Run (x4), swim, gym (plus radioactive fruit and a radio monopoly)

Kew Gardens – The Palm House

I went for a run on Monday – 13.7km (8.5 miles). The weather has changed and it was bordering on warm, although I suppose it is too early to start complaining about the heat.

Monday evening saw me miss the swim doctor class for the first time in 7 weeks – it was the cycle club AGM and I always help out by taking minutes and trying to ensure we follow the company’s rules.

The regular 8 hill reps on Tuesday morning were, rather depressingly, even harder than usual – one of those days when you wonder if the effort is worth it and whether you’re making any progress at all. Just over 9km and 289m of ascent (5.7 miles and 948 feet). Getting them done was good – but doing them was a real slog.

I felt better than expected on Wednesday but I think I should avoid running three days in a row so I constructed a third raised vegetable bed and started to remove a sizeable mound of soil and rubble at the end of the garden.

Having missed the lesson on Monday I knew I should keep the swimming going so I went in the evening. I didn’t try swimming any faster but wanted to know if a kilometre would be any easier than it was before the lessons – and I think it was. I’m nervous about trying to do it faster – it would be depressing if I couldn’t. The nasal spray is doing a good job on my sinus’ reaction to the chlorine.

Thursday was warm and bright so I fitted in the week’s long run of 22.2km (13.8 miles). First time this year wearing lycra running shorts and no compression top under the shirt. It was sufficiently warm that I ran two different loops so I could get a slurp of water half way round from the bottle I left outside the house – but I still lost over 1kg (just under 2.5lbs) during the run and caught a bit of sun.

Gym on Friday morning, going easy on the tired legs and concentrating on arms, shoulders and core – if I’m going to swim faster, I think I need to pull harder in the water.

Friday afternoon we drove up to London and had a very good Turkish meal in the evening near the flat. On Saturday we ran across Hammersmith Bridge, down the Thames Path, over Putney Bridge and back. In all 10.3km (6.4 miles) in lovely weather with the added bonus of the Head of the River race on the Thames – the best part of 300 eights racing on the Boat Race course.

Later we went to Kew Gardens to initiate the membership my wife bought me for Christmas – it was glorious apart from the tube line we needed to use being shut for maintenance work which led to a slow and painful journey and another 8km (5 miles) walking by the time we’d been to a very good gastro pub in the evening.

Mother’s Day on Sunday so our sons entertained us at a brasserie in Putney – great to see them, as always. Then back to Oxfordshire for a rest. Another week with no turbo trainer session. Big sportive coming very soon and I still haven’t been out on the bike this year – big mistake, I fear.

Just over 55km of running this week – and (say it quietly) still feeling pretty good.

Interesting stuff this week

1. African wise words: If you think you’re too small to make a difference, try spending the night with a mosquito

2. BBC News website: Crops grown in the Chernobyl exclusion zone used to produce alcohol to benefit Ukrainian refugees

Originally, the aim was to show that slightly radioactive fruit, grown in orchards in or near the contaminated exclusion zone that surrounds Chernobyl’s nuclear power plant, could be distilled into a spirit that was no more radioactive than any other. Profits were channelled into communities that live in deprived areas close to the zone.

Now, as Russian troops occupy the land where that fruit is grown and harvested, this unusual company is making a defiant marketing move by releasing two more “premium drinks” and donating profits to help Ukraine’s refugees.

3. BBC News website: Spotify paid $7bn to music industry rights holders last year, accounting for almost 25% of the industry’s total revenues

The streaming giant said 52,600 artists earned more than $10,000 (£7,500) from Spotify in 2021. Of those, 130 were paid more than $5m (£3.8m) over the last 12 months.

4. BBC News website: Hospital capacity to be assessed before racing at this year’s TT races can go ahead

Due to the creation of a dedicated Covid ward, the number of beds available for orthopaedic trauma patients has been reduced. Two wards were usually kept free for dealing with trauma patients capacity was reduced from 31 beds to just 16.

