Mission InPossible

There is a world record attempt going on. Right now. And it is 2026, so a lot of time has passed in which people can set world records. The easy ones have been done. What is left is the really hard ones.

This world record attempt concerns 200 marathons in 100 days. And the person attempting this madness is Jacko, who has already featured several times on this blog this year. He is clearly taking a few months out of doing his breath coach work. If he is running some 85 km per day I assume that is enough to keep him busy.

You had guessed it; this project is called Mission InPossible. He is doing it in order to raise money for brain injury charities. He used to be a professional rugby player, and these are infamous for bashing their heads all the time; he was no exception. And he had to quit his career because he had had too many knocks, and ended up having a seizure on the field.

He is doing his running all over the country. He spends four days at every location. And he is doing 5 or 10k routes, again and again. He started in Caernarfon. And on his second day, I decided to run a lap with him.

He is carrying a gps tracker, so you always know where he is. I just showed up at a random time, and checked where he was. He was on the bicycle path north of the town, so I decided to sit on the quay by the river for a bit, reading a dissertation, until he got closer. Then I put the dissertation away, took off the T-shirt I was wearing over my club vest, took a quick last convenience stop, and ran in the direction where I expected him to be. When I didn't spot him I checked the gps tracker again. He must have run past when I was on the loo! So I quickly ran into the other direction.

Soon I found him. He was just having a snack. And he was about to head north again. I thought he would do a north lap, and a south one, et cetera, but maybe he was focusing on the northern one as that was closer to the sea. It was a hot day, and any sea breeze would be a blessing! The southern one would be more inland.

Two blokes appeared who also turned out to be running with him. One had already done one lap, and the other one had been running with Jacko since he started in the morning. He was aiming to do a marathon. And hopefully, even set a PB!

We trundled off. If you want to do 85 km you are not going to go fast. We had a nice little chat. I was wondering, for instance, well he needed to do to make sure that if he indeed did the 200 marathons, the Guinness book of records would accept the record. That was less faff than I thought. But it was conspicuous he was wearing two fitness tracker watches, and a gps tracker. Belt and braces!

We happily trundled north. About halfway. An additional bloke caught up and joined. 

And when we got close to the turning point, we walked for a bit. The path emerged from the trees, and we were in the blazing sun. But as soon as we were under the trees again we started running again.

Sometimes we just ran, sometimes we chatted. The guy doing the marathon was trying to summon the courage to join Thursday Night Hill. The bloke who joined later on had registered for a rather hot race this summer. The companion of the marathon runner was into iron man races. Jacko had been running with his sister, my former colleague Suzie, that very morning.

Then we come back to Caernarfon. Marathon man had reached his goal! It was a marathon, and a PB. Excellent! He and his companion could now go home. There was mention of a celebratory beer. 

Jacko wanted to have a break, and lunch, before he would continue running. I had a little chat with his wife. She was very nice! And seemed very relaxed about the whole thing. The bloke who had joined later was going to join for an after lunch lap as well, so he hung around.

I wished them all the best and headed back to my car. I had witnessed only the very, very beginning of this epic endeavour. I hope he pulls it off. And raises a lot of money for charity. The link to the world attempt website is in the text above, so if anyone feels tempted to support him, they can!

Deganwy dash 2026

There still are so many races I haven't done before! This year I heard of the Deganwy Dash. And registered. Obviously.

It had been blisteringly hot, but for the evening of the race, the forecast was nice and cold. Optimistically I headed for Deganwy. I parked by the station, payed at the wrong ticket machine, got stroppy, made a note of the number of the correct parking lot, and headed for headquarters to get my number. It wasn't cold at all! Quite the contrary. 

When I had my number I sorted my parking by app. And was found by Neil. And we socialised a bit with the other runners. Then it was time to line up at the start. Emma was there. She said she wasn't feeling it. I remembered her having said that last year, at the Breakwater race. She would end up winning it. I wouldn't put it past her to do something similar here.

At the start. Pic by Neil

 

We set off. I was happily trundling along. Soon I spotted Katie, the Cybi Strider. She warned me against a bottleneck in the course. I had imagined it as one location where the path was narrower. That was wrong! The whole path just became narrow. There was a bit of jostling for space. I tried to jump sideways to give Katie space, and accidentally jumped straight into Richie, who I hadn’t spotted yet. He was back from having been injured! That was great to see. 

