Nick Yates: These boots are made for walkin?
It seems that for people training for the Marathon, or just generally trying to keep fit, life in the kitchen is going to keep you in shape more than life behind the bar. That's the upshot of an experiment organised by London Marathon sponsor Flora that measured the distance covered by publicans and chefs during work.
As reported in my last blog, I've been having trouble with a knee injury lately. The continuing problem means I'm still having difficulty walking, let alone running, and that my training efforts have been put on hold - worrying given the big day, April 13, is now less than a month off. No such problems for my team mates joining me to represent the licensed trade in the London Pride team.
Lisa Rafferty and John Walker of Fuller's pub the Queens Head in Old Chesham were given pedometers to measure how far they walked during a typical Friday and Saturday night's work. Wearing the devices on Friday, February 1 and Saturday, February 2, between 5pm and 2am on each occasion, John took 3,207 steps on Friday and 3,018 steps on Saturday. Lisa took 4,211 on Friday and 3,865 on Saturday.
The problem for these naturally competitive runners is the pedometer results from the rival Flora chefs team suggest the foodies covered a far greater distance. Four chefs took part in the challenge, including Michelin starred Michel Roux Jr and Robert Clayton, executive chef of pub group Merchant Inns. Between them, they took 61,764 steps. This is equivalent to them taking 15,441 steps each - or collectively shuffling, walking or jogging a total of almost 28.5 miles across the two nights.
I do wonder how much use I'd get out of one these gadgets during an average days work, especially during my current hobbling state. Less than my publican team mates and considerably less than our chef rivals, no doubt. I have my fingers and toes - on feet covering zero miles stuck under a desk while I write this - crossed in the hope that I'll be able to start racking up the distance again soon.
