Jacko breathing session

We had had a taster session in the Presentation Night. The club had invited 'Jacko', who is a breathing coach for sportspeople. I had bought his book there too. I'm about halfway through it.

Since that session, I have been actively thinking about my breathing when I am running. And it really helps! I try to breathe slowly. Jaco had made the point that if you breathe slower, the air has time to reach all the alveoli in your lungs, and the oxygen uptake is a lot more efficient. I do that on the track, which results in more comfortable running, and I do it during races. My results since the presentation night have been quite good, so I think it is helping! And that only through slow breathing. And I knew there would be a full session for club members coming up. Obviously, I signed up for it. How much better could it get? 

It took place on the track. We had the building too. We started indoors. There were about 15 of us. But soon we went outside. 

I had sort of counted on us being either inside, or running. I had clothes for that. Mistake! There was a cold wind out there, and when we were on the track, we spent quite some time standing still. That was cold! 

On the track

The first thing he asked us to do was stand on the start line, breathe in, breathe out, then hold our breath and walk onto the track. And only stop walking when we couldn't hold our breath anymore.

Soon, people were stopping. I didn't have to, yet. I was walking out next to a lady called Emily and we got quite far. Then she stopped. Only me left! That surprised me. I never realised I can hold my breath particularly long. 

We came back. Jacko told us that the urge to breathe is not from lack of oxygen. It is just the buildup of CO2 in your blood. And you can train your body’s tolerance of that. And he said that if you breathe out powerfully a few times, you might get rid of quite a lot of CO2.

He also made us run a lap, and then tell us something about our breathing. I found that a bit hard. I have been thinking about my breathing while running for months! But most people there hadn't been to the presentation night, so they might have been thinking about their breathing for the first time. 

He then took us back inside. We did all sorts of things! Thinking about the ribs, the spine, the nose, the tongue, the pelvis, and what not. We were standing and kneeling and lying down, twisting this way and that, and feeling the difference to our breathing.

Thinking about posture 

Feeling our breathing

We went out for more laps. He urged us to start out breathing through our noses. That was less difficult than I had expected. But he made us accelerate, and you soon hit the spot where you can't breathe through your nose anymore.

He also made us think about how to synchronise our steps with our breathing. I think I do that automatically. But he made us all pay attention to it. It is efficient too line these two things up.

In the end he asked us to run a lap where we started breathing through her nose, but to accelerate so much that in the end, we would do one breath every two steps. That was a bit exhausting! When I was breathing through my nose, which is inevitably slower, I need some five steps for a breath. When I'm breathing through my mouth, I tend to be on four, so cranking it up to only two was quite something!

Then we were done. We thanked him and wished him well on his upcoming challenge: he will attempt to run two marathons a day for 100 days. That’s quite an effort! And we were invited to run a lap with him. I might do just that. Watch this space! 

Group pic

Additional medal rack

It didn’t fit anymore! I made a medal rack less than a year ago, but it is full now. I suppose things started accelerating when I joined the running club. That makes you eligible for NWRAC medals. And I have been doing well since having started both hill and track training. So then you often get multiple medals in one race. 

When I came home from the Snowdonia Half Marathon with four medals (finisher, non-stop runner up Forest Hill, category win, silver medal) I knew they wouldn’t fit. I needed to act! And I put a smaller bamboo stick up in the storage room. I put all my pre-covid medals on it. That made good space on the bigger rack. 

The pre-Covid rack

When I had sorted that it struck me there were so many medals there that weren’t finishing medals. I did a quick count; I have 36 medals there, and only 20 are finisher medals. So almost half are things like category wins and bronzes and silvers. Pretty cool! 

Space on the original rack

The time will come when it will be full again. But I have bought myself a bit of time now. I can ponder where the next rack will go! 

Siabod with Kate - again

I hadn't seen Kate in a while, except during lunch at work. It was time we’d get out together. And one Saturday we were both available. Kate suggested Siabod. We didn’t want to make it a long walk given that it would rain in the afternoon. And Bryn, her Labrador, is getting too old to come with us, so he would be alone while we were out. 

