Small time exploration

I'm bad at travelling but I'm good at getting lost. I don't get lost by making navigational mistakes, more I intentionally lose myself as best as I can. I enjoy the feeling. I'm good at exploring and finding my way out. At the very least I can backtrack and follow the breadcrumbs. My son Jack hates this and it's taking me a while to convince him that sometimes, when you have the time, getting lost is a good thing.

Away on holiday these skills tend to come to the fore. Cycling down the coast I can take the time to pick random turns, following a general sense of direction if not the map itself, often with a general idea of a roughly planned out route that usually takes too long because of unexpected hills or sightseeing. Or maybe because I got lost.

Ready?

After finishing the last high intensity training block & feeling dizzy tired I've been on an easy week of training for the last 5 days. A little running, a little pootling on the fixie, a little splashing in the pool. After just a couple of days I was feeling good. I'm keen to race again & have been entering running races through October, November & December. I might regret that when the keenness wears off but it's always good to get muddy in the winter and races get you outside. Next year I'll try to race in August, but this year avoiding racing in August has also meant avoiding racing in the rain.

We're off to Pembrokeshire for a week away tomorrow (only booked on Monday). Maybe I'll chill out a bit and not think about work for a bit. Maybe the kids will love it and be beautifully behaved. I'm taking my bike so my peak(ish) week of training will be running on the Pembrokeshire coastal path, which I know quite well in the parts that we're going to, and cycling on new roads near the sea. The weather forecast is looking much better, as it often does when the kids are due to return to school. I'll be doing all my swim training in the sea with the jellyfish. They always used to get really big jellyfish around there.

When we get back the new students will have arrived, settled in, and I'll be teaching again. That week will be an easy week of training with some taper intervals leading up to my last triathlon of the year at Bala. I'm very interested to see what I can do after some well organised training and a taper.

I've got a ton of work to get done before I can go. I'll pack tomorrow.

High intensity training

My training finally shifted away from largely easy, aerobic base training to more intense race-like training recently. I broke my foot, was in plaster for 6 weeks and had to go back to aerobic training to rebuild my endurance and general fitness. This is my first year of triathlon racing (I've completed 2 triathlons in the past - in 1996 and 2003 I think) and my second year back into an endurance sport so I have a lot of basic training to get through to develop my fitness and skills for each sport.

My mileage and hourage (no, I don't think that's a word) has dropped but my sufferage and knackerage (them neither) have gone up. Woah, high intensity stuff is tough! From run training last year I know that anaerobic intervals on the track can have a profound effect on my running, but also that they wipe me out & I can't do them often. So, joy of joys, with triathlon I get to do intervals 3 times a week, once for each sport, plus tempo pace stuff.

Each session is met with a little trepidation, rather like a 2 hour run. Once started, I hammer it. Being able to hammer it to the end is something else though, and something that has noticeably improved over the last 6 weeks. Speed, lap times, time spent at high heart rates and at high speeds have also measurably improved. Running 800s at 5min/mi pace really helps with technique and efficiency. Steady runs after these feel different, more on the balls of your feet and more forward. Not that I'm getting much steady running in at the moment.

This week I'm barely running 35km but that's a session of 800s, a hilly run and a 30min run at 10k pace straight off a 20km tempo bike. No wonder I feel so tired. The fatigue from these workouts is quite different from the fatigue of high volume training.

I seem to be prepared for it though. Everything's holding up under the strain and I have an easy week next week to recover and test some elements of my fitness. Hopefully this will kick my race results up a notch for Bala, Dale and the Cardiff half marathon.

Golf has too many rules

Day 373: Golf has too many rules, originally uploaded by samwebster.

I was complaining about the number of rules in golf in a 365 Flickr photo last week and then this happens in the USPGA:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/golf/8916112.stm

Mid-season kit failures (cont)

I got my iBike power meter back from Velocomp in the USA, replaced under warranty after failing in the rain. It cost me to send it back across the Atlantic but it's working better than ever & has been happily out in the rain a few times. I really missed training with power and all the other data this magical little devices measures, displays & records.

Crud did a great job of replacing the smashed part of my roadracer mudguards for the cost of the postage. Send them a few stamps with your address & they post back the bits you need. Great idea! The new part looks like it has had a little redesign so they're still working on these things, which is also great. Easy to fit, and they fit in very slim gaps.

