More running after blood donation

Since I became a proper running nerd, I have been very conscious of the effects of blood donation. For two weeks afterwards, I just can’t get up hills. I still go, though; blood donations save lives and running up hills tends not to. 

This February I had a Monday morning session booked. I came in, did the questionnaire and all that, and soon was called into the booth where they check your iron levels. They start with a finger prick. When the lady measured my iron level she said it was a bit low. There were two things they could do now: one was to send me home, and the other one was to take some blood from my arm to do a more precise measurement. Maybe I was still above the threshold!

I won't lie; part of me hoped I would just be below it. Then I could keep all my blood. And that would definitely yield a better result in the upcoming race! But as I said; blood donations save lives. Running races does not. So they took blood from my arm, and lo and behold, I was just above the threshold. They could take a donation.

In a way, that was quite a bad outcome. If they are going to take blood anyway, it's better if your initial iron levels are very high. I figured I would be extra lethargic after losing half a litre from such a weak  starting point. But let's have it!

When they stuck the needle into my arm, the blood wasn't flowing as it normally is. I tend to be done in five minutes. This time they struggled to get a full donation out of me in 15 minutes. But they just made it.

The next day was track training. I told the people in my group I was going to be a bit slower than the previous week, for reasons of the blood donation. The week before I had gone for 4:20 per km; now I would aim for 4:25. For people who don't do track running; this seems so trivial, but believe me: there is a noticeable difference. People were okay with that. Many of them! When I started pacing on the track I tended to have four or five people behind me. This time I had line behind me that was at least 100 m long. Crazy!

The track session actually went perfectly fine. That was nice. But of course there are no hills on the track. The proof of the pudding would be the Thursday Night Hill session.

When I have donated blood I make sure to not run first part of the route, which is in a way a warming up, on the flat. I headed straight for the hill. This is an accepted practice; that first leg is never done by everybody. And when I got to the top of the first hill, I started making my way down before the main group did. And then from the second hill, I just did what everybody else did. And it went fine! Strava said afterwards that I had even done two of the sections unusually fast. These were not the big hills, though. But it was a good sign nonetheless!

At the top of the first hill

I don't know how this all works. How can I be so unaffected by a blood donation if my initial iron levels were so rubbish? I have no idea! But I'm not complaining. I might not even do too badly in the upcoming race, less than a week after donation!

Lots of academic integrity meetings

Well! As I write this I have done the last meeting about academic integrity with students in my diary. I had 16 of them this calendar year so far. That’s a lot! And I’m sure it’s not over yet; people are still marking, so new cases may still come in. But at least I have now dealt with everything that has been raised with me so far. 

It’s a bit bleak; only one student was totally exonerated. Two got a warning. Two got a penalty of <100%. And the rest all got 0% for the assignment in question. And this means I only penalised about 2% of undergraduates, but still. A lot more than I hoped! And of these 13 penalties, 11 were for inappropriate use of AI. And I don’t know, of course, how many I don't catch. This is quite a big thing! 

I have also done the second sitting of the University panel. They even asked me to chair. Why not! We have clear guidelines you can follow. And they've already asked me about my availability for March. I think it is fair to say the University also has quite a lot of work with this academic integrity business, and so far it looks like quite a lot of that is also associated with AI…

Goodbye John

It's February; we have a new Head of School. John has handed over to Stuart. And given that he has been in the school since the eighties, and had been HoS for six years, there was a goodbye do. I didn’t expect much, but I trusted he would get a present (there had been a collection) and would say some words. And I gathered some collaborators would say something too. 

Was I sad or keen to see him go? Well, a bit of both. He was the man who tried to make me redundant. But he was also the man who (after initial discouragement) supported my promotion to Senior Lecturer. He was in the EDI committee, but there his role seems to mostly have been to push back. He saw no point, for instance, in the students being allowed the option of giving their pronouns on their University profile. So a bit of a mixed bag! 

