Step On

For those of you that don’t know, I’ve always been a bit of a collector… Actually, wait…. that’s not quite right. Let me try that again….

For those of you that don’t know, I’ve always been a bit obsessive. Yes, much better. This was recognised from an early age when I would happily pour my pocket money into collecting whatever thing that was my currently focus of attention; badges, stickers, key-rings, novelty rubbers. The latter of which I must hastily clarify where erasers! What the object de jour was didn't really matter. I was a collector and therefore I shall collect. To the ill informed outsider, this might look like hoarding but it was serious business. Every chance that came along, I would seek out new objects to add to my collection and then, suddenly and without warning, I would stop and move onto something else. 

The arrival of the digital age hasn’t really stopped me, and instead has instead presented even more ways to obsess over things. It is sad to think that the joy of browsing though secondhand shops for a much sought after record may has been taken away by the digitisation of music. I just can’t quite see anyone in the future getting misty-eyed about the first time they streamed an album or purchased a download. But with the increased digitisation of things, comes an abundance of data. And that, my friends, is a rich seam of obsessiveness that just has to be plundered. 

And of all of the digital data currently at my fingertips, my latest obsession has been steps. And by that I mean the act of movement and not the late 90s pop sensations. 

I fear that it is the sign of the times that counting daily steps should be a target of any kind. Isn’t that something that we should just do? But somewhere down the line, someone decided that 10,000 steps a day would be a suitable goal for modern times. And it is no less applicable in New Zealand than anywhere else in the world. 

Quite how New Zealand, with its abundance of sunshine, warm climate outdoor opportunities, became such a car-centred society is partly geographic but also because construction of the required infrastructure just hasn't kept pace with modern life. 

When we arrived, and colleagues found out that we hadn’t bought a car yet, they were all too quick to point out that we’d made a mistake by not going to a car sales yard immediately after disembarking from the airplane. Jet lagged or not. Apparently a car should’ve been a higher priority than finding accommodation. After all, you can’t drive to the beach in an apartment but you can sleep in the car.  Eventually, after about four weeks of constant reminding, we caved and bought a car. I’d be the first to admit that it was useful for helping us get around all of the viewings of rental properties and for getting emergency furniture whilst we waited for our house contents to arrive, but as time went on and we settled into our new surroundings it became used less and less.

These days, outings in our car are limited to a short trip on Saturday morning to the local parkrun. This, our only concession to a car based lifestyle, could be replaced by a bus trip or even running to the start line. But that would require us to get out of bed even earlier on a Saturday morning. Unlikely to happen anytime soon. If we were allowed a do-over, the car would’ve remained in the sales yard and we would simply hire a vehicle when there was no other option. Which is rare, especially as we live in the centre of Auckland.

So, recognising that I was probably a little unusual - hey I heard that! - I started to track how many steps I was taking and like most obsessions, it sort of crept up on me. At first it was a sort of casual interest, occasionally checking an app on my phone to see what I had done. But this didn’t last long as once I noticed that the app gave out badges for particular achievements and in doing so you were allocated points. Yes, I had suddenly found my new obsession. Digital badges for physical achievements. Nirvana! The 7-day badge was a breeze. As was the 14 day award. A month? No worries. The three month badge was obtained without any real problem and before long I was on my way to getting the final achievement - a 365 day streak. 

You would be excused for thinking that as I walk to work, clocking up the steps wouldn’t be a problem - surely my commute in itself would let me get the required number of steps? The problem is that I am only a seven minute walk from the office which is just too close - in many ways. In fact, if you’re interested, it’s 826 steps too close. So I had to devise an alternative. Instead of taking the shortest route to my place of work, I headed in the opposition direction and did loops around the local park. I was spotted by colleagues on some occasions who later queried why I was walking in the opposite direction to the office. Did I not want to be in work? There are some questions that don’t need to be answered.

As the days counted down, the goal seemed to get father from my reach, especially during the last few weeks when as the day of reckoning approached, I became convinced that I would come down with the flu or twist my ankle.

