Exercise for the Body and Mind

Quite proud that I managed to swim a kilometre last night, for the first time since I started swimming again. I find it great exercise, the main down-side is the boredom. It's not really possible to listen to an iPod or read a book while you swim, so the mind tends to wander.

I find myself playing the "fractions game" in my head to keep me going. A kilometre, in my decidedly-less-than-Olympic-sized local pool, equates to 40 lengths. So after 2 lengths I think "yay! One twentieth of the way there already".

After 4 lengths it's "one tenth of the way gone!"

Some are harder than others to work out. 25 lengths is "only three eighths to go!"

Keeps the mind sharp! Maybe I should start swimming distances that are the sum of two primes, just to make it trickier.

Talking about tricky number problems, I'm getting really into Su Doku at the moment. It's a nifty little puzzle that they print in The Times (and the Telegraph now too, I think). Although it's number-based, Su Doku puzzles require no maths skills to solve, it's all pure logic. The trick lies with seeing patterns and eliminating all possibilities until only one remains. Su Doku seems to be getting quite popular, even the BBC have reported on it.