Day 63/365: Lunch Time Runs

The first minute of my state-mandated thirty minute break is spent rushing to get out of the office. The next minute is spent quickly changing into my running gear. Within three minutes total, I am out on the streets of Medway getting in a 15-20 minute run.

This new routine has been one of the best ideas I have come up with and I wish I had started it a lot sooner. As I train and buildup mileage for my 50km run in May, every bit of mileage is valuable and, given that I am usually too tired to run before or after work, this is the next best option. It certainly beats sitting in the break room on my phone.

The benefits have been palpable as well. It feels like I am doing two shorter shifts instead of one. I return to the office feeling reenergised, oxygenated, and blood circulated. 

I haven't quite been able to get the change back into uniform perfected yet though and this part usually takes slightly longer as I wipe myself down with baby wipes and spray myself with deodorant. I also have the added task of making myself stop sweating, but by and large this process at the moment only takes me six or seven minutes.

I used to think there wasn't enough time to go on a run during my break. I was wrong.

Day 62/365: Brume Coffee, Nice

In man's search for meaning (read: Benny's search for the world's best cafes), I made the treacherous journey one of the world's most remote locations (the French Riviera). There, I came across one of my favourite cafes yet, Brume Coffee, on the northern edge of Nice's Old Town. 

I came across this place by accident while wandering through the streets of the Old Town after a disappointing meal at a local brasserie and in search for something sweet to rejuvenate my taste buds with the taste of something sweet. After having enjoyed a coffee already at La Claque, another great coffee shop just a few minutes away, I didn't want to risk the jitters and palpitations of multiple coffees in a short period of time. 

I opted instead for a 'chocolat chaud' and cookie and it did not disappoint. That is understating it a bit - it was perhaps the best hot chocolate and cookie I've ever had. The hot chocolate was smooth, flavourful, but not too rich which hot chocolates can sometimes be. Some places think hot chocolates should practically be a melted bar of chocolate in a cup, but that's not the case in my opinion. Brume got it just right and the cookie was something to die for. Just lightly warmed up to make the chocolate chips a little melted, it was the perfect accompaniment to a hot chocolate. 

As I sat on their yellow beach chairs on the street, I watched the world go by. Taking a small bite of the cookie, followed by a sip of hot chocolate was the move, causing the cookie to melt perfectly in my mouth. I instantly forgot the disappointing meal I had just had and soaked in the perfect spring day. 

Day 61/365: What You Can Achieve On A Half Hour Lunch Break

Today I answered the age-old question of how much you can achieve in a half hour lunch break on shift. The answer is 2.82km of hard running. As the seconds counted down, I rushed to get changed into my running kit and was straight out the door, much to the confusion of everyone else in the building. 

As the volume on my ultra training increases, so will the need for me to utilise any and all available time to dedicate towards running, including lunch breaks at work. You see, after works are usually a write-off just due to where I live - a former industrial town in one of the most impoverished parts of Kent... you can imagine the kinds of people out late at night, especially on a Friday or Saturday. 

Getting over the anxiety of people seeing you in regular clothes on a work day as you rush out the building. Or coming back into the building covered in sweat. It's scary, but it will have to be done to get my weekly mileage up. Investments in baby wipes are a must, as well as a good towel and efficient routine.

It really uplifted my shift and was far more productive than sitting on my phone for half an hour, as I usually do. 

You can achieve more than you think on a half hour lunch break.

Day 60/365: Iran

Seeing the British Middle Class turn into experts on Middle Eastern foreign policy because their favourite hotels in Dubai has been bombed in the latest escalation between Iran and the West has been interesting. Apparently it has “brought the conflict a little closer to home” conveniently forgetting the war that’s been waging on the European continent for the last four years. To be fair, the average Brit is more likely to have spent time in Dubai than the Donbas, so I can’t stand on my high horse too much.

Last year, myself and a few of my family attended a sit down session with legendary BBC journalist John Simpson at the Marlowe Theatre in Canterbury. At the end of his various anecdotes from various dispatches around the world, he held a Q+A where we all got the opportunity to ask a question via a QR code. Out of the hundreds of questions he was asked, only nine or ten were answered. One of them being mine,

“Out of all the places you’ve been, which country had the friendliest people?”

John laughed, his eyes beamed, and his smile went from ear to ear as he knew instantly his answer. 

“You won’t believe this,” he started “but Iran” he said as the audience made a quiet, but noticeable, gasp.

I, however, was not in the least surprised by his answer. Having travelled to the Middle East I was already aware of the incredible hospitality of the people in the region. I have also met numerous people who have travelled to Iran on my travels who have also said the same thing. While the hospitality of the Iraqis, for me, was unmatched, I have heard that the hospitality of the Iranian people is on another level not quite comprehensible to most people unless they have been there.

John Simpson went on to tell a rather funny, but heartwarming, story about his time on the ground in Iran during the Islamic Revolution in 1979. Faced with a frothing at the mouth protestor screaming "Death to America, Death to Britain!" Simpson approached him, stated he was a journalist from Britain, and wanted to speak to him. Upon hearing that Simpson was a visitor in his country, the frothing protestor immediately dropped to his knees, grabbed his hand, and welcomed him to Iran and even offered him tea (my memory is hazy so forgive me John Simpson if you ever read this and it is not an accurate recollection of the story you told, but most people will get the gist). 

While it is the regime that has been hit in this latest escalation. The instability this lack of leadership will inevitably cause will not just affect Iranians, it will affect the wider region and, in the end, us here in Europe and the West too. The Ayatollah was no angel and the pretext of stopping a nuclear programme has eerily similar themes to the pretext of the War in Iraq, in which America and the West ultimately got themselves tangled up in 20 years of guerilla warfare which we are only just recovering from. When that argument fails, saying "well Saddam/the Ayatollah was pretty bad too" is still not an excuse. 

A power vacuum will lead to the rise of angry, extremist groups who want to take revenge on the West. War, instability, and poverty in the region will lead to another migrant crisis in Europe. 

It's all fun and games for Trump in sheltered Mar-a-Lago, but for millions of regular Iranians, Arabs, and Europeans, the effects of this conflict can have devastating consequences.