We piled into the room. There were some faces from the past there! Several people who had retired before him had come back for the occasion. Several of these were actually former heads of school.

There was tea and coffee and lots of cake, and it all started with a bit of mingling. John, who normally is wearing a smart jacket, was this time in a fleece. He has already adjusted to the change in circumstance! He just mingled in my direction when some colleagues were going to have a little presentation. John said he was nervous. The first page of the presentation just had his official profile picture on. Nothing embarrassing about that! But he said he was nervous about but would come after that. I doubted anyone would have any compromising pictures of such a straight-laced man. But maybe I was wrong!

I was wrong. It started with quite old pictures of a rather casually dressed John, still with his dark hair, when they were discussing his early career. Not that there is anything wrong with having our car and being casually dressed. This was just a side of most of us didn't know. Sometimes the speakers interrupted their presentation to read the message of old colleagues of John’s from that time. 

The pictures got wilder than I thought. There was one that even had to be censored! This clearly featured John straight out of the shower on fieldwork with a towel only covering his front. One would hope that this day and age, people wouldn't take such pictures anymore. But this looked like the 80s and things were different then.

We got some insight into John’s diving habits as well. By training, he is an anemone and tropical coral specialist, and his research involves of a lot of diving. He is also very prone to sea sickness, and under the illusion that you can communicate with other divers underwater by talking.

Ronan presenting slides

I thought it was a good balance of paying tribute and taking a little bit of the base. And then the tables turned. Now it was John’s turn. 

John focussed on his successor. He conjured up a big cardboard box that said Head of School survival kit, and he started to unpack it. He warned Stuart you need quite a lot of attributes to be a successful Head of school. He started with his sartorial choices; he said you really need to look smart as a HoS. Stuart got a crisp shirt, a Bangor University-branded tie, and a tweed jacket. He also gave him a pan and brush; a HoS needs a tidy office. And pompous books in the book cupboard. And a big notebook. And thick skin. And more. It was actually very well done! And Stuart was a good sport. 

John also got presents: among other things, a bottle of Pimm’s in a personalised box, and framed images of his allegedly favourite invertebrates from his various study sites (which he had to identify at species level). He was chuffed.

The man who had actually hired John back in the eighties had the last word. And then bottles of bubbly (both with and without alcohol) were opened. 

Five Heads of School in one picture! 

I left quite soon; I had Welsh class to attend. But a fair number of people went to the pub. One assumes John’s wife was driving back! I think he had a good goodbye. And I am curious to see how the first all-staff meeting chaired by Stuart will be…

Starting on ceiling repair

When the workmen started to put in the second round of panels in August, they had to put the wires somewhere. The logical place is in the ceiling, but that means having to get into it. This involves a lot of making holes in the plasterboard. Some small ones, where they just made a hole and left it; or big ones, where they basically cut a part of the ceiling into bits, and sort of stuck them back in more or less the same position when they were done. Both is not very pretty, and needs to be sorted.

Now that they are done it is up to me to sort out the damage. I have never really dealt with this before! I started out with a little instruction video on YouTube. The obvious place to start! And it spoke of backboards and joint tape and all sorts of things. I was learning.

I have now tentatively started. I ordered some repair patches. Plasterboard normally comes in enormous sheets, but of course there are people who take leftovers and sell them on eBay. Suits me fine.

I just started by tracing the outlines of the holes on paper, so I would be able to transpose that onto the plasterboard, and cut out (sub-)patches of the right shape and size. I also started to think about the backboards. The idea is that if you have a hole in your plasterboard, you make sure that you fix something above the hole, and you stick the repair patch to that. That's the backboard. That might be substantial if the hole is big. With small holes you might not need it; maybe the filler you need for putting it in place will just hold it in position.

I didn’t take chances. I screwed some small pieces of wood into the first small holes, and cut a beam to size for a big hole. I didn’t have screws long enough to put it there, though. I will need to buy these. 

