Its Just You!

Volume over Style

2010-12-14T08:39:00.000Z

As is tradition (or will quickly become one), in the off-season I tend to start painting en masse, as the weather and lack of daylight keeps me from training. For this year's project, I'm attempting to get a Skaven army painted up in time for a tournament called Winter War...

...of course, I also need to learn to play the game, as this is Fantasy Battle, rather than the altogether different game of 40K. The very scale of the game is different...with 40K my "good" army consists of 31 guys and a series of red boxes (aka vehicles), while the skaven army I have planned has over 200 models, and a handful of warmachines. It's a proper horde, and so I've had to approach the painting a little differently to previously.

I'm using the Army Painter stuff again, and this time I'm going very much to basics. Typical unit sizes are of 30 models, and I'm limiting myself to 4-5 colours on top of the base brown spray-coat. No highlighting or shading at all, not even a quick drybrush, and when it comes to dipping they are being dunked and flicked, rather than paint it on and wiped down with a cloth. I have a strict schedule to keep of at least 10 models a night, and a target time of 1½ hours to get them done. So far I'm keeping ahead of the schedule, with 170 models completed in 14 days. There are another 20 in the queue, and then I'm waiting on eBay for the final 30. Once they are all done it will be onto the more interesting models...characters, warmachines and big beasties.

I'm fairly pleased with the initial results...the dip is doing wonders at turning hastily painted models into tabletop-passable miniatures, and once the bases are done (that's going to be a fun few sessions, just painting green, then glue onto 200+ bases) I reckon they will be fairly presentable, especially given the sheer volume of models.

I'm hoping to have a playable army for the start of January, giving me a few practice games before the tournament. I also need to come up with a way of transporting much a volume of models, with the current favourite being magnetised bases onto movement trays, with a removeable ferrous sheet holding them on tightly. That will be a trip to B&Q at some point, and a bit of fun with a saw. Once that is done I'll get a couple more of the KR Multicases I use, and build up the innards in such a way as I can just slot the various units in.

Fingers crossed that I get a good amount of production done over Christmas, so that I can hit 2011 with my 3rd completed army!

Thus endeth the season...

2010-09-14T09:28:00.001+01:00

It's been a long, long race season for me this year. Certainly a tough one, and one that finished on a great high with Reading Triathlon, which pretty much goes thrgouh my village. A perfect day, no need to travel (it was a 15 minute roll downhill to the start) and a great course, as well as plenty of people in the race who I knew, giving it a bit of a competitive kick...

This really has been a year of cycling for me...to date I've racked up approximately 7,000 miles in the saddle, even taking into account the atrocious weather conditions in January and February. I've managed to drag myself from being an OK cyclist, to one who can reasonably expect to finish in the top 5-10% of any cycling event I choose to attempt (so long as it's not an off-road one...I've learnt painful lessons regarding that!)

So what have I done this year? It's a fairly long list of events...

1 - Reading Half-Marathon
2 - Merchant Taylor Olympic Traithlon
3 - Fritton Lake Olympic Triathlon
4 - Deloitte Ride Across Britain
5 - Dorney Lake Sprint Triathlon
6 - Bournemouth Olympic Triathlon
7 - London Olympic Plus Triathlon
8 - Woodcote Sportive
9 - Vitruvian Half-Ironman
10 - Reading Olympic Triathlon

Given that last year was my first season of triathlon, and I only did a single olympic distance event (which, in case you're not sure, is a 1.5km swim, 40km cycle and 10km run) to get myself upto half-ironman distance is fairly good, even moreso given that I've had real trouble with my knee.

I'm now officially in my off-season, and I intend to take a couple of weeks taking it easy, and let my body start to repair the various niggly injuries I've inflicted on myself. once thats done it will be looking ahead to next year, and working out the best way of improving my times. The most obvious areas will be my neglected swimming and running, and building up core strength and ability in those areas. I'm also going to give rock-climbing a go, hopefully as a way of improving my flexibility and upper-body strength a bit (which should all improve the swimming). My ideal goal should be to trim 3-4 minutes off both the swim and run legs, while keeping my cycling in it's current form, which should then see me edging towards 2:20 times for an Olympic triathlon, which is normally considered a good time.

For now though, it's a fortnight of laziness, relaxing and (probably) painting models...

RideAcrossBritain - The Epilogue

2010-07-19T09:15:00.000+01:00

It's been about a month since I got back from Lands End...a fairly banal train journey from Penzance, and Gill met me at Reading station (still dragging that damn bag!)

The injuries were more painful rather than physically debilitating. A tear on the fascia of the right kneecap, and minor tearing to both quad muscles. I've had a couple of physio sessions to loosen the muscles up...for the first week I couldn't bend my knees past 90', however now they are about 90% there. There are a couple of sore points remaining, but even they are fading. Having access to daily physio and massage treatments definitely kept me on the road. No saddle sore at all (thanks to Assos Chamois cream, a Selle SMP saddle and clean shorts every day!)

The bike came away almost completely un-scathed. 1006 miles, and no punctures. The chain never dropped, and apart from some expected wear on the chain, cassette and brake pads it's been fine...just a quick wash and grease up the drive. Given it was one of the cheaper bikes on display at RAB (there was apparently one bike there in the £10k region, complete with Shimano Di2 electric gears!) I'm really chuffed at how it performed...

...which was to get me in with the 7th fastest time overall, and 5th in the amateur stakes (Sarah Storey and Andre...both amazing pro-cyclists, but they can't be counted in the paying guests "it's not a race!"). 5th out of 600 starters is something I can be more than happy with. Chris and David came 1st and 2nd (and if I was going to be picky the guy who came 4th has a couple of questionable results). An official time of 62 hours and 25 minutes, and from the Garmin 58 hours and 44 minutes of actual cycling over 9 days (taking the results of someone I cycled with on day 2, as mine died). Thats an average moving speed of just over 17mph, with rest stops in the region of 10 minutes each.

The results really do show how effectively cycling in a group is...for my training rides I was doing 100 miles in about 6 hours. Average speed for 100 miles for the ride was about 5 ½ hours, and that includes way more climbing than I could ever do in Berkshire. As the trip went on my average heartrate went down, and average speeds went up, which also shows how the body adapts to stuff like this. I've done a couple of triathlons since coming back, and while the run and swim have been mediocre, I've PB'ed the bike legs both times (at 20km and 40km). Doing my normal training hills I've now got a couple of extra gears spare when I head up them (for example Sulham Hill, the steepest in the area, I can now do with 2 spare cogs, and I have a new aim to get up it using the large chainset).

I'm really glad I did it, and I'm totally chuffed with the result...given that 18 months ago I had never ridden a road bike, and 12 months ago I hated cleats (clip-in shoes) it's been a fairly impressive performance. I did approximately 10,000 miles of training over 10 months, of which about 40% of that was my daily commute to and from work. The rest was mainly long rides in the evenings and weekends, and "hours of power" during my lunchbreaks. It was worth every second, from the cold hours over winter, to changing tyres in the rain. Gill has been sterling support, having to come and pick me and a broken bike up on more than one occasion...she's probably sick of me cycling by now!

Next up I have London Triathon in a fortnight...I've gone for the extended cycle option, so it will be 1.5km swim, 80km bike and 10km run. As such the next couple of weeks will be heavy on the time-trial work, looking to push myself hard for 2-2.5 hours on the bike. I've treated myself to a bit of bike bling for the TT bike (carbon deep-rim wheels and a funky helmet)...they may help a bit with speed, but they certainly make you <i>feel</i> faster!

Photos

One downside was that my headcam didn't perform as expected...trouble getting it to charge, and a seeming in-ability to take video meant I didn't capture some stuff I had hoped to... Also the official photos were less than great, typically being taken in the first half hour when we were all wrapped up against the elements and cold, rather thn later in the day when we were in full flow...

The photos I do have were from random sources (some stills from the headcam, some from the phone, and some from the end when Rob took over photo duties!). There are some more on FaceBook for those who have me linked up on there...

RideAcrossBritain - The Home Straight - Part 3

2010-07-16T21:33:00.000+01:00

The 3rd part of the notes on my cycle ride from John O'Groats to Lands End. The previously, and fairly un-exciting, episodes can be found here and here.

Day 7 - Ludlow to Cheddar

Distance - 174km

It was an early start, as we needed to be on the start line and ready to go by 6.30am. Breakfast was thrown down our respective gullets, overladen bags chucked on the lorry, drinks bottles prepped, and pockets filled with gels and bars. A bleary-eyed bunch assembled on the start line...it was the full crew of Chris, David, Stuart, Toby, Simon, Tom and myself. We'd all been advised to wear the official ride tops, and those who didn't have them were changed. We were briefed by the PR lass that it would be about an hour of filming, and the pace would be "no more than 17 or 18 miles an hour", which is a perfectly acceptable speed.

Cracknell turned up stylishly late, had a quick chat to the camera team (we had one camera on a motorbike, and a couple of outriders to keep the roads clear, tehn we saddled up, headed over the start line (the only time we were allowed to cycle over it, all the other starts were on foot, and saddling up on the nearby roads, and then Cracknell powered off at 25mph. A sensible bunch of people would have not tried to keep up, and make sure the pace stayed down in the manageable region...

...so of course we all sprinted off after him, and hunkered down into a chain as we screamed through the deserted Ludlow streets. The pace that Cracknell set was fairly brutal, moreso as we were all carrying wear and tear injuries of one description or another. The camerabike meanwhile zoomed up and down the line, capturing what may have been quite good shots, but probably look like a bunch of amateurs being hauled along by a double-olympiad. After the initial burst james peeled off, and we started a rotation at the front of the chain, which basically turned into a "who can drag the chain along at the most painful speed" competition, which quickly degenerated into a game of survival, as in ones and twos we started to lose riders. I dropped off at the 45 minute mark, leaving Toby and Stuart to tuck into Cracknells wake and vanish off into the distance...

We reformed about 6-7 miles before the first pitstop (minus Tom and Simon, who I suspect were broken by the stupid pace), and carried on a a slightly more sedate pace for some more shots, as the camera crew had set themselves up for some stationary drive-by sets. We finally rolled into the pit stop totally blown, wioth the realisation that we had another 70-odd miles to go today. Cracknell said his goodbyes, and dashed off into the distance, catching up with Alan "Ex Ironman UK Champion", while we planned a more leisurely pace...

...only there were some signage issues. As we were on the road so early the route had not been fully checked, and it turned out that there had been a road closure overnight. David (who was local to the area) nipped off down a road, followed by Chris, while the rest of us hesitated, and lost them very quickly. 10 minutes of "where do we go" discussions ensued at the pitstop, until a local friend of David offered to guide us back to the main road and the route. Toby, Stuart and myself hared off after his Land Rover, and we dashed through some back lanes before re-appearing on the main road again...about 20-30 minutes later we came across David and Stuart, and it turned out that we'd been taken a fairly easy way around a bit of a hill!

The middle of the stage took us briefly into Wales, and then over the Severn Estuary on the bridge (a fairly spectacular bit of cycling, and most of us were wobbling along with phones out try to capture the view), and then over the Clifton Suspension Bridge. This was Stuarts home area, and he had a load of supporters out to cheer him on, so it was fairly awesome we were first out on the road by such a distance (nothing like a half hour head start to make you look fast!).

The finale of the day was a fairly brutal ascent of the Meddip Hills...a 5-mile constant drag upto base camp. Chris led Stuart into a stage victory (his parents were at the base camp), while the rest of us ground our way up to a finish. A tough day, especially given the brutal first hour. The filming was for Cracknell and Fogles next BBC TV programme, which I believe is a massive off-road cycling race in Mexico...keep an eye out for a training sequence where there is a little chap with red sleeves on a bike...that'll be me :-)

Day 8 - Cheddar to Lauceston

Distance - 190km

Lots of people had this one flagged as the toughest day...the third longest by distance, and the second by total ascent, however rather than the long sweeping climbs of Scotland we would be entering Devon and Cornwall, with it's notoriously sharp, steep sections.

Stuart had come down ill overnight, and while he was cycling, he was definitely taking it easy, and Toby was still not 100%, so he stayed back as well, so 3 of us set out at 7am...it started pretty sedately, with the descent from the Mendips (we didn't do the gorge road...it simply wasn't safe for so many cyclists), but after some nice roads we hit a stretch of flat, and put in some good time... Soon though, we hit the Quantock Hills, and with that a series of fairly brutal climbs, and with that the tone was set for the day.

That said, we'd done enough hills now that we weer able to get into the right mindset, and grind our way up them. We came across some early-starters (including one unfortunate enough to be wearing a polka-dot "King of the Mountains" top that we destroyed on a hill. Rule 1 - Never wear a cycling top that proclaims you to be excellent unless you can back it up), and typically dropped them in our wake. The tactic, as always, was not to sweat the hills, and work the flatter sections. As we made our way into Cornwall the climbs continued, and we just concentrated on keeping energy levels high, and protecting the various knee injuries.

At the final pitstop we bumped into Johnathon (who I cycled with on day 2)... He'd not been able to fit into a group throughout the week (I said he was a bit weird...), but asked to cycle with us. (I'm aware the next bit makes me seem like a bit of an arsehole...but fuck it...) We begrudgingly accepted, however then went on a bit of a go-slow, riding three abreast and chatting. After a while he headed off by himself, at which point we formed up into a chain and hammered past him. He absolutely killed himself to get back onto our tail, at which point we slowed up, claimed exhaustion, and started chatting again. He, quite probably slightly miffed, went off ahead again (while we sniggered like school children)...

...about a mile later there was a surprise food stop. I pulled up to grab a chocolate brownie, and got split off from Chris and David. Fortunately we were approaching a slightly less hilly section of A-Road, which is really my speciality, so I put down the hammer and did a bit of TT work. I very quickly caught up with Johnathon...not wanting to give him a free ride, I claimed my knee was starting to go, and I needed to take it gently, and dropped back to about 100 metres behind him (you can probably see where this is going already). I waited until a decent bit of road, while he picked up another straggler, and tried to get a bit of team-work going with him, and then dropped down onto my aerobars (my roadbike is set up to emulate a Time Trial bike, so in expense for a bit of comfort I can add 2-3 miles per hour onto my cruising speed) and smashed past them. Neither of them had anything left in the tank, and I quickly left them standing.

I caught sight of David and Chris in the distance, and spent the next 10 miles slowly reeling them in (they had thought I was Cracknell in the distance, and so gave me a bit of a chase). I finally caught them, then we had a run into the base camp (up a final series of viciously sharp hills), and overtaking a final couple of riders (including one right at the end...he must have been gutted). Thus ended the day of childish one-up-manship. Childish? Yes, however great fun. and remember kids...it's not a race!

Day 9 - Lauceston to Lands End

Distance - 150km

The final day, and we were greeted with glorious sunshine. Everyone knew that today was going to be just a little bit daft...by now there were 20 or so "hardcore" types, who all had a bit of a race-head on.

Everyone set off in the same pack, however almost immediately we hit a 20% hill on a narrow farm lane, and lots of the weaker riders got off to push their bikes, splitting us all up. David And Chris pulled off ahead, and I killed myself to catch them, however then lost them again over Bodmin Moor...those 2 were on a mission, and I couldn't quite keep up on the hills. I settled into a Time-Trial mentality, which basically involves me riding to my heart rate. The vast majority of my training was solo, so I was fairly comfortable keeping a steady pace.

As far as I can work out everyone rolled through the first pitstop without a pause, I know I did. I'd stocked up to do the entire 95 miles without a break if need be...and with that I carried on. I caught and overtook one pack, and while it was tiring work (this was the first time I'd done a section fully solo) I was making good time...unfortunately though, my bowels decided that I really needed to stop at the second pitstop (and I was the first person to do so)...

...which was lucky in a way, as the second and third people to stop were Toby and Stuart. Company for the final 30 miles was just what the Doctor ordered, and as an added bonus Toby was on top form, pushing us to the finish. Stuarts parents were on the road as well in a car, so we hammered toward Lands End!

Rolling into Penzance (with a glorious view of St.Micheals Mount) we thought "nearly there", only to discover that we were being taken out of Penzance up the pig of a 20% ascent. After that it was a series of other sharp inclines and declines, and some comedian in the road department had decided to start signposting Lands End in half mile increments, effectively slowing down the approach mentally...

Coming round a corner, thinking "where the hell is this place", we saw the crowd of people and the big blue arch. Off goes the sprint, and we all power over the finish line, while one marshal screams at us to slow down before we plough into the barriers. Man hugs all round! Rob was at the finish line with Kate and felix to watch us come in as well, which was excellent, thought I was properly pumped and almost certainly making no sense.

We were then dragged off for some publicity photos (we made the newsletter), and a series of daft photos were taken around the iconic sign. After calming down, having a cuppa and a bit of cake, it was then the slightly anti-climactic dis-assembly of the noble steed (1006 miles, no mechanical issues or punctures. I love my bike), and a bus trip to the base camp, where I chilled with Rob, Kate, Felix, Stuart and Toby for a few hours, eating pig and ice-cream.

Next time (the epilogue) I'll go through the highs and lows. one thing I would say that if you ever get the chance to do something like JOGLE, you should! An utterly life-affirming experience!

RideAcrossBritain - Back to Blighty - Part 2

2010-07-14T22:20:00.003+01:00

2nd part of the recap of my protracted cycle from John O'Groats to Lands End. The rivetting (and fairly cycling-based) installment can be found Here!

Day 4 - East Renfrewshire to Ullswater

Distance - 210km

Another massive day on the road, and again riders were being sent off from 6.30am. The Unit assembled at the start for a 7am kick-off, minus Tom and Simon, who had both suffered fairly serious knee injuries the previous day. We started off with more tough, undulating terrain, so worked through it at a sensible pace. The weather had truely turned for the better by now, and I spent most of the day picking up a decent level of suntan and sunburn, and ended up with a comedy checkerboard across my body.

Past the first pitstop, and the terrain changed to some fantastic sweeping downhills. Toby, who knew the roads in this area very well, led us through some fantastic high-speed descents, and once again we started to move up the field. The second pitstop was at Gretna, just on the border, and approaching the town for about 10-15 miles was a long, flat section of road, and we could see small groups of cyclists strung out ahead of us. Spirits were high, and we formed up into our (now standard) chain-gang, and truly put the hammer down...we shot past about 60-70 cyclists, and over a 20 mile period averaged about 23-24mph. It was a real "in the zone" moment (and one all 5 of us still talk abut with massive grins on our faces). Whenever we had a new person at the front of the chain we expected the pace to drop back down to sensible levels, but everyone was feeling really good, and we ended up shooting into Gretna's pitstop about 20-30 minutes earlier than we expected. That section was one of the high points of the trip for me...a fantastic feeling of flying through the Scottish countryside, while watching other cyclists try (and fail) to stay with us!

Past Gretna we hit the border (hurahh!) and, after negotiating the urban area of Carlisle (going through big cities and towns were my least favourite sections...far too easy for groups to be split up) we were welcomed to the lake District with the vicious climb of Fell Hill, our first encounter with a properly steep bit of terrain. the climbs continued as we headed inwards, until we reached the descent towards Ullswater, and once again fantastic, sweeping roads with the fantastic views of the lake, while the sun beat down. We came flying into the base camp as a unit, completing one of the best days yet.

The base-camp was at the foot of the rather infamous Kirkstone Pass, one of the only ways through the Lakes, and renown as a tough ascent (the Sport relief £1,000,000 cycle had passed this way, and there was a famous clip of David Walliams coming to grief on Kirkstone, an image that stuck in many RAB'bers minds). I had a visit from a mate (Harry) in the evening...he was on holiday in the Lakes, and was (is currently) doing the ride from Lands End to John O'Groats the month after...only there would be 3 of them, not 600, and they wouldn't have all the support crew RAB had. I sensed jealousy as I showed him the base camp, with the massage crew working flat out!

