Keep reading to the end of this entry for the chance to win some very exciting prizes in the Warming Up 5th anniversary giveaway!
My diet has been going OK and I have been eating very healthily since getting back from holiday and exercising most days. But I have hit a bit of a plateau and so am redoubling my efforts for a couple of weeks at least. Today I went for a swim. I realised as I got into the pool that I had forgotten to take my watch off, but couldn't be bothered to go back to the changing room - the watch is water resistant anyway. Then I decided I would try and time myself using the stop watch function to see if I could keep a good pace up throughout my half hour swim. And when I say good pace, that is on my own terms. I am not a fast swimmer. But it was interesting to keep an accurate eye on timings and to try not to let the pace drop. I do little 8 length cycles where I do two lengths of front crawl, followed by two lengths of breast stroke, another two of front crawl and then two of back stroke. I try to get to 40 lengths and then do 10 lengths of front crawl to wrap it all up - which is a total of 1000 metres. The 8 lengths (160 metres) takes me almost exactly 5 minutes at least for the first two or three cycles, though I tend to slow in the second 15 minutes and usually do around 44 lengths in half an hour. But with this new impetus of accurate timing I found myself speeding up if anything, before tiring at the 20 minute mark and I completed 1000 metres in 31 minutes, four seconds. By accidentally wearing my watch I had exercised significantly harder than I would have done without it. And now I can set my goal as trying to break the mythical 30 minute mark for the exercise. Given my borderline autism this challenge will probably keep me focused on swimming for a good few weeks. I can't imagine there is another swimmer in the land who could do 1000metres in less than 30 minutes. Let's not look up the record. It will be embarrassing. And in any case it doesn't count unless the record holder is alternating between styles as I do. Because if I just did front crawl then I should be able to do the same distance in 15 to 20 minutes. Which again, I am guessing is pretty near the world record. Also I doubt that the world record holder had to do their swim in one lane with four people in it (because there was an aquaroebics lesson going on in the other lanes) and one of the four people swam really slowly and could only be overtaken when there wasn't someone coming the other way.
So anyway, that's my swimming challenge and I am also going to try to limit myself to 2000 calories a day rather than the 2500 I was allowing myself (and in recent weeks I haven't been paying too close attention to that and have been moving back to beer a little bit too, rather than lovely, healthy wine!) If you interested today I consumed 1939 calories (approximately, give or take 0.1 of a calorie) and in cycling and swimming burned up 371, so that should have made a difference.
What a fascinating entry. I suspect many of you are wishing I could have played a boring poker game and told you about that instead. Will I manage to get through the last week to make this a five year mission?
I know this has taken a while, but here are the winners of the "Oh Fuck I'm 40" programme draw
Gary McQue gave the most money and thus gets the pair of trainers I wore in YCCYF (lucky boy) and (at a later date as I am using it in the new show) the T-shirt that got ripped in my epic battle in Liverpool. He also gets a signed script of YCCYF and the pieces of paper from the gullible routine in menage a un. I hope he's happy.
The other randomly selected winners are
Daffyd Tomos
Josh Cluderay
and Anna Boxer who all get a signed Time Gentleman Please script, signed programmes and a copy of the "Someone Likes Yoghurt" DVD
and Jude Brimmer and Jenny Fortnam who win signed posters from Hercules, Excavating Rita, Someone Likes Yoghurt, This Morning With Richard Not Judy tour and (unsigned, though the only one that might be worth something) Stewart Lee's King Dong versus Moby Dick show.
So congratulations to you all. Let me know very quickly if you have changed your address in the last six months!
And in very exciting news, to celebrate the 5th Birthday on Warming Up I am going to have a competition with some amazing prizes and best of all EVERYONE who enters will win something!
Here are some of the amazing prizes that you could win.
The actual eyepatch from HISTOR the crow from TMWRNJ
A very rare original "I like Fist of Fun" badge
The (faked) picture of me looking naked and ginormously fat that appeared in Fist of Fun
Very rare drafts of Lionel Nimrod's Inexplicable world scripts.
The Ungraded avid playout DVD of YCCYF including scenes cut before broadcast
A Just For Laughs Montreal festival umbrella
The certificates I got for Sky diving and walking on fire in the Hercules show
Someone Likes Yoghurt offline edit DVD
My Just For Laughs Montreal Festival artist pass
A draft of the script of Excavating Rita
Sport Relief 2006 Golden Socks
The card I got for appearing on the Richard and Judy show (signed by their producer)
Poster from Lee and Herring show at the Adelaide festival (very rare)
Just For Laughs Artist Director 2007
Lee and Herring Live tour programme 1996
TGP draft scripts
TGP rough cut videos
A Hollyoaks calendar of all the Hollyoaks girls which they have all signed (apart from one who has left the show) - genuinely - sent to me by a writer on the show who knows I like it
Rare posters from the menage a un shows in Paris and Milan.
Signed Richard Herring DVDs
Signed Richard Herring programmes
Signed Richard Herring posters (including rare TMWRNJ tour and Excavating Rita)
Signed Richard Herring leaflets (including rare Christ on a Bike ones)
A random video from my collection which will have nothing to do with me, but which I will sign anyway.
All you have to do to DEFINITELY win one of these prizes (and all prizes will be given out, so you are in with a shot of winning those very rare goodies) is to donate £5 (just a pound for every year of Warming Up) on my justgiving page at
http://www.justgiving.com/richardherring40 and then email your snail mail address to Herring1967@googlemail.com
I will draw out the winners on 25th November 2007 so you need to have donated by then. And the good news is that ALL your money will go to SCOPE. You can enter more than once and every one of your entries will win a prize - feel free to do this in one lump sum and your name will go into the hat however many times £5 you have given.
These prizes are pretty amazing (especially the Hollyoaks calendar) and I will search out more to ensure that as many of you as possible get something good. So please enter as many times as you can and spread the news to any other fans who you think might like to win some of this stuff. To give the first out of the hat the chance to have the prize they want please include a list of your top three preferred prize and will do my best to make sure you get the thing you covet. Come on, it's really good. It raises money for charity and you're likely to get something worth more than five pounds back. Imagine owning Histor's eyepatch! Amazing! Get donating.
