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Since the holiday I've managed six weeks of very healthy living and exercising a lot more. My weight has plateaued a little (though I have lost at least 5 kgs), but I am feeling well and today my phone informed me that my average resting heartbeat has gone from 75 (about three weeks ago - when I got another message saying it had gone down) to 64. Apparently the lower your resting heartbeat is, the better your fitness. Though I suspect if you push it right down to zero that your fitness suffers. However fast this little ticker is going now, one day it will beat no more.
I am going to keep playing chicken with my heart though and see how slow I can get this thing.
One of the beauties of having very little officially to do is that I have been able to exercise every day, even if it's a longer than usual dog walk. I have come a long way since I tried to run up a hill with Phoebe back in late August.
I am also getting to explore more of Hitchin and today I took Wolfie through Hitchin graveyard to look at some of the people from Hitchin whose heartbeat is 100% lower than mine. Some of them haven't had a single heartbeat for 200 years. Incredible level of fitness.
I do really like a good graveyard and seeing the stories that unfold from the barest minimum of info about a person. It's hard to get away from the sadness, especially of any parent buried with a child that pre-deceased them, but it's cheering to think that with this little grasp of immortality, with their name proclaimed on stone, that some of them have achieved it. At least in the short term. Some (either them or their families) made better choices as to which material would stand the test of time (it's probably quite tricky to get a retrospective refund on a gravestone crumbling, when the person who sold it to you is lying not far away) and some just got unlucky and some crack in the stone or falling tree or careless drunk has caused pertinent info to fall off the marker. Or for the marker to fall apart entirely.
They didn't shirk on money back in the old days when everyone got a grave. There's some super spooky ones with sculptures on them, all for some people that nobody knows anything about any more, except their name, date of birth and death and maybe one other thing. In "We're All Going To Die!" I bemoaned the fact that we didn't also get birth and death weights. Just a little bit more info.
One lady who died at least 100 years ago was remembered as someone who "only thought about others." That would be seen as a diss to anyone who died in 2025, but back in the early 20th Century, never thinking of yourself was worthy of the highest praise. And rightly so.
I have perhaps been guilty of being too wrapped up in myself (no, come on Rich, you're great), but living a life where your focus was on others is surely admirable to an extent. It's sad to think that that lady didn't spend any time treating herself. And to consider that others were not necessarily as generous in thinking about her, as she was of them. But if you had to sum up a life and say "She only thought of others" or "He wrote 10,000+ consecutive daily blogs about his own boring life", I think I'd know which most people would go for.
I wasn't planning on having a grave (beyond being buried under one of my cairns) and I don't know if regular people really do that any more, but now I really want one that says "Richard Herring 1967-20?? He wrote 10,000+ consecutive daily blogs about his own boring life. Birthweight 8lbs, death weight 120Kgs. "Surprisingly adequate" cock (Popbitch). Resting Heart Rate- 0".
So please make sure that happens (and obviously make all the maths correct).
For now me and my slower beating resting heart live on.
Even more amazingly I got offered some TV work today, which will probably mean I have to reschedule the 18th November Leicester Sq Theatre gig. Tickets will be transferred or refunded. I'll let you know as soon as I know. No one could have predicted this eventuality.
I'm back in the big time.
