Livenews

Lindsey Wixson, a 15-year old, refuses to pose topless for top photographer Craig McDean. She asked for a see-through bra during a shoot for W magazine. She gave as a reason that her mom would hate it. She actually felt like she needed to give a reason.

This fact made it to the news! This is news! A 15-year old girl who does not want the whole world to see her breasts! Why the hell isn’t it news that the world wants to see them? Why? Because normally, on the set of a photoshoot, the pack of wolves and wolverines (all adults) manage to pressurize any insecure ambitious girl into dropping her pants, her top or her underwear. You wanna make it to the top little Missy? Show me some tits and call me after the shoot.

http://www.nu.nl/lifestyle/2197138/15-jarig-model-weigert-topless-poseren.html

Still getting up early (a bit earlier even) and still liking it. The most amazing thing so far is that I hardly have any trouble sleeping anymore. A part of this is probably also because I can’t feel the difference between my right ankle and my left ankle, but I also think it’s because of my drastic change in sleeping pattern. It is pretty crazy if you think about it, I think since I was 18, I could have counted the amount of times I went to bed before midnight on two hands, and now I do it a minimum of five times a week! For the rest, there is no point to this entry, except to document that I am still doing this.

To study, you must be a smart individual. University is not for everyone! No no, to understand the academic language is pretty tough from time to time. Social scientists are smart. A sentence in my book:

‘A study by Johnston, Anderson and Holligan (1996) and Stuart and Coltheart (1988) have found that children’s knowledge of letters is a significant predictor of reading success’

It took five guys to figure that one out.

I am a proud to announce that, since I’ve bought the Nike+ running equipment a year and a half ago, I have now ran 1000 kilometers with it!

Wow! Google now has Buzz! I’ll link it to your FaceBook so we can MySpace while I Twitter about it from my iPhone. I’ll send you an MMS while they SMS while you do S&M on MSN, hoping it won’t end up on YouTube. Out of protest to the internetification of our generation I will write on my blog about it! Right after I check on Nike+ to see how I did on my last run.

I’ve been getting up at 6:30 for a while now. A while, no, that sounds better than what it really is. A bit more than a week now. Man, it feels like a lot longer. I’ve been getting up earlier and earlier, for about a month though. That already sounds better! Every morning, I make a little list of three things I want to get done for sure that day. No matter what else I do, if I do those three things, I had a good day. It’s made me study well, it’s made me tackle my administration (if you can call a big pile of unopened envelopes full of trouble ‘administration’), it’s just been making me do a lot of things I don’t feel like doing, but feel great once I do. There are many more things I’d like to do, but I am starting slow.

Why am I doing this. I am doing this because let’s face it, I can be pretty lazy. And I have this view of myself of starting and quitting too many things these past few years. This kind of got me scared of starting anything in the first place, which is both not smart and counterproductive. The thing is, If I could be lazy and actually enjoy it, I might just leave it at that. But I am not good at that. I’ve seen lazy people, being terribly happy doing what they’re doing (not doing) and I admire them, in a way. But it’s not for me, I get all kinds of Calvinistic guilt, all kinds of ‘you’re wasting your life’ feelings. And that has made me terribly down, more than I’d care to admit. This is why I am trying to change bits and pieces in my day to day life.

Why like this. Because of an article in Time Magazine, which had a list of the 25 best blogs in the world. One of them was ZenHabits.net. I’ve been reading this site for maybe a year or something from time to time, and early January, I decided to do something with it. Not everything on this website is for me (I would rather cut all my toenails way too short than become a vegan, and I am not trying to de-stress my life, I am actually looking to stress it a little bit), but I like the ideas on many points.

Why am I writing all this down. For one, I haven’t really told a lot of people about this, because I have been feeling a little stupid and self-helpy, and I now decided that there is no need for that. Also, because I am afraid that this is something I’ll do now and quit again, so I thought it better not to tell, so only myself and a few others know of my newest failure I’ve now decided this is silly too. I also decided to write about it because I am a little proud of the beginning I made, and I am aware that this is only a beginning. Maybe writing about it can help me to keep going.

In the words of the late George Carlin: ‘I have no ending for this, so I’ll just take a bow.’

The good news is that today I ran without a jacket! For the first time in a long time, it was warm enough for only three shirts (two thermal) and two pants (one thermal)! Okay, that doesn’t sound like that great news actually.

