Jacko has his world record!

Back in late May I went for a little run with Jacko, The breathing coach who had done a session for the Eryri Harriers, and who is also the brother of one of my former colleagues. He had just started his world record attempt at doing the most consecutive ultramarathons for a man. He wanted to do 80 km every day for 100 days. It didn't quite work out that way. He got injured after some two weeks, and had to tone it down to 50 km. That still counts as ultramarathons! So that would still result in a world record, if he would manage to keep it up for more than 80 days. He only aimed for 100 because he could, I suppose.

The most consecutive ultramarathons for a person, by the way, is in the hands of a lady called Candice Burt, who did 200. He won't go anywhere near that. 

He has now reached that threshold of 80 consecutive ultramarathons, which until then had been the male world record. And that got some publicity. Neil saw an item about it on ITV. I couldn't find anything on mainstream media, but hey, if he reached Neil on TV he must have reached more. That's great! He is doing it all for two brain injury charities, and with the breaking of the record he got national attention, and hopefully, that attention will lead to more donations. He had tried to raise a million, but before reaching the world record stage I think he had only raised some £20,000.

He is now doing the last few weeks. I’m sure he’ll get to 100 ultramarathons. What crazy challenge will he think of next? I don’t think he will be going into a 9 to 5, with some sensible running on the side, now… 

From Facebook

In early September, he will be back in North Wales to finish his 100 days. It will be triumphant! And when I ran with him, he said that the world record was only a bonus and the important thing was basically challenging himself, and raising money for charity, but I still think the world record matters. The amount of donations coming in after he reached it will be the judge of that, I suppose! 

Upcoming conference in Bangor being with the times

In September, the Challenger conference will take place in Bangor. I will be involved in that; there will be field excursions, and I'm leading one of them. But this post is about something else.

I got an email from Tom, who is in charge of the whole thing, and he said that as is standard at the conference, people will be wearing badges with their name and affiliation. You normally get a card holder and a card at the beginning of the conference, generally on a lanyard. Some people have bucket-loads of these in their office, from all the conferences they have been to. And Tom and the rest of the organisation thought they could use that to the benefit of the environment. Why not reuse them? So he put out a call to the whole school to ask if people would be willing to donate their old badge holders. I think that is an amazing idea! I rummaged in my stuff and unearthed two of them. Not many, but two that don't have to be made from virgin plastic! Or even recycled plastic. 

I hope they manage to get enough of these for the whole conference. I think this is the future! Reduce, reuse, recycle. And I got some satisfaction from not having thrown these away, and even knowing where I had put them. This is the sort of thing I hope will happen if I save something like that!

First own topic

It took a few months, but I have received the first student proposal for a self-designed dissertation topic! I told the students in May that they could take this opportunity. Some tumbleweed followed. But now I have had the first student give it a go. It is possible that this is the beginning of a surge. Inevitably, this surge will be at its peak just before the deadline. It tends to be like that. Not everyone will succeed. 
This first student didn't have their proposal approved straight away. I had some questions that needed answering about the exact research question, and the data. But there is plenty of time to sort that out.
I hope this year will have a lovely balance between number of students that will get their own topic over the line, the amount of time I have to spend on it, and the amount of satisfaction the students get from this. One way to find out!

There was sea ice in this proposal

 

Another car update

I have a new plan. I am going to look a bit further away to find a used EV. If you restrict yourself to North Wales, you will only find the odd electrical card, and then you might run into the trouble I ran into. Car dealers that know nothing about electrical cars, and not able to tell you anything useful about them, and can't fault any problems associated with them. So I will head for England.

I came across Fords of Winsford; they are a huge second-hand dealer, and they have more than 2000 cars, hundreds of them electric. And no, they don't only do Fords. They routinely have a battery report prepared for the electric cars they sell. They routinely make sure that there is an MOT that is valid for at least three months on any car they sell.

Before storm hits, I will go there with Neil. My plan is that we can prepare it; have a clear idea of which cars we might be interested in, sort out a test drive, then make a decision there and then. If you put a deposit down they won't sell it to anybody else, and then you can just go home and sort out the paperwork. And you can have it delivered. That might be well worth it; otherwise I either have to get them by public transport, which sounds a faff, or go together with Neil, and that is wasting not just my time but also his. But I will check; public transport is, of course, the most sustainable option. 

