July 2009 Archives

The C

The C, originally uploaded by samwebster.

I bought a new bike. The weather has been so poor that it's still in the garage in its wrapping. I'm surprised at my own patience.

Nana's Trees

Jack can see a distinctive pair of trees on the hill from his bedroom. They stand together away from anything else.

He can see a similar pair of trees from the bedroom window of his nana's house (100 miles or so from our house). Therefore they're the same trees in his eyes, and are called "Nana's trees".

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Augmented Reality + Facial Recognition + Social Networking

Yipes. There's some forward thinking here. I'm not sure if I'm scared by this or very interested.

Stress and Illness

A common theme on this website (and the reason for the domain name, "dontbeasalmon.net") is the link between stress and illness.

Here's a brief article on ScienceDaily.com: Starve A Fever, Feed A Cold, Don't Be Stressed. There are notes about the field of "psychoneuroimmunology" (which is a new one for me) and the study of the effects of stress upon our immune systems.

There are some interesting comments about cross-training psychology students in biology and physiology to aid future cross-discipline development. I'm surprised this doesn't already happen.

Kitted Up

I'm slowly getting kitted up to get back to triathlon. The last time I raced I used whatever kit I could find that I already had, but this time I'm taking it fairly seriously. And my cycling stuff (for example) is one or two decades old now.

Triathlon is an annoyingly expensive business so I've started looking for a bike early. 2010 models will be starting to appear soon and popular 2009 models are starting to disappear from online stocks. VAT will go up again at the end of the year and I think now is a good time for deals.

The next trick is to decide whether to stick tri bars on a road bike or go full TT (lo pro as we use to call them). I've got a training bike to do much of my mileage on so a race bike would be a second bike. I fancied building up a bike from a decent frame, but buying a whole bike new can be really good value (all those parts quickly add up). The races I'm planning on are a mix of hillyish & flattish, so that doesn't help.

So I saw a good deal on the never never. Interest free too. Carbon, but not stupidly expensive. Hopefully something to reward my engine development and training, something that will save me minutes rather than seconds, and something that will last as long as my previous bikes. Nice colour too.

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Excitement

I'm getting quite excited. This is unusual, I know.

One of my Google Reader feeds showed that the route map for the Dublin marathon is now available online. Downloading and poring over that, plus starting my third week of my marathon training plan and running the longest (and most tiring?) long run yet on the weekend is all leading me forward. The goals I have seem really tough, giving me uncertainty but motivation to push. The route gives the reality. The dead legs yesterday suggest I'm pushing my body into something new. It's all good, exciting stuff.

I also entered a couple of races yesterday. I entered a middle-distance aquathlon at Dorney and a hilly half-marathon in Pembrokeshire. Neither are classic preparatory events for a flat marathon but they suit my purposes well, as my purposes stretch beyond October 26th.

Looking to the future keeps me moving.

Biking with Jack!

Biking with Jack!, originally uploaded by samwebster.

We cycled to the park (and around it several times) and home again for the first time today. He had a few spills in the park but he's flying along on the bike!

FuelBelt

FuelBelt, originally uploaded by samwebster.

These long runs are starting to get really long. This is the first time I've taken energy drink, water and a gel.

My long run moves up to 29km next week and then 32km two weeks later. I've got four 32km runs scheduled before Dublin.

I'm going to need to buy another box of gels.

Worn away

Worn away, originally uploaded by samwebster.

I'd not looked at the soles of these shoes for ages. That left shoe shows the difference between my right & left leg actions when I run. The right leg has to do more work than the left as the left weakens. I'm working in the gym to change this (and therefore become more efficient and faster).

I reckon when I wear down my next pair of shoes the difference won't quite be as great. I'm getting through lots of shoes!

Podcasts

Rhi and I have been chatting this week about getting the podcast series moving again. It has merely been on pause as Rhi and baby Dexter have been settling into their new roles of mother and baby and we always intended to pick up where we left off.

We going to dust off the recording equipment and try to improve the sound quality (each of us is on opposite sides of the Bristol Channel), although this might be a big ask, and get ourselves organised soon.

I hope you're still subscribed to the iTunes feed.

Drug testing

This is why drug testing scares me. A recent study, summarised in this slowtwitch.com article, demonstrated that athletes ingesting a mere 5ug of the nandrolone precursor 19-norandrostenedione (NOR) tested positive for this anabolic steroid using existing procedures. That's a tiny amount. It's a trace amount. It's an amount that you wouldn't ingest to improve your performance but the kind of amount that is considered a contaminant or trace element within another food.

Should governing bodies risk destroying an honest athlete's career with science we don't yet fully understand?

Links:

- SlowTwitch - How Much is Enough?
- PubMed abstract & links - Watson P., Judkins C., Houghton E., Russell C., Maughan R.J., Urinary nandrolone metabolite detection after ingestion of a nandrolone precursor. Med. Sci. Sports Exerc., Vol. 41. pp.766-72, 2009.

Finishing up?

It's been a little quiet recently as we come to the end of the academic year. The rest of the university finished and shut up shop ages ago, or so it feels. In medicine we're in a revision week this week and students will be hitting the final first year exams next week. The other years are pretty much done (and from what I hear, they've done well too). After that we hit a revision period for students retaking exams, they'll then sit those supplementary papers in August, and before you know it we'll be welcoming the next batch of students onto the new Swansea four-year medicine programme.

Of course that programme is going to be all new, so we've got a shocking amount of work to do this summer and I imagine that next year is going to be hard work for staff and students alike. Jo and I will be teaching human structure every week for two years. Ouch. Our student contact hours have got to be very high compared with other courses, but that's one of the best ways of learning anatomy, we feel.

Good luck to the first years for next week's exams, and I hope you all have a great summer. Come back in September fresh and eager.