Over to the bad news now then. My knee has been painful since the half a marathon, so two weeks ago I though I’d be smart and give myself a break of more than a week. Now I’ve run three times since that rest, and I have to admit it still bothers me. So hereby, I am committing to two full weeks of no running. Why am I saying it on LiveNews? Because then it’s public, I’ll really have to now. And the Nike+ thingy is hanging in the LiveNews window, so I can be checked on. If you see any more distances change on there, please find within yourself your most fatherly or motherly tone and e-mail me, telling me to stop that immediately. Thanks!

But then I stand there, before coming out, music pounding, people watching, and I notice I am sweating. And it’s not warm. All this tough talk about how easy it is, but in the end I am still a wussy on a runway.

Today I have to go to Milan for something I have done before, but which has never stopped surprising me. I have to go to Milan to practice a fashion show. Now, I know models don’t have the reputation of being the brightest bulbs in the chandelier, but this is pushing it! Placing one foot in front of the other, commonly known as walking, in a straight line until the end is reached (the end is signalled by a wall of cameras pointing at you like you just got targeted by 200 snipers who didn’t hide that well), which is the point where you turn around and retrace your steps. Don’t fall off. Don’t hit walls.  I’d say most 2 year olds could pull it off on the first try. Yet here I go, 26 years old, practicing walking. You got to love all those TV shows where they try to convince you that being a model is a hard job.

It’s been done in a minimal amount of time, so not quite perfect or polished, but just a quick impression of a special experience, the half a marathon on the last day of last year.

HalfAnM

We did it! We both ran half a marathon. It was a very, very tough and great experience. We were in Kampen and we had to run 7 laps through a park there. The first round I ran with my brother, then from there we both grabbed our own speed. It was cold, but okay the first few rounds, but then the wind and snow started to really hit hard. My knees were killing me and my ankle was struggling a little bit because of a little snowslip in the beginning but I made it to the finish line. I hope at some point when we’re back in Italy to upload a few pictures where it’s possible to see how enthusiastic we were in the beginning, and how beat up we were in the end. 1 hour and 48 minutes after I started, I finished. I could hardly walk the two days after that but it was worth it. Today is the first day since then that I am considering running again, since we legs finally feel normal again. It was a special day, to run half a marathon with your brother, while a few people you care deeply about are watching and supporting you, I will remember that. Now I’m going to run a bit shorter distances for a while

Some stats are missing. Okay, maybe a lot of stats are missing. But not as many as should be missing, really. I had a massive cold for about a week, which stopped me from running for two weeks. Somehow that made more sense when it happened. Also my brother isn’t exactly feeling 100% with pain in his heel and a cold. So the preparation these past weeks have not been how we would have wanted, but it doesn’t matter anymore, the half a marathon is tomorrow morning at 11 in the morning. The woohoo-nerves started this morning, and now I can’t wait anymore. Also it’s going to be nice for it to be done, it’s been quite an intense and time-intensive training for the past three months. I had all these plans of running under a certain time, trying to be this and that much faster than my brother, but it’s all out the window. Tomorrow will be about getting to the finish line. That’s all. The only way I’ll stop is when my ankle would tell me to. But how it’s been these months, I am not worried. Wow! That is a stupid thing to say.

If I said it’s been easy today, I am lying. A lot. It’s been my longest and my toughest run so far. Actually, the first time that I wasn’t sure if I was going to finish. The first 12k were going so well, then I made the mistake of eating something, to get some energy. It threw off my breathing, and it gave me massive pains in both sides. I tried slowing down to get my rhythm back, but nothing worked. So 7k more I had to go on, just wishing for the end. I would like to write more about it, but right now, I am horizontal and still not feeling good, even though the run ended hours ago. My brother, the other one (not the one training with me for the half an m) is better with computers than I am, and he is going to create a nice-looking graph of the weeks’ runs. What I can tell you is that it’s been the toughest so far, and that I ran 45k in one week. No wonder I’m ready to be horizontal for a while.

Marius! Everything should work fine now with your enter-button Hello Livenews-people! How are you guys? I always get the idea that nobody reads this anymore since Marius has his comments off all the time grrr… Anyway, for all your comments to him you can use my post hahaha…

Adios!