Sci-con also did a great job of admitting there has been a problem with some of the roller bags and sorting me out. My saddlebag fell off on a ride and was never seen again. I'm glad neither my phone or wallet were in it! They misunderstood and just sent me the plastic bit that attaches to the saddle (I still had that bit) but then sent me a complete new saddle bag and roller mounting when I pointed out the problem. From Italy! Nice. I had two of the bags so now I have three roller mounts. Maybe I should stick them on some of my other bikes. I only lost a tube, tyre levers and some patches. After this I'll definitely buy another diddy saddlebag for my race bike from Sci-Con. The roller mount doesn't fit the TT bike because the saddle is waaaay forward.

The strap on my Garmin 305 failed but instead of faffing about with getting a replacement from Garmin and potentially being without my main heart rate monitor and training computer for some time I just bought the quick release kit as it has a lovely big Velcro strap and comes with a nice clip-in bike mount so I don't have to use pipe lagging round my handlebars. Less than £15 from Amazon.

I splashed out and bought some more Castelli cycling shorts. Cycling shorts can be expensive but damned important if you're riding a lot. A pair of Adidas shorts I have leave smiley shaped sores on my butt if I cycle in the rain with them. I've stopped using nappy cream on Annabel & save it for myself. I never have enough training kit and really should buy some more running shoes, cycling shoes, socks, shorts, waterproof bits, jerseys, etc, etc, etc. Good stuff tends to survive the miles though.

Nothing major, but stuff that slows me down. I need to change the sealed bearing units in a front wheel and clean up some rust on the forks of my training bike (yes, its steel!) and some other typical maintenance stuff but that's ok. A lot of that work gets done in the winter as long as it doesn't fail before. I've also had to faff with other life hassles that really shouldn't exist like chasing Littlewoods for furniture they've charged me for but never delivered and chasing Apple for an iTunes card that they didn't authorise when they sold it. I hate jumping through hoops to solve problems other people cause. I love it when people accept responsibility and solve your problems like SciCon, Crud and Velocomp did. Hopefully training-wise I should be ok for a couple of weeks. I do need to find a wetsuit that fits though...

Cycling home

I got a couple of Flip video cameras, so thought I'd test them out by cycling home & filming it. They're nice and simple, and work well!

Swansea-Gambia Link Project 2010

A group of students are out in the Gambia looking at health in the context of international development. If you want to find out more and keep up with what they're doing, take a look at their blog:

swanseagambialinkproject2010.blogspot.com

Gower Sprint Triathlon 2010

So this has been a challenging weekend so far. I'm not sure what the lesson is but it's in there.

I invited a mate and his family to come and stay with us and to enter today's Gower Triathlon. Garry and I used to bike race together when we were half our current ages and now we have somehow both drifted towards triathlon. I thought it might be a good battle as I guessed my swim would be better than his, his bike leg would be faster than mine and who knows what would happen then in the run?

I took him round the bike course yesterday and we had a swim in Port Eynon while the families played on the beach (we did too a little!) The weather ended up being a lot better than expected and I seemed to collect most of the sun on my head. Normally I have a cap with me, but I thought it was going to be rainy, not sunny. Later in the evening a stonking headache began, and when I looked in the mirror I realised that the cause was a red face, rather than a resurgence of the mild fever I had earlier in the week. I'd fried my brain.

Trying to get an early night and a good sleep before the 5am start paracetamol dulled the pain but I got little sleep and was up all night peeing. But not drinking anything. That can't be good. At 5am I felt no better but drove to the race with Garry and a wet flannel on my head drinking as much as I could keep in my stomach to try and rehydrate. I didn't think I'd start the race.

Registered, kit together, transition sorted, wetsuit half on and it was clear I was going to at least get in the water. Maybe the cold water would help. My wetsuit fits poorly and the cold water flowing down my neck probably alleviated my symptoms. What the hell, race on.

It was great to bump in to some of the club guys on the beach & I found one of my students (Alistair) - a good swimmer. I'd like to hold his feet in the swim. The race eventually started & I just hammered the swim, got some draft, was pretty straight to the buoys & came out right next to Alistair. Excellent. Good swim.

I've been poor at running to transition but ran faster today up the beach, feeling ok. Hammering the bike up the hill out of Port Eynon I picked up most of the places ahead of me, another before the climb, another on the climb and then belted the rest of the bike course on my own. Lots of rain to keep my poor head cool and a course I knew really well. Lovely. I took the descent back down to the beach a lot faster than I'd expected too so I must have been having fun. Another good effort.