I didn’t get very far. But there is a start! That is always the hardest part. It will take a while, but I have faith I will get there. I don’t know how seamless (or otherwise) it will look in the end, but I’m sure I’ll manage to improve it from what it is now! 

Preparatory artwork

Two small holes in the bedroom

Mini backboards fitted

A big hole that needs a big backboard

Adjusting to my 50+ hair

As hair maintenance I tie bits of string around the base of my dreadlocks. It keeps them together, and it makes new hairs join a dreadlock. You don’t want them to grow freely in between! And the idea is that your maintenance is so good to that when you put a new bit of string in, you take the previous one out. But sometimes I'm a bit late, and I choose to keep the old one in. My hair is not naturally inclined to be configured into dreadlocks, so if I have left it a bit long I might have a little interval of normal hair between the bits of string. Quite a lot of my dreads have more than one bit of string in.

I have traditionally used black thread. Not that my hair is black, but it’s dark enough to make the thread blend into the background. But that is changing.

On New Year's Day, Dean pointed out that I should probably be moving to grey. I figured he had a point. My hair is grey! So the next time I went to buy strong thread, I indeed went for that colour.

I first used up all the black I still had. But then I made the switch. It indeed blends in! And hopefully, one day I will move to white thread. But that is still quite some time away!

Symbols of time moving on

I suppose you can’t see the difference in this pic! But the lowest piece of string is grey…

Holyhead mountain and breakwater

Sometimes scampering off to Anglesey can keep you out of the rain. And there was quite some rain forecast further inland. So Neil and I decided to go to Holy Island. We first had a look at the brickworks, which have been turned into a sort of educational garden. Then we did a walk over the flanks of Holyhead Mountain, to North Stack. And then we walked the breakwater; I had only been on it once, during a race. It was nice to take some time to enjoy it. And we stayed largely dry! Success… 

The brickworks 

Artefacts

Glassless sash window

From the old railroad that took the building materials to the breakwater

View from North Stack to South Stack

View back to land from the far end of the breakwater 

5 year cat anniversary

It’s been five years! Five years since an unsuspecting little cat was carried into my house. She wasn’t even one year old. And now we’ve been together for five entire years. She’s such a fixture of my life. She welcomes me when I get home. She sleeps by my side. We often start the day with some play with the fishing rod toy. The best relaxation is when she is relaxing nearby. I’m sure she has changed in that time. She is not a youngster anymore! But I don’t really see it. She is still sweet but on her own terms, she is still a skilled killer but easily startled, she is still keen to greet everyone at the door but hates tradespeople, never thinks I feed her enough but never tries to steal food. She’s the best cat there is. Someone who I miss and worry about when I travel, but without whom I really don’t want to live if I have that choice! 

End of a utensil

Flasks are important! If you are away from taps and kettles you can still have a hot beverage when you have a flask. Vitally important when hiking and camping. Very important underground. Quite handy in home and office. 

I had some in the Netherlands: first a green one and a silver one. Then the silver one ended up elsewhere and I replaced it with a black one. They came with me on all sorts of hikes. 

Then I moved to Norway. The flasks came with me. Now they served me on kayaking trips and ski tours. Then my life took me to Britain. The flasks had to get used to underground trips. They ended up a bit battered. 

Recently I poured me a cup from the green flask. Something floated in the cup. A piece of plastic! Where did that come from? It turned out to be the bottom of the flask top. The plastic had gone too old and had become brittle, and had now crumbled. You looked straight at the styrofoam providing the insulation. 

I checked if I had another intact top that fit, but I didn’t. I wasn’t happy using it on the road with that top anymore. I’ll have to buy another one. 

It’s just an object! A piece of kit. But it has made do, so many of my adventures comfortable. I figured it deserved a little obituary on my blog! Thank you, green flask. You really deserve retirement now. 

