First longish leisure run in a while

Since recovering from my ankle injury, I had not done any long runs that weren’t races. But I had an empty weekend ahead, so I figured it was time! And I decided to do an old favourite: around Moel Wnion. And I went after breakfast, as it would be raining in the afternoon.

It was dry, but it was windier than I had anticipated. But initially I had the wind in the back. I went anticlockwise this time.

Between Moel Wnion and y Drosgl

It was nice to run into the hills again! I hadn't done much of that recently. And I don't get beyond y Gyrn much. 

When I got to Ffridd Ddu the sun came out. But it still was very windy! I started to get tired of the endless noise in my ears. And there pretty much was no shelter at all along the way. I just plodded on.

Sea views from the other side of Ffridd Ddu 

Over the stepping stones through the boggy terrain

Where the path curves into Bwlch ym Mhwll Lle there was shelter. It was lovely! So quiet. But also very brief.

Close to the village I bumped into walking ladies, one of which was Sara, the first person I followed on Bluesky. And then I was home.

It has been a veritable plod! But it seems to be good for you to sometimes do that. Not everything has to be high intensity. And the views had been great! And with it being spring now, I might do this more often. In winter I often end up on the roads because the hills are just too soggy. But this is a lot nicer!

Stem cell donor

I routinely donate blood. I am also a registered organ donor. I am too old to be an egg donor. And my hair is too grey and too dreadlocked to be eligible for donation for wigs. So I thought that was it. But then I got a message from Miles in which he mentioned stem cell donation. I didn't know that was a thing! But it clearly is. And it sounds like such a good thing to do. The very next day I googled it, and signed up. It's not like blood donation; they don't just take your stem cells and assume they will find someone who can use them. You just end up in a database, and they might never find a match, so you might never actively donate. But if they do, you can really make a difference in someone's life. It will probably be a bit of a hassle as you probably have to get to England have your stem cells harvested, but I will cross that bridge when I get there.

I got my test kit! It's a swab test like a Covid test. Very easy to do. It's now on its way to be analysed. I will get a confirmation when they get it. And then time will tell if they ever identify me as a match…

Sport Science research seminar

I was just running the Thursday Hills when one of my fellow runners, Geoff from Sports Science, mentioned that the following week, the Sports Science talk would actually involve marine science. Maybe I was interested? It involved diving seals. It sounded interesting so I said I'd mail him to remind him to give me the details. And I turned out to be available that day.

On the day I biked to Normal Site, an obscure part of the university between Ocean Sciences and main campus. Apparently, that is where sports science is. I got to the correct building, and to my surprise, my key card gave access to it. I quickly found Geoff, the seminar organiser, and Josh, one of the speakers, who had also been in the previous night’s race.

Geoff introducing the first speaker

The first speaker, the one who was talking about seals, spoke online from St Andrews. He talked of the relationship between heart rate, blood oxygen saturation, and suchlike, in diving creatures. His facility had a license for capturing seals, involving them in their research for a while, and then releasing them back into the wild. So they sometimes had seals do some swimming underwater with a sensor on their heads that would measure the parameters they were interested in. And he did say something about that they can just turn their heart rate down to as low as 3 bpm if they anticipate that they will be underwater for a while.

He also mentioned that it is a lot of faff to have to catch a wild seal, anaesthetise it so you can fit it with instrumentation, and then have it dive around in your pool for a while. It was a lot easier to work with humans. You can just politely ask if they are willing to have instrumentation on their heads, and then do a dive. And humans are pretty rubbish divers in comparison to seals, but they could work with that.

He had also done research on people with a freediving habit, such as some Korean women who dive for mollusks and suchlike. Their physiology seem to be amazing.

I was wondering a bit how talented seals are in guessing how long their next dive is going to be. If you misjudged it, you can get into trouble. But then he also showed the graph of the diving behaviour of an elephant seal over a few days, and there was a very clear pattern in that. It really looked like these marine mammals know, and plan, what they're doing. I still wondered, though, if you could take advantage of it. If you see a seal do shallow dives, and you are a clever predator, you might be able to disrupt its surfacing, and know that they would be in distress pretty quickly because their heart rate is too high.

The next speaker was Josh, talking about chimpanzees. He was interested in cardiovascular disease, and chimpanzees just don't get that. It doesn't matter how old they get. And he said that if you have a captive chimpanzee and you give it junk food, they still don't get the diseases we get. I'm not sure how anyone would get ethical clearance for this, but it might have been an experiment done decades ago.

