Author: Tim

My Running Week 2014 #7

Just one run this week, the regular Thursday-night group run with the Plymouth Musketeers. This week’s route was the Saltash route which I completed in the 9 minute/mile pace group. This is quite a level route, out across the Tamar Bridge then a steady climb up Fore Street, Saltash, before turning back towards Plymouth. There is a sting in the route though, because just before crossing back over the river, there is a wickedly step climb that is probably the wickedest, steepest climb in all the club routes. I was pleased to complete the run smoothly and made a better attempt at the climb than my previous attempt a few months ago.

Unfortunately, my hopes of running at the weekend were halted by a horrible cold which saw fit to lay me low and rule out any thoughts of getting outside to pound the streets.

My Running Week 2014 #6

Just two runs again this week.

Run 1 was the regular Thursday-night group run with the Plymouth Musketeers. This week’s route was the Ernesettle route which I completed in the 9 minute/mile pace group. This is a route that I don’t like – it’s quite steeply downhill for the first mile or so, but then there is a long steep haul back up from Ernesettle along Biggin Hill. I started the run expecting to find it a bit of a struggle, so I was pleasantly surprised to find I felt quite strong all the way round.

Run 2 was a Sunday run from home, completing two big loops out and around Central Park, about 6.75 miles in total. It’s a good training route because there are some decent hills interspersed with more level and downhill sections.

My Running Week 2014 #5

Once again, the combination of busy-ness, poor weather and limited daylight hours meant that I only managed two runs this week.

Run 1 was the regular Thursday-night group run with the Plymouth Musketeers on Thursday evening. This week’s route was the Barne Barton route which I completed in the 9 minute/mile pace group. This is a pretty tough route which starts off fairly level but then descends quite steeply down to Saltash Passage on the Plymouth side of the Tamar Bridge before winding east, then back west towards the coast, the east again before commencing on the big climb up Bridwell Road. The route has two major climbs but Bridwell Road is the real killer, going on and on in one apparently un-ceasing section; and even when that climb is done there is still the regular climb back up to Kings Tamerton Social Club to finish off. Anyway, the run went well enough. I wouldn’t say I felt especially strong but I remained pretty comfortable all the way through and made it all the way up the Bridwell climb without slowing to a complete stop.

For Run 2, on Sunday morning, I took advantage of a rare window of relatively fine weather and ran long and slow all the way up and back the Plym Valley Trail from Coypool. I deliberately set off at quite a slow pace (10 minute/mile) and maintained this all the way up to the very end of the track (just about 6 miles). After turning round I allowed myself to run more quickly, but still focusing on comfort not on speed such that by the end of the run I had covered 12 miles, my longest distance yet, at an average pace of 9 minutes 36 seconds per mile with the last six miles all being under 9 minute 29 second pace and the final mile being at 8m39s pace. I was really pleased that I had managed to push my total distance up another notch and now feel totally confident about running half marathon distance (on a sensible course). It was particularly pleasing that I didn’t experience any real discomfort around my knees. What was quite amusing was that when I got home I just wanted to eat and eat and eat (and doze).

The Breathing Earth

One of my favourite things is to stumble upon interesting bits and pieces – cool graphics, neat ideas, words of wisdom etc. – and earlier this week I came across this little animation called The Breathing Earth. It’s a composite of monthly cloud-free geostationary satellite images of the Earth wrapped onto various map projections. The title refers to the changing appearance of the Earth’s surface through the year, with waxing and waning ice cover and north-south migrating tropical vegetation which gives the impression that the Earth is breathing with the seasons. It’s simple, but a neat visualisation of the continuously changing face of our planet.

Earth’s Weather 2013

I love this movie showing the Earth’s Weather 2013 as viewed by satellite from the WMO (World Meteorological Organisation). I have a similar movie from when I did an Open University meteorology course a few years back which focuses on precipitation rather than cloud, but I was never sure where it came from, and this new movie has quite a nice commentary that talks the viewer through the main features as they occur.

With this view of the Earth’s weather you get really good insight into how places such as the UK are located just perfectly to catch the near constant stream of mid-latitude storms that progress west to east around the globe, and can also clearly see the typhoon/hurricane season and the intense convective activity occurring (and pulsing daily) in the tropics. All in all, the movie provides a really great ‘big picture’ view of the planet’s dynamic atmosphere which will probably make you think a little differently about our own local weather in the future.

My Running Week 2014 #4

Just two runs this week which is a little disappointing but not altogether surprising given the wet weather.