All elective orthopaedic surgery would also be cancelled during the period as was the case in previous years, he added.

The TT races are in June – really exciting to watch but so, so dangerous that even the hospital has to make special preparations

5. BBC News website: More must be done to recover unpaid taxes due to Covid

The Public Accounts Committee said the total UK tax debt was £39bn – more than double the amount at the start of 2020. It said HM Revenue and Customs must pursue businesses and individuals who were choosing not to pay their taxes while supporting those still struggling with the impact of the pandemic.

After the UK first entered lockdown, HMRC paused most debt collection activity. The move, along with the wider economic impact of the pandemic, saw the number of taxpayers in debt rise from about 3.8 million in January 2020 to 6.2 million in September 2021.

6. BBC News website: Some Mazda drivers in Washington State unable to retune from National Public Radio network

Owners of 2014-17 Mazdas, in the Puget Sound area, contacted KUOW to report their infotainment systems were permanently locked in to the network. Missing file extensions in album images sent with its digital-radio broadcast reportedly triggered the glitch.

The fix, according to Mazda, requires the replacement of the $1,500 connectivity master unit but Mazda said customers could apply for a free “goodwill” replacement.

That’s big of Mazda

Run (x4), swim, gym, (plus sports bras and quantum hair)

The Imelda Marcos of running

My wife’s car managed to acquire a screw in a tyre so some of Monday was spent faffing about getting it fixed – but a good excuse for a meandering 6km (3.7 mile) run to collect the re-shod car.

Back to the pool for my 6th swim doctor session in the early evening. It was another good and enjoyable session with a mix of swimming and drills – I swam another 1000m. We even began to practice tumble turns … I can hardly wait to try then in an open-water triathlon swim.

On Monday night I noticed two rather important things:

• first, the event’s 20-week ultra training plan has a bit of a cut-back this week to end the first 4 week block,

• second, using an over-ambitious 16 week plan for last year’s 50km, I ran 64km (40 miles) in week 3 and injured myself in week 4 so I couldn’t run for a month.

It felt like too much of a coincidence so I scaled back my plans for the week and ran for 10.2km (6.4 miles) on Tuesday.

Also on Tuesday my friend and training partner phoned to tell me that he’d just tested positive for Covid. The chances are that he caught it at a meeting on last Wednesday or Thursday – most importantly, he is feeling fine.

I had driven us to both the gym on Friday and swimming on Monday (only 5 minutes each way) and he joined my wife and me for the (entirely outdoor) trip to the pop-up snack bar on Sunday.

I’m told that lateral flow tests don’t tend to give positive results until about 5 days after infection – but, typically, you are probably not infectious at all for the first 2 or 3 days. Indeed, a friend who has a senior position in the NHS says that the chances of passing Covid on while testing negative in the first 5 days after catching it, are small. My wife and I are feeling fine and probably haven’t caught it – I tested negative on Tuesday but I’ll keep testing.

It rained heavily on Wednesday. I would always prefer running outside to using a treadmill but I went to the gym and ran for 6.7km (4.2 miles), just to make it a bit easier for the long run to get me to 40km for the week.

A negative test on Thursday morning, so it was a trip to our older son’s house in Kingston-upon-Thames to help fix a springy floor (crumbled mortar beneath one of the bricks supporting the sill plate). It counts as a sort of rest day.

Friday, as ever, (and after another negative test) was the gym and the bike shop but it was a really nice day so I did the long run in the afternoon – just over 19km (12 miles). That’s the running done for the week as we have friends for Sunday lunch and others for Sunday evening and that means preparation on Saturday. I did manage to cut back – long run down from 25km last week and the weeks’ total down to 42km from 51km (26 miles from over 31 miles) – and no hills. My legs are thanking me for that.

Having been so smug at fitting it all in around the double entertaining on Sunday, our friends had to cancel their Sunday lunch visit after both testing positive for Covid. On that topic, I felt a bit off colour on Saturday morning … but tested negative. I lit the bonfire in the afternoon, I’m sure that smoke inhalation is a Covid deterrent.