Day 5 - Ullswater to Manchester

Distance - 186km

After the huge distances and ascents of the previous two days, day 5 promised to be fairly gentle...once we had Kirkstone out of the way. In all honesty it wasn't as bad as I feared...it was long, and it was steep, however it was never un-manageable, and it occasionally levelled off a bit, to give some respite. The best indication I can give is that that it took us 20 minutes to do the first 5km of the day, and 6 minutes to do the second 5km (as we flew down the other side!), and quickly (once again) became the leaders on the road.

As we departed the Lake district the roads levelled off, and we made good time. David, in particular, was on form, and did some huge lead-outs...hauling the rest of us along at 20mph while one of the support motorbikes acted as an outrider for us, keeping traffic clear. Compared with the previous 2 days there was very little ascent of note, so we had a fairly comfortable cycle into the more urban areas of Bolton...

...where it all kicked off a bit. A couple of riders had killed themselves to catch us, and during the broken trip through Bolton they got past us and sprinted off into the distance. As a group we made a decision to let them go, rather than try and sprint to catch them, and instead do what we did best, and set a decent pursuit pace. this led to us regaining sight of them with 2 miles to go. For their part they thought they were well clear, and failed to spot us until we were about 100 metres behind, at which point it was too late, and we wolf-packed them and shot towards the finish in a group sprint. I probably would have lost, only a marshal mis-directed us, and sent us all into the service entrance of the Base Camp...I was fastest to turn round and complete the 50 metre sprint to the correct entrance, so comically stole the stage victory in a comical way (and I claim it still, despite the whinging of the other racers!)(it's not a race!)

Day 6 - Manchester to Ludlow

Distance - 173km

One of the shortest days on the ride, and with statistically the least ascent, however there was one major feature of today's ride...a hill called Lond Mynd. Chris was local to the area, and had been advising us that it really was " a bit of a ramp". I knew the stats...about a mile long, and 25% gradient. Chris was going to ride ahead of the group today, as he had arranged with various local's that if he was first through towns etc, and ahead of James Cracknell then his sponsorship would be doubled. Toby had been taken down with a stomach bug, which was gutting for him, so Stuart, David and myself set off into the country roads near the welsh border.

The first 60-70 miles were fairly un-eventful...we were loathe to really hammer along as we had far more work each to do, and we were all mindful of the Mynd.

We hit the hills at about 100km in...there was an initial ascent of a minor foothill, which was tough but doable, then a long descent towards the foot of Long Mynd. As we got closer we could see the road heading up the side of the mound...it looked steep even from there...

Reaching the bottom you turn a sharp left, go over a cattlegrid, and then begin a fairly straight ascent on a single track road. I made in about 100 metres before my knee started to scream with pain, already in my lowest gear, out of the saddle, and my heartrate shooting up. Stuart was ahead of me, still in the saddle and forcing the pedals round. I made a call, hopped off and began the long push. David went past me, looking fairly paced, however after a couple of minutes I saw them both hop out of the saddle and walk up.

I really can't describe how vicious Long Mynd is, and I take my hat off to the few who beat it. I know Chris, Tom and Simon did, however I don't think I was mentally or physically prepared for that beast. My heartrate was well above my average "effort" level just walking up...the gradients varied from 21% to 28%...there is nothing in Berkshire like it (as examples, Sulham Hill at the back of Tilehurst is a mere 15%, while Walbury Hill, the highest point in the South-East has one ascent of 18%). The three of us reformed at the top of the main ascent, made a few comments regarding the geography, and then set off along the "looks flat, but was still a 10% gradient" remainder, before suffering a fairly terrifying descent into Church Stretton (I had both brakes fully locked, and was still at 20mph down the single-track, hairpin-laden road). Long Mynd had beaten me, but maybe sometimes it's good to know there are challenges out there.

The approach to the Base Camp was a sedate affair...we met up with Chris to find that he had beasted the course (locals had sprayed his name on the Mynd on the way up ala Tour de France...he had great support in his home town). We were based in Ludlow race course, so it made a nice change to eat under a proper roof in the clubhouse. As we were preparing to call it a night, we were approached my Mr. Cracknell with a proposition...he needed to do a teelvised training sequence for his next challenge with Ben Fogle, did we want to be the training pack? It would mean an early start the next day. Big cheesy grins all round ensued. Early day tomorrow then!

One more instalment to go...the trials and tribulations of Somerset, Devon and Cornwall, those well-renowned flat areas?

RideAcrossBritain - A Rambling Re-Cap - Part 1

2010-07-14T00:05:00.000+01:00

It's about a month since I finished Ride Across Britain, which I will henceforth refer to as RAB. I've attempted to type up a sort of review of the event before, however I think I exceeded Blogger's character count for saved drafts, and it was comprehensively eaten...

Day 0 - Reading to John o'Groats

I set off with me, a bag which weighed considerably more than the specified 15kgs, and Gill, who accompanied me to Basingstoke Train station. From there it was to Southampton Airport (where I bumped into my first fellow RAB'bers, each dragging equalled over-weighted bags) to begin the flight upto Wick. At the plane swap in Edinburgh the number of cyclists heading northwards became very apparent, and Logan Air (who run the flights to Wick) were struggling with the volume of luggage (which all had to be pre-booked, so not sure why it was a surprise). The small plane was entirely composed of RAB cyclists, with an air of apprehension and eagerness.

From Wick airport we were met by a double-decker bus (that was to follow us down the country, and act as a sweep wagon, office and portable hospital as we cycled) to take us to Base Camp 1, right at Jogn O'Groats. We were met by a sea of 1-man tents, a series of marquees, and a vicious wind from the west (the way we would be heading off the next day).

The first evening consisted of prepping my bike (which had travelled up by lorry the previous week), settling into my small tent, checking out the facilities (which were pretty good...plenty of showers, decent loo's, and a massive catering tent, as well as a chill-out marquee and a host of medical facilities), and attending the initial briefing. the weather, for it's part, got slowly worse, and when sensible people retired to bed (about 9pm), some tents were in the process of collapsing. Mine stood strong, though the conditons were so bad I reckon I got 2-3 hours sleep...not the perfect prep for a long cycle ride!

Day 1 - John O'Groats to Kyle of Sutherland

Distance - 167km

The real challenge here was not the route, but the weather. I set off in the first wave (for better of worse I had been flagged as a top 50 rider based on some arbitary quizzing over the phone), and we had the first 40-50 miles into a 25mph headwind, with occasional rain. Within a few miles we formed a pack of about 10 riders (pack riding improves efficiency massively, as only the front riders take the headwind...in normal conditions you are talking about a 25-30% efficiency saving, though with headwinds that can easily go upto 60-70%), and I quickly spotted I was in with like-minded people. After about a couple of hours riding we spotted a small group ahead of us, and determined that it must contain an olympiad of one flavour or another (the famous people had set off first). We put the hammer down (a phrase that was used repeatedly over the 9 days), and were soon overhauling Rebeca Romero, gold medallist in Beijing.

After the first pit stop (she skipped it, and gained a lead again) we headed back out, already first pack on the road, and as the weather cleared up a bit we started to spit up. Being the over-competitive swine that I am I held with the front group, and ended up riding with 4 other chaps for the rest of the day. I shall introduce some of the protagonists now;

Chris - chap from Shropshire...extremely good cyclist.
Tom - Chris's brother. again a good rider, but not quite as strong as Chris
Simon - cycling journalist for the Independant newspaper
David - a chicken farmer no less. Able to hammer out a crazy pace without showing any pain!

As a pack we started to head inland, and lose the headwind. For a while we had a camera-car following us, so we acted up and posed down the hills. Rolling into the second pitstop we were about a minute behind Rebecca, so she formed up in a pack with us, and we did the final leg of the ride together. I foolishly didn't take on enough calories, and faded in the last 10 miles, however the day generally went well, 6 hours on the road was a good time, and given the adverse conditions I was more than happy! At basecamp I quickly grabbed a sports massage (I was able to get this sorted every day, and it was a godsend to get the quad muscles cleared of lactate quickly, and recover for the next day), grab a couple of hours sleep, and then attack the catering tent with gusto (2 roast dinners, and a couple of desserts for good measure). That done I headed back to bed. No trouble sleeping at all!

Day 2 - Kyle of Sutherland to Loch Linnhe

Distance - 160kmthe Garmin refused to record the ride today, due to the conditionsOn the plus side the wind had died right down, and swung into a gentle tailwind. On the downside it was raining...a constant heavy drizzle. I met up with a couple of lads at the start-line from the original pack of 10 from yesterday;

Stuart - a mountain biker from Bath
Johnathon - a slightly weird chap, who would feature again later in the ride

...and we headed off. There was a biggish climb in the first leg, which we paced ourselves over. The plan for the day was to keep the pace high to keep us warm...as it was we were quickly getting into the lead, as we took a lot of people on the hill (which included some fairly nasty long, angled cattle grids, no fun in the wet on slick tyres), and rolled into the first pitstop in the lead.As we were getting ready to leave, Chris, David, Tom and Simon rolled in...we had about 4 minutes on them. The mist descended, and the pace upped over the second hill of the day. We got to the second pitstop about 1 minute ahead (I'll say it now, Chris and David were far stronger cyclists than me...), however Tom and Simon were looking a little the worse for wear. As Stuart, John and myself set off, David and Chris took up pursuit by themselves as we headed along the shores of Loch Ness, and tagged us with about 10 miles to the finish...they then performed a perfect attack on a hill, and reached the finish about a minute ahead of us. General opinion was that we'd made the best of a tough day...the rain never stopped, which kept you cold and hard to get the legs going, yet we'd spent less than 6 hours on the bike (people were rolling in for another 6-7 hours...)Over dinner Chris, David, Stuart and myself agreed to face Day 3 as a pack. Tom and Simon were busy getting various limbs repaired in the medical tent however they joined us later and also agreed to form up. That sorted, we all headed off for an early night (I was clocking up 10-12 hours sleep a night...I have no idea how those who were taking 12-13 hours to complete a stage were coping!)

Day 3 - Kyle of Sutherland to East Renfrewshire

Distance - 210kmThe biggie. Today we'd cover 130 miles, and go over Glen Coe. Due to the length of the stage they started setting people off from 6.30am, so when we formed up at 7am there were already plenty of people on the road. The weather had finally cleared up, and we had a fantastic view of Ben Nevis as we set out.Despite plans to take it easy, David decided we wanted a bit of clear road, so hauled us along at 20mph for a while, then we kept a steady pace until we reached the base of the Glen Coe ascent. once climbing we held a steady pace...to be honest the climb was nowhere near as bad as we expected...long but not overly steep (about 5-6% for those who understand such things). We reached the top, and were greeted with some fantastic views, and even better some amazing descents, which we took full advantage of...nothing quite like flying down a mountainside at 40mph! Next up was the banks of Lock Lomond...once again great views, and where we met up with the final member of the team (or "the Unit", as we referred to ourselves)

Toby - a lad from Edinburgh who was on home soil here

He'd been riding near us, and joined our pack, but unlike most people was happy to do his turn at the front...

...I should probably do a bit of an aside here. Those who know me probably know I have a bit of the competitive spirit about me.one thing I learned during RAB was that as a pack of riders we were extremely strong...each person had a role they could play...David could haul us along for long periods at a very high pace, Chris and Stuart were good on hills, whereas I was good for bursts of speed, which was used for shaking free-riders off our tail. As we overtook people, we noticed that they would try to catch a free drag, though without offering to do any work...my job was to goto the front and put down 5km at a pace that was uncomfortable to live with, and "snap the elastic". This way we could keep the team at a manageable size. I should probably say now that while it wasn't a race, sometimes it certainly felt like one!

...anyhow, Toby was obviously a great rider, and cheerfully did stints at the front to help the pack, so we quickly invited him to join the Unit :-) As a full pack of 5 we quickly set to cleaning out a team of 10 who were trying to draft us, resulting in me hauling us down the banks of Loch Lomond at 22-23mph for a while.

The final part of the day was very, very tough...the outskirts of Glasgow consisted of a seies of sharp and steep valleys, where getting a rhythym going was impossible, and by then we had already ridden 100 miles. Getting into basecamp was a relief, and I had the first signs of knee pain at the end. A visit to the Physio (often referred to as Sue the Miracle Worker) revealed a tear to my right knee fascia, and binding on both quads (where the muscle sheath is sticking to the muscle, causing tearing). Neither were terminal, though the knee-tear would mean the rest of the ride would be on painkillers.

Next time...we'll actually get out of Scotland!

The Final Countdown (cue 80's big-hair music)

2010-06-01T10:26:00.000+01:00

10 days until I fly out, and this will probably be the last blog I do before I head off...

I'm fairly certain at this point that I haven't trained enough. We received the route details a couple of weeks ago, and the amount of climbing is immense. The hardest day (day 3, Monday 15th June) will see us cycling 130 miles, and doing the equivalent of cycling up and down Snowdon 3 times. The next day is the same distance, but "only" up and down Snowdon 2½ times. My training has been mainly in the Thames valley, and while I've been hitting the available hills, over 100 miles I struggle to fit a single Snowdon equivalent in (I've decided that "a Snowdon" is now a viable unit of vertical measurement).

The bike gets packed off on Sunday, and I've going through the kit-lists and doing some last minute orders. The provisional weather forecasts are out for Scotland, and currently they are favouring "chilly and wet", though I'll take more notice middle of next week, when predictions will become a little more accurate. I fly out Friday morning from Southampton (with a stop-over in Edinburgh before heading onto Wick), and should arrive in John O'Groats mid-afternoon.

I did my last race on Sunday...an Olympic Triathlon over in Norfolk. Predictably my swim and run were sub-par (29 minutes and 47 minutes respectively, bringing me in mid-field), with the bike leg dragging me up to a semi-respectable 54th overall out of 200. I clocked an average speed of 22.5mph on the bike over 25 miles, though the course was fairly flat. My next race is at the end of June,l and it's a sprint distance...once JOGLE is out of the way I intend to do some work on the running, which is pretty pants right now. I reckon there is 6 minutes to gain in the run, and a minute on the swim.

While I'm cycling down the country I won't have access to a PC, so will be attmepting to run updates from my phone. A group of the more geeky of us are on Twitter, and will be using the tag #RAB10 . There will also be personalised oens based on our numbers, so I will also be using #RAB10-208. Expect photos, whining about sore legs/bum/feet, and if I'm particularly cunning video (though don't expect it to be exciting!)

I'll be back in the land of the living on the evening of Monday 21st June...hopefully. So long as I don't die or something silly like that...

Transient Updates

2010-05-19T21:30:00.000+01:00

Once I've finished Ride Across Britain I'd like a bit more than sore muscles to show for it. Quite aside from being slightly damaged in the head department, I'm also a card-carrying geek, so it's to be expected that I shall be logging and blogging the trip.

My original plan was to take a netbook with me, and spend a bit of R&R time in the evening getting everything checked in, however we've been advised that laptops are a bad idea (the luggage service is going to be bags in trucks, so in all probability delicate electronics will be bashed to death). On top of that we can expect only limited 3G coverage, especially in more northern realms of the country.

As such I've had to start re-working my e-geek strategy. In the absence of a laptop my next communication tool is my Nokia 5800, a fairly basic and robust smartphone. I tend to pick phones that are suitable for beating people to death, and still capable of working afterwards. I can use this to upload to various services and sites via Pixelpipe. I'll use Twitter as my main target, and build a small micro-site based around a twitter feed to a specific tag (something along the lines of #rab10pg), and this can include video, piccies and updates.

Of course, I need some way of capturing the media. I'll have my compact camera, however that will only be really useful at static locations (base camps, pit stops etc). For photos while cycling I don't really want to risk getting a camera out...in pack cycling thats just asking for it. I've been hunting round for a bullet camera, however I've struggled to find one that isn't either stupidly expensive (normally with a remote storage/power supply, or too heavy), or simply rubbish. I also wanted it to be able to take stills and video.

I finally settled on a Swann MDV 450. It's 60 grams, can do video and stills, is robust, and most importantly saves to Micro SD card, which I can put in the Nokia to upload. It also uses the same charger as my Garmin (unfortunately without a PC I don't think I can get stuff off that, as it's integrated memory).

I'll be testing the camera over the next few days, and then spend an evening whipping up a RSS feed page. While it would be handy to have the netbook, without it I get a couple more kilos of other stuff to take with me (weight limit of 15kg's in total)...probably in food form!

Changeover - race season begins

2010-05-11T22:00:00.000+01:00

First off, it's now only 32 days to go until I kick off on Ride Across Britain, which is both exhilarating, and terrifying. I go through daily fluctuations between wanting to get on with it, and being utterly feaful that I haven't done nearly enough training. I've been spending evening doing 4-50 mile rides around West Berkshire, and aiming for longer rides at the weekend, however I won't really know if it's been enough until about day 4 of the trip I suspect. For now it's case of keeping on with as much cycling as I can, and looking after myself, as injury now would be heart-breaking.

In other news, I have completed the rush job of getting a new Warhammer 40K army completed. On the last weekend of April I entered an event called SVA at Spiky Club. It was a campaign tournament, so not supposed to be really serious, and I was entered as Tau in a Xenos/Dark Angel domain. We finished mid-table, however my results were distinctly sub-average (1 draw, 4 losses). I've been getting better with Tau on weekly club nights, but they do suffer from a distinct lack of resiliance, which really showed at SVA. Next weekend there is another tournament called Rapid Strike, and this time it's going to be a little more serious. I decided that rather than enter the Tau, which I enjoy playing, but really don't have much confidence in handing out the hurt I would fast-track my new army, the Blood Angels. The last coupld of weeks have been a frantic dash to assemble, paint and finish a 150 point force. I have to finalise the list this saturday, so I'm going to get one game to practice, and one more week after that to realise all my hideous mistakes.

I've gone for a list which is as un-Tau as I can, and it consists almost exclusively of short-range guns and lots of fisticuffs, with the entire force equipped with jump-packs, so hopefully I can counter an absence of long-range offense with maneuverability and brutal assualt.

My other weekends before JOGLE are taken up with Triathlons. I have my first of the season this weekend at Merchant Taylor School, not a million miles from Watford. A fortnight after that I have a second one at Fritton Lake in Norfolk. After a few weeks of wimping out I finally did my first outdoor swim of the season this morning, with water temperatures of 12'C (which ,in case you're not sure, if absolutely brassic). I mananged the 1500m without stopping, and at a comfortable pace, however the last 2-300 metres my hands went numb, and I had trouble keeping my form. It's safe to say that Merchant Taylor is going to be cold (even more so in that it kicks off at crazy o'clock, so there won't even be a bit of sunshine to take off the chill. I won't even mention the complete lack of running training I haven't not done.

To briefly mention politics...I've been following the recent kerfuffle as an interested observer. I can't honestly say I can support any one party over another, however I find the election as a process fascinating, and the various curiosities of how a democratic vote can be run elegantly complex. It looks like we are going to have a co-alition government for the first time in my lifetime, which I don't find overly scary, more intrigued to see if various politicians who historically have been at each other throats can actually find some common ground...I'm aware that this sort of arrangement is the norm in several other countries, and perhaps it will be no bad thing to at least experience it here...

I think Spring may have arrived...

2010-04-06T15:08:00.000+01:00

It's not raining, and according to my garmin I've just been out cycling in temperatures in excess of 15'C, which is T-Shirt and Shorts weather in my book.

It's now (checks countdown) 67 days to go until I head off from John O'Groats. Training has been going well in the main...in March I maanged 50+ miles a day for 8 days straight, and apart from a little bit of sleep re-adjustment I managed fine, with no bio-mechanical foul-ups. We also managed a trip down to Exmoor, where the UK Half-Ironman is based, and did a day's cycling on the route...renowned as the worlds toughest half-ironman (I can see why...each 25'ish mile lap has a series of hellishly steep hills, including 3 20%+ ones). We did pretty well, even taking on the vicious headwind no the "easy" section of the course. I'm currently clocking up about 900-1000 miles a month, and all my spare weekends are now booked out until I set off, typically with 100-mile rides back-to-back.