I hope this plan will work out! Stay tuned! 

 

 

Glyderau hike

Some two months ago, Neil and I did a substantial hike, which was preparation for his Welsh 3000s hike in September. I don't seem to have mentioned anything like that since, but that doesn't mean he has stopped training; it only means that I have not joined him. He does a long hike almost every week. And I can go with him, but I don't want to do a long hike like that the day before a race, and I have had a bunch of Sunday races. Now I had one weekend with no race in between two that feature one, so I suggested I go with him. He was up for that.

We didn't have a particularly strong plan; the night before he thought we might climb Pen yr Ole Wen and then head east from there. And he was reluctant to be reliant on the bus, so his idea was to drive. When we had done our little anniversary hike and swim, we hadn't really pushed an early start, but there was plenty of parking. He hoped this time it would be the same.

It was not the same. That had been a Wednesday, and now we were going on a Sunday. In the middle of the school holidays. In the whole of the Ogwen Valley, there wasn't a parking space to be had. We had to come up with Plan B. And that was: drive to Nant Peris, where there is a big P&R, and from there go up Elidir Fawr, and then go east. We weren't quite sure how far.

It was warm on the ascent. Halfway up the slope we paused for a bit because I wanted to take a layer off, and figured it was a good idea to have some coffee as well. Shortly afterwards it actually started raining. It was only a brief shower, but it was a rare occurrence this summer, and it cooled us off. And when we got to the top we had another break. 

View from the first break

From there we had a rather smooth, but quite cool, walk to the bottom of y Garn. There as well we had a little break. And we decided to bypass Llyn y Cwn, and go up to Glyder Fawr. From there we could either descend straight away, or continue past Glyder Fach, and then down over the Miners' path. And then we could get a bus back to the car. 

Where the terrain gets smooth

The descent to Llyn a Cŵn was a doddle, and the ascent to Glyder Fawr is always a bit of a struggle, but at least not as bad as descending it. And you get rewarded by the crazy landscape at the top. The Glyderau are something else!

Glyderau views

Summit selfie

We had some more food there, and decided to go down the long way. So that meant continuing for a bit in the surreal Glyderau landscape. Always nice! And then we took the miners’ track back to the road. I think I have done that once, in the opposite direction. This is really not very frequently trodden terrain for me!

More Glyder views

And more

On the way down

If we would have been at the road really early, we could have gone for a little drink in Pen y Gwrid hotel, but we only had some 25 minutes, so we went straight to the bus stop. A lovely hike! 16.4 km, and 1260m of ascent. A fraction of the Welsh 3000s, but a good score for me!

All fronts painted

The kitchen looks so smart now! I did a final push and that meant that now all the cabinet doors and drawer fronts have been painted, and given new handles. I am really pleased with the result.

Does that mean I am entirely finished? No! I want to have a little break now, but on the slightly longer term I want to paint the kickboards green, like the skirting board by the radiator, and the door. The skirting board by the cupboard has a different colour; that was the house painter taking unwanted initiatives. When I am at it anyway, I might rectify that. 

I am also emptying out all of the cabinets and giving them a good clean. I hadn’t done that for a while.

I think my kitchen is a heck of a lot better than it was, and it is getting better still!

Like new! 

Making more rubrics

What I should be working on these days is my application for senior fellow of the HEA. Unsurprisingly, I got sidetracked. I had been working on the forms we have to fill out after the module evaluations have come in. In one of my modules, there is an assessment the students always want more guidance on. And I have to stop somewhere, otherwise you are doing the assignment for them, and they learn nothing. So I never give them as much as they want, but I do honestly try to help them in ways that I think are not detrimental. 

One thing I thought I could do was make a rubric. Maybe that would help them a bit. I had done it for the dissertation module. And our external examiners like them. So I started making one. But then I figured I should make them for all three assessments. That is a fair amount of work. 

I did it, but it did mean I wasn’t working on my SF HEA application. I would have to get my ass in gear afterwards! Because I really want to get it done this summer. I’m not doing myself any favours not having this accreditation!