Sunday was another very pleasant day but, very sadly, our friend continued to test positive (probably 10 days after catching it) so the evening went the same way as lunch already had. The house is very clean – the celeriac, leek, cannellini bean and artichoke heart gratin is going to take some eating but I’m just the man for the job.

100k corner (an occasional place for ultra news, worries and plans)

The first 4 weeks of the event’s 20-week training plan had 91km of running. I’ve done 189km and (with much crossing of things and touching of wood) am feeling OK.

Interesting stuff this week

1. African wise words: To be tall you need not necessarily climb a hill

2. BBC News website: Changes to ‘basket’ of goods used to assess UK cost of living

Changed behaviours due to Covid probably accounts for many of the changes, including the removal of men’s suits and doughnuts and the addition of tinned beans, meat-free sausages, pet collars, sports bras and crop tops.

Anti-bacterial wipes, as well as craft and hobby kits for adults, were included in the basket of goods for the first time but items such as atlas books or encyclopaedias, as well as coal, are out.

3. BBC News website: Black hole paradox solved by “quantum hair”

The paradox was the problem of making two key theories compatible – Einstein’s general theory of relativity says information about what goes into a black hole cannot come out, but quantum mechanics says that is impossible.

Scientists now say they have shown that the constituents of the star leave an imprint in the black hole’s gravitational field. The scientists named the imprint “quantum hair” because their theory supersedes an earlier idea called the “no hair theorem” developed in the 1960s.

Ah, just as I always suspected

4. BBC News website: A 100 year old juvenile

A post-mortem examination has revealed that a rare species of shark stranded in Cornwall was a 3.96m (13ft) long juvenile that could have been more than 100 years old. The Greenland shark is believed to be the longest living vertebrate, with some living up to 500 years.

5. Bravo Italy for winning in Cardiff to end a 36 game losing streak in the Six Nations Rugby Championship.

Run (x4), swim, gym, turbo (plus space debris and witchcraft)

On Monday morning my wife dog-walked with a friend so I ran – 10.4km (6.5 miles). My current aim is a weekly 40+km, including a long run of over 20km, so a Monday run gets it off to a good start.

Back to the pool for the swim doctor session on Monday evening. Being pig-headed, I had hoped that I could improve my swimming simply by doing more swimming – wrong – I think that would have just ingrained my (many and grievous) faults. Accordingly, my attempt to improve my (very poor) technique has involved taking it apart before trying to put it together again.

The session on Monday was encouraging – it involved more swimming and fewer drills so I had the chance to put together what (I hoped) I’d learnt over the last few weeks. I swam for about 1000m, including some sprint laps (not that anyone watching would have known that’s what they were) and it felt better. Perhaps learning processes like this are inevitably 2 steps (strokes?) backwards to go 3 forwards?

I ran one the the usual routes with my wife on Tuesday morning for 7.2km (4.45 miles). It was quite hard – 7 sessions in 6 days were certainly taking their toll. Despite that, I set off for the the usual hill reps on Wednesday.

Even on the run to the hill it was clear it was not a good idea – and the stiff headwind for each ascent just added insult to injury. I managed to slog on for the normal 8 reps – this time the Garmin recorded 8.5km and 285m of ascent (6.3 miles and 925 feet).

Very tough, but useful for two things – first, I managed to find the resolve to get it finished, second, I know I have to listen better when my body says it needs a rest.

I mowed on Wednesday afternoon – the first cut of the year (I am distraught that there doesn’t seem to be a Strava ‘mowing’ category) – but at least it was sitting down. I took Thursday as a day off. A gym session on Friday, followed by the regular stint in the charity bike shop.