Easter went less well...the first day started well, but deteriorated into a cold and windy rain-storm, and I started picking up loads and loads of punctures. This culminated with me trying to repair an innertube (I'd run out of fresh ones) 2 miles from Twyford in a mini-gale, while being lashed with rain. I called the cavalry (Gill), who very nobly came out as a back-up rescue, however surprisingly (especially to myself) the glue held, and I was able to roll back into Reading, where Sweeney Todd's Pie Shop rescued my plummeting body temperature with a pie and chips emergency serving.

Once I decided to look at the bike again I found out that the back tyre was blistered and cut up...the result of a hard winters use. The tyres are the originals, and they have racked up about 3,500 miles, including the tarmac-armageddon that was January. I spent yesterday cleaning/greasing the bike, and changing the tyres over to some fresh folding ones, which should see it through spring/summer. I also got the TT bike ready to roll, and hopefully I can start giving it some run outs, with an eye to the weather of course!

In the other world, I've started work on the Blood Angels 40k army. I was delaying until I had seen the official codex (released on Friday), and could work out what units I was to include. I ended up doing a decent sized order, and spent the easter weekend working on assembly and base-coating. I'm going to be using the same painting techniques as I did on the Tau, with a few lessons learnt. For a start, I'm trying to make sure that the models are flexible, and to that end wherever there are equipment choices, I'm adding magnets to allow swappable arms/backpacks etc etc. The house has resonated to the sound of a Dremel this weekend, and my initial supply of 150 magnets has quickly been embedded in the models, random arms and backpacks. There is a 1-day tournament at the end of May, and it would be good to have a basic force built up by then (though obviously it has to fit around the cycling...I'm in the decent position that if I miss the deadline I can always use the Tau instead, who have been performing much better recently, and have even clocked up a couple of victories!)

There is a photo project log of the assembly and painting of the Blood Angels here (typically not great photos, as they are taken with my phone as I work...). As with the Tau, the end goal is for about 3,000 points worth of army. I would expect to finish that late summer, and then look to start work on a new army for autumn/winter.

Everything would be much easier if I didn't have to work (quick work update...more redundancies, I'm not affected, and I'm so in demand that no-one is allowed any of my time...go figure). Easter shot by is a blur of cycling, drilling and super-glue, and my next weekend with nothing to do is the arse-end of June, a.k.a the brief gap between JOGLE and the Bournemouth Triathlon (my first sea-swim!).

Hard Graft

2010-02-22T09:48:00.000Z

The snow seems to have held off a little in the past month, so I've been working on getting some mileage out of the bike. It's still been stupidly cold, and wet, and windy, so it's been a long way from pleasant, but it's important that I get myself moving now, so I don't suffer too much in June.

On the last weekend in January I did a training ride with Threshold. Really good day, and great confidence builder for me. There were about 50'ish riders there, and after a number of talks (Halfords, who are providing the machanical support, SIS, who are doing the 'sports nutrition' aka liquid carbohydrate, as well as a little bit from Chris Boardman and James Cracknell) we all kitted up for a ride in the cold, slightly icy West Berkshire countryside. I bit the bullet and put myself in the fast group, along with about 14 other brave souls. We were being led by a local lad, a 9-hour Ironman (which is a pretty awesome time), an SIS athlete and Cracknell himself. We very quickly managed to lose the lad who knew the route (he dropped back to help a straggler, and we missed a couple of key turnings), and found ourselves about 10 miles the wrong way, and on a main A-Road. After a bit of discussion and map-pointing we decided to head up towards Swindon, then cut back to the route. The A-Road managed to contain a fair percentage of arse-hole car/va/lorry drivers, most of who received cheery waves and verbal abuse (it would have been quite funny if one of them decided to stop...Cracknell is a big fella, and some of the other guys were well-built too, and I'm more than happy to kick when they are down), but we eventually found our way back on route, just in time for a monster 16% climb. If I'd known it was coming I would probably have failed it, but as it was I ground my way up, which was a huge mental hurdle beaten (I've previously died on 11%+ hills). We ended up going past the slower groups (who had cunningly not taken an enormous diversion), and most of our group ended up staying back with them, so at the end only 3 of the riders finished as the fast team, and I was really chuffed to be one of them. We covered about 70 miles in total, with just under a mile of vertical climb, and an average speed of 17mph.

Since then I've ben doing the mileage I can, averaging about 150 a week. I'd really like to see that moved upto about 250-300, and hopefully once the weather sorts itself out, and we get a bit more daylight I can work on making that happen. As the big countdown on my blog reminds me, it's now 110 days to go...all the transport is booked up, and it's really time to knuckle down and get the mileage in. In March I have a week off, and I plan to do 9 days of 50+ miles a day (about 3 hours in the saddle), to put in some hard work on recovery and fatigue management. Towards the end of March I have a weekend in Exmoor planned with a mate, and we are going to do laps of the UK Half Iron-Man course, with a goal of doing 100+ miles in a day, with about 3 miles of vertical elevation as some hardcore hill training.

When I'm not cycling, running or swimming, really enjoying being back into 40K. I've been going down to Spiky Club in Reading, and finding out that;
1) I suck at 40K
2) Tau are a really un-forgiving army to play

I have an impressive loss:win ratio at the moment...perfect in fact. I am un-non-beatable. as such I intend to start work on a second, and more forgiving army to help me learn the game... This time I'll be working on a Blood Angels army, as they have a new Codex out in April. I've picked up a job-lot of second hand miniatures, and planning to begin work on painting them sometime this week. What I really need is another dose of snow, as that gets me painting in double-time, however it does affect the training somewhat!

Getting back into it...

2010-01-27T08:52:00.000Z

It's been a tough month if you're keen to be outside training. We've had just shy of a foot of settled snow in Berkshire, combined with a shortage of grit meant pretty much impassable roads. The snow has left (for now), but it seems to have left behind some fairly epic potholes, and vast amounts of crud on the road in the way of stones, grit etc, so cycling contineus to be a challenge... The trainig plan has gone out of the window, and right now it's very much catch-up and mileage building again. I have a training ride this weekend (Sunday), and overall I'm expecting to break 100 miles that day...

As the countdown cheerfully reminds me every time I head here or the RAB2010 website, we are now over halfway through the training, with about 135 days left to go...faintly terrifying. To aid me in my constant terror that I'm not doing enough I have a new toy (Christmas present from Gill ) that lets me keep very accurate track of how little I'm doing, and how badly I am doing it. The stuff it kicks out can be seen here. It's way more accurate than the old phone stuff, and includes other funky data points like cadence and heart rate, which has already proved very useful in working out how I react to fatigue (I now have it bleeping warnings at me if my cadence goes below 80)

Quite aside from the training, there is also the sorting out of the logistics of getting to and from John O'Groats and Lands End. The trains run as far as Wick, which is about 20 miles from JOG, and can deal with (wait for it) about 16 cyclists a day, which would be an issue when you consider that roughtly 650-700 will be turning up. instead our bikes are being shipped up separately, and we make our own way. I've decided to fly, as most other options involved a 6-7 hour coach ride from Edinburgh or Aberdeen (I don't travel well, and I can't think of anything worse than violent travel sickness the day before setting off on a 1,000 mile cycle). I'll be heading to Southampton, flying to Wick via Edinburgh, and then taking teh shuttle bus to JOG. It's all booked, and ready to go, and again makes it all sem just round the corner now...

While this year the focus is going to be on cycling, I'm also going for a fair number of triathlons. Currently booked up are the Merchant Taylor Olympic tri in May, the Fritton Lake Olympic Tri (also in May), the London tri (in August, doing the extended bike ride to 80km), and the Vitruvian Half Iron-Man (in September...season finale I guess). On top of that I'm doing the Reading Half Marathon (March...probably going to be rubbish again), and I'm looking at teh Human Race Evening Sprint Triathlon series at Dorney Lake as well. There has been some mention of giving bike Time Trialling a go as well, as Reading has a fairly active cycle club, and it would give me an excuse to give the TT bike a showing.

So all in all a fairly manic year. I estimate last year I cycled approximately 5,000 miles... I would be shocked if I didn't top that by some margin this year. I also need to keep the running up (I need to be at least half-marathon fit throughout the summer, and into autumn) and also comfortable doing 2km+ swims in open water...so I could really do with the weather sorting itself out!

What I did do in my holidays

2010-01-05T18:19:00.000Z

I've spent the last three weeks fairly housebound, mainly as a result of the weather. The downside of having transport with 2 wheels is that if the roads turn icy you are pretty much fuxored. I can't actually get the motorbike out at the moment, as my road is (as Gill describes it)a bit like Narnia, and constantly frozen (it's on the wrong side of a hill, and gets very little direct sunlight, so the frost and ice stays for ages). Cycling is a risky business, and I've had one friend trash his bike in the last week after hitting ice, so it's just not worth the risk.

As a result I've had plenty of time to progress a project I thought would take a couple of months at least, but has in fact been almost completed in a little under 3 weeks. After the fun of painting Space Hulk up, I decided to return to my teen years, and paint up a Warhammer 40K army. I appreciate that at this point many people will turn off, and I'm going to start spouting bollocks if you don't know what 40K is, so you can probably turn off now...

...back before university I used to play a lot (member of wargame club etc) with Space Marines, which at that time were getting fairly screwed over by the evolving ruleset. When I went to uni I left all the models at home (and as a result I no longer have them...probably binned along with the rest of my stuff...no matter, they were painted in garish colours that only a teen boy could constitute as "cool"), and I've never really had the time or inclination to build up a new army until now.

There is a new, and uber lazy, way of painting called "dipping", which basically involves;
1) Spraying the models a base colour
2) painting on simple detail
3) coating the model in pigmented varnish
See an example here of the painting sequence.

Whch speeds the process up a lot. the results are not display-case amazing, however they are more than acceptable for use, and en masse, which is always the point of armies, the results are pretty good.

After browsing the Games Workshop website I decided on the Tau Empire as my new army... I wanted to try something new, and they came across as a fairly un-complex and (in some sense of the word) realistic force (as in they don't have half-naked women as their elite troops, opting instead for massive robot suits). Did I mention I hate elf-dar?

Rather than pay GW's massive prices, I hunted around on eBay and bought up a job lot of various troops, and for equipment used a combination of Army Painter and Formula P3 Paints. Finally, I actually looked into what makes up a Tau army, and then filled in some of the gaps I had in my selection of minis. The end result is a good mix of infantry, vehicles, heavy weapons and elite troops, though a bit light on fast stuff...

My plan was to paint units at a time, with the aim of getting 1-2 done a week, and thus take about 2-3 months to complete the force. Then came the snow, and I was basically stranded at home for a fortnight. I sprayed up my first batch of minatures (36 Fire Warriors, 12 Kroot, 9 Battlesuits and 8 Stealth Suits, constituting 8 units), and had them completed within a week. By concentrating on the theory that all I needed to do was add enough detail to make them look painted, while leaving the models mostly base-coat colour I could fly through them. For each model I came up with a basic colour scheme based on 3-4 colours (mainly a yellow/tan base colour, brown/red contrast, black/silver mechanics, and a white detail), and used the template for every model. Each unit then had a colour assigned to it, and the shoulder pads were tagged. Each unit was painted in a batch, so I was doing the same thing on each model before moving onto the next one, which is both very efficient and a little dull when you have units of 12.

Once that was done I gave each model a layer of pigmented varnish (which I will refer to as "dip", even though I'm not actually dipping them, but painting it on), and left to dry out of the reach of the cat for 48 hours. As I had nothing better to do I was getting through 1-2 units a day, so I ended up spraying up more models while there was still snow outside.

I'm quite lucky to have a games room in my house, and as it's effectively free space I've been able to take it over for this project, with boxes of minatures all over the table, a nice big painting area that can be left out, and the all-important laptop for BBC iPlayer and cricket commentary. Spending 6+ hours a day hunched up over the minatures did give me some back trouble, but nothing my sports therapy lass couldn't sort out (even though it felt like she was trying to rip my arm off!)

Just after christmas I realised that I was probably going to be finished by mid-January, and I thought I should probably find somwhere to play. I've got the kit to start building a battleboard in my games room (large squares of chipboard, to be painted green, and some chunks of thick wood to turn into hills at some point), however I also tried to see if there were any wargame clubs nearby. I knew that there was a 'con at Rivermead in December, and a bit more investigation led to a group called Spiky Club, basically a bunch of peeps who play GW games in a non-GW environment. sent them an email, and had a cheerful and friendly reply that I was more than welcome, would they like to sort me out a game? So on the 14th January I'll be heading down there to have my arse well and truely handed to me by someone who actually knows what they are doing. I'll be spending the next week and a half swotting up on the rules, finishing my army (1 unit to go, and a handful of support models...I reckon a good days painting, which is handy as apparently it's going to snow tomorrow, so I'll be back in the Wardrobe for a few days) and spending far more time than is appropriate trying to work out what a good army for Tau looks like for 1,500 points (I suspect nothing like the one I will go in there with...)

It's been really enjoyable watching the army take shape, and it's taken my mind off the lack of training I've been getting in. I can see myself tackling another force at some point, probably at a more sedate pace...

The last post (of the year)

2009-12-14T14:09:00.003Z

Well, it probably will be...I doubt I'll be organised enough to do another one this close to the end of the year.

So what have I been upto? For a change we'll start with non-exercise related stuff. I finally finished painting my copy of Space Hulk (images here on BGG ). In the most part really enjoyed doing the painting again...the dipping method is really very effective, and you get very good results for comparatively little time investment. It's inspired me to take on a larger painting project, this time a Warhammer 40K army, and I've decided on the Tau. Many moons ago I used to play Space Marines, so I thought I should go for something a little different. Elves/Eldar are "the ghey", Necrons are just a bit silly, Imperial Guard, though thematically great, are a little shit (possibly my next project though) and Chaos never really appealed to me. Tau as an army have a nice strong theme, and their play style is nicely focused...good strong points and weak points. I also think that they will suit the dipping technique perfectly. I've spent the last few weeks on eBay hoovering up squads, and I'm now at the point of assembling the minis, with a target of commencing an industrial painting operation over Christmas and the New Year...

Speaking of 40K, last weekend was a Fishcon, where we make a pilgrimmage to Norfolk, invade Fish's country house with a selection of PC's, and spend 60 hours beating the crap out of each other virtually. This time we spent a long time playing Dawn of War, an RTS based on Warhammer 40K. It's probably the first RTS I've actually enjoyed, as it delivers on massive firefights, and proper squad-based shenanigans, rather than the normal RTS result I see of snakes of units coming out of a factory... The rather less cerebral Left 4 Dead 2 also got some heavy play-time, being perfectly suited to a 'con (apart from the glaring omission of a LAN-based interface...all set-up has to be done via archaic console commands...). Great weekend, I really enjoyed it...

...however it does bring us back to the ugly spectre of fitness. As I've probably bleated on about before, I'm still training for Ride Across Britain. Normally weekends are taken up with long cycle rides in the rolling hills of West Berkshire, so to appease the guilt of sitting down and having no sleep for 3 days for Fishcon I decided to Yin the Yang, and cycle there. On paper it seemed fairly realistic to accomplish. A fairly simple route around London clocked in at about 170-180 miles, so if I stopped halfway at a B&B that would mean about 80-90 miles a day, which seemed emininently achieveable... what follows is a lesson in planning, and the lack-of therewithin.

I mapped a fairly high-level route, which consisted almost entirely of a list of major towns I had to pass through. For day 1 this read "Reading - Henley - High Wycombe - Hemel Hempstead - Stevenage - Cambridge" I booked a B&B in Cambridge for my overnight stop... Simple! I would simply cycle to one, then using my phone GPS pick a rough trajectory, and repeating this technique pick my way around the north-western corner of London. this looked great in theory, and I set off bright and early on the Thursday morning, well wrapped up against the cold and rain, with a rucksac with spare clothes, a lock and a plentiful supply of Torq bars and gels, while cunningly leaving my water bottles on the windowsill. I knew the route from Reading to High Wycombe, so made good time, even on the outskirts of the Chiltern Hills. I had never cycled to High Wycombe itself before, and very quickly discovered that it is remarkably well-named, though it doesn't mention it's general steepness as well. My average speed nose-dived, and at this point the rain really kicked off, and didn't leave again all day. I struggled through the Chilterns, reached Hemel Hempstead, and then struggled for 20 minutes to re-attach my chain after an impressive double-loop squeezed through the front gear-mech...

...and then I hit the Bedfordshire Downs...more bloody hills, and due to the general weather conditions I couldn't even really enjoy the downhill sections, as they were too steep to free-wheel, and corners were accidents waiting to happen. I continued to plod across the country until reaching the M1/A1, at which point I planned to head northwards to avoid major trunk roads, before crossing over to Cambridge. It was about 2pm at this point, and I reckoned on at least another 2 hours in the saddle, bringing up a concern over remaining daylight hours (mental note...December "days" are only about 7 hours long...). By the time I reached Hitchen I was pretty low on morale. My legs were frozen from the incessant rain and cold, and I had real concerns about a final run into Cambridge in the dark. Then my GPS died... Of course being as well planned as I was there was no backup navigation system, and after a (pretty feeble) attempt to get it working again I turned back to Hitchen, and headed to the train station to grab the next ride to Cambridge. The phone came back to life (it was probably the cold that killed it, though it was running Google Latitude, Nokia Sports Tracker and Google Maps, which in retrospect was not that wise), and I made my way sheepishly to the B&B to recover. I'd covered about 120km (80'ish miles), and reckoned I had about 30 or so to go when I stopped.

A hot shower, some junk food and half an hour leaning on a radiator watching crap TV and I was able to re-assess the situation. Physically I was fine. No aches or pains, plenty of energy and no injuries. I had simply been beaten by the weather, lack of daylight, and a lack of planning. I spent most of the evening working out a turn-by-turn route for the next day across Suffolk and Norfolk, as well as turning off most of the toys on my phone to preserve battery life, before collapsing asleep.

The next day, in comaprison to the first, was a complete doddle. I left the B&B at first light, and headed out of Cambridge on it's wide and generous cycle paths towards Newmarket. Half of the route was on cycle paths, the other half on a quiet A-road. Once past Newmarket I had proper country lanes and National Cycle Network routes all the way to the Norfolk Broads. The weather, as if in apology for Thursday, was dry, calm and sunny (though not especially warm far better than the day before...). The hills were behind me, and while it wasn't flat they were rollers, not cliffs. Having the planned route meant I never hit another A-Road, and very rarely even saw cars. Instead I had really rather pleasant roads around farmland, and small villages with 3 houses... I ended up racking up 130km, arriving at the Mill about 2.30pm, feeling rather cheerful.

I'd decided Thursday night that the return journey was probably not achieveable...given I ran out of time the "easy" way (with a tailwind), heading back would be even slower, and there was a 10-mile section between Henley and High Wycombe which was a major trunk road...scary enough in daylight, but terminal in the dark, and during a rush hour. With the aid of Gill I worked out a route using trains that would be fairly pain-free, however ~~Mr.~~Dr. (though it's not like he could actually help you if you were bleeding to death...) Rob Lang went above and beyond all calls of duty, and drove halfway across the country to pick me and my bike up, before taxi'ing me back to Reading. Sterling work, and much appreciated, especially in the torrential downpour that occured.

All in all it was a good experience, and I'm glad I gave it a go. Perhaps next time I won't try such idiocy in December in the UK, and perhaps I may plan my route a little more thoroughly. It makes me very glad that when I go down the country in June someone else is doing the navigation and logistics, and there will be dedicated bike engineers with us. I'm also glad I won't be alone, as if the roads are not with you there is nothing worse than having no-one to pull you along. Other people may not be able to help you, but at least they can suffer with you!

My next blog post will probably be the New Years Resolutions one...expect it to include a lot of cycling, swimming, running and triathlon-related hijinks...