The damaged top

The battered base

In the University Academic Integrity panel

I’ve been the Academic Integrity Officer for the School now for several years. Most cases we can sort within the School. Some cases, however, have to go one level up: especially repeat cases, or cases in particularly heavy-weighing modules, like entire MSc theses. The university then calls together an ad hoc panel to adjudicate on these matters. The people in these panels are drawn from the pool of Directors of Teaching and Learning and Academic Integrity officers of the various Schools. So it was a question of time before I would get the call. 

I got the call now. We were a panel with Peredur the Linguist chairing, a lady from the International Student Office (maybe because the case involved an international student), an observer from Quality Assurance, a representative of the Student Union (there is always one there, unless the student under investigation specified they don’t need one), a University secretary, and me. 

The procedure is that there is an open and a closed session, both on Teams. We start closed; that’s only with the panel, and not the student (defendant) or the AI officer of their School (prosecutor). We established everyone knew what’s going on, and we talked through what questions we wanted to ask. Then we went into the open session. 

This open session was unusual; the student had chosen not to attend, so we couldn’t ask them questions. We could ask the person bringing the case. It wasn’t a long session. 

We then went back to the closed session. And then we decided under what definition we decided this case fell, and what penalty (if any) we had to therefore apply. 

From there on, the secretary would take over. It was her task to communicate the outcome to all relevant parties. 

This was my debut! And only three working days later I would have the second already. You’re never bored if you work with academic integrity! 

Borders League Pensby

It was time for another Borders League race! This one organised by the Pensby running club. That meant going to the far end of the Wirral. That's quite far! I was really hoping someone would be willing to car share with me. I find driving 1.5 hours in order to run for 35 minutes, and then driving back another 1.5 hours, a bit frustrating; especially when I am highly inefficiently only transporting one person in my car, and on the other hand, not getting the advantages of good company. Unfortunately; I was not in luck. They weren't that many of us going, and it is not unusual for people to tag on some additional activity at the end before they go home.

The good news was that I got there without problems, that it was dry when I got there, and that I found a tiny little parking space for my modestly sized car. The bad news was that my legs felt a bit wobbly when I got out of the car. I wondered if that had something to do with my fatigue the day before. But I was going to be ok!

I soon I bumped into other Harriers. Most of them were men! I figured we, as the ladies, were probably going to incur a lot of penalty points for not fielding enough athletes. But so be it.

I did a little warmup run scouted start was. It seemed to have been in a different location from the previous time. And then it was time for the race briefing, and lining up for the start. I was on my new running shoes for the first time. So far they felt good.

I wanted to take it quite easy in the beginning. I clearly wasn't at my best. And I wasn't chasing anything like a category win or something like that; firstly, they don't exist in the Borders League, and secondly, if they did; I wouldn't stand a chance. The field is so strong! And also; we only had three ladies running. That meant 600 penalty points! That basically meant that how fast we would be going to make any difference whatsoever.

We first ran land-inwards, and then turned right onto the main road that had got me there. I had seen it from the car. We weren't on the actual road; we had to run on the cycle path annex pavement on the side. That was basically only one runner wide. And next to it was grass. So if you wanted to overtake anyone, you had to get onto the grass. And I was in hybrid shoes! A lot more grip on muddy grass than proper road shoes. So I did a fair bit of overtaking.

After a while, we turned right again, to head back in the direction of what undoubtedly was an old railway line. That road was in a bad state. I had already seen that on Google Maps. I was being careful! I saw a bloke misstep a bit in one of the potholes, and hurt himself. He did decide to continue, but his face looked pained. I did not want to share his fate.

Then we came off that road, and hit what was the home stretch. I tried to keep my speed up and overtake people. And I was keeping an eye on my watch. To the best of my knowledge, this route was exactly 8 km. I need to last to the end! But then suddenly the finish was there. The route was 150 m shorter than I thought. Not a problem! I suppose I could have had a go at overtaking one more woman if I would have known. But as I said before; it didn't matter.

After I finished I went to get my jumper from one of the Harriers support team, and went to cheer on remaining club members. I was just on time to shout Arwel over the finish. And I shouted at everyone else as well while I was at it. And then it was time for a picture. And then we could go home. Another long drive!

