Skinny Blog

Martin Luther King Jr.

(author unknown) — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 13:00:00 +0000

"Faith is taking the first step, even when you don't see the whole staircase."

Randy K. Milholland

(author unknown) — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 01:00:00 +0000

"You make me understand how wonderful it is for little lizards when they find that one special rock that's perfect for sunning themselves on. You make me lizard-happy."

Snowdonia: A head for heights

Rob Penn — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 11:24:54 +0000

It's Britain's busiest mountain, but when Rob Penn pushed his bike up Snowdon it was impossible not to be moved by its 'grandeur and desolation' I was given three pieces of advice for climbing Snowdon: set off in the wet, arrive in the dry; don't, on any account, take the Llanberis Path; and leave before 8am. "Right, lads, it's 9.30. The sun's out. We're going up the Llanberis Path," said Tom, our team leader for the day, at the end of breakfast. An hour later, we'd reached the open moorland above the Llyn Peris reservoir. The footpath ahead was thick with hikers of every shape, size, age and ethnicity. I wondered – just as visitors to this wild country in the corner of North Wales must have wondered frequently over the past 200 years – what the hell all these people were doing here. The poet RS Thomas knew Snowdonia well. He wrote that folk come to these mountains "seeking for something unnameable, a lost Eden, a lost childhood: for fulfilment, for escape, for refuge, for conquest of themselves, for peace, for adventure. The list is endless. The hills have all this to give and more." Today, half a million people stand proudly on the summit every year, the vast majority arriving between April and October. Snowdon is Britain's busiest mountain by some margin. It has been since the early 19th century, when the Napoleonic Wars imposed the "staycation" on a generation of adventurers who had recently discovered the Alps. When the novelist George Borrow set off from Llanberis with his daughter and a guide in 1843, they were "far from being the only visitors to the hill this day; groups of people, or single individuals, might be seen going up or descending the path as far as the eye could reach". At 3,560ft, Snowdon (Yr Wyddfa in Welsh, meaning "the throne") is the highest mountain in England and Wales. This is the key to its enduring popularity. (The second-highest is Carnedd Llewelyn, a mere 70ft lower, but who's heard of it, let alone climbed it?) There are seven main paths to the summit. The Llanberis Path, which roughly follows the route of the Snowdon Mountain Railway, is one of the longest, and certainly the easiest. We were a team of nine old acquaintances who had come to ascend Snowdon on mountain bikes, and fundraise for a mutual friend who is terminally ill. Changing the first of many punctures beside the path, I was able to watch the extraordinary digest of British society wearily climbing the mountain. There were others using the day as a means to raise money for charity: a band of pirates walked past; three men in 1950s tea dresses and long gloves smiled demurely and I stuffed my copper coins into a collecting tin carried by two girls who were picking their way up, three-legged. I half-hoped to encounter some lads dressed like the soldiers in Carry On Up the Khyber – it was, after all, filmed on Snowdon in 1968. A father-and-son team illustrated the confusion at the heart of our nation's relationship with the outdoors: the dad had more kit than Doug Scott going off to climb K2, while his son was in jeans and a T-shirt that exclaimed, in pink, "I like party girls". I saw several couples whose expedition equipment comprised Tesco bags and a senior gentleman who was transporting the remains of the family picnic down the mountain in a red tartan shopper – a wonderful and uniquely British sight which I'll call upon in low moments for years to come. Half an hour before we reached the top, we ascended into the curtain of mist. Some form of cloud, mist or fog seems to perpetually crown Snowdon. It shifts over the mountain's buttresses, curls round the cwms and folds into the grey gulleys, occasionally clearing to let iridescent light on to the broken pieces of rock that have been splintered by the freeze and thaw of endless bitter winters. The first recorded ascent