Photos – Page 41 – Foster Runs

January 6, 2008

Latte: whisked doubleshot please!

Point 65 have just launched a couple of new kayaks, both of them designed by Nigel Foster.

The Doubleshot is a kayak for two, whilst Nigel says that the Whisky 16 is the kayak for me as it’s slightly shorter than a normal sea kayak and designed to be FUN! I’m really looking forward to trying one out and might have to schedule a trip to Seattle to hasten the experience!

And for those amongst you who have not tried the turning technique that Nigel is demonstrating above, it truly is amazing. Takes a bit of getting used to though, as every fibre in your body is screaming at you to lean into the corner!

Maybe he’ll explain how it works some time?

January 6, 2008

Sheddingdean Industrial Estate

Welcome to Burgess Hill

January 2, 2008

Showing the outgoing year a clean pair of heels

It was a really good start to the year… waking up about 30 seconds before my alarm went off at eight. Not that early I know, but too early for most and a great time to go for a run.

The morning was mild , quite still and slightly misty and sound seemed to be deadened, which meant that I probably scared the tails off about 20 squirrels. As I ran out towards Ote Hall there was no-one around and the first person I saw was a farmer going about his chores. There were a couple of cars on the main road at Wivelsfield, but I could have crawled across on all fours with no danger.

The Alpacas eyed me hungrily but I made it past both them and the sheep in the next field without becoming a tasty new year snack. I passed a cheery family out for a walk as I dropped down into the village centre and then I headed out onto Hundred Acre Lane where I saw the bunny-rabbit tail of a red deer bounding into the undergrowth… clearly a relative of the Bok. Down through the wood, a slight detour around a field looking for the exit and then back up into and through the wood along to the end of Spatham Lane.

From here I cut across the Common, over the railway line and down to Wellhouse Lane, past the water tower and over to the other railway line. There I following the path alongside it to the station, stopping en route to take the weird photo above, before pushing up the last hill to the top of town and back down to home.

In all, I was out for one hour twenty-nine, covering 9.125 miles (or so!) at a speed of 6.08mph. I was very happy with this, despite the fact that Nick had emailed me to quite frankly, er… gloat, that he had run nearly 6 miles in 45 minutes… a speed of 8.57mph. I always said he was faster!! Way to go Nick, although that was technically last year!

The rest of the day was spent relaxing in front of the… that’s rubbish, of course… we’ve been working our little socks off lately doing up Kim’s flat and today was no different: cutting down an old cupboard-side that I just cannot remove as it’s had the gas pipe and the dist-board for the heating system carefully woven through it; cutting the kitchen worktop (and pulling the muscles in my back trying to test it for size… which I didn’t manage to do!); working out where the tiles will go in the bathroom and fixing the first couple of rows; getting the bathroom door-frame ready so that I can hang the door on the other side; failing to remove the skirting and having to rebuild it (work in progress… sorry Kim!); drinking tea and occasionally swearing… though these latter seem to be the only aspects of being a builder that come naturally!

December 29, 2007

Things to do when you don’t feel like running

It’s cold and generally wet out and you’ve not yet fully recovered from the lurgi, so what would you choose to do?

a) Put the heating on and cuddle up with a hot water bottle and a good book?

b) Continue with the current refurbishment project, involving figuring out how to assemble kitchen units from daft instructions?

c) Take a three hour drive across country, spend most of the day in the car apart from an hour standing outside in the chilly wind, before driving home again in the dark, hissing rain?

I know, the answer should be a), but…

Bruntingthorpe Proving Ground is a really good place to warm your tyres up mid-winter, so it was there that I chose to spend the day with the mobile switched off.

I was in good company too, with about a dozen 911’s, a couple each of M5’s, Elise’s, Caterhams, RS4’s, 968’s and M3’s (one old E30 stripped out for racing), a Boxster and a Tuscan. The folk that were there were good driving friends, out to blow the cobwebs from their heads and their exhausts… all except Peter, who would have triggered the noise meter if he’d have done the latter!

I won’t bore you with the blow-by-blow detail, but the day broke down into two halves: a dry morning and an increasingly wet afternoon and having sat in with some other folk to steal all the best lines, I got progressively faster and paradoxically safer the more the day wore on, with the rain making the harsh tarmac more forgiving.