We trundled on, on the bike path. So we were right next to the sea. And then we had to take a sharp right; we had to get to the other side of the A55 before it emerged from the Conwy tunnel. Then there was another sharp right; we crossed most of the estuary, only to loop back, and run over the railroad, using the footbridge, to the Conwy Estuary trail. The bridge over the road was the only bit of elevation we would meet. On the ascent, fellow Harrier Robin came storming past. 

On the trail we did a U-turn. Then it was back to the rail bridge, over most of the estuary, and around the sharp bend. I hadn't been feeling very fast. That was fine! But on the way down from the bridge I accelerated a bit. And started picking people off.

I was sort of fine until I hit the gravelly bicycle path again. After the nicely grippy asphalt, it was a bit of a negative contrast to run on something that gave way. And I was starting to feel the heat. And I was also starting to feel slightly uncomfortable in the stomach. But I knew I only had a kilometre or two to go. I tried to keep it up.

I came past Emma, who was running with her mate Nick. I've never overtaken her! Normally I can't even see her. She must have meant it when she said she wasn't feeling it.

I also overtook Robin. He had peaked too soon! I was wondering if I was doing the same. I was uncomfortable, but kept plodding. And a bit later I ran past a bloke I wasn't paying much attention to. He saw me and shouted “not again!” It turned out it was a man who had told me in Rhostryfan that I always overtake him in the same stage of a race. He is a North Wales Road Runner called Adam. He had also been serious…

Close to the finish there was a bloke I didn't recognise overtaking me. That's fine. I'm not competitive about blokes. And then I was in! While Neil was shouting encouragement at me. I had done it in 35:16. Quite some distance from my personal best at just under 34 minutes. But this clearly hadn't been my night. And I figured I might still have my category win. 

Flying towards the finish. Pic by Caitlin Faye Photography 

And done. Pic by Caitlin Faye Photography 

After I had finished I went back to Neil, but I quickly had to reconsider. I could feel my stomach content coming up! I needed water. So I quickly went back to grab a bottle. That sorted the problem. Fortunately! I didn't want to spoil anyone's fun by vomiting all over the seafront.

I suppose it might have been a combination of the heat and eating too late. I had made sure to not eat less than 2.5 hours before the start. Maybe that should've been three hours. I would keep that in mind for the next race.

We hung around and cheered on the other runners. And waited for the ceremony. That took place quite shortly after the last runner finished. I knew I had a category win! 

They did the categories first. I got a nice trophy. And the overall winner was an Eryri Harrier! 

When it was done we could go home. It had been fun but also heavy. I was tired now! 

Presentation. Pic by Neil

Academic integrity officers meetings

When I became the academic integrity officer of the School, I had no idea what I was getting myself into. Initially, I was just dealing with students who had copied and pasted fragments (or more) of text from the sources they had used, or worked too closely together. Things are different now.

The majority of cases I deal with are cases of suspected inappropriate use of AI. And that means that ideally, I can tell my fellow staff members exactly what to look out for when marking, and then when they report something, ask the students exactly the right questions in order to find out if they are indeed guilty as charged. And then do the documentation that I have to do as efficiently as possible. 

I don't have to do all of this on my own; especially when it comes to what to tell the fellow staff, we have been thinking about that with a bigger teaching team. It is not straightforward. And I know that the University is full of people in the same function as me, trying to do these things as well.

I figured we were all inventing the wheel. And that shouldn't be necessary. So I asked the lady who often sends out request to join University panels if she knew who all the academic integrity officers in the University were, and if she could tell me. And she could! So I sent out a message to all of them (which is not as many as there should be; the paperwork showed three vacancies. I'm not sure how the schools that don't have an academic integrity officer deal with this sort of situation.) And I called an online meeting. I figured that we should start low-threshold. If we want, we can always meet more often, and do it in person if needs to be.

I already had been in touch with the academic integrity officers of the School of Environmental and Natural Sciences, and the school of Law, History and Social Sciences. The actual meeting only attracted one more school: Health Sciences. The lady who holds the academic integrity officer job there I still know from a Welsh course I did years ago. The three other invited people were unavailable. One at least explicitly asked to be kept in the loop, so we knew he was interested.

We had a chat about how we deal with our caseload. Do we have specific guidance to the staff, do we provide lectures to the students about what not to do? How do we document our cases? Do we have administrative support? How do you check if references are fake? Could we ask for more documentation of use of artificial intelligence?

