Running training going awry

I was trying to pay heed to what Dafydd (the running coach) had said. I was bringing recovery shakes to the Thursday Night Hill (TNH) sessions. I tried to mind my gait. I sometimes had rest days. Sometimes it didn’t go so well; TNH doesn’t lend itself so well to gait change, for reasons of being very steep. I did a run in such rubbish weather I was too busy staying upright to mind my gait. But one tries!

I intended to do a long flat road run in the weekend in preparation for my upcoming 10 mile race, and then ‘taper’ (basically, take it easy) in the week before the race. The second half will happen! The first half didn’t. I woke up with a cold on the Friday, so after TNH. I suspect a causal relationship; it was a lot colder than I had anticipated. I was snotty all weekend, and only did a slow plod. 

A TNH pic

Slow plod pic

That 10 miler will be my longest race since the Caernarfon half marathon ended up with both my knees in knee supports. I really hope it will go ok! But if not, the knee supports will come out again. It’s 5k shorter than a half, so it would be 5km less in supports. We’ll see! 

Well-travelled cycling maps

Last year there was another episode of the Swamphike, which involves my Dutch hiking friends coming to the UK for an off-season hike. And this year two of them will come here for a big UK tour on bike. And they will come visit! That will be fab. But while they were preparing for their adventure they realised that they couldn't get the bicycle maps they wanted to use directly delivered to their house. The company wasn’t delivering to the EU. So would I be okay to have them sent to me, so I could send them on? Of course I was.

When they arrived I basically just sent them on as they had reached me: in a little box. They had ordered quite many! And there was no way they would all fit through the letterbox.

When the maps got to their house my friends, of course, weren't home. And apparently, no note was left, so by the time they checked where their maps were they were already on their way back to me. Bummer! Fortunately, they safely arrived again, in spite of the tracking app saying they had ended up in ‘Amersfoort, UK’. I then packed them up in two separate envelopes. Each envelope should fit through the letterbox! So this time, they should just get to the intrepid cyclists. I'm going to keep my fingers crossed! It's the humans that should be well-travelled, not so much the maps, at least not unaccompanied …

New perspective on a bridge

Almost every day I bike over an old railway bridge. It’s pretty! But bridges are never the prettiest seen from above. You need to be next to them to properly appreciate them. And I had decided several weeks ago that I should one day get off my bike and check this one out. 

I finally did it! One day riding back home I decided to stop. And it is indeed a gorgeous bridge! The field I ended up in (via a public footpath) was very soggy in the lower parts, so I didn’t go there, but that left enough opportunity for admiration. And I figured I’d have to come back one day in the morning. Then the sun would be behind me, which would make things even better. And I’m sure spring will hold many sunny mornings! 

The bridge as you see it coming over

Eastern end of the bridge

Majestic oak obscuring the view 

Backlit arches

Car light issues

Someone alerted me to the fact that one of my car headlights wasn’t working. That’s not a good thing, so I booked myself in at Halfords, to have a new bulb put in. And I figured I might as well have both of them replaced. If one fails, the other one might be a bit old. And I had checked a YouTube video of the process of changing a bulb in my model of car, and it looks complicated. So I figured I'd let someone else do that.

On an absolutely rubbish morning I got to the shop, parked up, and walked in. A friendly bloke asked me to park under the canopy that is there for cars that have been booked in for a procedure like that. And I tried to comply, but some entitled person just beat me to it, and parked his big BMW in the middle of the two parking spaces under the canopy. And it turned out he wasn't even there for having something fitted. I managed to sort of park at least partly under the canopy.

The friendly guy changed the bulbs, somewhat buffeted by the weather. He took an easier approach than I had seen on YouTube! But I didn't regret having him do the work.

That night I was going to properly try out my new bulbs. And it wasn't an improvement at all! At the gas station I checked whether they were even on. They were, but I felt like I saw less than when I still had one bulb. And when I got home I noticed the light of the beams hit my house suspiciously high up. That probably was the problem; the beams were aiming up at the sky rather than down at the road! That's not very helpful. I had probably been blinding all the people who came the other way.