Josh with his research questions 

He showed us the heartbeat pattern of a healthy chimp, and that of a healthy human. It was indeed quite different! He said that the chimps’ pattern looks like that of a human in heat stress, or just after exercising. And he said it doesn't respond much to changes in temperature or activity levels and things like that. And it seems that our circulation seems to be tailored to excellent heat regulation. We seem to do that a lot better than chimpanzees! But that comes with the problem that we don't seem to have the robustness that they have. But I suppose that means the chimp has to stay in the forest. They might need the shadow!

He also said that chimpanzees still live in the habitat they evolved for. We don't. We evolved for being on the move. Where chimpanzees and humans started to separately descend from our common ancestor, savannahs had just come into fashion, and the chimps weren't interested, but the humans went there, and started to chase after prey. And that's tiring! So we learned to conserve energy. But now we get our food from the supermarket, which we may very well drive too, and we still want to conserve energy. And that goes wrong. And because we know spent most of our time indoors, we don't really need that thermal regulation so much anymore. But we have it, with all its drawbacks.

He had not only studied chimpanzee; like the previous speaker, he had also studied humans. And he was interested in subsistence farmers, because although they are not hunter-gatherers anymore, they are still quite close to but we are humans are supposed to be. And he was measuring things such as their activity levels and blood pressure overtime. And he compared that to people from a subsistence farming background who had fairly recently (In the last decades) moved into cities, and to people of European descent (the research had been known in Mexico) who had been living in cities for generations. No prizes for guessing who had the best cardiovascular health.

I found it quite funny that this guy is clearly quite an enthusiastic runner. He stays close to his roots! He might not frequent the African savannah, but he stays on the move. He knows what's good for him!

At the end of the talk we chatted a bit more. Some of it about running! He and Geoff were going to do a fell race the next day, and do the first Tuesday Night Fell Race the week after. But then it was time to leave. I took home some of the leftover brownies; there hadn’t been much of a turnout, so there were many of them. In spite of both Ocean Sciences and Natural Sciences having been invited! And then I got onto my bike. I had plenty to think about. I love sometimes going to seminars that have nothing to do with my own field of expertise. You always learn something new!

Bethesda Map Run

I had decided to try the Wednesday running training, and skip the Thursday Hill session. I was thinking of what the running coach had said. My body sometimes needs a break! 

One of the Thursday runners, Geoff, had mentioned a ‘map run’ in Bethesda on the Thursday. I wasn’t sure what he meant. But Fliss, the lady leading the Wednesday training, mentioned it as well, and she gave a bit more detail. It was basically orienteering in a built-up area. And it sounded fun! And when I googled it I noticed that race headquarters were the pub just around the corner, less than 100m from my house. How could I resist a race like that? So I registered. And they gave you two options of doing it: with technology, or with pen and paper. And I opted for pen and paper.

On the day I got an email: the pen and paper option was not available. Everyone would have to log their checkpoints with technology. So I downloaded the app, downloaded another app you need for getting the app also on your watch, then put it on my watch, and uploaded the data of this specific race. I wasn't quite sure what's next but I figured I could ask at registration.

I went early, and indeed had both chaps of the organisation to myself. So they could talk me through how it all worked. And it turned out I seemed to have correctly installed the software, and the only thing I needed to do was start it when the race started. I was impressed with myself. But when other runners started to appear I briefly went home for a last cup of tea and toilet visit. Then I got back. I had a bit of a chat with the other competitors, including Geoff and his friend Josh. 

After a while we were asked to go outside, where we would get our maps and could start the software. Our watches or phones would register if we would reach a checkpoint. So after the countdown I opened my map. There was quite a wide variety of places you could go! I decided to head east. Why not? And I figured the first checkpoint I could take was near the church. My watch didn't seem to be responding to anything. So I continued. But at the next checkpoint, still nothing happened. By then I was fairly certain my watch wasn't registering anything at all. Oh well! I could just do this for shits and giggles.

I continued on my way. A few more checkpoints in I had to negotiate a flirtatious pug. That was quite sweet. And I got to some checkpoints in the Braichmelyn area. Then I crossed the road and the river and tried to get all of them on the other side. I did make an unnecessary loop, but I did get them. And then I figured I still had time to hoover a few up in the direction of Tan y Foel. And then I only had five minutes left, and had to leg it back down to the finish. I was back almost on time!

It looked like I had indeed not registered anything. That's fine. At least I had started to log the run on Strava after the second or third checkpoint, so at least I had a record of where I had been. I could check how many points I would have had had the technology worked. I think it was 480, but I came in a few minutes late so I would probably have been docked 60 points (the going rate is 20 points per minute). If that is true I would just have managed to outperform Geoff! Unlikely, but not impossible. For context, the overall winner had 810. And the next time (if there is a next time) I will not leave the start until the technology works. I'm sure the people starting you off should be able to help with that. I'm sure it is more satisfying if you actively log something!