4 Months of Improvement...

2009-11-09T09:23:00.000Z

In August I did my first 100-mile cycle, and it very nearly broke me. I suffered horrendous saddle sore, had a huge calorie deficit, and pushed my knee over into injury...it really wasn't pleasant. I'd quite obviously ramped up my distance far too quickly.

Yesterday I did 100 miles again, and coped far, far better. It was a combination of factors...partly I have strengthened up my legs, and had continual physio and massage work on my legs to keep injuries from settling in. I also approached the entire day far better, by keeping a far closer track of how I was feeling, and managing any needs. I was taking part in the first training day for Ride Across Britain. Due to the utter in-eptitude of the rail system I couldn't take my bike to Hungerford (about 25 miles away) on the train, so decided instead to cycle there and back. The weather was overcast, witha level of humidity that constantly threatened, but never quite delivered rain. I started the day with a steady session along the A4 to Hungerford...the lack of geography meant that I was able to settle into a good rhythym. I arrived at Threshold Sports, the people running RAB. They pretty much nailed all my requirements by welcoming me with hot tea and chocolate cake!
Once everyone had arrived (about 40 people were there), we all headed upstairs to slouch around on beanbags for a talk from Prof. Greg Whyte, where he covered some of the main challenges we were going to face. It was good stuff, and there were some real eye-openers to what can happen if you let a problem lie too long before you fix it. 1997 Ironman Womens Finish...this is either hilarious, or horrendous, and I'm still not sure which, but as a result of it I'm sure as hell going to make sure I keep myself well fed and watered.

We then had a quick chat from Mike Veal of Bike Dynamics, where he quickly covered the basics of bike setup...he was a man much in demand, and he stayed behind after the ride later to get people on a turbo, and do some basic adustment. I had a 10-minute session with him, and a couple of tweaks to saddle position later and I'm feeling a little smoother rolling along.

For the ride itself we were split into 3 groups roughly based on claimed abilities from phone calls over the last week. I'd obviously said something bad, as I'd been put in with the experienced riders. We started with a group of 14, led out by a pleasant chap called Tim. The route was a 19-mile circuit around West Berkshire...no big hills, but plenty of undulations, and the wet weather and leaves made some sections "interesting". We set off at about 16mph average, which is well with my ability levels, and for the most part stuck together (a couple fell off the back, however there were chaperones with each group, so they formed a new group behind us). This was my first experience of group riding, and it's going to take a little getting used to. On the plus side sitting in a group saves a huge amount of energy. At the end of the second lap Tim said we could fit in a 3rd, but the pace would have to go up...he reckoned about 18mph. I was feeling pretty good at this point... I'd been keeping topped up on gels and bars, and had also remembered to drink occasionally!, and again 18mph is within my pace. Five of us went for the 3rd lap, with the others heading back to base. Throughout the 3rd lap we started to fragment, and I'm pleased, and fairly relieved, to say that I didn't drop back. Eventually 3 of us finished on pace, with Tim dropping back to bring in the stragglers. I was really pleased with my performance...I kept up with far more experienced riders, and the work I've put in on hills paid off, as on the rolling sections I was keeping good pace, and not burning energy pointlessly.

After the ride we had a de-brief (which involved more cake for me), and then I had the 25 miles back along the A4 to do, and to add fun in it was getting dark. I have some decent lights (on both the helmet and the bike), so I prepped the bike and headed off. As I came into Newbury I started to feel fatigued. Normally I would have pushed on, and maybe taken a break once I was out the other side of Newbury, however taking Prof. Whyte's words into account I pulled over, had a food bar and a good amount of drink, and gave myself a 5-minute break...once I started up again my energy was back, and I was able to tap out a good rhythym back to Reading and home.

Really enjoyed the day...great to meet other RAB'bers, and was also good to crack out 100 miles without feeling like death the next day, and with no noticeable pain. It's still a long way to go to being able to do 115 miles a day for 9 days, but yesterday was a good milestone to hit...

Another Generic Cycling Update...

2009-10-20T09:59:00.000+01:00

I have a feeling that this may be the general pattern of my winter...

I've completed the first month of my training for Ride Across Britain 2010, and by my calculations racked up about 800-900 miles in the four weeks. The new bike had some teething issues, however a couple of visits to a local bike store, and some emails to Wiggle sorted that out, and now the odometer on it is ticking over nicely.

The rides are basically taking four forms;

Daily Commute - About 14 miles round trip, fairly flat. Goals here are fast pace, and practicing technique and cadence control
Lunchtime Rides - a 1 hour, 18 mile loop, where the focus is on improving overall time over undulating terrain
Weekend Rides - Long rides on Saturday and Sunday, to get used to cycling on tired legs, and also improve endurance over 40-80 miles. Also includes several climbs
Velodrome Intervals - Speed and power work, aiming at holding a high pace and cadence for about 5 minutes at a time

The big challenge coming up is the transition to winter training. We visited the Cycle Show at Earls Court a fortnight ago, hoping to pick up winter gear, however the retail opportunities were a bit rubbish generally, so ended up ordering a lot of stuff online. I now have a windproof jacket and gloves, more shorts, some base layers and some rather clever Crud RoadRacer Mudguards, which I'm resisting fitting until I need to. The cold weather really kicked off this weekend, after a pleasantly mild start to autumn. Hopefully I'll acclimatize to the colder weather, and it would be really nice if it was a dryer winter...

One real issue I have is lights. I bought some cheapy Argos specials, and they are absolutely rubbish. Last week I had to cycle across town after dark to get to Palmer Park, and could see nothing until I hit street-lit areas. The way back was even worse, as the "light" (it barely deserves to be called that) decided to go intermittant. I've done some reading round, and there is a strong current of opinion that cycle lights are basically over-priced torches, and there have been a lot of advances in the torch arena that have not transferred over to the cycling arena. As such many suggest simply buying a torch, and strapping it to your bike. Given that I was already jury-rigging the light attachment, due to a general lack of sensible handlebars (all the clear space is given over to areo bars and elbow rests), I've ordered a Lenser P7, which has a power output of more than my current Inova T2. That and some velcro strapping should sort me out nicely. If it works out well I may pick up a second, and some LockBlocks (a simple device to make bolting the torch to a bar easier)

Weakness...

2009-10-02T10:45:00.000+01:00

I pretty quickly cracked, and I have a day off work today to await delivery of my brand new Focus Cayo 105 from Wiggle. The Giant Defy has done really well this year, and I've clocked up over 3200km on it in 6 months, however it lacked in the gear department, which accentuated my generally patheticness on hills. I've sold it to a chap who has just left work, as he is looking to start doing some longer distance cycling.

Not only is it a jump-up in drive-chain quality, but it's also a full carbon frame. After a fair bit of shopping around I wasn't able to find any other bike that offered both a 105 system and a carbon frame for the price.

I've been trying to stick to the training plan for JOGLE, though I've slacked a bit on the interval sets, as I'm waiting for the velodrome to re-open. Last weekend I did my first back-to-back sessions, doing a fairly rapid 40 miles on Saturday, and a slower, hillier 60 miles on Sunday. The 60-miler was led by a chap called Callum, who is a fairly awesome cyclist, and he managed to haul us up most of the big hills around Henley and into the Chilterns...hard work, but I got up a couple of gradients I would have failed at a month ago, so it's a good sign. The plan for this weekend is to do another similar set, which will also be a good chance to break in the new bike (if and when it arrives...I'm checking out the window for a City Link van pretty regularly...). I'm racking my long cycles up on my Nokia SportsTracker page (I don't bother with the commutes, as to all intents and purposes they are too short to count as training). It's some great, free software for my phone, even if it is Beta, and occasionally crashes.

To back up the cycling I'm having a fortnightly physio/massage, in an attempt to conquer the continual injuries I've strugged with in the last year. The sessions are insanely painful, however I'm seeing some real benefits, adn I've been able to train at an intensity that would have reduced me to a limp earlier this year. I'm driving her mad by effectively not taking a rest day (apparently cycling to work invalidates a day as a rest??). Today will be a rest day, unless the bike arrives in the next hour and a half, in which case I'm cycling into town for PIE!

Getting braced...

2009-09-23T15:42:00.001+01:00

This week I received my training plan for RAB 2010... Well, actually I got 3, for varying levels of ability. You were given a brief questionnaire to determine which training level you were;

Enthusiast - What's a bicycle?
Club - Has ridden a bike on occasion
Pro - My name is Bradley Wiggins, and I display god-like powers on 2 wheels

The quiz put me in the "Pro" category, which I didn't believe at all, and that was before I even saw the plans. The schedules cover 9 months of training on a day-by-day basis, and towards the end you can expent to be spending 20-30 hours a week in the saddle, and that's on the "Club" schedule I quickly decided was the right one for me. The "Pro" one was insane, and expected you to have a Powertap (a rather expensive gizmo that measures the power you're outputing in wattage terms on the rear wheel of your bike. they are built into the hub, and need a fairly pricy computer linked upto them...)

It's starting to hit home just how far JOGLE (the nickname for John O'Groats to Lands End) is...this week I clocked up 2,000 miles cycling in the last 6 months...by comparison JOGLE is 1008 miles, and I'll be doing that in 9 days...previously it's taken 3 months! I've set myself an arbitary goal of doing the cycling bit in 60 hours, which equates to just under 17mph average, and about 6½ hours a day cycling. I'm already starting to think that I might be way too optimistic there. To add fun into the factor we'll be going north-to-south, which is against the prevailing winds in June.

I'm determined to stick close to the training plan... on a day-by-day basis items will need to be shuffled, however I'm looking to stick to the weekly targets, and use it as motivation to haul my ass off the sofa and get the miles in. In true geek fashion I've added a countdown and training agenda to my blog...it won't help any, but it should make me feel guilty whenever I see it...

Aside from the training, I will also need to sort out kit. I'm going to the CycleShow in a couple of weeks, and hoping to pick up some new shorts, tops, and also try out some saddles, looking for one that doesn't turn into a razor blade after 3 hours. I have a cunning plan that involves transplanting the aero wheels from my TT bike onto my road bike for the actual event, though I'm still half-tempted to upgrade the road-bike, as I only have 14 gears on the current one, and the 20 on the TT bike are a real blessing... Might be tricky convincing Gill on the sense behind that one...

Seasons End

2009-08-27T08:42:00.004+01:00

as a New Years resolution I set myself the challenge of doing a triathlon this year... I ended up doing 5, and it's probably kept me sane as I've been continually pestered with leg injuries.

Last night was the final triathlon of the season... Tough gig, with sporadic showers, wet tarmac, and a nasty bit of wind from the remnants of Hurricane Bill. To complicate matters, traffic was atrocious (apparently an accident on the M3/M25 had clogged up everything, and overloaded the A-Roads), so I arrived at Dorney Lake while Gill and all my kit was grid-locked in Bracknell. While I quietly panicked Gill did sterling work getting through, and the race organisers decided to delay all the waves by 15 minutes, to give everyone time to arrive, so I ended up getting all my kit into transition, and having a vague semblance of preparing before the off.

Weather doesn't really affect the swimming bit too much, and I went for a different tactic this time, positioning myself right on the far end of the starting pack, giving me more clear water, sacrificing a bit of distance. The end result was less fisticuffs, and more chance to get into rhythm. Once again most people went wide on the return leg, and I had a clear run back in, ending up PB'ing the swim route in 13.26...

...which I promptly wasted by going onto the wrong rack in transition, and running around for a minute before finding my bike :-( That minute ended up costing me 10 places, and really highlights that I need to start taking transition more seriously. Once out on the bike it was time to face the breeze, with the outward leg of the 6 laps almost directly into it. This was the new bike's first outing, and it performed admirably...no-one overtook me, and I think I made up a fair number of places. I ended up slightly slower than the last race on the bike (32.54), however conditions were certainly against me this time, and once I almost came a cropper, coming into a corner far too fast, and coming out of it just a bit too sideways.

The run I was slightly gutted about...really pushed myself, after being chastised last time for running with someone else and chatting with them, however I came in about a minute slower (21.50), which is frankly awful, given that I've done sub 18 minute 5k runs before now...definitely something to work on over winter.

Final position was 44th, from about 350. It's OK, and hard to fully judge, as the final wave had a better time of it on the bike, as the wind was dying down, however next year I really want to start getting into the top 10%. Plan now is to take a week off cycling, to let my knee start recovering, and then start work on winter training.

Cycling - the ultimate geek sport?

2009-08-05T21:26:00.002+01:00

Most sports can be real money pits, if you really put your mind to it. Triathlon attempts to be more expensive than most by combining several sports into 1. Outdoor swimming requires a wetsuit (specialist, of course, and you can clear £300 easily on an off-the-shelf, before spending as much as you want on having it customised to fit your particular physique). Running is in theory cheap, however you'd be surprised how fast trainers wear out, and how expensive they can go.

All this pales into comparison, however, to the bike leg. My first triathlon bike (bought a whole 6 months ago now)cost about £450, and on top of that I've put some cheap aero bars, some new tyres, and a fancy rear-mounted bottle holder, as well as the near compulsory pump, lock and basic repair kit. I reckon that I ride around on about £600 of kit. I regularly joke that my bike costs less than one wheel from some other peoples kit.

I've been doing fairly well at the cycling, given that it was the discipline that I started training on most recently... On sprint distance events I'm placing in the top 5-10% of a field on the bike, and I've also signed up for Ride Across Britain in 2010, which should either sort out my endurance or kill me. as an encouragement I decided to buy myself a new bike, and gave myself a budget of £2000. Which sounds like a lot for a bike....

...then I did the proper thing, and started to do some research. I was vaguely aware that bike geometry had some part to play, as did weight. I very quickly discovered that there is an entire sub-culture out there determined to to spend thousands of pounds to reduce the weight of their bike by a few grams, and that this obsession trickled down to every single part of the bike.

A few examples for you to mull over. My old bike had a Shimano 105 Rear derailleur (the bit that moves the chain up and down the gears). For £50 perfectly practical. It's weight is 222 grams. If you want to save a bit of weight (especially in the wallet department), you may instead plump for a hand-crafted carbon fibre model, at 120g. For a weight saving of less than 100g you pay £700 more.

How about a water bottle holder? Cheap at half the price, for £80 It only weights 27grams, before you put 750 grams of liquid in there... Or perhaps you'd like some handlebars for £800.

Insane costs, in return for a lower weight you could gain just as well by taking a decent-sized shit before a race. You could always go for a package bike, which could save you a fortune. I only just managed to find one that broke the £7,000 mark, though I'm pretty sure there are more expensive ones out there.

The real trap here is that the right kit on a bike can make you faster. It's one of the few sports where you are very reliant on a bit of mechanical kit, and as with anything competitive people will seek seconds where they can, and I have no doubt that for elite athletes those seconds count (even in 9-hour races such as Ironmans). For the over-enthusiastic amateur, however, there are definite barriers at the engine level, and I'm pretty certain that I'm not going to see much of a time benefit with a £10,000 carbon fibre shard rammed up my arse.

So I set about looking at the various options open to me in the price bracket, and it's here that I noticed a real similarity between cycling and PC specs...you can spend an in-ordinate amount of time tweaking and fiddling to get the theoretical biggest bang for your buck. The huge range of parts for a bike, and the number of manufacturers mean that there are a huge combination of setups to choose from.

I toyed with getting something fairly exotic, however realistically machines like that would rarely leave the house, as I'd be constantly terrified of getting a puncture (the more extreme wheels have a type of tyre called a Tubular, which differs to normal tyres in that they have no inner tube, and are instead a fully sealed tyre that is glued to the wheel. Apparently these reduce the roll resistance with the road, and thus make you faster, but do mean a puncture is going to screw you over big time). I'm a big believer in training on/in the kit you race with, so practicality had to play a part.

After lots of hunting around I finally found a bike that covered most of my needs, and (with a well-timed sale) was within my budget. Hopefully, tomorrow, I shall be the happy recipient of a Felt B12.

It's the cycling equivalent of a mid range graphics card, or a CPU with the architecture of the expensive brands, and ripe for over-clocking. It has the same frame and geometry as £5,000 bikes, and some wheels that are noted for decent aero-dynamic design without insane cost. The individual parts of high enough quality, without going too far over the "minimal weight reduction in return for massive outlay". It has some (compulsory) "fuck you" bling bits too (gotta love the frame cut-outs for the wheels, and the rear brake tucked in behind the seat-post). None of the bits you would expect to wear out are so exotic that they can't be replaced easily (an important consideration when you consider that I'll be training for a 1,000 mile cycle next year).

Fingers crossed it should arrive tomorrow, and after I've put it together (and bolted on the obligatory bits, like a new bottle holder (plastic) and a computer (cheap, but I did go for the wireless model) I'm looking forward to hitting the roads and seeing how she rides. I'd love to get her down the local velodrome, but that's out of action until September due to re-surfacing. Of course to justify it I now have to get my times down, however I'm not daft enough to think that "New Bike = Faster Time"...it goes nowhere without a rider, so I'd better knuckle down and work twice as hard training. I know how much I enjoy dashing past someone on a fancy bike, so now it's up to me to make sure I don't give someone else that pleasure...

More mid-week Racing

2009-07-30T10:42:00.002+01:00

Last night was my third sprint triathlon of the year. For this one we decided to try a different organisational company called Human Race, who are doing a monthly series sponsored by 220 Triathlon Magazine. They have a good reputation (and also organise the big Windsor Triathlon).

The organisation on their part was certainly better, I just wish the same could be said of myself. I was once again racing with Harry, however he'd been up working the previous night on a panic fix, so was somewhat off kilter. For part I have an interesting collection of leg injuries (a strained Achilles and a still broken toe), meaning my running has been non-existent. As I cycled to Harry's I also picked up a puncture (I've had a real issue with tyres recently, as the brand I use have been recalled due to manufacturing errors, and the replacements seem to be ropey as well). A stone had punched itself all the way through the tyre, leaving a fairly big hole. There was no time to fix it at Harry's place, and I had my spare at home, so I called Gill, who very kindly diverted to mine to grab the spare, and a new inner tube, before heading to Dorney Lake. As we set off the rain (which had been intermittent throughout the day) became a vicious deluge, making it pretty apparent that the tarmac would be wet for the race.

We arrived about 50 minutes before the race kick-off, and quickly registered and moved the kit to the transition area. As we were racking up Gill turned up with the tyre, so I quickly got to swapping the rubber over. The big benefit of folding tyres is that they are pretty easy to get on and off the wheel, and with the aid of a track pump I had the front wheel replaced in about 5 minutes. After that it was a hurried sort out of the rack and kit, before dropping off my bags with Gill (who I think is resigned to me throwing bags over the fence to her in a race...I really am a bit disorganised at the start), squeezing into the wetsuit, and walking over for the race briefing.

The route was a bit different to the last race at Dorney...for a start the swim route looked pretty close to the correct distance (previously it's been either too short or too long), the bike route was on the other side of the lake, and consisted of 6 laps of a flat loop, with 3 corners of real note. The run was on the island, and was a fairly simple 2 laps up and down. We waited for the final swimmers from the early wave to clear the water (to rapturous applause and encouragement...one lad had been breast-stroking it, but bravely put in a 25 metre front crawl for the crowds), and then everyone piled in. We were in the main wave, and over 150 people had registered for it...by far my biggest start to date. Harry and myself went through our customary good-lucks, then split up to avoid thumping each other over the head once the race got underway.

The swim start was hectic, and very violent. For the first 200 metres there was a lot of punching, bashing and climbing going on. I was wedged in between 2 other swimmers, and the guy on the right of me was pushing in pretty hard. I ended up pulling off a fairly nasty move, which involved rolling onto my side, and coming down on top of him with my shoulder, effectively dunking him. I think that made him pull up (I certainly didn't see him again). Once he was gone I was able to drift to the right a bit, find some clear water, and settle into my stroke. By the first turn I was just behind a big group of swimmers, however they had the decency of all going off course on the return stretch, while I managed to keep a straight line right back to the final turn, and ended up ahead of them by a good 25-30 metres, and was on the toes of a single other swimmer...we ended up coming out of the water together, and I just got ahead of him in the run into transition to swap over to the bike (end time for the swim was 13.47, with a transition time of 1.32...not bad, though there is time to be saved in transition).

