Fitbits and Theatre Trips

A few weeks ago hubby bought me a Fitbit. A bit of a gimmick I know but for now I am finding it very interesting to see exactly how active, or otherwise, I am. It's a very tiny little thing that you clip onto your belt or put in your pocket and it records how many steps you take, how far you go, how many flights of stairs you climb (using changes in barometric pressure as you ascend, so it also counts if you run up a hill. Ten feet constitutes a flight of stairs apparently), and how many calories you burn (13 calories in 15 minutes doing nothing at all - so if I sit around for five hours I can eat a Mars bar...). It sets you daily targets - you can change them and put in your own but the standard ones seem to be quite sensible - and you can track your progress during the day, so you know if you perhaps ought to get up off the sofa and walk around the house a bit. My targets are 10,000 steps a day, 5 miles, and 10 flights of stairs. So far I haven't had much trouble doing the stairs but, unless it's a running day when I generally hit all my targets in one fell swoop, I do have to make sure I go out for a walk in order to get the steps in, which is a good thing. Although occasionally I allow myself a slobby day, like last weekend when we went to the in-laws and the sum total of my activity was to walk from house to car, car to house, sofa to dining table, and back again... At least I made sure I went to the loo upstairs so I at least climbed a few flights of stairs! (And the next day I went out for a 6 mile run and smashed all my targets.)

Another interesting thing it does is record your sleep pattern. I do not know how this works but you put the Fitbit in a wristband which you wear on your "non-dominant" wrist, so my left, and press the button when you lie down to sleep, press it again when you wake up, and it tells you how well you slept, or didn't. Now I know that I don't sleep very well - it's my age and my non-regulating body temperature - and I toss and turn a lot in the night, and my Fitbit has just confirmed this for me.

Last night's usual disturbed sleep pattern

There's not a lot I can do to change it I don't think, but it is interesting to see. And actually my "Sleep Efficiency" is better than I'd have thought, it has never dropped below 90% and I do on average sleep for over 7 hours a night - just fairly disturbed sleep. We did an experiment a couple of weeks after I'd got the Fitbit, just to see if it was actually doing anything and not just producing random lines on a graph, and hubby wore it one night. He sleeps like a log:

Ah, the untroubled sleep of the righteous! 

Today happens to be our wedding anniversary. Twenty-four years of very happy married life. To celebrate we went up to Town on Saturday; we had champagne afternoon tea in St James' (at least, I did, himself just had the tea)

and then went to the theatre to see Miss Saigon. We had seen this show during its initial run donkey's years ago and I loved it. I could never understand why it didn't run as long as Les Mis but what do I know? When I saw, back in about September last year, that they were bringing it back I couldn't wait and booked up as soon as tickets were made available. So we have waited months and months, and we were not disappointed. The tunes are wonderful and the staging was brilliant - the helicopter flying overhead in the middle of Act 2 is just incredible, and a very welcome blast of cool wind in a hot stuffy theatre. It's not a cheerful tale, let's be honest, but we loved it (I cried!). I didn't so much like the walk back to the station late at night on a Saturday - all those bright young things having a whale of a time in pubs and clubs. I am getting old I think!!

As a footnote, I didn't go parkrunning this weekend - the run in Guildford was cancelled owing to the Model Railway Club having an event in the park. Quite how much space the Model Railway Club were taking up I will never know, as I didn't go and see, but obviously enough to cancel the run. And as I am working this Saturday I shan't now parkrun until after we come back from holiday. I am taking my running shoes with me but am not confident I will use them much. I had a good little run on Sunday morning however. We had to take number 2 son to his old school sports ground as he had been asked to play cricket for the Old Boys against the Headmaster's XI. He hasn't played cricket since he left school 12 months ago, and his cricket bag has been stored in the roof of the garage so we had to get it down and check all the kit was still there and wearable. (It was, and he had a really good day by all accounts, scored a few runs and took a catch to get his old cricket master out, and the Old Boys won. We had intended to go down and watch a bit but we got sidetracked by the Wimbledon Final.) So anyway, hubby dropped me off at the sports ground too and I ran home along the river as far as there was path and then the road back up home. Exactly 6 miles in 1:04:16, which would have been less had I not stopped to help a man out with a lock gate. (11,150 steps, since you ask!)