It was an interesting discussion, and we decided to share the documentation we have. So I set up a shared folder where I put my lecture to all students, the guidance to all our staff, and my draft guidance to students of how to prepare for being invited to my office to discuss suspect case. Two of the other schools had already shared documents in the actual meeting, so I put these in there as well. And everybody got editing rights, so people can add more. The idea is that we can look at what the other schools are doing, and steal their best ideas.

We have decided to meet again before term starts again. I hope that if we use our combined brain power, this will make us better able to deal with this increasingly widespread issue. You could argue that we are running after the facts, but now at least we are running together now…

Grass success

In April I spread grass seeds on lawn I had reclaimed from ivy and other encroaching plants. That did precisely nothing. It has been too old! But then I was in a shop that sold grass seed in mid May, and just tried again.

I sometimes had a look at the grass was coming up yet. And generally, the answer was no. But then I left for five days, and that changed things.

When I came back I had a look in the garden and there was grass! It was still a little bit thin, but it was clearly grass. I will spread a bit more of the seed, and water if needed, if we have more dry days. I have faith that these bits of lawn will totally blend into the background in a matter of weeks! That feels good.

Veritable grass! 

Back to frantic marking

When I came back from our trip to the Netherlands, my working week only had three days left. And in these days, a lot needed to happen. By the Monday after, all marking of work by students who might be graduating this summer needed to be finalised. So that means that all dissertations had to be marked by two different people, and they would have had to agreed a mark by then too, and documented that mark. Exams had to have been marked and moderated. That is a lot!

I also have the other burden of being the academic integrity officer, and the module organiser for the dissertation module. And the first thing means I'm spending a lot of time meeting students under suspicion of cheating, and documenting these cases. The second one means that firstly, I have to set a good example, and secondly, I have to keep track of whether other people have done what they need to do, and kick them in the bum if they haven't. 

When I left, I had marked all the dissertations by my own students, but hadn't started yet on the dissertations by other people’s students. And I had marked one of the two exams. So now I needed to do that second marking, and second exam, in three days. And the agreeing marks. That was full on!

With the pressure I was glad I would have a race on Friday evening, so I didn't mind not going running in the hills on Thursday. I could just keep marking that evening. It was a bit sad that the house was, but didn't stay, really tidy; I had cleaned up for the cat sitter, and the cat sitter had cleaned up for me. But now I wasn't keeping that standard up. There was marking to be done.

I just managed to finish marking the second-last dissertation before I got into my car to go to the race on Friday. And I would be able to use the Monday for that last pesky one, and for trying to agree the last marks, and trying to get all the other staff to document their marks. That felt good! But I was a bit tired by then…

The rest of our Dutch trip

Including travel, Neil and I had five days away. We could do a bit more than the family day. On the first day we already did a bit of exploration of Amersfoort. We arrived in the late afternoon, and we decided to have dinner in town. It’s beautiful there! 

On our way to pick up the rental bikes. Pic by Neil

Our cabin seen from the front. Pic by Neil

The inside. Pic by Neil

On the Hof, with St George’s church in the background. Pic by Neil

On the first full day, we went to see Monique. Neil suggested we put our bikes on the train, and bike from Meppel. That sounded like fun! But I did require one thing: that the train would actually have space for our bicycles. The first train we tried did not. The second didn't either. It was a sunny Whitsun weekend! Everyone was out. 

We were fairly close to deciding to just park the bikes, and phone Monique to pick us up, when a third train actually would take us. And from then on all went smoothly.

I don't have a map of the Meppel area, so we just had to navigate on our phones. A lot of standing still and checking the route! I can't say we took. the most logical one. But we got there. It was a bit warm, but we were ok.

At Monique’s we mainly spend our time drinking tea and catching up. We had a bit of rehydration to do. Mike and Monique also thought it was a bit warm, so were quite happy to sit under the ceiling fan and not go on wild adventures. 

On the way back we found a more direct route. And we came past a cracking windmill! That was a nice bonus.
 

Neil and windmill

We wanted to see my mum that evening. We also needed food at some point. And Neil was curious about Indonesian food. And I figured we might combine these three things. There is an Indonesian takeaway right around my mum's corner, and I had never been. I love Indonesian food! So I proposed to him and my mum that we would just get some takeaway, and it eat at her place. She thought it was an excellent idea! But she didn't want to try any of it.