of Snowdon was in 1639. The botanist Thomas Johnson gained the summit and noted: "British Alps veiled in cloud." Welsh naturalist Thomas Pennant, who did much to popularise Snowdonia to painters, poets and the public alike in the late 18th century, also reached the top to find "a vast mist enveloped the whole circuit". German painter and physiologist Carl Gustav Carus made it up in 1844. "Of course, no sign of any view," he wrote. I've climbed Snowdon twice before. My family came to North Wales on holiday in June 1974 when I was seven. We made sandcastles, played crazy golf and ate ice-creams, all in the rain. On the day the heavens demonstrated the full arsenal of Welsh precipitation, I followed my dad silently up Snowdon. At the top it had actually stopped raining, but cloud clung to mountain like wet cotton wool. Rounding the pyre of grey rocks at the summit, I was astonished to make out the shapes of a family enjoying a flask of coffee and biscuits. Then we set off down, still in silence. My second ascent was late on a Sunday afternoon in summer 20 years ago, at the end of a long weekend climbing the highest peaks in Scotland, England and Wales. Again, the cloud as dense as a London pea-soup fog in the 1950s. The summit cafe, which opened for the 2011 summer season the day we went up, was heaving. The new award-winning building, Hafod Eryri, has gone some way to quelling centuries of public opprobrium at the hospitality offered on top of the mountain. George Borrow stopped for a beer on the summit, in what he called "a rude cabin". The Victorian hotel, built when the railway was completed in 1896, was replaced in 1935 with a visitor centre and restaurant designed by Clough Williams-Ellis, the architect behind Portmeirion. Towards the end of the 20th century this building was so down at heel that Prince Charles described it as the "highest slum in Wales". After an £8.5m makeover Hafod Eryri has finally satisfied centuries of protesters. It's just that we couldn't get inside it. "Don't even attempt it," said Paulo, who was waiting to greet me at the top. "It's like the evacuation of the American embassy during the fall of Saigon in there. If they're not looting the place yet, it's imminent." Minutes later, our day was transformed. The cloud was lifting. For the first time, we could see the pyramid-shaped peak. The barren slopes, the horseshoe ridges and the moorland below all left an impression of "grandeur and desolation", as William Wordsworth once wrote. Having pushed our bikes much of the way up, we were glad to be riding them again. Descending the Rangers Path was technically difficult. We edged along the Clogwyn Du'r Arddu cliff face on a loose path that shifted every time we touched the brakes, and down through several hairpins to Llyn Ffynnon-y-gwas. There were more mechanical failures and several crashes, but the mountains were suddenly our own. As with dialects, there are a hundred regional variations to the light in the British Isles. On the west coast of Scotland the Atlantic light has vitality that you don't find anywhere else. The soft landscapes give the light in East Anglia a thinned beauty, like young wine. There is menace in the cold light of Dartmoor. And in the mountains of North Wales, the light is distinctive again. When the sun finally broke through and filled the valley floor below us it was lustrous, heavily suspended with moisture, soothing and somehow suggestive of mythical happenings. To the Welsh, Snowdonia is the heartland – the final refuge when the Romans and the Normans invaded. Owain Glyndwr, the last native Prince of Wales, reigned here. In the national anthem "Land of My Fathers", the Welsh sing of their love for the land, not for a sovereign. Looking west over lakes, forests and proud hills, I understood why. Like the song, Snowdonia is rich – in colour and variety of terrain – and rhythmic, in the way the sculpted mountain ridges, valleys and tarns are repeated. As for scale, you could fit the whole landscape into one Alpine valley. We climbed again, over the Maesgwm pass, and dropped into a perfect, glacial-shaped valley. We had one long, lovely descent left, but we lingered on the hillside. Only when the light on Snowdon turned orange did we accept the day was done, and ride back down to Llanberis. Rob Penn is the author of It's All About the Bike: the Pursuit of Happiness on Two Wheels (Penguin, £8.99)