Thankfully, I never injured myself to point of incapacitation, or succumbed to a virus - apparently there was one going around - but that's not to say that there weren’t some close shaves. On those occasions, when my daily obligations didn't allow much freedom of movement, I had to resort to walking in loops around the living room in my PJs until the display on my watch ticked over to the magic number. Crazy? Perhaps. But there was a digital badge at stake.

Soon, the final day was here and before sunset I needed one final effort. It just happened to be a Saturday and with the weekly 5k run usually being competed in the morning, getting sufficient steps shouldn’t be a problem. But I wanted to make sure. I wasn’t going to fall at the last hurdle so I got out of bed extra early and went for a walk around the park. By the time I lined-up at the start of the run at 0800am I already had 6,500 steps in the bag.

Thankfully I completed the run without any problems and somewhere out on the course, I clocked up 10,000 steps for the day. I was done. 

With the year that we've all had, I was quite pleased with my achievement even if there wasn’t anything physical to show for it. But in reality there was. Okay, call me Muttley, a finishers medal would’ve been nice, but I got something much more valuable. Not only had my daily walking  helped me keep physically fit, but was also all the encouragement I needed to get out of the house, get some fresh air and unwind. Lock-down would’ve been much tougher without it.

There was one negative side effect. I couldn't stop. Even though there are no more badges to collect, I still felt compelled to clock up 10,000 steps each and every day. I had tried deliberately not getting the steps I needed, only to find myself once again late at night, doing loops around the living room. I needed to take drastic action. So, with just a few days to go before I broke the 400 day streak barrier, I deleted the app and all of the data*. It's time to move on. But before I do that, I’ll leave you with some of the statistics from the past 12 months;

Total steps taken = 6,020,567

Total distance covered = 4,695km

Average steps per day = 14,649

Average distance per day = 11km

So what now? Good question but I’m not entirely sure. Something will present itself in due course. There's a cycling challenge coming up in February so maybe that. In the meantime, I have been meaning to properly index my record collection. And I really should so something about the organisation of photographs on the computer…..

*but not before emailing myself a copy first of course! I'm not that crazy!

Field of Dreams

I know many people suggest that they wish their dreams would come true, but in this case I’m willing to make an exception.

It all started innocently enough. As we were camping, 9pm rolled around so we started to get ready to sleep. Yes I agree it’s a bit early, especially as we were at the start of a three week break, but I’m blaming the fresh sea air. Oh and the bottle and a half of wine we’d just consumed. Besides, 9pm isn’t that late when you consider that we’d been awake since 6am.

Anyway, sleep wasn’t far away and so far I’d been sleeping very soundly and getting a full eight or so hours kip. Not quite uninterrupted as this being camping, meant that my nightly visit to the loo which required a five minute walk in pyjamas and flip-flops across the field to the toilet block. Still it was worth the inconvenience to get to the conveniences because I got to stare at the blanket of stars on display. They were wonderful and so bright against the dark country sky. There’s something to be said for getting away from the bright lights of the city, even if it does mean sleeping on the floor in the middle of a field.

But I’ve digressed. 

Toilet issues taken care of, I was soon tucked back up and lulled back to sleep by the distant sound of a Morepork, New Zealand’s native owl and the distant sound of waves breaking onto the beach.

And that’s when it started. I suddenly awoke again to find myself in the centre circle of a football pitch. The ground looked pretty impressive, even if all of the seats in the stadium were empty, and despite the dark night sky floodlights lit every corner. Just as I started to wonder what it must be like to have this as your place of work, a gentleman in a tracksuit approached me and my partner. He looked exasperated and was clearly in a spot of bother. 

“I don’t know what your plans are,” he asked, “but because of a virus we can’t field a full team today so we’re wondering if you could help us out?”

“Oh, really?” I replied then added, “how so?” figuring that even if this was a dream, a cautious approach was needed.

“I’m the Manchester United coach and we are having problems assembling a team for the match today. We can only play the game if we have the required number of players and it would be a great help if you could sit in with the rest of the squad.”

He obviously saw the concerned look on my face so quickly added, “It’s okay - you probably won’t have to play. Not unless we get really desperate.”