When the results came in I saw I had done it in just under 35 minutes. That's not very fast, but I think this was just not a very fast day for me. The one thing that struck me was that I was only 30 seconds slower than Anna, our star runner. By now she was quite obviously pregnant, and it must be slowing her down! There was only one woman between her and me, and I would've had a chance of outsprinting her. Crikey we were almost consecutive. And I had come in as 29th woman overall; I was happy with that. 

Im not sure what the situation is regarding the next fixture! But first things first: the next race will be Nick Beer. Just after a blood donation! That will be hard…

Club pic

Almost at the finish

Even closer

Leisurely walk to Deganwy Castle

It had been a tiring week. On Monday I had a bit of an intense night with Neil, and on Tuesday I was on the track, in rather awful weather. That makes the track running a bit trying, and the biking home as well. Then on Wednesday we had the underground trip, and on Thursday I was back on the hills. And, of course, I work too. By Friday I was really glad I didn't have anything on in the evening. And then on Saturday I went to Neil. 

We had decided we were going to do something not awfully strenuous, hadn't made up our mind on what exactly. But on the day we decided we were going to walk to Deganwy Castle. I was aware of its existence, and I also know there wasn't an awful load left of it. But that was about all I knew!

We descended the Orme, and walked to Deganwy over the beach. That was very scenic. And we had lunch in a structure that was probably designed exactly for that: it was basically a highly decorative bus stop where there was no bus route. Just benches and a roof. But this is greater Llandudno, so there were pillars. 

On the beach

We crossed through Deganwy and ascended a hill. Immediately, it was very peaceful! And soon we so the first remnants of a stone wall. The castle!

Reaching the remnants of the castle 

View from the castle over the estuary 

The ruins span two hillocks

I read up about it a bit afterwards. On this site, there definitely had been Roman activity, but it is quite possible the strategic location of this volcanic plug had been used by people before that time. There had been an actual castle there from the 7th century. In the 13th century, it had been seriously rebuilt, and later equally seriously destroyed.  And that is why there is so little of it left now. It was actually the Welsh who destroyed it; they didn't want to fall into the hands of the English.

After that we just walked back home. I thought it was enough for the day. When we sat on the sofa for a bit later on, I dozed off on Neil’s shoulder. It is highly unusual for me to sleep during the day! If I do there is something wrong. I am either ill or really exhausted. That week had taken it out of me more than I had even realised. But I had still managed to see remnants of a mediaeval castle I have never seen before!

Update frustrates show runners

I wanted to have a look at how the Thursday Night Hill run had gone. It didn't appear on my Strava. Or even the Garmin app itself. What was that? And then I noticed a notification on my Garmin app. There had been an update, and I might have lost the connection between my watch and my phone in that update. What? That is a bit of a blunder. How can Garmin accidentally disconnect all the Garmin watches from the Garmin app? Don't they know that people with Garmins love looking at the stats? Don't they know that people with Strava love broadcasting what they have been doing? I'm sure they know it. I'm sure there has been a lot of facepalming going on at their headquarters. 

Since I stopped my project Strava, where I put a picture on every activity, I haven't been looking at it as much. I don't look at my commute. I tend not to look too closely at the Thursday Night Hill. But one thing I always look at is the Track Tuesday. I record the laps,  and of course you have an idea of how consistent you are while you're on the track, but I always like having a bit of an overview at the end of it. But now I couldn’t. 

If I'm doing a race, I am highly likely to look at how it went. How did my speed develop throughout the course? And all of that was now lost. Oh no! I tried to reconnect phone and watch just like that, but that didn't work. I really had to take a few minutes by my computer, and do it properly. The notification on the app please provided a link to instructions of how to undo this screw-up. You had to really go far in and properly, properly disconnect them, Bluetooth and all, and then start from scratch. And I admit I am such a technology runner I thought that was important to do.