The bike is quickly turning into my favourite leg, and last night was no exception. The weather, which had been looking ominous, had cleared up, the wind had dropped, effectively turning into great cycling conditions. I was able to quickly get up to speed (about 24-25mph) and start hunting down the faster swimmers. I'd remembered to tape a couple of energy gel sachets to my bike for this race, and it paid off, letting me keep my speed up for the 20km leg. As it was laps it got a bit tricky to work out who I was passing, and who was from a previous wave, or a lap behind, however no-one overtook me (well, one guy did, but he was a lap down, and I quickly took him back when he overcooked himself) and I was regularly flying past people. As the surface was wet I was taking the corners gently, but managed to get past lots of people accelerating out onto the straights. I'd targeted myself at sub-33 minutes for the bike section, and was chuffed to roll in 32.39. I then wasted half the effort by having a rubbish transition (the tongue of my trainers dived in as I pulled them on, so I had to sit down and re-fit them).

I'd decided beforehand that I couldn't risk pushing myself on the run leg...my Achilles is not in great condition, and I really don't want another 6-8 weeks of downtime while I let another bit of me recover. I ended up running with another chap who came out of transition with me, and quickly formed a gentleman's agreement to pace each other for the most part, and finish on a sprint. This worked really well, and coming into the last kilometre he said we should aim to take the 3 people in front of us. we got past the first 2, and then I had to let him go ahead, as I started to get the formation of a stitch (this is what a summer of not running does for you). I trundled in with a run time of 20.55 (which is a bit slow for me, by about a minute, but it was expected to some extent). Final time was 1:10.07, and a final position of 27th out of 233, which I'm really chuffed with.

No photos this time, but Gill borrowed a camcorder which I'll be sorting out tonight, so hopefully some video of Harry and myself swimming, cycling and running. We checked the footage out on the screen last night and it looks really good.

I have one more sprint triathlon this year, and then it's into winter training, which will consist of learning to run again (planning to do cross-country, and also train for Reading Half), learning to swim properly (without using a pullbouy), and building up cycling endurance and strength. I've signed up for Ride Across Britain for June next year as an incentive to get my endurance up...if cycling 110 miles a day doesn't sort me out, nothing will!

Stupid Hobbies

2009-07-09T20:46:00.002+01:00

After having survived a couple of sprint triathlons in the last couple of months I decided (with a bit of encouragement) to have a go at an olymic distance triathlon. In terms of time and distance it's a big step-up from Sprint distance to Olympic...well, double everything in fact. The distances involved would be a 1.5km swim, a 40km bike ride, and a 10k run. I had done most of these in isolation (with the exception of the bike, where my furthest distance had been 30km in one session), however I'd done no session anywhere near the overall time of the race...

...and then there came the course selection. Triathlons are actually quite hard to get into at short notice compared to running races, as the allowed number of participants is much lower (due to space requirements...the transition area, and swim start are all busy, crowded moments). I've been doing some training with a lad from work called Harry, and we eventually found an event in the Midlands called the Eastnor Castle triathlon, and duely put out names down.

Lesson 1...really check the course details! We found out a week beforehand that the cycle course (which was 2 laps of a 21km course) traversed a section of the Malvern Hills, and included an ascent approximately 10 times higher than anything we had trained on! Other features of note on the course was a shallow section to the lake (referred to as the "Eastnor Swim Hill"). Needless to say, the week leading upto the event was very nervy, and I was really worried that I had done nowhere near enough training prep...

We decided to combine the race with Gill's first experience of camping. We had borrowed her sisters tent (which was more akin to a garage!), and headed upto Eastnor the day before the race. The campsite was OK...the water was not working, but a quick trip to the supermarket sorted that out, and we had an excess of food, a decent gas burner, and tea-making facilities. Even the airbed (yeah, I know...proper soft camping) failed to go down. In fact it all went pretty well, and as the campsite was just triathletes for the race there were no real worries about security (good luck to anyone trying to make off with a bike, as they'd have quickly found a lack of pedals, and several overtly healthy chaps running him down!). I haven't been camping for ages, and must admit it was nice to have the extra space in the big tent...

Race day itself started off rather wet and damp, however it soon warmed up. Harry was travelling up on the day, and actually turned up on time for once! Gill and myself had driven round the bike course the night before, and I was now fairly worried about the massive ascent up the Malvern Hills... There were 2 transition points, and I spent ages getting both set up (I kept forgetting stuff, and there was a last minute toilet run), before we all suited up, and wandered down to the lake. In total there were about 130-140 runners, competing in 2 distances (I was doing the shorter one...some nutters were doing double the distance!). We all jumped in the lake (well, I climbed in), and had the swim route explained to us...2 and a half laps of the lake, followed by a 300 metre run to the bike transition. My plan was to go gently on all 3 legs really, as I had no real idea of how I'd cope with the distance. Just after 10am we kicked off...

The swim was pretty hard. Initially there were loads of people climbing over each other, as the water was very murky, and you had no hope of spotting nearby people. Then, just as people were starting to split out, we hit the shallow section, and it pretty much turned to nighttime while your face was underwater. The water was so shallow that your hands hit the floor, and the muddy bottom was being churned up by everyone. In this area my mask misted up, and I got utterly disorientated, and as I couldn't see I was trying to swim with my head up, which got me out of rhythym and out of breath. As we started to 2 proper laps I went wide, calmed myself down, and quickly took 5 seconds to clear my mask. Once that was done I came back online, and the next 2 laps went much better (the muddy section was nowhere near as bad once you were expecting it, and with a less dense crowd of people around you). I'd aimed to be out of the swim in 28 minutes, but actually took 30 (and was about 18th in my race), though lots of people think the swim was a bit long (this is pretty typical in triathlons...the distance of legs will vary a bit). It was then the long run to transition to get on the bike...

In total it took me 3 minutes to get to transition, get out of my wetsuit, get shoed up and on the road. I'd taken the decision to put on socks (I was going to do that for the run anyway, and decided that I may as well have the benefit for the bike as well). I then ate an energy gel, and settled down into a decent pace...or wouldhave liked to, only I was soon facing the ripples of the Malverns. At 2km there was a smaller ascent (prior to the race I would have referred to this as a massive hill, however my concept of scale has changed in the last week). First time over this I went at a fair pace, and took a few places back. From there it was about 10km of undulations, and a couple of decent fast sections. The wind was fairly gentle for the most part, and for the first half of the first lap I was feeling pretty good... And then the hill hit. Initially there was about 2km of gentle ascent (now into the breeze), and then you hit the ridge of the Malverns, and I quite literally ran out of gears on the bike. I ended up in first gear, out of the saddle and with a cadence similar to that of a slug. First time up I had to stop, reset my gears, and then continue up...it really was the hardest thing I've put myself through. The slope gentled up slightly, however I never got out of first gear, and by the time I reached the top my quads were burning, and all I could think was "crap...I have to do that again".

There was then a long descent, where you could get upto speeds of about 40mph. I wasn't confident enough on the bike to really tuck in and fly down properly, however it was a welcome rest. Starting the second lap while I felt OK, my quads were aching and I really felt it on the ascents. I had a computer recording the ride, and on the second lap I was notably slower on the uphills, though I kept my flat speeds up. A couple of people got past me (though some were doing the longer distance). Coming upto the hill for the second time I again had to stop and reset my gears (really need to work on hills more), however this time fatigue had the better of me, and I missed my footing when restarting, and had a brief coming together with the tarmac as I discovered the nasty downsides to clip-in pedals. I jumped back up, and annoyance with myself got me back up again, then I really did take my time going bck down the other side. I was thoroughly relieved to roll into transition (though again fatigue had an input again, and I slipped off the saddle, and came to a halt slding on both cleats, and my crotch on the crossbar of the bike, while a marshal dived for cover). Final time on the bike was 1 hour and 29 minutes, which was 17th overall in my race.

The final leg was a 10k run through a deer park, fortunately reasonably flat for the most part. I really didn't push myself on this part, partly as I had a broken toe, and hadn't really done any training. Saw Harry for the first time, as the race doubled back on itself a few times. He was a fair few places ahead of me, but wasn't really too worried about that. The run was for the main part fairly un-eventful...I stopped a couple of times to drink, and walked the one really nasty hill (and after checking on the people ahead and behind me didn't actually lose any time), and was fairly shocked to finish the run in 38 minutes (which was technically a new PB). Checking after the event indicates that the run was probably closer to 7.5km, which sounds more realistic.

So there you go...first olympic triathlon done, with a final time of 2 hours and 43 minutes, and a final position of 21st (out of 50 finishers). I saw a few people drop out on the bike (a puncture on the more remote sections of the race would pretty much be an end for you), and Gill saw one chap breast-stroking, and it looks like he never registered a time. I'm more than happy with the time and position...frankly I'm just glad to have got through that bike ride in one piece. I'm not sure I'll get to do another one of that distance this year (hard to find local events that aren't already full up),butI plan to do some next year, and now I have a much better idea of what's involved!

Halfway House

2009-06-09T08:25:00.004+01:00

Nearly halfway through the year, which is more than a little scary. Time to see how the New Year Resolutions are shaping up...

1) Regain running fitness after injury.
I missed my target of 1h 30 for the Reading Half, though in retrospect the physio treatment time lines meant I never really had a chance to get back up to speed properly. Generally speaking I'm back in shape...still a little slow on the running, but certainly better. It's been helped no end by number 2 (below) and the tri-training. I'm notably a slightly different shape now, as the swimming and cycling take effect.

2) Start cycling to work.
Mission accomplished here. As well as cycling to work, I'm also doing some lunchtime cycles, and whenever possible going to Gill's on the bike as well, so averaging about 100-150km a week. My bike is holding up well, and in general for the distance I'm covering not many punctures or mechanical issues.

3) Do a triathlon.
Again, job done. I did the Dorney Lake sprint tri a few weeks ago, and I have at least 4 more scheduled in over summer, with the possibility of a couple more. More than anything I'm enjoying the variation in training, and I've been doing lots of bike work, and both pool-based and open water swimming. The running is not getting quite the work is deserves, mainly as I have a nagging worry about re-aggravating the knee...

4) Sort out the porch...
This one may not be achieved this year, due to fiscal constraints. Instead I'm currently considering doing one (or more) of the following pieces of work;

New dishwasher and undersink plumbing in the kitchen
New oven
New garage door

(3) is the sensible option, and I'm going to chase up some quotes once the bonus is in.

5) Eat healthier.
Doing a little better here. I'm reducing the daytime snacking, and work now have a kettle, rather than just drinks machines, so I have moved off the hot chocolate to cuppas, which have far less fat and sugar in it. Weekends are still a bit of an issue, but far better than it was (and plenty more still to do). In my defense I'm dropping weight at the moment, so I do need all the calories I'm taking in, though I could probably do with improving the shift from simple carbs to more useful proteins and complex carbs...

6) Be a little less paranoid.
Who said that?

All in all not too bad. Three are fully achieved, one is in progress, and only one has had to be changed (I'm going to ignore the paranoia one for now, as it's not really quantifiable).

Time-lapsing...for fun and profit?

2009-05-01T21:08:00.006+01:00

Well, maybe not profit.

I've just posted up a timelapse video of teh car jouney back from the Gower peninsula to Reading, and I'd thought I should back it up with a few notes on the steps I had to go through in order to make it...

The filming equipment was;

The netbook was running the Creative software (Live! Cam Centre) for the webcam, which has a function called "Remote Monitoring", which can be set to take an image capture every x seconds and save it to the hard-drive (and if you are particularly eager, upload it to a website as well). For this video the time was every second, however due to the performance limitations of the netbook it slowly dropped to about 1 image every 4 seconds.

The webcam was attached to the sun-visor in the passenger seat, and the output image flipped/inverted as required in the driver settings (the camera was technically upside down). I took the biggest possible image size (1280x1024) and disabled automatic exposure control (which had trouble when facing towards the sun). The netbook was plugged into the inverter (the previous attempt to do the video on the way there had shown that the battery life was not enough to record the entire journey). In total 5337 images were taken over the course of 3 hours.

The images were all renamed into a numerically sequential order using the "batch rename" functionality of ACDSee, and then fed into VirtualDub as an image feed. VirtualDub can save sequentially named images as a video file. As part of doing this, I also applied a Crop filter to the output file to reduce the image size from 1280x1024 to 1280x720 (YouTubes preferred HD file format).

Once that was done I had the main video file, and I just needed to top and tail it in my preferred video editing software. Add an MP3 (took a few minutes to find one that was both long enough and vaguely relevant to the subject matter), and then encode it using a Divx 5 HD profile and upload it to YouTube...

Simples...

a Change of Tempo

2009-04-06T10:16:00.002+01:00

The Reading Half is finally out of the way. By my standards it didn't go too well, with a finishing time of 1 hour and 33 minutes...my goal was always to get round without an injury however, and that was aciheved, so we'll call it a draw and move on.

The next race is a triathlon in May, and before then I have to get myself upto speed on a bike. I intend to cycle into work every day over summer, and build up the confidence and speed on the machine. This weekend I bolted a cycle computer to it, nad I now know that I cycle at about 20 miles an hour, with my target being 25. It should be achieveable, just need to get the feel of putting the power down into the pedals. I also need to sort out some outdoor swimming practice, as I'd rather not have my first wetsuit swim being "in anger".

In other, non-exercise related things, the Descent Team recently finished a rather long campaign (we reckon about a year in total). Byrnie did sterling work as the Overlord, and managed to go into the finale with a decent lead, and we all thought that it would be a brutal death to the heores, however the game was against Byrnie in a quite horrendous way, and in aspects we never really thought about, resulting in a fairly unexpected (and rather un-climactic) win for the Hero team late on Saturday/early on Sunday. Overall it was a good experience, though I think we are all feeling a bit of balance-fatigue and rulebook-exposure. There is a plan to take a session or two's break, and then start another campaign.

We've been having a few Left4Dead online sessions, which are a riot. It's quite possibly the best team-based game I've played, as it actually involves working together (not just playing together). In three weeks time an expansion comes out for it, which should add to the fun no end! My xBox360, on the other hand, is currently sitting at a repair site in Germany, after deciding to stop outputting sound. The Microsoft support system for them is actually fairly comprehensive, and after two phone calls doing trouble-shooting a pickup from UPS was arranged. This weekend I picked up a cheap copy of House of the Dead:Overkill for the Wii, and it's quite possibly the most hilarious game I've played in a long time. Gill and myself spent a cracking afternoon blasting our way through the initial campaign. The entire theme of the game is done out in a camped-up 70's psychodelic horror (the closest film similie I can reference is House of 1000 Corpses, which I'm fairly certain in turn takes it's style from another, older film).

We have a holiday sorted for Wales in a few weeks time, which is promising to be an eclectic blend of walking, boardgames, consoles and food, with the pleasant backdrop of the Gower peninsula. I'm dragging along my bike, a wetsuit and a kite, though I probably won't try and use them all at the same time. Fingers crossed that the weather holds on, as for the last couple of weeks it's actually been rather spendid. I'll also have a couple of crates of games, including Smallworld, if it decides to arrive on time...

If the weather does hold on, then this weekend (Easter weekend) I plan to finish prepping the garden for summer. We spent a couple od days tediously scrubbing and cleaning the decking, ready for a new coat of stain. I've tried to seed the patches in the lawn as well, but it doesn't seem to have taken (and the bloody pidgeons have eaten it all now!). Once it's serviceable then I suspect there may well be a barbeque planned...well, it would be rude not to!

Hilly ground...

2009-03-22T22:47:00.003Z

I've just done my last long training run before the Reading Half next weekend. I'm on a course in London all week, so won't get a chance to do any long sessions over the week, maybe a 10k at some point.

I'm struggling on all fronts...speed, stamina, and strength on the hills, and it's all really down to a lack of training. I only got the all-clear to start ramping up my distances in the middle of January, and got back to Road Runners a month ago. I've been increasing the distance way beyond the recommended 10% a week, and while I'm now reasonably confident that I'll get round, it's not going to be breaking any records, and I'm certainly not looking forward to the hills. It doesn't help that I entered the before my injury, and so have received a stupidly low number (125, out of about 17,000). At the time my goal was 1 hour 25, now I reckon I'll be doing well to get under 1 hour 35, which will be my slowest half ever (and almost a minute a mile slower than initially planned...)

On the plus side, over summer I'll be doing triathlons, with the first one booked for May. I now have all the kit, and will be concentrating on the cycling stuff once the half is out of the way... the goal is to get up to the required 20k at a sort-of decent speed, and then focus on boosting up the speed while the weather is decent.

Fingers crossed I don't screw my leg up next weekend then...

It's like learning to ride a bike...

2009-03-10T08:35:00.005Z

...which turns out to be quite bloody hard.

The last time I rode a push-bike was about 5-6 years ago, when I used to trundle into work every day (about 4 miles) on a mountain bike. Back then I wasn't some kind of gym rat, and so wasn't really burning up the tarmac. As soon as I had a motorbike I relegated the manual option to the garage, and pretty quickly sold it to someone at work. I do vaguely remember that I was reasonably competent and confident on it, normally tearing in and out of traffic, whilst occasionally hitting it (well, once, and I gave the bastard a right verbal for it)...

...what I don't remember is having each and every undulation in the road passed straight up my spine, and a eerie feeling of exposure and extreme vunerability. I suspect that this is very much to do with having spent 5 years perched on a 200 kilo machine, coated in leather and capped with a large helmet, compared to a pair of shorts, a t-shirt and a shaped strip of polystyrene delicately strapped to your head. There is also a slight different in wheel width (about 8-9 inches, compared to the razor-like contact point on the new bike).

As a road (and racing bike) the setup is very different to a mountain bike as well. Some some insane reason the tyres are inflated to 130psi, which is like having iron bars. They absorb absolutely no shocks at all, and as the rest of the frame is also solid the end result is that my wrists and spine take everything. The dimensions of the frame force you to be low to the frame, giving little flexibility for body-weight adjustment to your balance, and the drop handlebars give less leverage. All in all it feels a very unstable setup (which of course it is...it's all designed for speed, not comfort).

The solution, of course, is practice and familiarity. I'm sure that once I have clocked up a couple of hundred miles it will all feel far more natural. I've taken the decision to remove the race pedals while I get familiar (the idea of being bolted to a machine you're not 100% happy on doesn't strike me as the greatest idea ever), and replaced them with normal toe-clips (which several hundred hours of spinning classes have introduced me to). Once I'm not thinking about the bike (and the wierd-ass gears...it took me half an hour to work out that the brake lever pushed sideways was the mechanism to change down...) I can start thinking about speed, cadence and technique, however until I have rid myself of the "I'm about to eat asphalt" mentality I guess I'm back to novice status...

The long road to recovery...

2009-03-03T17:28:00.002Z

So it's about 3 weeks to the Reading Half, which I've arbitrarily picked as my deadline for recovery from the rather persistent leg injury I've picked up. At the moment (touch wood-like laminate) I'm on track to finish without completely ripping up my tendons, however I'm not sure that the time is going to be exactly stellar.

On Sunday I completed my first 10mile+ run, covering 11 miles in just under 80 minutes. I reckon this puts me on course for a final time of about 1 hour 35 minutes, which will officially be my slowest ever run :-( I've started Road Runners again, and hopefully I can gain a bit of a spring in my step from the interval work that spans from there, however I doubt 3 sessions will be enough to get my pace from last year back... It's all rather depressing, how quickly all the conditioning and training falls off.