Off the bike, out onto the beach for the run and I was clear behind and ahead. I had a big gap to pick up so I pushed hard for the first lap through soft sand, shallow dunes, huge muddy puddles and boardwalks. At the turn to lap 2 it was clear I wasn't catching and no-one was catching me so I kept up a decent effort but took safer lines after nearly turning my ankle on a couple of hidden holes. Finish safe. I knew I was in 3rd or 4th place.

There was a good crowd at the finish and a nice finishing chute so I enjoyed that. As I was recovering Garry finished, way too close to me for comfort. Fit boy! Shortly after him Cardiff Tri jerseys started appearing, plus more students and friends. Great!

Waiting around for the prize giving my headache and sore neck started to reform & I started to feel like crap again. I don't understand how I was able to race at that intensity feeling that bad before and after. Maybe it was the cold water. I still don't feel any better now, writing this.

Officially 4th, Richard Jones was kind enough to stand aside for me to be awarded 3rd (open category age group) on account of him being an awesome ex-international triathlete. Thanks, Rich. A nice bit of glory for me, my face in the paper and a nice prize.

And my name next to Richard Jones' on the results sheet. Just don't look at the time difference.

Summer's here?

Just as I was getting used to the long, mostly easy riding, running and swimming my training has switched at last to more race-like speed work. Of course, I've been racing since April or May, so I'm a bit out of sync with my original and current training plans. I just finishing my winter training, for example. In July. The broken foot of February has rather confused my racing year, but hasn't dampened it too much (6th at the Welsh Tri champs in Broad Haven at the end of my final block of winter training on tired, tired legs was a great indicator and great fun).

Funnily, after anaerobic intervals on the track and in the pool and some muscular endurance intervals on the bike last week my (shortened) long run on Saturday didn't go as well as usual. I felt bloody awful. I cut the already short 1 hour 45 mins run down to about an hour and a half and plodded my way out and back by the Loughor estuary at around 8min/mi pace. Horrible. I barely managed 12 miles. Happily I don't think it rained though.

I assumed it was a good sign of the new stresses of the speed work. After a good night's sleep and a bit of a lie in to try and avoid the rain (failed) I also cut short my planned Sunday training to just 2ish hours on the bike and a 45 minute run off. I mucked about a bit trying to recalibrate my iBike power meter before it failed in a light shower, and it continued to rain for most of the ride. With a nice hill and a good wind my legs felt strangely good and strong. Getting off the bike I ran an easy 10km in 43:34 at around 7min/mi pace. Weird.

What a difference a day makes, eh?

Talking of which, my "Remote Wind Sensor" (rubber bung, some tubing and a wind catching flangey-thing) arrived for my iBike this morning. I'm hoping I can get it dried out, fitted and calibrated for tomorrow's bike intervals. More rain is forecast and I'd love it if this kept the rain out of my iBike and gave me power data for the whole ride. Oh yeah, and my mudguards exploded on the bike too. The bit connected to the rear brake broke and the mudguard got pulled forward by the tyre. I found the bits, took it all apart and stuffed then into jersey pockets - I wasn't far from home. I've no idea how the back bit snapped off though. They're clever modular things, these Crud Catcher Roadracer mudguards, so I should be able to get the bit I need. I'll get some Duck tape on it tonight as a temporary fix.

I'm racing at the Gower Sprint Triathlon this weekend with a good, old (?) friend so I've shunted a few workouts around this week and cut out the track intervals to balance training intensity and give myself a little recovery and avoid the dastardly dead legs of last Saturday. I'd better get back on the TT bike & see if I can remember how to go fast for 25km. I was just getting the feel for standard distance races too. There are a couple of short climbs though, so those will be a blast. I'll be able to swim HARD too hopefully as its only 750m. As it's exam week for the students this week I'm looking forward to thinking about something else. If I get the marking done in time I might be able to make a long weekend of it.

Teaching

I've given a couple of lectures over the last couple of weeks on the first 18 days of development and the embryology of the cardiovascular system. If you're a Swansea student looking for my blog notes go back to Blackboard and you'll be able to download the whole lecture plus the other stuff I linked to.

If you're a non-Swansea student go on to my Medicine page and grab the podcasts. They cover the same content as the lecture, more or less. More, probably.

Llanelli 10k (2010)

Finishing speed, originally uploaded by samwebster.

Check out the heart rate for this sucker!



It was hot yesterday so my HR was a tad high, but see it kick up again at half way! It hits 95% of max HR by the end. It's a positive split but I reckon the second half of that course is slower than the first half anyway. The legs were tired from racing at Windsor & a full week's training, so maybe I was just slower in the second half. Hammered it though.

Good to see the legs are back to 36mins already!