The advantage of eating it at my mum's place was as well that we could have a quick cold shower before dinner. After all the biking in the heat we sort of needed it.

We also had a (half) day in Amsterdam planned. But we did not want to spend all day there, so in the morning I first went for a run. You could run from our accommodation straight into the woods where I normally go for a run if I'm in the area. If I stay at my mum, I first I have to run for some 20 minutes to get there. Now I was in there instantly! And I ran a bit further east than normal, past the wind blown sands where my dad used to take us when we were small kids. 

At the Soestduinen wind blown sands

Neil went for a bike ride. I directed him towards the reclaimed land of Eemnes! And he loved it. He also went to an Amersfoort museum while I had some time together with my mum. Just the two of us. 

In Amsterdam I took him to Central Station, and then we walked past some interesting places to where I used to live in the Frans Halsstraat. And from there to Museum Square. And then back to Central Station, and then straight to the restaurant where we had agreed to meet Roelof. 

Posing (in the bright sun) with the Sluyswacht. Pic by Neil

 

Touristy picture on Leidseplein. Pic by Neil

Bitterballen with Roelof. Pic by Neil

On the day of travel we had time in the morning, so after getting up in checking out the first brought the higher bikes back, and then had it for a local cheese shop. The one on Muurhuizen had gone, but there still was one on the Langestraat. I don't think Neil has ever seen that much cheese. And then we had the last cup of coffee with my mum. 

Amersfoort cheese shop. Pic by Neil

 

Pic with some of my favourite people! Pic by Neil

As a last goodbye to Amersfoort we walked to the station via an ice cream parlour. It really was weather for that. And from there everything went smoothly again. No problems getting back to the UK, and no problems getting back to the Neil’s place. There I briefly said hi to his cat before I got into my car in order to go and see mine. And then the adventure was over!

This was the first time Neil and I travelled anywhere. We both decided it had been a great success! We had had a lovely time, and there had been no friction whatsoever. There had been moments where at least one of us I was getting a bit fragile because of the relentless heat, but we never took that out on each other. 

The customer is still young. We might get up to more things like that before autumn hits. I hope so!

Family day

The reason I went to the Netherlands this specific weekend was the annual family day. It was organised by the Haarlem part of the family, and would take place in the dunes. I love the dunes! My cousin Bart had booked a part of the visitor centre, and he mentioned the idea was to go swimming in a little dune lake as well. Sounded fine. 

The visitor centre was only some 20 minutes walking from the nearest train station, so Neil and I got on our bikes in the morning and took the train west. We changed trains in Amsterdam, where we found my nephew David. That was nice! He hadn't met Neil yet. And it turned out that my other nephew Abe had caught the train as well, but at the very last moment, so he was at the far end. And it was a very sunny Whitsun weekend, so obviously, the train to the beach was absolutely rammed.

We walked up with the four of us, and found the visitors centre without problems. Quite a number of people were already there. And there was coffee and cake for whoever wanted it. A good start!

Everybody introduced themselves to Neil, and they were all happy I had brought him. And I was glad I had made him a cheat sheet so he could remember who was who, and how everyone was related.

What with the coast being very busy that day, there were a few people stuck in traffic, so it took a while before we were complete. But it pretty much happened! Everyone you might expect to be there was there, except two children; one, I think, was too busy with exams, and the other one was poorly. And that is sad, but altogether the turnout was good.

My uncle Dick does an introduction 

Lunch happened quite soon after the coffee. And we had long tables, so you could move around a bit, and try to catch up with every branch of the family present. It is a lovely bunch!

After lunch, many of us indeed went to the little lake. It was busy! But nice. In no time, my sister’s sons were hurling my cousin’s son as high out of the water as they could, to his delight. But we didn’t stay in the water very long. 

On the way to the dune lake

By the lake

The lake itself

We got back and had some tea and cake and suchlike. It was all rather relaxed! I suppose that’s good if you are in a heatwave, you have elderly people there (like my dad), and the most important thing is catching up anyway. There was  plenty to talk about! 

After the tea there was a split. Those who lived far away and needed to get there left. Everybody else walked a few minutes down the road to a pancake restaurant. Pancakes! Who doesn’t love them. 

After the pancakes it was time to go our separate ways. I had really enjoyed it. Next year it will be in Enschede.  Bring it on!