Archive for February, 2005

theeeeoooooo

Monday, February 21st, 2005

well here’s my experiment in getting theo to track my driving. so on the way back from the course the other week and across to norfolk he was strapped to the cuddly penguin on my dashboard.

i wasn’t wearing the heart rate strap, and no way i’m showing anyone the speed graph, although it is interesting to see how the speedo and the gps speeds differ since the speedo isn’t legally allowed to read slow so it always reads fast, in my case by just under 10% meaning 70mph on the speedo is closer to 63mph on the gps.

so here’s the map, not the most direct route i admit but i would have been in trouble if i’d have taken my colleague to norfolk straight from the course instead of dumping him and picking the wife up!


click for full size

lots to update….

Tuesday, February 15th, 2005

gosh well lots to tell you all but it’ll take a few posts to get through so here’ a teaser:

spent last week running round in small circles in the dark somewhere near ascot whilst being trained in ‘C for real time developers’ which was actually very very useful and will look lovely on my CV.

then had a manic friday driving back up to coventry..unpacking and repacking… and driving to norfolk.. all in all knackered. tried theo out in the car so should have a nice map of the routes… when i get round to uploading it.

managed to get some decent cycling & running in before having to suit up for a funeral… which i’m sure i have lots of dry observations on, but probably shouldnt.

more when i wake up and recover.

more of the same.. oh and drivers.

Saturday, February 5th, 2005

hmmm well…. run & swim yesterday.. nothing excetional, but today theo and i went out on the bike for the first time, poor wee chap’s never been so fast!

just a short low intensity session but alot of creaking early on made me worry my recently rebuilt bike may have some nuts and bolts coming loose. not wanting something to give, particularly on the front end i stopped and whipped out my allen keys to tweak the stem & forks…. still creaking…. a bit of experimenting i discovered it only happened when i was in the saddle, inconvenient but not fatal.
stats for the ride were 16miles in just over an hour making 15.6mph average, at the respectably low heart rate of 143bpm.

in other news i’d like to make the following clear to the world:
if you pull out in front of me when its my right of way, you dissolve yourself of the right to be upset about the consequences.

thus found out some silly man in a car park today who pulled out over a give way line i was about to pass. whether he bothered to look to see me coming or not i don’t know, i guess not since he found his way wasnt clear meaning he couldnt get out of my way. being the self righteous so and so i am in these situations, although i was only pootling at under 20mph i made sure to brake as late as possible and get as close as possible before stopping.
evidently he beleived he was in the right and i was in the wrong as he beeped his horn & reversed down his side of the road to … well i’m not sure what to do! i drove on & parked up as he did another lap of the car park in order to glare at me, i considered waving but thought better of it.

the reason many peoples driving is so bad is that unlike most of life stupidity is rarely has any consequence, you stick your hand in the fire.. it hurts.. you dont do it again. if you tailgate someone, speed or take other risks chances are you’ll get away with it, and hence never learn quite how serious the consequences could be (as we witnessed first hand on the m6 the other day).
had i been a less observant driver looking about for a parking space this chap would have learnt some consequences the hard way, luckily for him the only consequence was a little scare.
unfortunately the other reason peoples driving doesnt improve even when theyve had an accident or a near miss is that in order to learn from it you have to acknowledge your fault, clearly even after a lap of the car park this guy hadn’t.. although i would have gladly pointed it out to him had he the guts to stop!

end of rant.. drive nicely now people.

More Tough Guy Piccies

Thursday, February 3rd, 2005

Just so you can share the pain here are a couple more samples of the tough guy course:

approach to the ‘bridge’

a teammate on the way under… brrrr

the team trying to warm their cockles (no hovering this time)

tough guy – team tritalk

Wednesday, February 2nd, 2005

here’s the motley bunch we call… team tritalk:

mouseover for name & link to results

theo and me

Tuesday, February 1st, 2005

wth shins that look and feel like someone has been practising playing the drums on them i made it out with my little wrist mounted friend theo tonight.

a bit more of a technical challenge for him tonight as i set hm up to firstly tell me when an hour was up and secondly keep my heart rate in the right zone…. so off we set down the road with a regular bleeping to tell me my heart rate was too low! cmon i only just started!

a nice exercise in patience and self control though tring not to speed up and remembering to take it easy on the hills. the end of the run was zig-zagging back and forth trying to get my full hour in.. until eventually theo sounded his little klaxon to say it was all over!

so an 1hour 2minutes at an average pace of 9:21 min/mile and an average heart rate of 145bpm.