If I was in any doubt, it was at that precise moment that I knew I was dreaming. Anyone who had seen me play football as a youngster would have realised that I was definitely not at a professional standard. That’s not to say that I didn’t like playing football, far from it, its just that I wasn’t as good as I thought I should’ve been. Admittedly, if enthusiasm was the only ingredient required, then I was your man. If it was skill you were after then I respectfully decline. 

I was so enthusiastic back then that I was instrumental in forming a team, for reasons lost to time called The Swans, and setting up a local league in which to play. Unfortunately in my eagerness to set up this new venture, I forgot to look at the practicalities. There simply wasn’t enough players to make the whole thing work, and no-one else seemed as enamoured with the idea as I did. So fixtures were somewhat haphazard and usually resulted in the same people turning up to play whatever game had been arranged. Clever player rotation between the two sides, however, ensured that the games could take place and the match fixtures completed. It did lead to some unusual situations, such as the lead scorer in the league having played for most of the teams, but it didn’t seem to bother me. The Clavering Football league was up and running, even if I was the only one who paid it any notice. 

If the coach from Manchester United ever doubted my skills, or rather lack thereof, he only had to witness my performance on warm but damp summer’s evening. 

I fancied myself of a bit of a winger, modelled in the style of Middlesbrough’s Northern Ireland maestro Terry Cochrane. I had been running up and down the wing for most of the match without much of an impact. Well I say wing. At this point I must clarify that we didn't actually have a marked out pitch or anything. We did have a big field though and that was enough for us and, depending on which way you were kicking, either recently planted trees or a pile of jumpers made up the goal posts. Quite why the council had decided to litter our playing field with trees was beyond us. It was one thing having two trees to use as goal posts but as for the others..... Still it added to the complexity of the game. Dribbling around trees as well as a static defence was good practice and there was nothing like hitting the ball on the volley only to see it hit the trunk of a tree and ricochet into the (imaginary) top corner of the goal. 

So there I was, patrolling the wing when a ball was lofted out of defence and over my head. This ball was mine. I was off like a bullet and tracking the arc of the ball, sped down the wing. All I had to do was trap it when it landed and then cut inside and with a deft flick of my left boot hit it homeward. I had it all planned out. It was a bit of a surprise then when my progress was suddenly halted and I crashed to the ground with a thump only to witness the ball land and run into touch. I had been so intent on tracking the flight of the ball that I forgot to look where I was going and had ran smack into one of the aforementioned trees. Bloody council do-gooders.

Where was I? Oh yes, back to my dream. Let’s just say I wasn’t exactly Manchester United material but that obviously hadn’t deterred the chap in the tracksuit. Well he did say they were desperate. 

I was provided with some kit and me and my partner were escorted to our seats in the team dug-out. What a moment. Me sitting alongside the Manchester Untied team who, again for some unexplained reason, were dressed in a white strip and were now sponsored by Marvel. Go figure. Unfortunately there had been a little bit of an administrative error and my Dad’s name had been sellotaped to the back of my seat. Never mind, I would have strong words at half-time with a team official to get it changed.

My fellow, albeit temporary teammate, turned to me and thanked me for helping them out of a sticky situation. They really needed to fulfil this fixture and my presence ensured that the game could take place. Oh, and not to worry - it was very unlikely that my services would be needed on the pitch. My fellow teammate, whose name I didn’t catch, bared an uncanny resemblance to Chris Riggott, the former Boro defender. 

"So are you blue or red?" he asked.

"Actually neither, I'm a Boro fan," I replied.

"Oh, I'm not sure I know who's in the Boro team these days."

"Neither do I really," I admitted, "I live in New Zealand now so it's hard to keep up. We're only here for the day."

I’m pleased to report that my dream didn’t turn into a nightmare and, as promised, my services were not required so I spent a pleasant afternoon chatting to a fictional Manchester United team and their partners whilst Chris Riggott told me more about the inner workings of the team and what it was like being a professional footballer.

Unfortunately I can't recall the score in the game, or whether it was entertaining, as I was rudely awoken by the sunrise and the noise of excited birdlife. Still, it was a beautiful day and just perfect for a quick run and then a dip in the sea. Now that is the stuff of dreams!