Essentials

Pen-Y-Gwryd Hotel, Nant Gwynant, Gwynedd, North Wales (01286 870211, pyg.co.uk) has 15 double rooms starting from £40 per person, per night on a B&B basis • The following correction was printed in the Observer's For the record column, Sunday 8 May 2011. We said Snowdon's Welsh name of Yr Wyddfa meant "the throne". It actually means tumulus or burial mound. (It may refer to the cairn thrown over the mythical giant Rhitta Gawr after his defeat by King Arthur.)

Rob Penn

guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2011 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

Caer Drewyn Hillfort – Corwen

Nicki — Sun, 22 Jan 2012 19:49:11 +0000

Climbed this monster today - got to the top and shouted obscenities into the wild wind - lots of fun for a boring Sunday....

Its amazing what you can do when you are in a bad mood - though I had to concentrate on not letting my lungs fly out my nose and navigate a mud river via a rickety wooden gate - it was actually quite fun!!

I went up in a ranty mood and came down quite at one with myself - treated myself to a bar of chocolate and all was well with the world again.

My only disappointment was that I could'nt get the kids to come with me - so next week I'm going to put my foot down with a firm hand and bribe them to come out....

Otherwise I'm buying a dog and will talk it to death enroute - harumph

Four Simple Fitness Fundamentals

guest — Mon, 02 Jan 2012 16:00:17 +0000

Editor’s note: This is a guest post from Chris of Zen to Fitness.

Health and Fitness have always been meaningful to me as I work in the industry and have always been fascinated by the topic. Nowadays I see too many people push themselves too hard, use bad form and quite simply overdo it with exercise or trying to be healthy in the quest to be fit. We also have a tendency to make health and fitness much too complicated … From this I came to think about a few fundamentals – things I find really important in living a healthy lifestyle. I came up with just four, sure there are others but these are the ones I feel everyone who wants to live a healthier lifestyle or be fitter should know. Bodyweight is King. The Squat and Pushup should be mastered before you move onto other weighted exercises or doing resistance training using weights. This is something I have learnt in my years personal training – the majority of people cannot do a bodyweight squat with good form or weight distribution. As for pushups few people can do 10-15 with good form – these two movements are the starting point and should be practiced and strengthened before doing anything else. The best thing is amazing workouts can be made up of just running, squats and pushups. Cardio is Great. Not Essential. Some people love to run, others don’t. Some like to go on long bike rides to release stress others don’t. We are all different and this is most true when it comes to cardiovascular fitness and training – some of us love it and find it to be a great tension and stress reliever, while others find it boring, monotonous and strenuous. Learn to love and live with yourself. If you love doing cardio (running, jogging, crosstrainer etc etc) then do it, if you don’t there are plenty of other ways to stay fit – whether it be bodyweight intervals or playing sports with friends. Find what you are into – the truth is that there are many many ways to gain cardiovascular fitness. Pick what works for you. Walk Everyday. Find Rhythm. Walking gives rhythm to our lives – it helps us think, re-aligns the body and limbers up the knees and hips. If you live in a city walking should be your main form of transport, I always say that if the distance is walkable do it by foot. If you live somewhere more remote walking can be harder as it is sometimes hard to gather motivation to walk without a real purpose. Try listening to a podcast or music while walking – this helps time pass by and gives you a time to listen to what you want without distractions. For optimal health I always say the two most essential things are walking and stretching – neither are to be obsessed over but if you can fit in at least 20 minutes of walking everyday and start or end your day with a good total body stretch out you are on the right path. Live an Invigorating Life. Last but not least – living an invigorating life is probably the most essential thing when it comes to health and fitness. This means living a life that we get strength or energy from – something that gives us a reason to be active and move. Whether this energy comes from doing a job you love, being around people you have fun with, travelling or just doing stuff you love. We need something in our lives to gain strength from. Excitement and passion change things up and gives us the motivation to exercise, eat well and most importantly makes us feel good. I would even go as far as saying one of the best ways to stay fit is just to live life — be active, play with your kids, play tennis, touch football or whatever sports you enjoy, do some bodyweight exercises in the morning, walk lots and eat lots of wholesome food. In all honesty that is how most of the healthiest people I know live. Integrate the fundamentals then go from there. Of course it is great to take things to the next level but first gain a foothold on your health by doing the basics right. Chris is the author of ‘All About Fitness’ and writes about staying fit while living life at Zen to Fitness.

