Cader Idris in October

Wednesday Oct 14, 2009

Spent part of my day off doing 2 reps of Cader Idris getting in just over 6000ft of ascent and 11 miles. Pictures are not great as I used a phone, choosing to leave the camera behind to save weight. The view from the top was hazzy, so did not bother to take any more. Still, very nice morning out for mid October.

12 years marks a time for some positive affirmations

Tuesday Oct 13, 2009

12 years ago to the day I turned up 90 minutes late for my 1st day in the OS Group (clearly a lad from the country who underestimated M25 traffic by quite a lot) at Watchmoor Park. So lets play one of those NLP type positive affirmation games listing the 1st 12 things which come into my head about what has been great about the last 12 years at Sun and hence in no particular order

• CS-CTE, the people, the legacy(not just the mid week beers email alias) and its unspoken philosophy for solving hard problems broadly similar to a synthesis of Von Neumann, Buddhism, a curious Jack Russell Terrier and The Rammones. If it was a religion, I would devote my life to it.
• Rob Hulme
• People called Phil, Andrew and Wayne who appeared at 1st meeting to have larger than life minerals, but in reality don't.
• DTrace
• Hyperactive children called White, Nash and Haslam
• ATS/SGRT/SR/Rational Process/KT
• The Melanson and Gardiner show
• The post cuddly OS Group
• Punjabi National Bank
• Being an OS Ambassador before the program was castrated and had it limbs removed.
• UK Academic customers, even the ones who expect you to commit Harakiri for the C compiler being removed from Solaris 2.0
• Work from Home

Looking forward to more of the same, just different as the scale of change steps up a notch or two.

Twin Peaks

Sunday Oct 11, 2009

Nothing to do with David Lynch's rather strange early 90's TV series, but a short local mixed terrain race in Aberystwyth.

I need to stop doing the Aber Twin Peaks race. Despite the history I ran past without knowing about most of it and the marshaling, organization, en-route support, etc and goody bag all being top notch, at 7 miles and 1000ft, it is probably incompatible to train for and race in events like Highland Fling and the Nant Peris Horseshoe given my own unique combination of natural ability (not) and time to train. My time was about 10 seconds faster than last year at just under 62 minutes. So a year of training and not much progress? What did strike me was that after 5 minutes and a cup of tea I felt like I could have started running again. Last year I was a wreak for the rest of the day.

What I suspect has happened is my VO2 max has remained much the same and the threshold between where the body chooses the form of fuel (Glycogen or fat) has improved. The later not being a significant part of this race as the body typically has over an hours Glycogen store. I am much better at hill climbing and longer distances than I was this time last year.

So you get what you train for and I will continue following my running interest of longer mountain based races, but I think I will start to include a flat speed (all things are relative) session at least once every 2 weeks in my training.

Farmers Weekly discussed the need to cull Badgers and Politicians

Saturday Oct 10, 2009

I worked on a farm as my summer job while I was at School and University, so I feel just in claiming some agricultural heritage by sweat and toil if not by decent. About once every 3 month I buy a copy of Farmers Weekly to keep some background in what is going on in agriculture.

Buying a copy of Farmers Weekly in mid-Wales has no shame attached to it. I bought a copy titled alone the lines of "Railway Enthusiast" for my 3 year old who is mad about trains. While I did not comment, I felt the need to tell the chap in W H Smiths in Manchester Airport who I had never seen before or will ever see again that it was not for me. Still small man has got my monies worth out of the train mag.

This weeks copy of F. W. has a Opinion article by a Norfolk farmer called David Richardson who comes across as red faced, older version of Ben Goldacre in wellies which is probably a compliment. I suspect he would be quite happy if certain types of politicians were culled from politics.

Sound Science, however, is about evidence and research. It examines all possibilities. For that reason a scientist will never concede any product or process is 100% safe. They will admit while existing knowledge shows something is 99.999% OK, there is an outside chance something may be discovered that prevents 100% designation. It is this reluctance towards absolutism that make then vulnerable to criticism by some.

My experience of mid-Wales farmers is a tendency to pick and choose from what science has to offer as it suits them, but that is probably a mirror of the population in general and our training to believe what the media tell us on science without questioning the quality of the copy.

Also in this issue was the Farmers Weekly's Awards 2009. A good example of an exception to David Richardson's wise words where Elin Jones the local A.M. (Welsh Assembly Government Member), and Christianne Glossop, the Welsh Chief Vet, have used a combined science and common sense approach to the very real problem of Bovine TB. There is no single "black and white" right course of action around this subject, but a complex set of tradeoffs and risks. Some may say it is political suicide for Elin won't be able to count on the support of the voting Badger population in Ceredigion any longer.

Back in the equally whacky world of diagnosis of Computer System problems, claiming to be 100% sure of the root cause or fix of a problem is leading indicator for knowing too little about a computer systems ecosystem to make a useful contribution. I think so at least, but am open to evidence which may change my mind on this matter.

Arenig Race

Tuesday Oct 06, 2009

Long, long time since I have been in the Arenig range and the Arenig race gave a perfect excuse. Pleased with a time of 1.19:54, it was as fast as I could have managed, with a bit of a sprinting tussle at the end. At 6 miles, it was shorter than I am used to, so found the faster pace of a shorter race a bit of a struggle(you get what you train for), but the running was great and the decent was fast. The last mile along a disused railway line seemed to go on for ages. Pictures in the usual place.

Cracking race, starting in the middle of nowhere. Best soup and cakes of any race west of Offa's Dyke.

After a customer visit yesterday, I took some time out on the drive home for a jog (still tired from Sunday's race) up Moel Famau. Intersected of Offa's Dyke, I think it must have the best view in Wales. To the west Snowdon, Cader Idris, Arenig's, etc and to the east Liverpool, Manchester, Wrexham, etc. OK, so it has the best view to the West in Wales. Caught the sun setting behind Snowdon as I was starting to descend, stunning. Note to self, must remember to carry camera on such adventures. Great training area and a place it would be reasonable to run at night with a head torch.