Over the summer I'm planning on doing some triathlons, and this week I should be ordering the bike and wetsuit. I haven't been on a pushbike since I did my CBT on a motorbike about 4 years ago, so I've got to get back into the habit of cycling. the plan is to do the commute to and from work 2-3 times a week (about 10 miles each way), so hopefully I can quickly rack up the miles and get a semblance of technique in place. The swimming worries me a bit less, as the distances I'll be competing over initially are well within my training set routines. Hopefully I can rack up some training in the wetsuit in my local pool, just to get the feel of the extra buoyancy.

Frustration and relief...

2009-02-01T23:55:00.005Z

I had to make a decision last weekend to pull out of Tough Guy. It's the first time that I've failed to do a race, however I couldn't risk repeating what happened to me at the Grim in December. I'm stubborn and bull-headed enough to finish a race even when I'm in agony and doing serious damage to myself, so ultimately the safest option was to not go. The deciding factor was a treadmill session on the Friday, where my knee twinged at 8km... There was no prolonged pain, but just a warning shot to remind me that it was still vulnerable. I was really down about it, however the weather this weekend has been verging on biblical, with sub-zero conditions and snow. Harry, a mate who has done it previously, and did it again this year, has reported ice-covered lakes and "extreme pain". I'm not in optimal shape, and I can't believe anything other than attempting to complete that would have set my recovery back 3 months. Maybe next year...

The rehabilitation is still on target, and I'm running 5'ish miles at the moment, with 7 weeks to go until the half. There is still a long way to go, and I'm hoping the weather warms up a tad soon, as it's extremely hard to motivate myself to run outside right now, while treadmill sessions are just sweatathons. The swimming continues to go extremely well, with the average session covering a couple of kilometres. I need to start focusing more on technique and speed now, and have a couple of articles to work from to aid that. Feeling pretty confident about getting some triathlons under my belt this year now... hopefully this month I can source a bike and wetsuit.

Generally January can be considered the month of birthdays. I'm fairly rubbish at doing anything on mine (I went swimming), however Gill was a star, and whipped up a delicious roast lamb dinner for me (her first ever roast as well). Her birthday was a couple of days later (how organised of us to co-ordinate our birthdays), and we went to Ikea to buy stuff (she has a couple of projects, including a cat furniture tower, while I wanted some kitchen storage), and went out on the Saturday (pizza and film..I'm a classy guy). Then, Kate's birthday (Rob's better half) was on the following Wednesday, so we all went to a Chinese for an "all you can eat, and then a dessert". Delicious stuff all round. Next weekend is mine and Gill's first anniversary (that's shot by) and we are off to Colleys to celebrate. God knows why she puts up with me, but she does, and I'm all the luckier for it...

Work is a bit manic at the moment. There is a big project in the offing, and I have a large chunk of work to do for it. To make things a bit more awkward I took some holiday last week (for all the birthdays), and I was on a First Aid Course for most of last week. The end result is that I have 1 week to do an excessive amount of work. Yay? On top of that we have the fallout from the redundancies from the last month, and a general reshape of the department. The full announcement is on Wednesday, however it looks like my next year there is going to be more than a little hectic.

So lots happening, and lots to do, so doing something stupid like staying up half the night to watch the Super Bowl would be a stupid thing...right? Ohh..2nd Quarter has just started...!

The Gauntlet has been thrown...

2008-12-29T23:12:00.003Z

We are approaching the time of new year resolutions. Gill has gone and made hers all public, so I suppose I'd better go and do the same. I started doing these 3 years ago, and they have included such fun things as "Run a half-marathon", "get in shape", and "buy a house".

However, before heading off on what I'll be attempting next year, I'll just remind myself of some of the achievements from 2008.

1) Achieved a sub 1h30 half-marathon
2) Achieved a sub 40min 10k run
3) Learnt to swim
4) Swam over a mile non-stop
..and some non-exercise based ones...
5) Found myself a lovely girlfriend (who will probably complain that shes not no.1 on the list)
6) Sorted out garden and bathroom (just...)
7) Finished the year with more savings than I started with (ropey, but I'll count it)

Not bad...un-shockingly all rather exercise based (to be expected, in line with the "attainable and sustainable" one from 3 years ago...). So onto this year...

1) Regain running fitness after injury. Target is to achieve 1h30 in the Reading Half (end of March)
2) Start cycling to work. Target is early spring (like I'm going to start in winter...)
3) Do a triathlon. OK, not overly sure on this one, as there is equipment considerations. There seems to be a good beginner one in Henley in summer.
4) Sort out the porch...replace the flat roof with a tiled one, re-plaster, and new suite fitted.
5) Eat healthier. I've re-acquired my snack-habit, and it needs to be beaten back into submission.
6) Be a little less paranoid. I should probably have this as a standing one every year. Apparently not everyone is out to do me in (unless I'm on a motorbike, in which case I have a big bonus point sign floating over my head...)

That should keep me busy...

A Constructive Exercise

2008-12-22T11:44:00.005Z

You can spot a bachelor house by the games room. I have one...it leads a schizophrenic life as a table football room, a library, and a board gaming den. For the boardgames I have some large pieces of MDF, covered in felt, that are tied to the top of the Foosball table. It's good in that it is 5 foot square, and can cope with any game...even one of fantasy Flights big-box specials. On the downside it's a little flexible, and does have a habit of bowing under a hardcore lean.

So over the Christmas break I intend to re-design it. I was originally going to completely re-build it using a less flexible surface, however after an hour wandering round B&Q with Gill patiently in tow I decided that it probably wasn't going to work feasibly...the wood was too thick, and too expensive.

So Plan B is to re-surface and re-enforce the existing panels. Fish has most generously supplied some new material (lots of it actually), and I've picked up 4 panels of furniture board. These will be screwed to the underside of the existing boards, and rather than the current hinges I have a collection of clips and deadbolts. I wasn't able to find any d-loops for the webbing, which is a little disappointing, however they can be affixed at a later date. I also need to add on some edging to hold it in position on the Foosball table, however again this is not vital, and I may be able to come up with some better mounting mechanism if I look around a bit...

On the downside?

2008-11-27T19:18:00.003Z

It's been a funny few weeks... lots of things are happening, and I think I just need to step back a bit and work out whats best for me.

First off, the knee has not sorted itself out. I went for a run last Monday, and at 6 miles it started to seize again. This is the longest-lasting injury I've had, so I've taken drastic measures (for me) and sought out medical advice. well, to be more specific, I have registered with my GP and coerced him into a referral to a Sports Physio, which my medical insurance are happy to pay for. I have the first consultation on Tuesday. As of right now I'm not sure I will be running the Grim, which is going to really frustrate me, however, I have to be careful to make sure I am fully fit for the Tough Guy and Reading Half next year.

So instead of running I've been pushing forward with the swimming. I have now finished my course of lessons, and now have targeted myself to get up to swimming 1km non-stop. My current record is 500m, which is up a fair step from 8 weeks ago, when 2 lengths would destroy me. More and more I'm realising it's as much about being comfortable in the water and technique as strength and power.

The big thing floating about right now, however, is my job, or more precisely, the potential loss of it. My company announced a series of redundancies about a month ago, and as of today we were advised of some of the specifics. My team of 18 is losing 4, and as of today I am officially "At Risk". I'm not 100% sure how I feel about this...it's all very new and very strange, and quite apart from myself it does rather kill off the office atmosphere. I've been at the company for 11 years, and my understanding is that a redundancy package would be fairly impressive... I have to be honest, there is a part of me willing to take it and move on. Quite aside from the mercenary temptation, there is a fair argument that the place is turning into a career dead-end. Six months ago I was in a good position to push for promotion, however now that is simply not a realistic possibility...redundancies and promotions do not easily share a bed in business.

I have a couple of weeks to think about it...as I have officially been told I'm under threat I will automatically get a quote about the redundancy package, and I suspect my next move will very much be dictated by how large it is. I have to be impressively selfish, and determine the best course of action for me. Take the money, or stay in the box?

Falling to Pieces

2008-11-06T14:22:00.002Z

After almost a year of getting away with being injury-free I've managed to go through a series of issues in the last couple of weeks...

First off, I came down with a cold for 3 days, the first time I've taken time off work for illness since 2005! I spent the time playing Fable 2, and generally being frustrated at not being able to train. I felt ready to get back into training on the Friday, and went out for a run (I'm missed my Monday long run, as well as Wednesday's track-training session). I sorted out a 12 mile route, and polished it off with what felt like ease...however the next morning there was a sharp pain on the side of my right foot, stabbing every time I put my heel down. I did a little bit of research into this (I have a huge pile of running magazines which have health and injury advice), and quickly determined it was an issue called Plantar Fasciitis, where the muscle that links the heel to the forefoot becomes strained, ripped or swollen. The end result is that for the next 2 weeks at least I'm not running...indeed, just walking normally has been painful, and I've been limping and favouring my left leg, despite having plentiful strapping around the arch of my right foot...

...and of course the strain on the left leg has led to a knee issue. I'm a little more used to these, as I had similar issues a couple of years ago. That knee now has a support, and fingers crossed that's keeping the issue at bay.

So while my various aches and pains sort themselves out I'm limited to cycling and swimming (and I still suck at swimming...). While it's frustrating not to be able to do road training, I have Grim Challenge in 4 weeks time, and I have to be injury-free by then. I suspect I'll be heartily sick of spinning bikes by then...I've already spent over 3 hours on one this week, and while I have a couple of rest days ahead, with just a swimming lanes session before Sunday I'd far rather be outside doing my proper training...

Fortunately I don't have many races planned at the moment. There is the Grim Challenge at the beginning of December, and then a gap until Tough Guy at the end of January. I may do one of the Hampshire Cross-Countries at the beginning of January to give me a bit of off-road practice, and to keep some short-term targets around. After Tough-Guy it's distance-training all the way to the Reading Half, where I plan to break my PB (fingers crossed)...of course, I need to make sure I'm injury-free to do something like that...

Getting things done

2008-10-18T17:56:00.004+01:00

It's been a busy few weeks. As I mentioned last time I've been arranging to get my bathroom done. I got in the same chaps who did the garden, and arranged that they would start while I was off on holiday with Gill to Devon. She has already done a rather good write-up on the week, though I should probably mention the Commando Challenge, which I did last Sunday. This was a 7 mile jaunt around the Royal Marine Endurance course in Exeter. It consisted of a 2 mile road run (quite hilly), followed by 3 miles off-road, taking in a number of crawl tunnels, water obstacles, bogs and mud. I ran with Harry (a lad from work, who also does Road Runners), and his mate Nick. You can see some of the photos on Picasa...as you can see it's fairly muddy stuff. We came in 8th around the course, which is all fairly awesome.

The bathroom is currently half-done...lots of stuff needed to be done with the entire infrastructure of the room (plumbing, electrics, walls, ceiling and floor)...now the bath, some tiles, the lights and some of the plumbing is in, as well as a fairly hilarious window at the moment...again, there are photos of work in progress. Hopefully it should be finished by Tuesday/Wednesday this week. Alongside this, I've put up some display cabinets in the games room, of an Ikea ilk. I'm quite proud of the lighting system I've managed to squeeze into them :-)

Swimming-wise, I've had 2 lessons so far, and have backed this up with a handful of lanes sessions. My technique has improved on the front crawl, and I have the basics of a breathing pattern, though my stamina is still atrocious (after 2 lengths I'm utterly blown). That's going to take practice, and getting more comfortable in the water...

Vast Expense

2008-09-25T15:01:00.002+01:00

The next phase in doing up the house, and probably the most expensive one, is the bathroom. Over summer I went round a couple of places, and was given quotes in the ballpark of £6,000 to refit the place (which , given that the room is 4 square metres, can be considered a lot of money).

I've now gotten the money together, and I've spent the last couple of weeks going through various shops and brochures looking for my idea bathroom within that space (of course, ideally my bathroom would require a supply station halfway across, and the design would take into account the curvature of the earth). Tomorrow the builders (the same guys who did the garden, cracking chaps) are coming over to quote the work... The big question is how much am I going to be hit for. A brief list of the work can be found here.

There are a couple of big bits in there...resizing the window, and underfloor heating are bound to be big. I've had a rough quote on the electrics already, and that's about £1000! The suite is going to cost about £1000 as well (those curved glass screens are very expensive), and the tiling is not exactly discount either. I've gone for a natural slate floor, which should give it a very posh feel (especially given it will probably burn your feet!).

It's one of the areas that I don't dare risk myself. Plumbing and electrics are bad enough by themselves...combine them and you're pretty much assured of death if you don't know what you are doing...

Branching out...

2008-09-17T10:02:00.004+01:00

OK, not quite running, but its all linked I suppose.

As you probably know, I blagged a long weekend in Spain a fortnight ago. A good amount of that was spent by the pool at the resort, and splashing about. It made me realise 2 things;

I quite enjoy swimming
I'm shockingly bad at it

I would swim a length (not even a proper one, as it was a shaped pool), and I'd be out of breath. I can only do a front crawl, and even then I'm keeping my face out of the water as I don't know how you're supposed to breathe. It's all a bit of a train-crash really...

I was taught to swim when I was fairly young, as I suspect most people are. I was a pretty weak swimmer back then, and I have recollections of doing 1000m doggy paddle, taking approximately 2 hours to do so! It was very much the case that you were taught enough to not drown in the local river, but not much more. I never really went back in the pool after that, and at uni did scuba diving, which teaches you to use the fins and your legs (which is utterly against the concepts of swimming). Add onto that a fairly unfit young lad and you have the ultimate model in swimming mediocrity.

Fast forward to now, and I'd like to think I'm in a better shape. While I'm not bulked up, I'm mainly lean mass, and have a bit of endurance to me...of course this doesn't help one whit in the water, as I'm still splashing lots, and moving little. There is one important change though...I'm not above taking lessons now, and I reckon mentally I'm in a better shape to take on board what I'm being shown...after all, I've been taking running training on-board for a while, as well as general fitness advice.

There doesn't seem to be a market for "adults who can slowly drown" swimming classes. Plenty for non-swimmers, but no improver classes (I suspect a lot of this is pride...most people have a paradigm that swimming lessons are for youngsters), so I contacted a local leisure centre (handily only half a mile from my house), and asked their opinion on my best route. They recommended a course of 1-to-1 lessons with an instructor, and the price was a lot less than I thought it was going to be! So I start in 2 weeks time... I did the paperwork last night, and met the instructor, giving me a chance to cover off where I was, what I'd like to be able to do and where I feel I'm weak (breathing and technique...basically the 2 aspects of swimming). She was very pleasant, and seemed confident that I could be gotten up to a much better standard.

I'm quite looking forward to it. I love the idea of being able to nip round to the pool, swim for 30-40 minutes, then get on with my life, and it will be a good accompaniment to the running training, as well as the general fitness training!

A bit of a catch-up

2008-09-15T08:39:00.002+01:00

Things have been occurring, and I've not really been keeping track of them. This will be a bit of an attempt to cover the majority of them...it will probably fail.

First off, La Manga. As my previous post pointed out the weather was fantastic. The whole weekend went rather well really, and I fully recommend all-expenses paid holidays to everyone! Some highlights;

Breaking the jet ski's - We blame the Spanish bloke. There were 6 of us out, and pretty much the only instruction we got during the Spanglish safety briefing was "follow the speedboat". One of the guys at the back had to swerve to avoid the wake of a large boat, and went over a reef, sucking a load of stones into the engine. The speedboat turns to get him sorted (basically turn off the engine, and get towed back in) and we all dutifully follow him...back over the reef. 4 dead jet ski's later, and one very stressed Spanish guy hating us for laughing in the boat back.
Spa - Spent about 4 hours here...firstly got my sweat on in the gym, then a massage, followed by a prolonged jacuzzi session and generally vegging around. Lovely.
Sugababes no-show - The shitty no-pro's that they are the decided that they couldn't be arsed to turn up, so instead the MD gave us all a £1000. So far I have heard from no-one who would have preferred it the other way!

Great weekend, and really enjoyed it. Just the right mix of relaxing, and doing stuff for me. I also found out that one of our senior managers (board room level) like a bit of foosball, and he's keen to get some in the new office we are having built. I, apparently, am already banned :-(

Work has been a mixed bag, and while projects sit in the "what are we going to do" phase, I've been doing some tech support work with XML formats and Schema's. Not really my area, but I'm picking it up fairly well, and no-one has blatantly labelled me as a fraud as yet. We've moved office, and while the new place has more space, there are less good facilities (no kitchen, and we are back to sub-standard drinks machines). I've blagged myself a window seat, though the view is less than stellar.

The running training continues. Roadrunners is brutal at the moment, and we are in the middle of a 6-week distance training improver series. It must be helping though, as I did Dorney Lake on Saturday (same race as I did in April), and I set a new PB over 10k of 39.32...my first time under 40 minutes, which has me really chuffed! I've signed up for Reading Half again, and this puts me about a minute faster over 10k than I was at the same point last year. I've set myself a training target of 40 miles a week by the new of the year.

Cricket is faring less well. A combination of bad weather, and holidays has meant that I've played very little in the last couple of months. This really showed in the game yesterday, with huge strides backwards, and a developing bruise on the right thigh (yeah, it's me that smells of Deep Heat...you can probably smell it from there...). The season is over soon, which means that at least I get my Sundays back for a while. It will probably mean more time dedicated to running, and getting stuff sorted in the house.

Ah, yes...the house. The garden is all done now, and has had its inaugural barbecue. There is still stuff to do (put up some arches over the stairs, some more painting, and I'd like to get some light systems out there to make it more evening friendly), however that can wait until next year, and spring. The next area of focus will be the bathrooms. I have cashed in some under-performing share-options, and should be contacting some workmen soon to try and sort out a window. I need to do some measurements and plans first, as I'm a little concerned that the door is going to get in the way quite royally for some stuff I want.

So there you have it...my life in a small, bite-sized capsule. Don't chew, and take with food!

Warmer Climates

2008-09-03T12:22:00.003+01:00

It was announced yesterday that August was basically a bit of a shitty month overall...frankly we were lucky to get the barbecue in there at all. Summer in general this year has been a bit of a let down, and now we are in Autumn its only going to get worse!

So lets have a quick look at the forecast for the next 5 days...

So, its going to shit it down here, while I'll be mucking about in the south of Spain on jet-ski's and quad bikes. Damn :-( Yes, it's finally time for me and Gill to bugger off down to La Manga, and enjoy ourselves at someone else's expense. Expect photos of sand, sea, sun and (depressingly) me in a tux...sigh... Well, it can't all be perfect, can it?

I have a couple of days off either side, and tomorrow I'll be busying myself putting a TV up in the bedroom, playing furniture chess, and probably doing a set down the gym (though that depends on how vicious Roadrunners is tonight). I somehow doubt cricket is going to occur this weekend. Monday will be sorting myself out, getting supplies into the house, and generally keeping the relaxing feeling going for one more day...

Have fun y'all!

Aching Legs

2008-08-28T11:03:00.003+01:00

Roadrunners has turned a bit brutal in the last couple of weeks... As we move into autumn the distance we are doing is going up, as apparently races over the winter months tend to be longer. We've been handed into the care of a new trainer, who apparently does over 100 miles running a week! At the moment I'm impressed if I clock up over 20 by comparison...

We have 6 weeks of his routines, followed by another 6 weeks of cross-country training. Last nights session was vicious;

Do a 2 mile run at a good pace (6.40min miles for me)
Do 3-4 sets of 8 laps of track (2 miles), and 3 minute rest at 10k pace (about 1.36min laps)
Die

I managed 3 and a half of the reps...I could have probably finished the fourth one, however I would have been the only guy left at the track. It's a bad sign when your track session is longer than your long run, and it's a big eye-opener that I need to start upping my mileage. I'm currently doing about 7-8 miles on a Monday, and about 5 on Friday. I think I need to start adding to both of these, with a final aim of 14-15 on Monday and 7-8 on Friday...at least! Add that to the equivalent of 9-10 at Roadrunner, and I'll be over 30 miles a week at least...still short of the 40 that most people recommend, but far better than currently.