Routines can make even the most unsavory tasks easy

Janine Adams — Fri, 30 Dec 2011 13:38:01 +0000

Janine Adams, owner of Peace of Mind Organizing in St. Louis, in her guest post today reminds us that the more routine a chore is, the less we have to think about it. Welcome back, Janine! Good habits are important, but routines are golden. When you string more than one habit together to create a routine, you go on autopilot. You start getting things done without even thinking about it. There are certain things in life we have to do even though we don’t love doing them. And, typically, the more frequently we do them, the easier they are to do. Take cleaning the bathroom, for instance. You can wipe down the bathroom surfaces (sink, faucet, toilet) every day. I do this after I floss my teeth. It’s easy and takes just seconds, because the fixtures never get disgusting since I do a little work on them every day. It took me awhile to figure out that I could apply this principle to one of the most distasteful jobs I have to do as a pet owner. I adore my dog and my cat. But, I don’t love dealing with their waste. As a responsible pet owner, I don’t really have a choice, though. I’ve always been diligent about cleaning up after my dogs on a walk. I never forget to take bags with me and I always pick up. I tried to be really diligent with the litter box as well. We have an automatic litter box for Joe, our orange tabby cat, but you still have to empty the container the waste is automatically raked into. And in recent years, Joe has let us know that he prefers having two litter boxes, so there are two to clean. (The second one isn’t automatic.) I’d try to do it daily, but it would sometimes slip my mind. The back yard, though, was another matter. In my almost 20 years of dog ownership, I had a tendency to clean up the back yard after the dog only when it got so bad I couldn’t stand it anymore. It was such a loathsome task that I’d put it off as long as possible. Then on the last day of 2010, I had an epiphany. The day got warm and the snow melted, revealing disgusting piles that had to be dealt with. As I picked up the loads of poo, I thought to myself that there must be a better way. How could I get myself to perform this distasteful task on a daily basis, when there would be only one or two piles to contend with? I started thinking about the other routines I’d created, like the aforementioned wiping down of the bathroom surfaces. I realized that the key to my success was to link the new habit with an already engrained habit. In the case of the bathroom, I had linked wiping down the surfaces to brushing and flossing my teeth. What else did I do every day that would logically form a routine with cleaning the cat box and scooping the back yard? Walking my standard poodle, Kirby! I decided that I’d finish my daily dog walk by scooping. It made sense, because I’d already be wearing weather-appropriate clothing and have poop bags on my person. I got really excited to try it. I started January 1 and now do it every day. I come home from walking Kirby, make a beeline to Joe’s box, scoop it into a poop bag, proceed to the backyard and pick up there, using the same bag for the waste. I tie it up, put it in the dumpster behind my house, and the deed is done. The great thing about this is that because it’s done so frequently, there’s little waste to deal with and it takes almost no time. Sheer quantity doesn’t make the task any more disgusting than it already is. I really think that the key to my success here was making this daily habit part of a routine. I don’t have to remember to do it; it happens automatically after the walk. The other thing that has worked out so well is that I used logic in pairing the tasks to create a routine. When I added wiping the bathroom to my morning routine, I linked it to tasks I was already doing in the bathroom (brushing and flossing). In this case, I’ve linked two habits (walking the dog and dealing with animal waste) that are related. It’s such a relief to have come up with a way to make this crappy, but necessary, chore less unsavory. Like this site? Buy Erin Rooney Doland's Unclutter Your Life in One Week from Amazon.com today.

OMG! Even my ache, aches!!

Nicki — Wed, 21 Dec 2011 09:28:50 +0000

Ow, ow! You guessed it - I've been out on the bike, she and I tackled the lanes in the ice and it was beautiful! Woman and machine powering through the wilderness, being at one with nature.

Ok - it wasn't exactly like that - I only got out of 4th gear twice, I forgot about all the potholes, my ass forgot about the sharpness of the saddle and I think I need to be in traction.

However the bugs remembered to land in my teeth as I fought for breath on the hills having fought my legs, lungs and gravity to get up the buggers!

Anyway - the point is - I'm back..I even got a sneaky 3 mile run in - but don't you tell anyone cos I'm still post operative and I should be waiting another 2 weeks. 2 weeks, 2 smeeks!

Christmas is nearly here…Fancy a Yorkshire Pudding?

Nicki — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 09:26:09 +0000

Are we ready - no we are not!! We have enough food in the freezer to sink a small battleship but not a single gift has been bought or wrapped...

Which begs the question - is it appropriate to give your loves ones frozen foods for Christmas?

How happy would granny be if she was presented with pigs in blankets? What about dad? How well would a 3 bird roast go down with him?

I'm wondering how set out mothers faces would be if we gave them yorkshire puddings elegantly wrapped!!

I, personally, would be very happy - but then we are talking about a girl who is about to eat an entire pineapple for her breakfast and laughs in the face of the possible consequences of such an act!

Follow this link to find more yummy gifts!

Follow up to: Baring Your Soles: How Do I Start Barefoot Running?

admin — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 06:39:19 +0000

With thanks to Jenica Rhee:

Created by: X Ray Technician Schools

At this rate I will be back on my bike soon..

Nicki — Mon, 05 Dec 2011 21:39:11 +0000

Well that's the plan....Did another 4.5 miles walking today and hope to get another big number in tomorrow then a nice rest...maybe!!

I will go and say hello to my bike next week - she's sulking in the shed next to a very grumpy Roger (the treadmill) - I started him up the other week and he far**d and refused to move, which was a bit like me a couple of weeks ago.

However, I have threatened him with oil and a good going over in a couple of weeks, he pouted and flashed his big control panel at me - I think we are friends again...

Just need to blow the dust of my trainers and we are on!!