We met up at Pont Cyfyng, and headed in Siabod’s general direction. It didn't take long before we took our jackets off because we were getting warm. And then it didn't take long for us to put them back on because it was starting to rain. 

Along the way we passed a commercial group, headed by Richard aka Rusty; it was fun to see him again. And there were some other walkers as well. The weather wasn't great, but it was a weekend, so we didn't expect to have the hill to ourselves.

Early on

We decided go along the east, past the lake, and then to do the route to the summit through the gully. We struggled to remember and when we had done it before. My memory is rubbish! But as soon as we were properly in the gully it all came back to me. We had both done this once before, together, but quite a long time ago. Checking my blog showed that that had been in lockdown.

 

Quarry lake along the way

We'd done the same hill together since, in the evening. And confusingly, I've also done it with the other Kate. I really wanted to go visit her after she moved to England, but I must admit it hasn't happened yet!

While we were in the gulley, it was mainly misty and drizzly, but not properly raining. And when we popped out we had lunch in the wind shelter at the top. There were two marshals of UTMB there too; there were several races going on. My track mate Louise was doing the 100 miler! She is tough. 

 

Kate in the gully

 

Summit selfie

After lunch we headed down. And the rain got worse. We both wondered if we should have put on our waterproof trousers while we were in the wind shelter. A bit late now!

When we got down things improved a bit. For quite a while, we could even see the lake in the valley! But by the time we got To Cafe Siabod (its new iteration) we were both quite soggy. Our jackets had held, but we had soaking trousers, socks, shoes, and gloves. And I had a soggy hat as I wasn't using my hood.

On the way down

We ordered the hot chocolate with all the bells and whistles that they offer. And we inhaled them quite quickly. That made us feel better! And then we trudged back to the cars.

A bit of a soggy get-together but really nice anyway! Soon again, hopefully…

Slim cat

The diet has worked! My little cat is back to 4.7 kg, and has an hourglass figure again. And she hasn’t run away to someone who feeds her more. I’m happy.

Now that I have the scales, I can increase her portions again and monitor when I get to the point her weight stays stable. She will like that. And I like that this is, in all likelihood, much better for her health. We can have more years together this way! 

Not the clearest picture of her figure but it gives some idea

Slim belly shot

In-person exam again

I hadn’t been involved in an in-person exam since the start of the pandemic. I can't say I am a huge fan of them but I acknowledge that they are a foolproof way of making sure the students aren't using generative AI.

In the long run, we will have to make sure all our assessments incorporate the use of AI. If the students have such powerful tools at their fingertips, surely we can ask complicated things from them. But these are not changes you make in a day. Firstly; we staff wouldn't be ready for that. It is a heck of a lot of work to make a new assessment! And if we would have to change every single one of them, that takes a lot of time. 

Secondly; the students wouldn’t be ready for it. I think we need to make sure we actually teach them to use AI well, before we expect them to use it extensively in their assignments. And as soon as we make them a bit of a challenge even with the use of AI, they would be way, way too much of a challenge now for students who aren't particularly good with the technology.

With these considerations, I took the decision of having my first year exam, which is an MCQ test, in person again. It is very difficult to come up with MCQ questions AI can't answer. And the policy of the school is that we can bring in in-person exams again, gradually. This year we can do them for the first year students. Next year, we can add the second year to that. We are aware that it might be a bit of a shock to students who haven't done an in-person exam in years, suddenly have to do one again. Our current freshers probably have done in-person A-levels. And if we get them used to it from the beginning, they'll be fine.

That is how I found myself in a lecture room on main campus to invigilate an exam. It felt rather old-fashioned! But it was ok. If the students were particularly stressed about it, it didn't show. They just did their thing. They had two hours to complete the exam; the first student left after 25 minutes, and the last one after one hour and 40 minutes. It looks like at least when it comes to time, it is perfectly feasible.

The exam

It will probably be done less well than last year, but I don't think that's a bad thing. That probably means that last year's cohort had used AI. This time we are actually testing the students on their own insight. Not their use of tools. And sometimes their insight is what you are after.

