 camera with me and took quite a lot of video during the day. Much of it is just cars flying past on the track, but after some editing I put together a 15 minute video. Considering the camera was less than £100 and produces HD footage, I'm quite happy with it. You can see it in two parts for yourself on YouTube, don't forget to hit the HD button though!

Wii fit progress

It's been a week on my new "fitness" regime now... how's it going? Well I've been doing my bit every day for at least 30 mins. The good news is the 1lb it reported I'd lost after the first couple of days didn't come back again, the even better news is that I've lost a further 3lb during the week. So a total loss of 4lb!

In fact it's all pretty positive really except for the realisation that to reach my ideal weight it's going to take me a very long time. I don't really want to lose the weight any faster than that, but I just don't know if I'll be able to keep it up for the amount of time needed!

Still anything is better than nothing and as long as I don't put the weight back on again I'll stay relatively happy. I'll try and do at least one update a week here, it's just another motivating factor for me to keep going if I have to report back.

Wii fit update

So on Sunday I reported that I had picked up a copy of Wii Fit, mainly for the balance board. The game just comes with it really, but I need to get fit anyway so I decided to give it a go, despite me being convinced it's just a gimmick. See my previous post "Getting fit with Wii Fit" for more on that.

Three days later and so far I've stuck to the commitment, I've done at least 30 mins a day, probably nearer to 45 actually. I figure if I do 30mins a day that's probably a reasonable workout for my fitness level. I'm actually quite impressed with its ability to engage your whole body in the training exercises. I've built up a good sweat when I've played it and while it's easy to cheat the system there's no point. You won't lose weight or build up muscle by just shaking the remote a bit. You have to engage with the game and actually work at it, it requires a level of dedication and a willingness to do things properly.

I'm finding some of the exercises pretty tough, simply because my fitness level is about as low as it could possibly be. I can't physically do a push up for example so need to work on my upper body strength first, something that Wii Fit doesn't really address. So I've got some dumb bells and I'm doing some curls to work towards my goal of doing a push up :-)

However, I certainly know it's working to some degree, I can feel my muscles ache where I'm actually pushing them. I'm trying hard not to over do it, I know that can be dangerous. But it's a fine line because if you don't push yourself then you won't accomplish anything.

Wii Fit actually reported I'd lost 1lb today and my BMI dropped very slightly, I'm not sure how much to read into that though. It could be accounted for in so many ways, the only way I'll know for sure is if it stays like that tomorrow and continues to head down over the course of the next week or so. Basically, I'm not going to get too excited yet, and even if I have there are many, many more I need to shed yet!

It's good to see the graph though, it's nice to see how you're improving but only if it's going down. I have a feeling if the line goes back up I'll lose interest pretty quickly!

Having played it I am convinced it will help with my fitness though, especially if I do it every day. I'm certainly going to try, but it could take a very long time to get my body into shape. I don't want to go on any crash diets, they don't work, so I'm doing it the hard way. A sensible balanced diet and exercise!

Stay tuned if you want to follow my progress!