In an eternal triumph of optimism over experience, I always expect to wake up after a couple of days off running, feeling fit and ready for anything. Yet again I was proved wrong on Saturday morning but I did get out and slogged around slowly in a nasty wind for the week’s long run – a hard 25km (15.5 miles). I’m getting to the distances where my current approach of ‘get up, have a cup of coffee and go for the run, taking nothing with me’ isn’t going to be quite enough.

That’s 51km (over 31 miles) for the week – I’ve just got to do twice that in one go for July’s ultra …

On Sunday we walked to a local farm where they were doing a pop-up snack bar to raise funds for the Ukraine. The farm is owned by the National Trust and the tenant (who comes across really well) who has recently taken it over was, in a previous existence, half of the electronic music duo ‘Groove Armada’ responsible for, among others, the almost Shakespearean “I see you baby (shaking that ..)’. It’s a strange world.

I don’t know if it was a good idea but, later, I got on the turbo for a quick spin to stretch the legs after Saturday’s run – 30 minutes @28.5kph (17.7mph).

Interesting stuff this week

1. African wise words: However far a stream flows, it doesn’t forget its origin

2. BBC News website: Discarded rocket part crashes into the Moon

First sighted from Earth in March 2015, the three-tonne rocket part had been tracked for a number of years. At first, astronomers thought it might have belonged to Elon Musk’s SpaceX firm, and then said it was Chinese – something China denies.

The rocket stage would have dug out a small crater and created a plume of dust but the effects of the impact on the Moon should have been minor.

The European Space Agency estimates there are now 36,550 pieces of space junk – hardware discarded from missions or satellites without enough fuel or energy to return to Earth – larger than 10cm (4 inches). 

3. BBC News website: South African breaks the men’s 50km record in his first race at the distance

Stephen Mokoka won the 50km (31 miles) race in 2:40:13, beating the time of 2:42:07 set by Ethiopia’s Ketema Negasa last year. World Athletics added the 50km distance to the list of events for which world records are recognised in July 2021

“I’m tired. It’s a long way, but I enjoyed it,” he said.

Very much echoing my thoughts from last July’s 50km ultra (in which I did not set a world or any other record of any description). I hope I can say the same after this July’s 100km.

4. BBC News website: Scottish first minister apologises for witchcraft accusations

Nicola Sturgeon has offered a formal apology for the “egregious historic injustice” suffered by people accused of witchcraft between the 16th and 18th centuries.

Witch hunts took place in many countries during that period, but academics say Scotland’s execution rate was five times the European average. It is thought 4,000 Scots, mostly women, were accused of breaking the Witchcraft Act between 1563 and 1736.

Confessions were regularly secured under torture, with those condemned strangled and burned at the stake.

A terrible period in history but this is certainly getting to the heart of current issues

5. BBC News website: Murder suspect wins prison beauty pageant

A Nigerian woman who is facing trial for the suspected murder of a businessman has been crowned Miss Cell 2022, at Kirikiri prison in Lagos. Ms Ojukwu was seen wearing a crown in photos taken at Wednesday’s pageant in the prison, which the correctional services boss said was part of International Women’s Day celebrations.

and first prize is usually an exotic foreign holiday … but perhaps not in this case

6. BBC News website: 100 mile world record

In January, at the Spartanion 12-hour race in Tel Aviv, Lithuanian Aleksandr Sorokin maintained a 6:31/mile pace for 100 miles. His time of 10:51:39 smashed his own 100-mile world record of 11:14:56 and set the record for the greatest distance ever run in 12 hours – 110.23 miles – besting his own previous record of 105.82 miles.

For the first 65 miles, Sorokin held a pace that ranged between 6:13 and 6:25 per mile. He kept things up with a sub-6:55 pace as he reached the 100-mile split before eventually slowing to 7:10 and then 7:15 over the final miles.

Wow – 7:15/mile is ‘slowing’?

Run (x4), swim, gym, turbo (plus life flashing before your eyes and a city of the future)

While so many things change, the pain of an hour on the turbo doesn’t

I’m not sure if it’s a permanent thing but, for the second week, Monday started with a run (partly with my wife) of a bit over 9km (5.8 miles) and finished with the evening ‘swim doctor’ session.