Next exam period, there will be more like this. Back to the previous century! While getting ready to make the jump to the post-AI world…

Bridge exhibition

Menai Suspension Bridge, aka Telford Bridge, aka the old bridge, is 200 years old. The University decided to dedicate a small exhibition to it. In one of the glamorous corridors of the main building, there are some cabinets, which host changing mini-exhibitions. 

When it was announced that there was an exhibition about the bridge there, I decided I wanted to go and see it. When I had a chat with Jenny, my Welsh tutor, she also recommended it; she had already been. Unfortunately, when I am in the building, I often have stuff to do and places to get to immediately afterwards, so for months I didn't go. But then I was on main campus for the second and last round of catch up dissertation presentations, and so many students didn't show up I had time to go and have a look before I needed to be somewhere else.

This also means this post is out of sequence! I have already blogged about what happened in the weekend. I forgot this draft was there.

The exhibition is not big, but I thought it was amazing! It started with the old route between London and Dublin, which relies on several ferries, including one over the Menai Strait.  I had no idea the original ferry went from the sand flats. That doesn’t sound ideal! But later it moved to a mainland landing site that’s dry at both high and low water. 

In the 18th century already, there were goals for a bridge. There were all sorts of people who were either very much in favour very much opposed. Several different designs.

Did you get the decision to go with the particular design Ford came up with. And then the construction. And then it was done.

Bite of the process, obviously, without photographic evidence. But that came in somewhere along the way. I really like seeing the whole process develop in written, drawn or photographically documented evidence. I might just come back to admire it another time!

Welcome sign

Map with possible crossings indicated

Various proposed designs 

The design that was chosen 

Construction 

Close-up: cranes om the pillars of the bridge 

Phone charging drama

I have an iPhone. They are infamous for vulnerable charging ports. I already once bought a new one for reasons of port issues. And the new phone also had problems. But when that happened, I moved to wireless pads. That sorted me out for a bit. 

After a while, my Halfords pad started to get connection issues. Unless the cable was in just right, the pad didn’t get power and wouldn’t charge. And even if it did get power, it would complain increasingly often that the phone wasn’t positioned correctly on it. I figured I might need a new one. 

One day, I was in a shop for other reasons, and I saw they sold pads as well. Great! I bought one. But did that solve things? No! I thought a pad would be a pad, but this thing proved they are not created equal. It barely charged anything. 

Before I dragged myself past a suitable shop, I ended up with an almost empty phone, and two pads that wouldn’t charge it. What a faff! So now things became urgent. I wanted to phone people. I wanted to write my blog. I wanted to take pictures. I wanted to do all sorts of things for which I use my phone.

On Monday morning, I made sure to bike past Argos and pick up a new pad. When I got to the office, I got it out of the packaging, hoping to use it straight away. Unfortunately, I hadn't checked whether it was actually compatible with the plug I normally use for that. It wasn't! I am used to charging on USBA but this was USBC. Bummer.

With my phone out of business and my computer still not having dictation software, I could barely get any work done in the office. I had been writing text so far by dictating to my phone, and then transferring the text to my computer. That was not going to work today. So I hadn't been in the office very long, but my best bet was to leave it again. On the way back I biked past Halfords to pick up a plug that can do both USBA and USBC. 

In the shop they handed me the box, with the receipt taped to it. That obscured the front of it. It was only when I got home that I realised they hadn't given me a normal plug, but a car plug. That was not what I wanted! That made me quite grumpy. I considered my options. And I decided to drive to Halfords to get the proper plug. Why am I burning fuel for that? But I didn't want to make the ~1.5 hr round trip on bike. I had more things to do.

The lady at the counter was properly apologetic. And I took the opportunity to pop by a big supermarket for groceries. Soon I was home, finally able to effortlessly charge my phone. I've chucked the first pad away. I might do the same thing with the second one. It only managed to get my phone up to 10% after a full night charging! That's no use. The third pad is just doing what it should do. It might be a while before I start taking that for granted...

The full set of pads