Random thoughts: Random thoughts and wafflings of an engineer

Great Manchester 10K race report.

Well the day dawned very changeable so I had a crisis about what to wear and take with me. I settled on a multilayer strategy and hoped the weather wouldn't turn too bad.
Caught the bus into town, arriving about 10 minutes before the start, leaving just enough time for a visit to the portaloos to appease my nervous bladder.

The usual slow plod over the start line with the annoying announcer trying to whip up enthusiasm. Vicky Pendleton was on the celebrity stand waving at people, looking attractive as always. There were a few good bands on route, I particularly liked the Rave Truck that was about 4k. The route has changed to remove some of the choke points. So no more running under the Man U stadium and no more running alongside the water at Salford Quays. This meant some of the distance markers were definitely in the wrong place, there was the longest km ever between 5k and 6k.

At about 5k it started spotting on to rain but didn't seem to getting any worse. I spotted a friend at the side of the road so ran across to him like a nutter, but once I got there I didn't have enough breath to talk much.  After dooming things by saying  to him that the weather wasn't too bad, at about 7k it started absolutely throwing it down with rain, I was glad I had my jacket with me as it turned very cold. I started to feel sorry for the people in costumes as they must absorb so much water. A lot of the official photographers seemed to vanish when the rain started. Slackers!

Finally I get across the line in 01:22:28  (a PB!) in 25346th place.. Last year I did it in 01:27:38, on the previous year 01:29:29, so despite my lack of proper training, I'm either getting fitter, or more determined.

 Started the walk to the bus stop, slipped on a wet man hole cover and twisted my ankle. Doh! Sat on the bus home, steaming gently and marvelled as the weather brightened up.

The goodie bag contained the usual collection of leaflets, a tshirt, a medal (feels cheaper than the 2007 and 2008 medal to be honest), energy drink, Tetley teabags (sadly no kettle or milk included) and a granola bar (eaten on the bus home).

For the last two years, I've entered the Manchester 5K Sizzler series of races. Every year, I've been impressed by the organization and professionalism of the event. It's so inclusive too - when they say everyone is welcome, they are! My 5k time is in the plodder/shuffler zone, but every time the marshalls haven't looked impatient and have offered good encouragement to me. The race timings are put up on the internet usually within an hour of the race finish, there's prizes and there are goodies at the end of the race. They're reshaped the course this year to try and prevent some of the problems that were caused by the torrential downpours of the British summer, so it will be interesting to see how that goes.

If you're based in the North-west of England - please give these races a try, they're not cliquey and they helped me improve my time by 3 minutes over the whole series. You can run the whole series of 4 races, or just enter individual ones on the night. Interested? Here's the entry form.

This weekend my guild is going to the Obsidian Sanctum for the first time. Usually you look on Wowwiki and read a dry as sawdust description of the fight, or watch some fuzzy youtube video. Google has lead me to the most awesome strategy walkthough  for killing Sartharion that uses a quilt, furry toys and a christmas tree. 

 I have no idea if the strategy works, I might come back on Monday with a long face, but the effort and ingenuity of the guide makes me smile.

I'm currently loving a new artist called Little Boots.

Have a listen to her on her Myspace page http://www.myspace.com/littlebootsmusic  and her personal web page  http://www.littlebootsmusic.co.uk/

Just passed my 11g New Features certification exam - I'm now an Oracle 11g Certified DBA.

I'll try and summarize some of the interesting new features over the next few weeks.

Welcome to random thoughts - I'm mainly planning on talking about things I encounter as part of my job, and hopefully offer some useful information to the folks out there.