Two days later I would have a race. It would have been really annoying if I would not have been able to look at that in some app of  sorts! But I'm sorted again…

Tree coming down

In summer, I ended up talking with a neighbour. Our gardens border each other. His garden is higher than mine. And there is a tree standing on the edge; the southern edge of his garden. You can imagine that takes away a lot of light. And he said he wanted to remove it. Was I ok with that? It’s his tree, but inevitably the sawn off bits would end up in my garden. I didn’t mind. And then he said he would let me have the firewood. Even better! 

He said the best time to fell trees is winter. You only have to deal with the trunks and branches; not with leaves. 

He has started now! He’s doing it himself, with a battery-operated chainsaw. And it's a tree with very many trunks, and he is just doing one at a time. And he very kindly chopped up the wood into more or less stove-sized bits. It's great!

He has done two days’ worth of work now, and I have so far quite easily been able to remove the cut bits and put them in the garage I have some old garden wood there; by now it has seasoned long enough so that I can burn it, and thus make way for the new wood. I could imagine that at some point I will struggle to keep up, but I'm sure I'll find a way. And I'm curious to see how the garden feels without that tree towering above it!

The tree in question after the work had just started

Spoils below

Ladies’ trip in Llandudno

There was another ladies’ trip! In the west. And it concerned a mine I hadn’t been to. Exciting! It didn’t seem big, but I was keen to see new ground in good company. So after work I drove to the meeting point, where I already saw some caving-suited ladies. I changed too. 

This mine falls under the responsibility of a local caving club, and there were some members of that club there to show us around. They stood out a bit, because they were men. One of them showed us a map, and told us what to expect. And then we went in. One guy, Rich, stayed with us. There was a good group of us! I didn't know everybody's name.

Most of the mine is basically just an adit. It still has some rails in, but also a fair amount of mud, so your best bet is balancing on these rails. We went down the ladder and did just that. And I noticed Hydrobia and leeches in the adit! I don’t think they intended to be there. But the place is tidal and all sorts can wash in. 

The main adit

Leech and Hydrobia 

It also struck me that whole adit so far was through glacial sediments. I thought it would be bedrock. And we did read bedrock at some point, but I was quite amazed how much of the infrastructure was in loose(ish) material. And that was one point where the ceiling had come down. That was right underneath the road, and you could look at the road surface from below. A bit spooky!

Adit with good stone work

Beautiful Victorian trash

We went into a rather nice bit that went dead, and then went towards the far end of the main adit. We got to a collapse. It was quite muddy. Liz was at the front. Rich, who seemed to know her, ushered her on. She wasn’t keen! That should have been a hint. The rest of us pushed on. Gwyneth ahead, me third. 

In the sticky mud

It got a bit cartoonesque. We slithered over a mound, and ended up in really sticky mud. At every step you risked losing a welly. And Gwyneth vanished into the next collapse. It was a crawling jobby. In the sticky mud! But she didn’t see a way on. Rich insisted it was there. She asked if I wanted to have a look, so I slithered past her and the other lady and did. Nothing! We retreated. 

I suppose Rich had just been playing with us a bit. We now understood Liz. She probably knew! We were very muddy now. And we joined the rest for an explore of the rest of the mine. 

The highlight of the trip was a flooded shaft. Spectacular! And otherwise it was nice to see the whole mine at that level, but nothing could touch that shaft. And there was a little bit of workings in the level below, but we didn't go there as Liz checked it out and said the water was up to her knees, and nobody really fancied that. So after a group picture we headed back to the entrance.

Once out we did another group picture. There was the option of going to the pub afterwards, but I did not take that. It was a tiring week! I went straight home. It wasn't even far; not much more than half an hour. But I needed my sleep.

Surface group pic

It's always nice to be out with the ladies. And to see new ground. I did both! And I just dumped my dirty kit in a big bucket in the conservatory to worry about later. Work called again, and then running, and then more work, so it would be a while before I would be in the position to clean it, and check if I accidentally would have brought any leeches with me in my boots!