This was a photo I took exactly a year ago - while I was living (in a tent) in Queenstown. April was a big month last year - lots of work at the start, plus road trips to Milford and later around the south coast and walking on Stewart island.
4th Apr, 2008
1 Year Ago
16th Mar, 2008
Sport Relief Liverpool
Did the 3 mile sport relief today in Liverpool. I have been training since January for this - on the C25k plan. I ran with a couple of mates in 26:26 which is well under my target of 30 mins. The pace at the start was slow, dodging runners, walkers and a few prams and wheel chairs. By lap 2, a lot of people had done a mile and finished, leaving us lots more space.
Overall, pretty well orgainised and run, with just a few over narrow sections causing congestion. Pretty chuffed I did it!
Next target is a 10K in June, and a sprint distance triathlon in April / May, depending whats on. I aim to do a Half Ironman and the Helvellyn Tri at the end of summer, but thats for another post!
5th Mar, 2008
Prism - the easy way to deal with web apps
I spend a lot of time at work using Kerio Mail’s web interface - its a full mail client in a browser window. The catch is it gets lost in a sea of tabs in firefox and its an annoyance to log back in every time I end up closing or crashing firefox…
Enter prism from the mozilla labs - its a version of firefox that just supports one site, with no status bars, menus or anything else. It rus as a seperate program in windows, so its always there on my taskbar, and the lack of menus and panels gives more room for the web app - most web apps dont need back buttons etc. I run one of these for gmail and one for kerio - which works out well.
5th Feb, 2008
The End of Flickr?
A while ago, Yahoo bought Flickr. This was bad - I have a hatred of Yahoo accounts. Maybe not justified or reasoned, but I still hate em. I have put up with the awful login system, lack of persistent logins etc etc - as I love flickr.
However, I cant imagine what will happen if Microsoft buy the whole of Yahoo. Microsoft passport? The only login and identity system I hate more than Yahoo……. Bad. Lets hope someone can come up with a convincing alternative (copy?) of Flickr, and a good tool to export accounts. Maybe Google’s Picassa will be the one. Or just maybe the Americans have something like our Monopolies and Mergers commission and can stop this mess……
28th Jan, 2008
Flickr Goodness
Flickr have recently released a all new Uploader app - which I totally missed… But its pretty cool, adding in the ability to sort, title and describe before posting. More when I get chance to play with it a bit more.
Also worthy of note is the new stats system (pro accounts only) which you must turn on if you want it. For me it shows that my Lake District photos are the most popular - many years old…
28th Jan, 2008
c25k Week 1
Finished week one. 3 runs, no injuries and an average of 2 miles per session (including warm up/down). Week 2 starts tonight.
28th Jan, 2008
Student Loan Hikes
The interest rate for student loans in the UK is 4.8%. Thats massive - the rate has doubled… I have a fair amount of money to repay to the student loan people, and this news is not welcome. The worst thing is I found out on Facebook of all places - communication is pretty much useless from the loans company.
So in short, I am more broke than I thought I was.
23rd Jan, 2008
Couch to 5 km
Time for a bit more detail on the running program that I am following. Its the Couch to 5 km (often known as c25k) provided by Cool Running. The program aims to se a run / walk interval traing method to get you from nothing to 5km in 9 weeks. The workouts are all around 30 minuites long and you need to complete 3 a week. Its fine to use a treadmill or run outside - whatever floats your boat.
The first week for example involves a 5 min brisk walk to warm up, then 20 mins of alternating 60 seconds running then 90 seconds walking. Finish with a 5 min brisk walk to cool down and go find a shower. Week 2 progresses by making you run 90 seconds and then walk for 120 seconds and so on.
So far I am part way through week one on the treadmill - being carefull to stick with the plan. Last time I went out too fast and got shin splints which stopped me training for a month!
Heres some links to get you started:
The Original c25k program from Cool Running
A script for converting your iTunes playlists into interval training
Robert Ullery provides mp3 podcasts with all the interval training sorted out. Top notch!
18th Jan, 2008
Sport Relief
Just signed myself up for the 3 mile (5km) event at Liverpool. I have been whining about putting weight on for months, and its got real bad since coming home - I eat out of a kind of morbid self destructive streak. So now I have a goal, and a plan.
I thought about following the c25k - Couch to 5km plan for quite some time. I have a race to run, a new pair of trainers and a treadmill. Therefore I have no excuses!
Click on the widget thing if you want to sponsor me…… Aim is simply to run 100% of the distance.
If you have trouble with the widget and its pop-up - either enable pop ups or use this direct link - Sponsor Me
18th Jan, 2008
Murder in Taupo
Sad news today, a backpacker from Orkney was beaten to death in Taupo, New Zealand. This is quite strange to me - I always felt very safe there and I have spent quite a bit of time around Taupo’s bars… Weird when something like this happens somewhere you know.
My condolences to the Family of Karen Aim and I hope the New Zealand police can bring this to a swift conclusion.
More at the beeb.