The session was testing, as usual. Butterfly stroke was optional – so I stuck with front crawl as I’d prefer to get closer to being proficient at that than confuse myself with something new. About 500m swum, I guess, and enjoyable in that sort of ‘my, this is incredibly hard’ way.

After Monday’s run and swim, a long run was probably not the best idea on Tuesday but I managed 22km (13.7 mIles) a bit faster than last Friday’s long run. Chilly, blustery and a few spits of rain but it was, again, strangely enjoyable. It’s great to have got the long run out of the way early as it does tend to become a bit of a millstone if still to be done later in the week.

I had a good example of the power of the mind on Tuesday’s run. I was going at around 6:15/km and feeling that was plenty fast enough and that I didn’t have a lot left. Coming into the village I was overtaken by a chap I don’t know but have seen many times – wanting to have a brief chat I fell into pace with him and, with my mind occupied with something other than my own running, my 22nd and final km was run at 5:03/km.

Friends came over for supper on Tuesday evening and I took a rest on a very cool and wet Wednesday. Back to the running on Thursday – a very decent run of just over 7km (4.4 miles), with my wife.

Gym and charity bike shop on Friday, followed by hill reps on a cold and breezy Saturday morning – 9km and 296m of ascent (5.6 miles and 970 feet).

I got on the turbo trainer on Sunday. That’s the first time for a couple of weeks but my first ‘event’ of the year is a sportive in early April so I do need to start peddling. The aim was really just time on the bike but I managed 28.1km (17.4 miles) in an hour.

For now at least, I’m sticking with my aim of pushing through 40km of running each week with one longer run. With 4 runs, a swim, a session in the gym, and one on the turbo, I’ve got to double up on one day to get a rest day. Any more sessions (I should be swimming at least twice and getting out on the bike) would mean more double exercise days. This is getting difficult and simply confirms my admiration for proper multi-sport athletes.

100k corner (an occasional place for ultra worries and plans)

The cumulative total running required in the first 2 weeks of the 20-week ultra training plan was 43km. I’ve done 96km – I think I’m on track (!) as long as I don’t do too much, too soon.

Interesting stuff this week

1. African wise words: Where there is love, there is no darkness

2. BBC News website: Life may actually flash before your eyes on death

A team of scientists set out to measure the brainwaves of an 87-year-old patient who had developed epilepsy. But during the neurological recording, he suffered a fatal heart attack – offering an unexpected recording of a dying brain.

It revealed that in the 30 seconds before and after the attack, the man’s brainwaves followed the same patterns as dreaming or recalling memories.

3. BBC News website: Ultimate football irony?

The EFL cup final at Wembley Stadium was Chelsea v Liverpool and was 0-0 at the end of extra time, which meant it went to penalties. In the last few seconds of the game, Chelsea made a substitution to bring on a goalkeeper with a reputation for saving penalties.

Against all the odds, all 20 outfield players scored their penalties which meant that the two goalkeepers had to take one each. The Liverpool ‘keeper scored (meaning that the Chelsea specialist penalty saver had conceded all 11 that he faced) but he then missed his own attempt, giving Liverpool the win.

4. BBC News website: Neom – a futuristic eco-city

Neom claims to be a “blueprint for tomorrow in which humanity progresses without compromise to the health of the planet”. It will feature glow-in-the dark beaches, billions of trees, levitating trains and a fake moon.

It’s a £366bn ($500bn) project that is part of Saudi Arabia’s ‘Vision 2030’ plan to wean the country off oil. The plan is for a car-free, carbon-free city built in a straight line over 100 miles long in the desert.

It will cover a total area of over 26,500 sq-km (10,230 sq-miles) – larger than Kuwait or Israel – Neom will, developers claim, exist entirely outside the confines of the current Saudi judicial system, governed by an autonomous legal system that will be drafted by investors.