Despite a long lunch and lots of breaks, I covered over 100 miles just going round in circles, apart from the hour spent marshaling when there was pretty much nothing to do apart from take photo’s (well, one only actually as it was so cold & windy!) and work out the best line for the tricky bottom corner from the parade of drivers streaming past.

With the day over, I followed Mark and Justin back down south on a mainly non-motorway route, though in my memory it was just a lot of bright tail-lights and blazing headlights on a black, rain-lashed screen! A welcome cup of tea at Mark’s was the only break before I landed at home with a grin the size of Spain!

December 24, 2007

Walk to work

I’m sitting here basking in the rays of sunshine beating (weakly) on my desk and thinking about my Australian friends (hey y’all) sitting on their various East coast beaches eating turkey salad, washed down with Pimms, for Christmas.

We’ve already had our now traditional early Christmas lunch and food-fest weekend, pictured serenely above before the action got started, and we get to celebrate Christmas all over again tomorrow!

I’m actually sitting here trying to get my head around a new concept from America that my brother has alerted me to in the I.D. magazine. I often encourage my clients to stand up to have meetings (it helps people to keep to the point), walk around the block (to clear their minds before a brainstorm session, or to have a confidential one-on-one meeting with someone, which helps promote consensus and beats sitting across a desk) but this takes the idea in a different direction: walk while you work!

The idea is that your desk is a high-tech piece of gym equipment, designed to allow you to walk (at a sedate 2mph) while you work. The desk curves at the front to hug your stomach, while the desk whirs into place to allow your hands easy access to your keyboard with your wrists resting on a thick pad. It took the writer around 15 minutes to come to terms with the new arrangement and zone in on his work, which I think is pretty good, all things considered. He even felt productive when staring off into space!

Priced at between $3,500 and $4,500 (from Steelcase’s Details subsidiary if you’re interested) I think the Walkstation is going to be next years hot corporate toy, although I suspect that, though they may be used to intimidate visitors (the possible permutations for calculating CEO’s are wonderful!!), they will otherwise sit forlorn and idle like so much other gym equipment after the month of January.

Hmmm… wonders… how much of your power cost you could save if all your employees were walking their working week? Not only would they feel warmer (lower heating costs) but you might be able to power their laptops. And think of it, no need to shut down your machine at the end of the day either, just get off and go home.

Heck, why stop there? Why not make these things mobile so that you can work as you walk home?

Walk as you eat in restaurants. Walk as you watch TV in the evenings. Walk as you sleep… you may think that’s daft, but some people do this already.

Next thing you know, there’ll be some whizz-kid working out how to speed the process up so that you can run while you work and then they really will have reinvented the wheel.

The hamster wheel, that is.

December 18, 2007

Happy Birthday Big-Big Bro!

I posted an early photo of my other brother, Nigel, on his birthday a couple of months ago and Kim suggested I do likewise for Michael, above… please note the subtle shifting of blame here after the threats of sibling retribution I received before!

As a Queen’s Scout with an MA in Pure Physics from Oxford, Michael is a really bright guy and well deserving of his place as first child. And as you can see from the photo, he’s a good looking chap too.

Although if I’m honest, he’s a touch older than this photo, taken by Peter Foster in [I daren’t say!] suggests…

Happy Birthday Bro!

December 13, 2007

Ch-ch-chilly!

It gets tricky, reporting on events more than a couple of days old. What do you say? Yesterday’s day before yesterday? Hence, on a fweezin’ cold and dark night, I’m sitting in my study punching away at the keys so that I don’t get that far behind.

Yesterday morning seems like an age ago now, but the memory lives on. It was a perfectly still, clear and dark morning until the sun woke up to the aroma of my making coffee (pictured above) and spread a blue glow around the perimeter of the eastern horizon. I was gazing out at this big, deep blue sky waiting for the coffee to finish gurgling when it struck me that there was a huge star hanging up there, like a Christmas star in waiting (apologies for the camera shake which make it look as if it were travelling). It really was very impressive, most especially as there was not another star to be seen in the firmament.