The big issue is that the Friday run is probably going to have to be before work, and I'm not exactly the best morning person in the world. I'm trying to get into the habit of doing a 1 hour workout on Friday morning before work, however I'm moving buildings next week, and won't have a gym in the office anymore, which means getting my arse to Rivers, and working out there instead. On the plus side the changing rooms are better there!

If I can manage to fit in Fridays morning session it gives me the potential to add in other morning sessions, and hopefully start breaking me out of my early-doors lethargy...

Horse-based Hilarity

2008-08-21T11:15:00.003+01:00

OK, the modern Paentathlon is possibly the most inspired event at the olympics!.

Lets take a bunch of people who have probably never even seen a horse before, pair them up randomly with a feisty equine, and then make them showjump. the end result...?

Carnage!

Times Change...

2008-08-14T10:52:00.002+01:00

Someone has just forwarded me an email conversation from 2006, just before I started going to the gym...

The gym thing is actually a plan to give me more time, as I've sort of hit a critical threshold of un-healthiness where I feel tired all the time.

Look on the bright side...tomorrow I'll be doing my first formal exercise in about 20 years...I'll probably start bleeding from the eyes or something...

You wouldn't believe how much that sort of thing scares me...I was shown round the place on Monday, and half the equipment looks like torture equipment. The treadmills seemed to be going way too quickly for my liking.

I've picked a gym out of town and everything just to make sure I don't bump into anyone I know...

My (tentative) plan is to go straight after work 2 nights a week, then once at the weekend. I imagine each visit will last 5-10 minutes before I collapse, and get a free trip in an ambulance...

By comparison, I've trained for the last 5 days straight, with plans to train tonight and tomorrow as well. I now feel bad if I don't train for more than a couple of days!

Obscure Sports Quarterly...

2008-08-11T09:34:00.002+01:00

I love the Olympics. You'll never see archery televised anywhere else, outside of films about men in green tights. I also love the BBC, who'se iPlayer allows me to watch it live on a laptop right now, at work. As I type this, serious men in big sunglasses are showing that target who's boss (It's Korea vs China).

I can't wait for London 2012... realistically I'll never get another chance to see the olympics, and to have it on my doorstep, and give me the chance to pick and choose what I want to go and see is amazing. I'll get to wave a union jack and cheer like a loon for a few weeks!

Ooh...its getting tense, China are coming back on Korea! There's also some (rather mainstream) rowing on, however I think that the UK teams are already through on that one, so may have to hold with the Team Archery!

Finishing touches

2008-08-04T09:22:00.002+01:00

The rest of the bonus was spent this weekend pretty much. On Saturday we went round the various garden centres in and about Reading, and managed to hunt down some decent garden furniture. I've ended up with a large wooden table, 4 armchairs and a large blue parasol. Alongside that there is a blue charcoal barbecue (gas is cheating!), and covers for winter/bad weather. We also picked up a lawnmower, some lighting for the parasol, and a couple of nick-knacks (including the biggest drill bit you've ever seen, so that I could put some drainage holes in). We had the added bonus that the DIY centres scanner didn't seem to work properly, so some items were not picked up...ooh!

Saturday evening we had friends round for dinner, so I spent a couple of hours constructing everything, before doing a Nigella chicken (bacon and brandy, though I don't really think the brandy added much). The weather held off, so we were able to enjoy "drinks on the deck" before eating inside, and subjecting them to Carcassonne :-D Gill whipped up a dessert of yogurts, fruit and crunchie which went down a treat as well!

Sunday was a trip to Ikea...the weather on the way was miserable (I was on the bike, as we'd worked out that once we'd bought the bookcases Gill wanted there would be no space left for me in the car). Once there a short recharge on Swedish meatballs (which are delicious!), and then a wander round the show floor. I had only planned on getting a whiteboard, and maybe something for the bathroom, but also ended up getting some draws for my shelves, a counter-top lighting system for the kitchen, as well as some new cups, a couple of bins, and lots of ideas for another visit...oh dear.

Sunday evening was installing the lighting system. It's almost done, just need to drill a hole in a wall to put the power cable through, and its done. Looks great when its on, well chuffed with it!

Fiddling with IJY

2008-07-30T09:32:00.002+01:00

There are lots of little tweaks I'd like to do to IJY, however it's rapidly turning out that it would probably involve a fairly hefty re-write, and some things also seem to be set against me.

1) I'd like to change the Picasa and YouTube feeds to just show the picture, and when you hover-over them an info box appears with the text. This would give me back a lot of screen space. the problem is that I went down the "absolute positioning" way of doing things, and this doesn't play nicely with DHTML boxes...

2) I'd like to change the logic of the page over to use jQuery, however it looks like their documentation is out of work at the moment...I haven't been able to access it from any of my machines.

3) Yahoo Pipes do this funky little badge things, that accept an RSS stream and output image slide shows. I'd like to feed in an "all my pictures" feed from Picasa, however it looks like their feed for all photos from a user is broken, with the sort image coming out very strange. For me it starts with my Cornwall pictures taken a few years ago, and then randomly skips around. It's been acknowledged as an issue, but not fix has been developed as yet.

4) Bring the blog more onto the page, which would mean less sizing issues, and no need for such small text. This is mainly dependant on (1) though...

5) Integrate the Twitter feed into the header. I can probably do that without too much hassle

6) RSS caching. For this I need to split out the feed retrieval logic and change it to storage, and then point the current scripts at the stored versions. This would also mean letting rip with cron jobs. Again its all doable, but I need to sort out the layout issues first, before I start playing with that as well...

Sunburn and blisters

2008-07-28T14:02:00.002+01:00

Well, I've had my "best part of" a week off, and for once the weather decided to work with me...so what did I achieve?

Tuesday - Replaced the flat roof at the front of the house. This was hard work, far more so than I initially realised. As always it was the prep work that killed me...ripping off the old one by hand took all morning in the boiling sun. The new stuff, by comparison, went on fairly easily. Now I'm just waiting for a bit of rain to see how it holds up!

Wednesday - Built my newly arrived garden chest up and placed it in my garden, and then took delivery of 25 square metres of turf. This was put down on the back garden, and cut/stamped into place. It changed the look of the garden immediately from a mud-pit to something quasi-respectable!

Thursday - Cleaning and staining the decking. This took longer than expected, mainly as I had to wait around for stuff to dry a lot. Also, the stain I was using came with a pad-type thingy, which should have made doing everything really fast, however in reality it was no good on the grooves of the decking, and I ended up using a brush. End result was fantastic however, and really cleaned the garden up loads. On the downside I was doing all the work barefoot, and I ended up getting sunburn on my toes!

Friday - Painting the wall. I was running out of steam by now, and some extra work I had planned (putting up some arches, a bit of weeding etc etc) fell by the wayside. I think I fell asleep in the afternoon.

So in the last 3 weeks the garden has changed out of sight...you can either check out the Picasa gallery, or there is a funky slide show below to track the transformation. There is still more to go, however its less industrial, and smaller work packages...

Coming together...

2008-07-16T14:42:00.003+01:00

Fingers crossed the garden should be completed tonight. I'll be out of work at 4pm sharp, and dashing home to see what the final result is! Once that's done, there is still a fair chunk of work that needs doing, and as all my weekends seem to vanish into the ether, I've taken some time off next week to try and get everything done.

1) Flat roof. Really need to get this done. All the kit is sitting there ready to go, but whenever I have the chance it rains! This is currently scheduled for this Saturday but (shocker) there is rain expected, so it may have to move to Wednesday

2) Prepare the lawn. This will consist of killing the remains of the plant life there, raking it level and watering it, preparing it to take the grass. This is scheduled for Wednesday, but may swap with the flat roof repair.

3) Lay the lawn. The turf should be arriving some time on Wednesday, and the plan is to get this down Thursday morning. It's not a huge area to do, though I'll need to make sure I have a nice big knife for the edging.

4) Clean the decking. the building work and general lack of attention means the current decking looks a bit ropey. I have some cleaning chemicals already, just need to get the hose and scrubbing brush out... This is booked in for Thursday afternoon.

5) Treat the decking. Part 2 to cleaning it is sealing it so that its easier to look after. A few options here, including a rather funky spray system, that should speed the entire process up no end. That's a Friday morning job.

6) Paint the wall. The wall to the patio should be unpainted, and I'll need to crack out a brush and give it a couple of coats. This can be done in an evening if needed, but officially its down for Friday afternoon at the moment.

There is a bit of leeway, and weather permitting I can go on into the evening if needed. The biggest issue is that some stuff can only be done in dry weather (the flat roof, painting, treating the decking etc etc), so I could end up staring at the sky, waiting for a dry spell...

Gardening?

2008-07-08T22:17:00.003+01:00

I was going to get a new bathroom, but you wouldn't believe how much they charge for those things. MFI gave a finger-in-the-air quote of £6,000! Even with my larger-than-expected bonus that's not really in my reach right now. So instead I've turned my attention to the garden, and plan to get that sorted out instead.

First on the agenda was the fence, which was crap to begin with, and took a battering in the horrendous weather we've been having. After asking round I got a couple of guys in to rip out the old one, and replace it with a new one, as well as re-doing the posts and sorting out a particularly shitty corner. that was finished today, and I've planned in with them to next sort out the old pool site.

Before I moved in here there was a 6,000 litre pool in the back garden. Earlier in the spring I drained it, and removed the skin and insulation, thus leaving a 3m square hole in one corner. This is now going to have a wall placed around the inside, and a patio floor placed in, with steps leading down. It's the corner that catches all the sun, so should be a nice seating area once done. Also, once that is done all I really have to do is lay some turf on the dead area, and clean/treat the decking, and it will all be done!

It will be nice to have it as usable space again...hopefully before the weather turns bad again. I may even be able to pull off a barbecue!

Long Day...

2008-07-07T10:49:00.002+01:00

yesterday was a long day indeed. A long time ago I signed up to do the British London 10K. At the time I didn't consider what a 9.30 race time start meant...it turns out that it means getting up at 5am, being on a train at 20 past 6, and being in an immense throng of people for a couple of hours...

That said it was a really good race. There was no official timing, and as I knew there were going to be a lot of people I wasn't pushing myself for a fast time...instead I took a camera with me, and attempted in vain to take some shots of the sights. I ended up coming in at about 41 minutes and 20 seconds, which is pretty good, and I enjoyed the race more as I wasn't constantly worrying about how fast I should be going.

Of course, what you really want to do after an early start is plan a nice long day, full of things to do. So I did. First off I dragged Gill to Camden, and we wandered round for a couple of hours, without ever really finding anything we were looking for. Then we headed down to Covent Garden, took shelter against the elements in Starbucks for a bit, before heading to a restaurant I'd booked (Surprise!!). The food was delicious, and we took our time going through it, before heading off to the Ambassadors Theatre to see Stomp (Surprise!!), which is a stage show on there. its hard to describe as its not really a play, or a musical. It consists of 8, probably superhuman, people spending a couple of hours creating rhythms and beats out of lots of everyday items. It was extremely loud, and fantastically good. Not only that, it was done with a great blend of slapstick humour, and even some audience participation (mainly coupled with embarrassment that we couldn't clap out a simple pattern).

So a busy day...we were pretty lucky with the trains coming back, and just managed to catch Nadal beating Federer in the tennis, before collapsing asleep!

To Do Lists

2008-07-01T09:53:00.003+01:00

Mine is fucking enormous, and they are all big things as well, typically with a big price tag attached to it.

Fix the Flat roof - The stuff is sitting in the back garden ready to go, however its going to take a full day to do it. This weekend would be good, only on Sunday I'm doing the...

London 10K - which starts at an ungodly hour in the morning, meaning I'll need to be up super-early and get myself on the train. On the plus side afterwards we'll have a chance to trawl round London, and go a bit tourist. So instead of the roof I'll probably be...

Sorting out the front garden - which involves weeding, spraying areas with liquid death, and then piling about a metric tonne of sand and stone on it to quasi-patio it, and gravel the top bed. There is also a bit of brickwork that needs doing. Talking about gardens there is the...

Back garden - Which is currently a shit-hole. We spent this weekend clearing it out (and the loft), and managed to move 2 transit vans of crap to the tip. It needs something brutal doing to the lawn/dirt to get rid of the tree-weeds, and get it ready for turf. The ex-pond is now a large hole, and needs to be walled (probably blocks), rendered and patio-ed, as well as having some steps constructed down to it. The decking all needs to be cleaned and treated as well. The other big job is the...

Side Fence - Which is currently held up with rope after suffering a bit in the wind. It probably needs replacing, which will cost a bit, however first on the agenda is the...

Bathroom - Which basically needs ripping out and starting again. I've got some basic quotes, and its above my budget, so I'm going to need to take on some of the work myself...probably the tiling. I'll need professionals for the plumbing and electrics, however I can tile, help fit etc etc.

Not enough spare time!!!

No more the wicket virgin...

2008-06-23T09:35:00.002+01:00

I've been persevering with the cricket, battling my utter lack of co-ordination, and inability to catch, throw or hit the ball. My results so far have been less than stellar, with a grand total of 1 run in 4 innings, and handing over about 15 runs an over when I bowl (including a metric shitload of wides). Occasionally I show moments of competence, however I'm not really getting the feel for it, as I only get to practice/play once a week.

This Sunday we played Sonning (and we play them again next week). They fielded a fairly young team, compared to our usual suspects (which includes some extremely good batsmen/bowlers). We batted first, and a couple of our lads took it on themselves to rack up immense scores (one guy got 92, and the other retired "hurt" on 105). I was in for all of 1 over, and managed to scrape together 2 runs, including a nick that sent the ball into the stratosphere, before being dropped. We had a final total to defend of 256, which in a 40-over game is fairly excessive. It did lead to general good moods at the tea break (well, that and the cakes...)

Fielding was a quieter affair. We didn't put forward our best bowlers (which would probably have turned the game into a rout), and as a result I had a spell in. I've really struggled with the bowling side of things...there are a lot of things to do at the same time, and I tend to forget one or the other, and end up putting it very wide. While Waseem and Sami were in the process of losing 4 cricket balls in the trees surrounding the ground I'd been doing a lot of practice in the nets, focusing on getting my technique vaguely bowling-like. The result was that I put in 3 overs with very few wides (as an added bonus one of the young lads I was bowling to chased everything, and managed to touch 3 or 4 wides with the bat, instantly negating the free run...). He then did me a bigger favour and skied one straight to our best fielder for my first wicket! In retrospect I still don't feel bad in any way about cheering myself wildly as the catch went home!

I had a good chance to make it 2, as the last man put one straight back to me, but he had the indecency to put it to my weaker side, and I dropped the catch (he was even younger as well...). I have no doubts that a better batsman would have been smashing me everywhere, however I'm still new to all this, and I'm happy that I managed to bowl a short spell without bowling too much complete crap. It was a good day, and probably the first one where I didn't just feel like dead weight on the team. It will be interesting to see what team Sonning put back against us next week...Englefield is a much smaller ground, and it's much easier to convert bad bowling into boundaries...

The Death of Dune

2008-06-10T10:25:00.001+01:00

I'm setting myself up for abuse simply by writing this, but I've just finished reading the Dune series of books, and I found the ending to be a real let-down.

I suspect a good number of people have read the original book by Frank Herbert, which typically gets universal acclaim, and indeed made it onto the 100 Greatest Novels by the BBC. Its a great book, that takes on and deals with vast subjects...not only the story of the people it involved, but of their families, the politics, religion and nature of the universe, as well as a huge amount of detail on the world itself.

Frank Herbert went on to write a long series carrying on after Dune, and its here that he lost a lot of readers. While Dune itself was focused on the planet, future books in the series become more and more about people with strange powers, and huge upheaval of the human race. I personally enjoyed them...they had an epic feel to them, and while the subject matter was sometimes a bit cranky (and it gets really strange once you reach God-Emporer of Dune) it painted the world very well. Even later in the series there is a shift in focus to the Bene Gesserit (which is effectively a military knitting circle). The series covers thousands of years in total, though it carries through certain characters and themes, and focuses on certain time periods very heavily. As with many old-school sci-fi authors, the underlying themes are very much based on society, and how it copes with situations.

Frank Herbert had the indecency to die in 1986, leaving the series incomplete (the last book he wrote being the 6th, Chapterhouse:Dune). It's very much a cliffhanger, with an ongoing theme of a huge, unknown threat being levelled against the entire human species. He had always planned a 7th, and final, book to complete the series, and had completed notes on the book, but just hadn't gotten round to writing it.

At this point in steps Brian Herbert, his son. Together with Kevin J. Anderson (who is probably best known for being a co-writer of the X-Files) he has spent the last 9 years visiting the universe his father created and expanding it/raping the corpse (delete as you feel appropriate). He started by writing a series called the "Prelude to Dune", which covers the history immediately before the original book. With the best will in the world he is not the writer his father was, and the guidance he got from Mr Anderson is obviously less cerebral than Frank Herbert. The end result is a writing style with a bit less delicacy, and less refined. It does read a bit like a screenplay. That said, it dealt with the subject matter fairly well, and for the most part avoided doing a Star Wars Episode 1 by introducing glaring continuity errors ("I don't remember owning any droids"). As someone who has read the original series, it was great to see old characters back, and to revisit the world. I will admit to a small amount of pink-vision. Even at this point, however, the shift from social commentary to character-based plot was already showing through.

Next up came another series, which covered a part of the Dune history with was often referred to, but never fully explained...the Butlerian jihad. Without wishing to spoil the story too much in the Dune universe there are no computers/robots etc, and it is explained several times that "thinking machines" are banned due to a slight Terminator-style issue at some point in the past where they took over. Over the course of three books Brian and Kevin depict this key part in the history of Dune, I suspect without too much attention to his fathers notes. There is some mention in Dune of key families, and their alliegence during this time, however I suspect it didn't include giving the AI Overmind that much personality, or giving him a sidekick. Again, while it didn't do too much in the way of continuity errors, and did meet all the requirements it felt a little over-hammed. Fine in separation to the Dune series, but other than that it didn't blend too well, either stylistically, or content-wise.

So then we come to the most recent two books..."Hunters of Dune" and "Sandworms of Dune". It should have been a giveaway that a story-arc that Frank Herbert planned for one book was eventually published as two. These books represent the culmination of the Dune series, and are allegedly based on Frank Herberts notes for Dune 7. The first one was passable, however the second was bloody awful (and I've really, really been trying to give this leniency upto now). It's full of contrived situations, awful dialog, and horrendous continuity. One of the main issues is that it re-introduces many concepts and characters from the Butlerian Jihad series, and this finally breaks the continuity. There is information suddenly made available that quite literally magics up from nowhere. Several people develop insane abilities from thin air, and it reads in places like badly-produced fan-fiction. Its a crime against the entire series. Its even got a "happily ever after" ending to it where everyone hugs and is best friends, which is never what Dune was about...I mean, God-Emperor was all about how shit a situation like that was for everyone involved! The story covers 14 books in total, over the course of 43 years, and right at the end its screwed up fatally...

I'm quite depressed after finishing it...I can't unread it, and to some extent it's soured Dune for me...perhaps I was better off always wondering what the big threat was, rather than have Brian Herberts sledgehammer of crass pour it into my ear like so much hot tar. He's already announced plans for a new book, a sequel to Dune no less (that fits into the time gap between Dune and Dune Messiah). There is no way that this can be good, as it deals with more core times in the Dune timeline, and will undoubtedly contain huge signposts of contrived plot to link to the later books he's written. There is also a new film in the offing, which they hope to turn into a series. Brian and Kevin are involved, so my hopes are very low...

