For the first time I've been suck for a picture, actually I've been stuck to the computer trying to get rid of the 250 spam emails that fill my inbox. If that wasn’t hard enough we had no wind making the gym the only escape, but after spending as little as twenty minutes in Timo Mullen’s gym in Pool, escaping was soon at the top of my wish list.

Having set a personal best time on the concept 2 rower last week, I registered it on there concept 2 ranking website, a good motivator so I thought. But who was I drawn with Timo, right down to the hundredth of a second and to make it worse I was to be staying over night at Timo’s and a trip to the gym was already planned.

Guess it was inevitable, the moment we sat on the rowers, the “lets just keep it to a training session” was out of the door. The first thousand I went all out to break his spirit, but Timo had more control and just held a steady pace. By  2000m I was already feeling it as Timo’s time kept getting closer and closer.

At the end of 3000m Timo was still sitting on the same rhythm and only thing stopping me giving up was the two seconds I had on him, but I was down to pulling hard for 300m and recovering for the next 200. But those two seconds had gone as we passed the 4000m mark, and I felt ready to explode.

I figured Timo was planning a last minute blast and was watching his clock as much as mine as we entered the last 500. It was obvious that our end times would already give us both personal bests, so figuring I had nothing to loose I took the initiative and put everything into it.

Nothing was said, it couldn’t be, we were struggling for breath hunched and struggling to get out of the foot straps. After a few minutes Timo just waed back to the changing room, “that’s it were done” I though in something about the next machine but reality was I had nothing more to give. We’d done it, new best times, Timo had taken off over 24 second off out best, but fear of loosing had given me a time I can ever see me beating, 18:11.2. I’ve got to be honest it took three days to recover so sitting on the computer wasn’t such a hardship.

Don’t know how much spam you get, but with more than 250 junk email a day it started make email a real chore. I’d been looking around and with so many options out there you never really know what’s good and what’s not. I opted for one option that came my way, it clamed to cut spam by 80% and to be fair it did.

The only down side it stopped real email, including emails from my own contacts page on the site, but this you don’t find out for days. I started to get a few call asking why I hadn’t replied to some emails, and once your faith has gone it better to back out.

Bill Daws gave me what I think is the best of what’s out there; it stops all spam, but does allow you to see what’s blocked. More important, anyone it blocks gets an email back where they can unblock it themselves, or I can click and add them to the good guys list.

All seams good, and we’ll see as the week passes if it’s really lives up to its promise. If you’re like me and desperate to get some time back, have a look at spamarrest.com.  On the other hand, if you’ve sent me an email in the last couple of weeks and thought I was being slack in replying, please send it again, your email is probably lose in cyber space