Windsor race report

I also raced the Gower Duathlon a few weeks ago in which I ran a steady 39 minute first run (my foot was still healing), biked a quick hilly 43km in which my legs died after the final climb up from the Gower Heritage Centre and then held on for 7th place overall in the 5km run. A beautiful race on a beautiful morning, but I clearly haven't sussed my pacing for a 40km bike leg.

I raced in the Gloucester Sprint Triathlon 2 weeks ago & paced that much better to get 3rd in my age-group and 5th overall (beaten by 2 vets!) with a quick swim, a nice fast bike and a well paced run. I wasn't moving as fast as I wanted but I moved fast enough.

So last weekend in Windsor my legs were feeling ok after an easyish week of training. I certainly wasn't peaking but those legs have been getting faster & faster. They like racing! Funnily enough I was pretty chilled on the start line. So chilled that I didn't position myself particularly well. I got on the right side ready to cut across the current of the Thames but a few places back from the front. With the horn my start was unlike any other start before, and I swam over other triathletes as others swam over me & I easily found myself clear out in front with 2 other swimmers. I went hard to get on the next guy's feet then cruised in his draft upstream overtaking groups of swimmers from 2 or 3 earlier waves, turned into the downstream current at about 900m & dropped him. My swim got a bit wiggly and I missed the turn to the exit a little but was out of the water 2nd in my wave.

It's a long run to transition but hey, I'm always happy to run. A steady transition, feet in the shoes nicely for only the second time this year, and comfy on the bike on the way out. My pace for the first third was probably spot on but after dying at Gower I eased up a little through the middle section, swapping places with a few other riders. I dumped them all on the hill up to the Great Park (that ain't no hill if you train in South Wales!) and bombed downhill back to Windsor.

Through T2 I spotted the guy that came out of the swim behind me & shouted at him, "hey, where did you come from?" We'd been swapping places on the bike. He followed me out of transition but some lovely, clever race organiser had stuck a hill on the first part of the course (seriously, no sarcasm there) & I blasted up it to drop him. Rar! With the dead turns throughout the 3 lap course I could see my tasty gains. 1st lap was pain & fast (quads hinting cramp time was coming), 2nd lap was less painful & fastish, 3rd lap was full on effort & bury-yourself-in-it-pain by the end. Gorgeous. My times were a little off what I wanted but my pacing was good again. There were a hell of a lot people to run around.

Great race, great marshals. I could probably have swum harder & I could have paced the flat bike more evenly. Good lessons & I've got a better feel for the distance.

2:10.21, 25th overall (2500 entered?) but only 7th in my age group. That's about the same time as James Cracknell did last year & he got 4th. My bike leg was indeed a little slow for the top 30. I'll hammer it next time, shave a couple of minutes & get on that podium.

Official results here .

Neuroscience podcast 4: autonomic nervous system

Phil & I recorded another neuroscience podcast. Number 4 covers the autonomic nervous system and we talk about the anatomy, the wiring of the neurones, and the neurotransmitters involved.

I might have to listen to that neurotransmitters section a few more times.

MP3: Neuroscience podcast 4 - autonomic nervous system.

iTunes: Neuroscience podcast 4 - autonomic nervous system (enhanced format).

Anatomy & embryology podcast 24

OK, I finally finished the latest podcast in which Rhiannon and I talk about what we think are the important aspects of the anatomy of the lower limb. This is the first part of two, and is 45 minutes long. We talk about the bones of the foot and ankle, the knee, the sciatic nerve, veins, and compartments of the leg. We've got another 5 topics to talk about in episode 25.

Get it from iTunes or from the Medicine page. The iTunes enhanced version has a bunch of images in it.

Learning

Here's a great blog entry about learning for educators and lurners alike:

Donald Clark Plan B: 10 techniques to massively increase retention

There's a lot of really good stuff in there, hopefully stuff we're already trying to do in Swansea. Note number 9: mobile technology. The author talks about drip feeding assessment via those mobile devices that we all have in our pockets. Hopefully some of you have noticed that I've been coincidentally trying to do exactly this using the medium of the moment: Twitter.

Twitter pretty much started with mobile devices (you could use the internet and SMS text messages to post tweets really easily). Can yours follow twitter? If you have a mobile browser on your phone then, yes. Otherwise see this twitter mobile phone FAQ (although that's a little bit retro).

Follow me @samuelwebster and keep your eyes on the twitterwall (which is also linked to from the elearning section of the Swansea Blackboard).

I'll be drip feeding questions that you should be able to answer. You know, the sort of stuff that comes up in exams.