There is another series of books I've had on the go for a long time ( The Wheel of Time ), where the author has also recently died just before writing the final one. Another author (friend of the family) has picked up the baton, and is currently in the process of completing it, with input from several other sources, and the notes of the author. I desperately want this book to be good, and to do justice to the series (which is massive...11 books of huge weight, and an overarching plot and storyline with insane levels of detail). Robert Jordan was part of a community of authors, and always worked closely with his family and friends, so I'm holding out hope that the spirit and integrity of the series can be maintained to the end.

I'm not scared...

2008-06-05T20:20:00.002+01:00

...well, maybe just a little bit...

I'm meeting Gill's parents tomorrow. Unfortunately the only thing that I can think about is that bloody Dr. Pepper advert.

Spam and Chips

2008-06-02T10:22:00.002+01:00

About a month ago I swapped over to using GMail as my primary email account. I've been very impressed with it, as I've ad bad experiences with web-based email before. I've always had my email infrastructure set so that swapping should not be the hardest mission in the world...I have a number of "public" email addresses that are typically forwarders to a single inbox, so changing over was mainly a technical matter of repointing the forwarders and letting a couple of people know. I'd had the GMail account set up into Thunderbird et al for a couple of years previously, so that was all ready to go.

One additional thing I did was set GMail up to also pick up the old account. That way I could remove it from my updates, and ensure that any replies I did to those emails came from the new main account. All the PC's I use also now have the Notifier installed, to let me know when messages are received (funny when 2 are sitting next to each other, and both bleep at the same time...)

One issue I've always had previously is spam. I get lots of the stuff, mainly due to the fact that I have catch-all's on my domains. Thunderbirds spam filter really struggled to ID and clean it all up, and I often had to can through and flag the various offers of crap I got. GMail has managed to pick up about 95% of everything coming in, and cheerfully assign it to the bin. Its also let me see for the first time exactly how much spam I get..in the last calendar month I've currently had over 11,000 messages flagged as spam! That's getting close to 400 a day. In comparison I've had about 300 valid messages...

Once I got used to the "conversation" display of emails its very intuitive, and save a lot of searching through inboxes. I've also set up a number of rules to flag different types of emails under different categories (based on certain keywords or senders), and this lets me just change the view to emails regarding a certain subject..again very handy!

The state of the world

2008-05-29T13:32:00.002+01:00

Roadrunners again last night, and a fairly brutal set it was too, made all the harder by the wind and rain. We were doing 4 sets of 4 x 600m, with a pace increase in each set. By the end of it my legs were tightening up nicely, and my hobble was coming on a treat. I was supposed to be having a sports massage immedaitely afterwards, but unfortunately it was cancelled at the last minute.I'm really glad I got to finish the set, as many people left early due to the appauling conditions. I really, really need to up my mileage (I keep saying that, don't I?), as my endurance is nowhere near the point it should be at.

I think Mondays are going to get harder, as a new outdoor circuits class has started (Bootcamp), and its at the same time as I normally run, so the plan is to run earlier, and then do Bootcamp immediately afterwards. If that doesn't kill me in short order nothing will. I've been signed up for a multi-terrain race in October called Commando Challenge, which looks like a great laugh, however its a team thing, and I don't want to let the others down, so have to knuckle down and start improving the distance and strength.

Geek wise, I've "invested" in a couple of new board games. Pandemic is a co-op game for 2-5 players, where the objective is to cure 4 diseases ravaging the earth. Its gotten good reviews on BoardGameGeek, and looks like a good alternative to Settlers of Catan for an hour filler slot. The other game is called Agricola, and is comically all in German (the english version is not out yet). In this you have to build up a farm in a set number of turns. I've given it one solo playthrough so far, and there is a lot of depth to it... I need to engage the other lads and give it a proper playthrough to see how good it is in practice.

On the work front, I'm now full time on the new project, and I've been given a few areas to work on. Its all very new, and its going to take a bit of time to get my head round the documentation style and project structure. On the plus side I've been blagged a window seat (views not great, but can't complain). They do have proper kitchen facilities here, which means proper tea for once.

SPeaking of work, I really should start doing some...

Gateway Gaming

2008-05-26T19:42:00.001+01:00

In a spectacular example of romantic gestures I've been introducing Gill to non-standard (ie not available in Woolworths) board and card games. She already has some geek crudentials (is a programmer, has completed a version of Final Fantasy, is member of a D&D group), so thought I may as well go about increasing her geek license.

I've started with the better, less violent games at my disposal, and I've been using Fluxx, Settlers of Catan and Carsonnone. Settlers has the added bonus that I'm completely shit at it. Shes taken to them extremely well... Fluxx was broekn out during a powercut, and once the concept was grasped it went down well. Settlers was pcked up even quicker, and has actively been asked for since then, and Carsonnone was played for a couple of hours today, again with a large degree of success.

Its some way from cracking out Starcraft and getting her to butcher the opposition, but its not completely out of the question :-D

Sprinting sessions

2008-05-22T09:35:00.002+01:00

Roadrunners last night was a brutal session. After a normal warm up (gentle run for about a kilometre, and some drills) we had to do a flat-out 800m, with a target of beating the time we did 5 weeks ago. I managed 2.21, which is a whole 4 seconds off my time, so pretty chuffed with that.

We went on to do about half an hour of something called "Bus Stops", where teams of 3 run with 2 people on the track at once, with one resting. Our team consisted of 2 similar paced runners, and one slower person...I was unfortunately the lead person when I was on track with the slower guy, and so ended up doing both my laps at full pace, while the others got a rest on one lap...

...and if that wasn't enough, we ended up with about 20 minutes of 200m relay sprints, which very nearly killed me. The problem with those is that there was another team of 3 with _very_ similar pacing to ours. It ended up with us racing them round (quite naturally we won :-) )

I'm really enjoying Roadrunners...its a very different challenge to anything I've done before, and its making me push myself a lot harder. I did the Woodley 10K at the weekend, and by my standards did fairly badly, going off too fast, and burning out halfway round. I was chatting to some of the other runners about how their various races went, and blaming one fairly quick guy I tried to stay with at the start (my fault really...I knew he was way faster than me). I have 6 weeks until my next race, and my focus in that time really has to be stamina and endurance, as that's where I'm really letting myself down at the moment.

Regarding the graphing stuff, I nearly have it working (just need to fine-tune the data ranges, then add in some file selection and image scaling options), at which point I'll be able to add the running data onto these posts. I consider this to be cool in a geeky kind of way...

Busy Day in the Office?

2008-05-16T15:16:00.002+01:00

Had a bit of brainwave last night... A couple of days ago I hacked together a basic graph to post up here showing heart rate zones. I also recently posted up a graph that my Polar gear kicks out showing various statistics. I suddently realised that there was nothing really stopping me from taking the raw Polar data and shoe-horning it into Google Graphs to come up with a dynamic online graph!

I've spent the morning studying the Polar file formats, and hacking out the bits I need, and it now looks like I have a prototype script up and running. At the moment there are a couple of assumptions regarding data ranges, however its not the hardest thing in the world to put in some proper validation. Once thats done I'll have a script that can accept any file from my Heart rate Monitor, and output a nice and pretty graph onto a webpage.

Click here to see the script in action...

Twitter Woes

2008-05-16T08:55:00.003+01:00

Been doing a little fiddling to ijy.cc last night, and noticed that twitter.com was down...

I've redone ijy.cc so that rather than having to deal with backend security myself, now I use a number of high profile online services, and instead pull in the content from them into a single "digital footprint". The end result is that my page is currently dependant on;

I then grab the RSS feed for each of these sites, do some fairly simple data manipulation, and throw it into a fairly simple XHTML/CSS template. Its very easy for me to maintain, and also to chuck the stuff out to other places (for example, my Blogger blog also posts to MySite on lack-of...

Twitter being down has the effect of killing ijy.cc, as I haven't bothered with any kind of cacheing, and PHP4 (which 34sp is running on) does not support timeouts on the PHP function running in the background capturing the RSS feeds ( file_get-contents, for those who care... ). So I thought I'd do a bit of checking to see if the Twitter downtime was a common occurance, or just bad luck...

Turns out that they have been struggling for about a year, ever since they "went big" in March '07. So much so that a monitoring site made their downtimes public and gave free access to their downtime reports. I know within my company that our targetted uptime for customer facing systems is in the region of 99.8 % over the space of a year (and if we get anywhere near that everyone starts running round like headless chickens), so 98 % average, and dips as low as 92 % is fairly shocking. Of course, I haven't seen the other feeds go down as yet, however they are all backed up by Googles frankly imposing infrastructure, which suffered a whole 7 minutes of downtime in 2007...

...that said, how can Twitter actually make money to fund their horrendous bandwidth and data centre costs? While their page rank is not massive, behind all that you have loads of user-developed apps throwing data too and from them...it must all add up to one fat pipe somewhere. Becase of the nature of the service (small messages, accessible freely from many 3rd party apps) selling advertising is going to be very hard, unless you plan of irritating your entire userbase by doing mass broadcasting. I really see how they are going to struggle to make money, as quite simply people are not visiting their online real-estate, so they aren't getting the eyeballs. It seems that general internet opinion is that like many other big names out there now (google, facebook, skype etc etc) Twitter can plan a business model once they have the userbase...I suppose we'll have to see, but right now I'm a little skeptical.

Of course, all this doesn't help me much... I like the concept of Twitter, and it fits in with the theory of how I've set ijy.cc up. The box will stay for now, and I'll have to live with Twitter's unreliable uptime, however if it stoops too much worse I may have to look at either a technical solution (cronjob-ing and cacheing the feed, which is what happens on lack-of), or looking for a more reliable alternative to fill my top right-hand corner...

It can't be good for you...

2008-05-15T10:07:00.004+01:00

Roadrunners last night, and another really hard session. It was touted as a "bleep test for endurance running", and it really did work out like that. We had to do 400 metre laps, with a 60 second recovery between each one. You started at your 10k pace (so a 1.38 lap for me) and then each subsequent lap had to be 2 seconds faster... I was running with Harry from work, and we managed to surpass both our expectations, and get down to a lap time of 1.14 before finally failing on the 1.12 attempt.

I reckon that from fresh I could have achieved a faster lap, however as we slowly got faster and faster I could see my heart rate staying high throughout the recovery period, and the last 3 laps we were starting while I was still well over 160-bpm (for reference, my resting heart rate is about 50, and the highest I've ever recorded myself is at 190, while more training is done about 170-175, with race pace at 180'ish...I normally recover pretty quickly down to 120-130). I'm really enjoying the RoadRunner workouts...they are a very different type of training to anything I've done before, and really challenging.

I've got the Woodley 10k this weekend, so after circuits tonight it will be rest and recouperation until Sunday. In theory I'm playing cricket immediately afterwards, which may be an interesting challenge (I use the word "play" in a very loose role...I can't bat, I can't bowl, and whenever I'm in the field my body goes onto autopilot and moves out of the way of highspeed cricket balls...)

Once this weekend is over I really have to step up my distance runs. I reckon 2 runs of 10 miles a week should do for now. One will remain on Monday, and teh other will have to fit in at the weekend, and I suspect that as the temperature rises its either going to be very early morning or stupidly late at night. It will be hard work, however I need to hit the targets...

Summer Running

2008-05-12T23:23:00.003+01:00

I've been a bit lax since the half marathon, and my mileage has dropped right off. Joining Reading Roadrunners has made me realise just how much I need to do in order to meet my own targets. My weekly mileage is about half what it needs to be, and my weight is slowly, slowly creeping up.

I've got a 10k run this weekend, and I'm fairly certain I'm going to do badly, as my stamina has taken a real hit in the last couple of months. I'm slowly starting to build the distance back up again, and at some point in the near future I plan to add a second long run into my weekly schedule, probably at the weekend. I think both my weekly long runs need to be at least 10 miles in distance, however I'm not used to running in warm weather, and its a real struggle. On the plus side it does open up the river route in the evenings.

When I do my training runs I wear some Polar gear that measures heart rate, altitude and running speed. This in turn kicks out an interactive graph that lets me see how well I did or didn't do. Here is tonights, and it shows that I covered about 13k in an hour, and kept a fairly steady pace throughout. The heat really made it a struggle, and I've imbibed about 2 litres of liquid since then. Hopefully the pain now will translate into improved performance later on in the year...

Failure to Sunburn

2008-05-12T09:06:00.003+01:00

Just had a great few days away in Jersey. We flew out on Thursday, and failed to die in a burning pool of oil (I'm not the greatest flyer in the world). As luck would have it this weekend was Jerseys "Liberation Day" celebrations, and our hotel was right in front of the square where all the celebrations were taking place. The Hotel (Pomme D'or) is actually featured in many of the photos of the event, and it looks like all the speeches etc. were done from the roof of its lobby.

I knew that the channel islands were occupied, however I didn't know that they had been under occupation for a year after France was liberated, or that they were basically turned into concentration camps, and forced labour ran the place. There was a display at the Hougue Bie (forever known as the Huge Bee), which was very stark and shocking, and really brought home what had been done on the islands during the war.

I won't go into all the stuff we did, the photos cover that far better... We were really lucky wit the weather, with just a small bit of rain on the Thursday evening, but other than that it was glorious sunshine, and it was only generous applications of factor 30 (sunblock by Dulux) that kept me from burning to a crisp. Its a lovely place, with a strange mix of English, French and Mediterranean styles. There are no big roads, and everything goes at a fairly leisurely pace. High points were;

Mont Orguiel Castle - very well displayed, and a real warren of a place
Durrell Wildlife Park - AKA the zoo. Gorillas and monkeys all over
The hotel - really nice place, and got us into a room at 9am, which was much needed

Some letdowns;

Elizabeth Castle - Compared to the Mont very basic, and not really done to its best

Can't really think of any others really...pretty good sign over all!

Early Morning Insanity

2008-05-07T09:13:00.002+01:00

We're off to Jersey tomorrow morning...early tomorrow morning. _Very_ early. The taxi is picking us up at 5am, and as far as I can work out we'll be there before 9...

Fingers crossed that I manage to get some sleep, or I'll be a useless liability at the airport, and I'm not the greatest around planes anyway. Once we are there it should be a good laugh however...we are there for 3 nights, and the weather is finally starting to have a summer-theme to it. This will have been the first proper holiday I've had for a long time, and the first one with Gill as well... I'm quite looking forward to just kicking back and relaxing a bit.

In other things, my motorbike Matilda has been sorted out for summer, with a new chain, clutch cable and working rear brake (oops). The last few days have been good, and I've had the chance to just enjoy screaming round on her again. Really need to give her a clean though, shes a dirty little minx right now. I also need to get to work on the house, and finish off the sections I've started. Really need to sort out that leaking roof as well...

...however right now I should be getting back to work. Expect photos over the weekend (yes, I'm sad, and am taking my laptop).

Flavours of shattered...

2008-04-29T00:01:00.003+01:00

Today's recipe is tired, but feeling good with myself. Did Rivers running club today, which in reality has been Kveta and myself doing medium to long runs for the past 4 months, which has been good as we've pushed each other to keep the miles up. Today, for the first time, we had a new starter, and as a result when we went out got round just about 3 and a half miles in 50 minutes. To her credit she was obviously exhausted, but she kept going, and kept her sense of humour as well.

When we got back I'd not broken a sweat, so decided to go back out for a proper long run. Kveta had to go back on duty, so I ended up doing an 8 mile route, including a section along the Thames (complete with half a tonne of midge like biomass smacking me in the face) before heading up to do a lap of Prospect Park. its the longest run I've done since the half, and it felt pretty good. Now, 4 hours on, my legs don't ache, just a slight feeling of fatigue that lets me know they've worked.

If I want to improve at Roadrunners then I really need to take the initiative, and start doing the mileage again. I've been lax the last couple of months, and there is no excuse for it. The club can help me with speed and technique, but ultimately I need to make sure that I have the engine to support everything else. Long runs aren't hard, they just need the motivational kick in the arse to get out and do them...

Nearly there

2008-04-25T23:09:00.003+01:00

The layout is pretty much done (just got to decide what to add into that top-right corner), and I've added in a little javascript to dynamically load up the CSS files based on screen resolution. I've even wasted 20 minutes creating a "favicon", which is a really pointless gesture, and almost broke XHTML Strict validation (lower case only apparently).

Only other thing left to do is add in a bunch of icons to display when the blog post loads in, based on its tags (if you can be arsed to look at the page code you'l see a word in comments at the end of the blog post...thats the tag I've assigned it). I need to do a bit more mucking around to see how they are displayed when they come in multiples, however I could live with a single icon being dsplayed.

It all looks comfortably generic, however the main advantage it has is the only real content is;

The header graphic (times 2, one for each resolution)
the backdrop image
A single "blue metal" texture
A default image for the blog posts (a few more of these to be added)
6 files (4 PHP ones, and 2 CSS ones)

So the total footprint is about 100k, and thats only as the images are not very compressed. I have no idea what would happen if the feeds are not available...either it won't load up, or it will fall over in an ugly and spectacular way...probably both. I should probably add on a "previous posts" section somewhere, jus not sure where yet, as I never considered that when I was working out what the layout was going to be...it does seem a bit daft to show 4 image/video posts, and only 1 blog post...

Work In Progress - The Update

2008-04-25T00:38:00.004+01:00

I've managed to get a fair bit done, and its starting to look a bit more like a semi-decent web page. The bare bones are certainly there. I still need to fill in the gaps caused by the huge amount of modularity going on, and it would be nice to add some subtle graphic wankery like rounded corners here and there, but I'm really not sure I can be bothered...after all, this is a site that's supposed to look after itself.

At the moment it only really works in moderately high resolution screens. I'll do some work on sorting out a separate style sheet for mid resolution (1024x768) and shockingly low resolution (800x600 and below) over the weekend. The mid-res one is fairly key, as my laptop works at that res, so rest assured that I'll be making it fully readable. I may have shot myself in the foot a bit using such a small font, but worst case I'll turn up the brutality of the string-length limiters in place.

It was quite a good laugh to find out that I can post directly here from my mobile phone...one of the side benefits to using a large scale site as your back end. Not sure how much I'll be using that, and it did take a couple of hours to appear, however it does give me the option of snapping a picture, and sending it off with a bit of prose for the world to see...

This is the first time I've really done any work specifically concentrating on making a website viewable in both IE and FireFox...previously I've been lazy and done IE only. This was in a large part down to the fact I horrendously abused tables for layout purposes. This site is driven entirely off 'divs' and 'spans', and a healthy shitload of CSS in the background. It's been tricky, and I've had to make a lot of use of HTML validators to ensure that I got all the tricky bits right (my personal favourite being 'divs' within 'a' tags, which puts FireFox in a right tizzy...). Hiding behind the HTML are a handful of PHP scripts doing specific tweaks to the various feeds coming in, and right at the back is a function module by the guy who wrote Boastology, which my old site ran off. That does all the complex stuff with XML and RSS, so I'm just left with some cleanup and layout work, which makes everything nice and simple!

Right...off to bed for me, after all...it's a school night...

The inherent dangers of new toys

2008-04-24T16:35:00.001+01:00

There is always a risk, when you get something new, that you'll have a semi-brainwave and end up trying something stupid. Like doing a blog post from your phone. You may be even dafter, and attach a photo... And all to see if it works. All in the name of progress, of course!

The World of Tomorrow...TODAY!

2008-04-24T14:24:00.000+01:00

It's a move of home to the IJY blog, after a bit of a sabatical. Basically the old site became the target of hack attacks (due to being old and vunerable code). I'm in the process of building a more robust front-end to IJY, and then using various 3rd party sites as the backend.

I've chosen blogger/blogspot for this part of it as;

I already have feeds in from other google sites
I already had an account by defualt
Its fairly simple and flexible to use
I'm lazy
There is no 5

The theory is that from the RSS feed of this I will publish to ijy.cc, and anyone who is actually bothered about the shite I type can come here and read it in full. I suspect most of the posts will relate to;

running
work
computer games
board games

and I'm hoping to be able to ID that from the RSS feed, and flag them somehow at IJY with pretty icons, or the like. Expect a few test posts to appear here while I try and get everything working.