After the race I had a small beer with Geoff and Josh, and then we went home. A bit of a weird introduction to orienteering, but at least it had been enjoyable!

Interval training

Now that spring is upon us, the club is launching more training opportunities. There suddenly is Monday training and Wednesday training. There already was something going on on Monday, but that was not an official club activity. And there are Tuesday track sessions, also not a club thing, but then I have Welsh class. And our Thursday sessions are also not a club thing. But these trainings are.

I was keen to try one. And if not now then when? So I signed up. And drove to Llanberis on a Wednesday. 

I found the lady who organises the sessions, and a bloke. He introduced himself as Levi. Would that be it? Just two of us running? But then a lady called Gwen appeared. And that was indeed it.

We first did a six minute warm up, on the bicycle path next to the lake, and then we did, I think, five minutes at 10k pace. And then three minutes at 5k pace, twice. And then some even shorter intervals where you were supposed to go even faster. And in between increasingly short intervals recovery jogging. All of it on the path.

The 10k pace went well. I know very well what my 10k pace is. And my watch can tell me if I am running that. But I have a lot less routine with the shorter distances. What even is my 5k pace? I ran my PB in the 5k during the most recent 5m race. So I suppose I would be a bit faster if I really was only running 5k. I aimed at 4 minute kms. That was okay. Just.

I really have no idea what my 1k pace is, but I suppose that didn't matter. I just ran the short intervals at whatever speed I could muster. I don't think it was very fast! And my breathing was terribly laboured. But that is a sign that I am giving it what I have. I suppose the idea of interval training is that you leave something for the end. Maybe I should have been a bit more restrained in the beginning. But hey, I had never done this before. And I don't think my body really knows how to run distances shorter than 5k. 

It was over before I knew it! It took us less than an hour. And we had covered almost 9 km in that time. 

I don't think I will make a habit of this; I have a fitness tracker, so I could just plan a session like this myself. And then I can just keep going to the Thursday Hill sessions without being away running two evenings in a row. I can just do an interval session in a weekend. So I don't think I'll be back, but I'm glad I did this! And it was good fun!

Group selfie

Plant guests

Martin is in the process of moving house, but he’ll be ‘between houses’ for a bit. He’ll be fine! He’ll work something out for himself. He has rented storage space for his stuff. But he also has plants. These would die in storage. He also spoke of a tree he wanted to dig out, and replant in the garden of the new place. 

He asked if I would be willing to host them. I was happy to! I would turn into a repository of other people’s creatures; after all I have a cat who also started out as a guest for someone who was between houses. And some of my plants are inherited from my former office mate who left for Cornwall. I think unlike these examples, these plants will actually go back to Martin, though. 

One Monday evening he and his partner drove up and delivered the lot. Most went into the conservatory! That’s a place in flux anyway. And it has sunlight. It looks quite nice in there now. There was no tree. Maybe they had underestimated how much work all this would be without digging out a tree. I could imagine.

I hope Martin can put his roots down soon! Being in between houses is tiresome. And I’ll do my best to make sure he has all his plants back in good condition when he gets to that stage… 

Roadworks on the bicycle path

Last autumn, a part of the bicycle path I use most days to get to work closed. There was an announcement on a board at both sides of where it would be closed, and it all looked very serious. But the actual work only took a day or two. It actually improved the drainage of the path! I was quite happy with that; the initial situation was rather bleak, which meant that in autumn you were often riding through a puddle, and in winter that pubble was at risk of turning to ice. I think it will be better now! And it came soon after different repairs. The route was getting loads of TLC! 

Then winter came, and then spring. And suddenly, a fence appeared again. And also a sign. That part of the path will be closed for 12 weeks! This might be the actual big work. The other work might just have been some impromptu add-on.

None shall pass

So what does this mean? For as long as this work continues, cyclists will have little choice but to ride on the road. And quite some riders will be commuters, so they ride during rush hour. I could imagine that this will cause some friction between car drivers and cyclists. The car drivers will be annoyed at the increased number of cyclists on the road; it is not an unusually wide road, so if there is traffic coming the other way, you cannot overtake a bike. And I would imagine that quite many drivers wouldn't know the cyclists currently don't have a choice. And the cyclists might feel a bit vulnerable with all that traffic so close by.

If you are willing to make a detour, you can avoid this situation altogether, of course. The most reasonable option would be a detour of half a mile and some more uphill. That would be a bit inconvenient, but I think it will be worth it for reasons of safety. I hope this period will pass without any unpleasant incidents! Only time will tell…