Run 1 was a negative split run with the Plymouth Musketeers on Thursday evening – this is a run where you run out from the start for a set amount of time (25 minutes in this case) at a comfortable pace and then turn straight around and run back the same route, and so the same distance, but in less time. I did the return leg in about 21.5 minutes, so the run was roughly 9 minute/mile pace on the outward leg and 8 minute/mile for the return. It was a great run, only the second time I have done the negative split run but it is certainly one of my favourite club runs.

Run 2 was just a quick run in between rain showers on Sunday. Because I knew I wasn’t going to be out long I decided to run some hills some I ran down to the Peverell Park roads and the zig-zagged up and down some of them, pushing myself as hard as possible on the ups and relaxing/recovering on the downs. I have to say that it wasn’t the most fun I have had running; I think I went a little hard up the first few hills and then paid for it on the later ones. But it was still good to get out and do some useful work.

Tenacious

I just finished reading Tenacious, the sixth novel in Julian Stockwin’s Kydd series. In this book, Kydd finds himself a junior Lieutenant aboard the ship Tenacious as it campaigns in the Mediterranean to combat Napoleon Buonaparte’s attempts to rampage his army through Egypt to Turkey. Kydd comes into contact with Admiral Nelson and is involved in the famous Battle of the Nile and, on the back of seeing Nelson’s brilliant and decisive leadership, he sets out to take opportunities, and associated risks, to show his own potential as a leader. His first attempt at leading a small action ends in failure and he is captured by the French but is then fortunate to be part of an immediate exchange of prisoners. He then plays a vital role in the defence of Acre against the advancing French army although, in the end, it requires a huge slice of good fortune for the city to withstand the siege.

I found the previous Kydd novel a little lacking in action, but I would say that Tenacious was the best of the series so far with a good amount of uncertainty in the plot, plenty going on and not too much emphasis on Kydd’s relationship with his ‘particular friend’ Nicholas Renzi – a character who I find to be somewhat tedious and over-blown. So Kydd’s story now moves on, with him being increasingly noticed by those in the higher echelons of the Royal Navy, something which will surely lead to rapid advancement of his career.

The Fort

The Fort is an unusual, one-off, novel by Bernard Cornwell that is based on a real campaign of the American War of Independence. The really unusual part of the novel is that there is no obvious hero and it is not at all clear which side Cornwell, and thus the reader, is supposed to be on – the British Army who make and defend the fort of the novel’s title or the American forces sent to capture it and send the British packing. Bernard Cornwell’s novels usually follow a very successful formula – obvious hero (e.g. Sharpe) is involved in campaign, leads small band of forces in against-the-odds battles whilst sparring with obvious anti-hero (sometimes form the same side) and becoming involved with ravishing beauty (usually linked in some way to anti-hero). In contrast, The Fort, cuts between the two sides, describing first the British movements, then the Americans in an alternating pattern that gradually weaves the whole action together. There are potential hero figures on both sides and in the early chapters it is a little confusing if you are trying to follow this story according to the usual Cornwell formula, but after a while, it becomes clear that this story is set out differently, and then it is possible to let the plot unfold comfortably. In the end there is a (sort of) hero figure but his role is quite understated whilst there are multiple key characters on both sides who all get a good slice of the action.

This is an interesting story that promises a more exciting conclusion than the one that eventually occurs (which is, of course, constrained by the real events it follows) but after an uncertain start I found I enjoyed the way the story was delivered and the development of multiple characters.

Watchman

Watchman is an early novel by Ian Rankin, creator of Detective Rebus, set in the world of the secret service spies (Watchers) and the IRA bombing campaign in London. Following an apparent blunder on a simple mission at the start of the story, the central character of the story is an experienced Watcher who finds himself sent to Northern Ireland to carry out what purports to be a simple observing task but ends up being anything but. With his life very much under threat from unexpected areas he is forced to forge an expected alliance of sorts with an IRA terrorist and then uses this alliance to uncover the truth behind a web of corruption and betrayal within the service.

Parts of this story race along with really high intensity, particularly the section describing the immediate aftermath of the observation in Ireland, and are really gripping. But, overall, the story is perhaps a little convoluted and, at times, unbelievable. Still a good read though.

The Music Instinct

Having recently read Philip Ball’s excellent book ‘Critical Mass’ and having a deep interest of music I was quick to acquire and read his book ‘The Music Instinct’ in the hope that it might explain the mystery of why music has such an amazing impact when we listen to it. The book was interesting and informative, but I found it quite hard going in places and it really needs a sound-track so that points made in the text are instantly illustrated with examples. I discovered a lot about how music is constructed and how and why notes fit together but I don’t feel I got much closer to understanding why music has the mental and physical impacts it can sometimes generate.