Conservation

Juneathon 6: Gym

Time for some variety: so off to the gym. The idea is to have some balance as running and cycling do everything for the legs and cv and very little for anything else. So today I was concentrating on my arms and upper body.

Other than that there is little to say. it was in the gym for about 45 minutes: 20 minutes rowing, 15 weights, 10 minute stretching. Not an overly tough session.

Walking home I passed the big block of apartments they are building in, what was, the Kodak building. I will not say anything about the looks of the development until it is finished but the sign in the photo is new. Apparently they have designated a small triangle of scrubby land between the road and the flats a conservation area! How very strange. Perhaps conservation is just another word for leaving the grass uncut. Certainly there is no ecological reason for anything here as the site is just over the road from Boxmoor, which is a lovely area of common land, used for grazing and recreation. In the best sense that is a conservation area, this is just silly.

Juneathon stats: 6/6
run 4/6
distance 29.46km
time 2hr 54min
Cycle 1/6
distance 21 miles
time 1hr 32min
Gym 1/6
time 45min

Photothon 12: Kodak town no more

This is yesterday's photothon. I went to the gym for a bit of strengthening and resistance training but I have no interest in presenting a photo of a weight machine. They are dull and cannot lift the spirits but I still use them once or twice a week. As you get older you have to work harder. on muscle-tone.

I have mixed feelings about gyms and, referring back to my last post, they are an example of the way you can split what you think and what you do to contain a degree of conflict. I do not like the way they are activity factories and institutionalise fitness. (It really annoys me when people conflate getting fit with going to the gym and when you hear people talking about them as the default solution to problems of lack of exercise and obesity. They are not, they might help,but getting out and about more, for longer periods of time is likely to have a much greater effect). But they are a convenient way of doing certain exercises and I use them for that..



Anyway along a bit from the gym is this.

It used to be the Kodak Building, which loomed tall over the entrance to Hemel Hempstead, guarding the Magic Roundabout. At one time Kodak was important to the town. It was their European marketing headquarters and there was a big film processing plant in the industrial area. Film processing, of course, has long gone and a few years ago they closed their offices, which are now being converted into flats.

So what you see is a skeleton that at some time in the future will have a shiny new skin. Gradually they have reduced the height, so it is not so out of scale with the rest of the town. It will be interesting to see what this development will look like, especially as the market for this type of accommodation has gone haywire.

I hope it turns out well and the project is not frozen. The entrance to any town is an important site and should not be marked by a skeleton.