When I mentioned it over lunch (where fortunately Martin was present; he knows his car stuff) people told me you can adjust that yourself. So that was me going back to YouTube! And indeed, there are some adjustments screws (not literally screws). But I had the impression they were for fine-tuning, and my beam was way off. Also; you need a very long allen key to properly get to them, and mine wasn’t long enough. So I decided to go back to Halfords and make them sort it. They had caused it in the first place!

Aiming too high 

On a Thursday, when I regularly drive anyway for TNH reasons, I went back. And a different man (who had sorted my bike seat problem) had a look. I didn’t even need to open the bonnet for him to spot the problem. The bulbs were not fixed in position. The adjustment screws wouldn't have changed a thing. He immediately wanted to know who had done that. And he put it right.

If you know what you’re looking for you can see the bulb is not fixed

Problem being solved 

It only took a few minutes, and then I was off to work. I couldn't really judge the improvement straight away as it was a bright day. But that night, driving back from the running session, I was really glad to see my beams pointed at the road again. Much, much better!

Knee update

When I had gone to my GP to have the lump on my knee checked out, she was very dismissive. But she did refer me for an x-ray. And when I was confident the results would be in, I phoned back. The receptionist told me that the result was "normal". I asked what that meant. The question had been: What was the lump on my knee? Not: Is my knee normal? She said the note said no fractures or bone lesions. And she didn't know anything more. And of course I couldn't ask more from the receptionist. She works with the information she has!

I'm now fairly certain I was fobbed off. So she didn't refer me for an x-ray because that was an efficient way of finding out what was wrong. That was probably just the cheapest possible investigation. And I don't think she cared that you can't clearly see any non-bone tissues on them. She is seen to have done something, and she probably is convinced I made the whole lump up anyway. But I didn't. When I encountered Dean while in running gear he spotted it from across the room.

My non-existent lump

What I think I'll do is let it grow a little bit bigger so it is even more conspicuous than it already is, and then ask for a second opinion from a different GP in my local surgery. I suppose the first GP just wasted some NHS time and money by sending me for useless scan. Let's hope a second one can do better!

Triple stats practical

Every year, we run a statistics practical for the dissertation students. It used to be run by a lady from the Study Skills team, but she left, and there wasn’t anybody else in that unit who could take over. Fortunately, I managed to rope my colleague Marianna in. 

She was immediately in for a heavy ride: the cohort was so big that not only didn’t it fit in one computer room; it didn’t even half fit in. We had to run the session three times. Three times three hours! And attendance isn’t great. It would have fit in two sessions. But we have to timetable for all the students; not just those who show up. 

Towards the end, when many had already left

She had kept the essence of the practical the same. And it went as well as could be expected! Some students were not keen to engage, some didn’t really need it and could just use the time to get on with their projects.but then there were some in between that benefited from us being there. 

It’s done now for the year. And let’s see if we’ll make the next year! 

Red Wharf Bay recce with Kate

Next month, we are taking the students into the field for our Earth, Climate and Evolution module. This year, Katrien can’t make it to the one in Red Wharf Bay, so I needed a replacement. And I recruited Kate for that. But she hadn’t done it before, so I suggested we do a recce. And I figured the dog would love a session on the beach. 

The day before had been horrendous, and the day after would be too! But the very day of the recce it was gorgeous. And somehow, there was still parking available. 

We did the whole thing, with Bryn following us around with a stone in his mouth. I think he resented us standing still too much, and not letting him have our lunches, but otherwise I think a good time was had by all. Success! 

Admiring a sandstone plug on the sunny beach

When I got home I went for a run in Cwm Llafar. I really wanted to make the most of the glorious day! And in order to get there you have to get past Sue and Dean’s house, and I thought it would be rude to not pop by to say hello. So I did that too. Sue was away but Dean made me a lovely cup of tea. And the cats were up for more than zero interaction! What a successful day. And the next one would be for epically rubbish weather with enough rain to flood roads, and enough wind to close them with fallen-over trees, so extra reason to enjoy this oasis of sun and a pleasant breeze…

How it started

Where I turned back