I’ve been back in Italy for a while, and I’ve somehow not been too lazy to run, but I have been too lazy to write down all the times. But here we go, summaries of weeks 3-6.Week III:3km: 16,27min10km: 58,21min (to Brunate)16km: 1h22minTotal: 29km in 2h36,48Week IV:5km: 24,32min11km: 53,31min18,1km: 1h39,57minTotal: 34,1km in 2h58min.WeekV:11km: 52,10min11,6km: 1hoo,13min18,2km: 1h36minTotal: 40,8km in 3h28,59minWeek VI:11.1km: 51,14min (with a new record on the 10km: 45:32!)+-8km: +-45 min (couldnt find my NikePlus stuff)11km: 53,51min4,75km: 22,36 minTotal:34,85km in +- 2h50minI still have a 16k to go for today, but I pulled some kind of muscle somewhere between my armpit and my chest, which makes breathing a bit difficult at the moment, so I’ll have to let that one go, which is okay, since I was a bit behind in my schedule anyway.  So now Week VII begins. I’ll try to hold on to the schedule 100% from here. I’m just hoping this muscle pain will be gone tomorrow. Grrr why my enter button doesn’t work on LiveNews is a big questionmark. I’ll ask if Ewout can fix it.

A weird intense week, filled with a little man and his parents, filled with walking on a German carpet which was red, and filled with attempts to drive a car, which wasn’t red. And filled with running as well. Since I’m still here I can’t share the times with you, but I ran again three times instead of four: 11k, 5k, and yesterday the big one, which I ran for the most part with my brother, Big Daddy. It was a beautiful run through very Dutch-looking scenery, extraordinary. Talking, running, talking, running. 18k, a new distance record again. I am very happy with how it’s going.

We met for the first time yesterday. After some introductions, and after you finished your meal we sat down and got to know each other a bit. We had a good talk, or rather, I held a bit of a monologue, and you seemed to agree with me. Until you poked yourself in the eye, and then seemed determined to figure out who just did that to you. Then you fell asleep. Who can blame you. It’s a lot to take in when you’re fourteen hours old. Welcome to life, my new friend. Len Hordijk is born. I am a proud uncle.

Since I haven’t been able to do my big run the last few days, I did it today. And it was different. It was running on memory lane, if you’ll excuse the lame play of words. I ran from Amersfoort, through Hoogland West to Baarn and back. I ran past old home-to-school-bike-routes, I saw familiar, now older faces, I ran past the houses of old play friends. I ran past the spot where a girl I knew from my old best friends’ neighborhood got killed crossing a road no one should, wanting to buy candy at a gas station. Somehow, I ran past her mother within the next kilometer. I saw the sister of an old classmate. I smelled cow shit and I liked it. I stepped in it too, didn’t like that. I always forget the beauty of the Dutch skies (when it’s not completely cloudy), but running through these flat fields, with a low sun and amazing skies, shamelessly cut into pieces by airplane pollution, I was clearly reminded. I ran where I used to go rollerblading, many times with my father on his bike following me. I saw the bar where we stopped once for a coke. I saw the garden store where we sometimes bought our Christmas tree. A scary thought hit me after 8km, when I was half way, what if my ankle stops now? 8km from home, without a car in sight? But it didn’t. 16km! A new record! I can’t say in what times, since I don’t have the software of my running stickythingy on my new computer (hophop). Maybe I’m writing in a bit of a mess, but I just wanted to write this down, how it felt running through old times. And the fact that I ran 16km!

The greatest run so far was the 10k race with my brother. It still is, but today came close. I missed my first run of the week two days ago, I had a very uneventful 3k yesterday, and today I had 10k to go. I started off as usual, but on a sunny Sunday I prefer to not run around the lake, since it is too busy there. So I took a turn into a new road. One that I have been watching and not daring for almost a year now. A road called Via Per Brunate. Road to Brunate. This is a little town on top of a mountain that we can see from our place here, pretty high up, and since we’ve been up there with the car, I remembered the road up: hairpin after hairpin after hairpin up up up. My calves were burning, my lungs were exploding, my body was just hurting everywhere, but I wanted to make it at least 5k up before returning. You have to understand, when you run up like that, the worst part isn’t going up, it’s making a hairpin and seeing it’s going to go upper from there. The views were stunning, seeing the lake, the towns, seeing as far as the Swiss Alps. But I could only enjoy these views on the way down, since the way up, I was really busy trying not to puke. I am sure the colors in my face would have made the rainbow envious, and that I was pulling faces that in one picture could’ve ended my career but I made it to Brunate! The way down is a punishment for the knees though. But what a run, what a run. Now, there is not enough ice in the world.