Nick arrived and as I welcomed him through the front door, the -5C outside temperature turned the inside of the hall to ice, Oh boy, was this going to be a cold run!

Kitted up in our warmest gear, we set out into the stillness of the morning and despite wearing gloves, my hands were already painfully cold by the time we reached the end of the road! It may have been cold, but it was a beautiful morning and that always makes a difference. The ground was crispy and my still-sparklingly-clean runners crunched along merrily.

We headed out past the Royal Oak and around the back of St Georges Retreat and somewhere here my sparkling trainers did a neat disappearing act… cracking through the frozen top layer into a puddle of mud. Amusingly, Nick did the same in synchronisation, but we hardly had a chance to laugh as our breath was taken away by the view to the south-east. With moments to go before the sun rose about the hills, it gave us a stunning display by running a glinting highlighter pen around the silhouette of the hill. Simply stunning!

We headed up onto Hundred Acre Lane and then I pulled a neat trick, by not taking the tight turn for home, but rather following the path that returned the long way around through the wood and back through Wivelsfield. By the time we got to open fields, the sun was streaming down and it was easy to imagine that it was warmer… apart from the numb sensation at my extremities!

We returned to the house having achieved a reasonably sedate 6.4mph over a time of 1 hour ten minutes, which meant we had covered 7.5 miles… not bad for a mid-week run. I must be getting used to it as I suffered no aches after at all.. mind you, since returning I seem to have been running from one meeting to the next, so I’ve not had the chance yet!

December 2, 2007

December gathering

It’s been a few months since the gang gathered en masse, so the invitiation from Fran & Paul was a very welcome opportunity to catch up with everyone! Well okay, not everyone, but believe me, those not present in body were certainly there in spirit… and Clive, Nat & Paul drank their share of the beer too for good measure!

November 25, 2007

Ironing hydrogens

Picture this, if you will. It’s half past three in the afternoon and I’m sitting with my feet up on the sofa, facing the heat of the logs a-turning into charcoal and then to ash; laptop on lap. I may have loads of weekend chores to do, but I’m dug in here now for the duration!

Kim read something to me about tempo running yesterday – I can’t say that I understood it completely, but it was basically talking about warming the muscles up gently with a jog for 15 minutes before running harder than your normal speed, but not flat out, for 2 to 4 miles and then slowing down before the end. Sounds pretty much like a normal run to me (gasping for breath the whole way round and running out of energy at the end) so I’m obviously missing some key details.

The missing detail is something to do with lactate and hydrogen ions, which form in your muscles as a result of metabolism. These normally build up to form lactic acid, which stops the muscle working properly. Pushing the lactose threshold means that the muscle gets used to using these by-products, allowing you to run faster and further.

With this in mind, my loose plan this morning was to warm up gently, then run a bit harder than normal, before slowing down before the end. It was also to run from Jack & Jill back to the house.As we pulled into the car park at Jack & Jill, so a clearly well-seasoned runner was warming up to leave. I hoped to get parked before he left, to get some company up the hill, but he legged it off.

It’s funny, but give me a boy-racer at the traffic lights and I will pull gently away and let them get on with it: give me a hill with a runner up ahead and the testosterone kicks in! So much for the gentle start then.

Half way up the hill and I had reeled him in a little when some walkers asked about my circuit, so I paused for a moment to explain my plan – they laughed when I said I’d just started as I was panting so hard!

Off again and by the time he had got to the next gate at the top of the rise and I was almost there myself… he was kind enough to pause and hold it open and we ran on together. Meet Mark Johnson, pictured above – oh yes, I went into MCL yesterday and Daniel helped me figure out how to send an email from my phone.

Mark wasn’t running at a huge pace, but he gave the clear impression that the sea anchor devise would not have affected his pace in the least… he had a really purposeful style and had I not slowed him down on the hills, I’m sure he would have just kept the same tempo regardless.

There is no doubt that chatting to another runner is a great way of helping the miles off with their jackets, allied to which the tendency is to keep going at times where you might have walked on your own.

We were having such an amicable run that I ignored the turn I was planning to take to the north and carried on with him to the outskirts of Lewes, with a new plan to peel off on the return leg. This was where I realised how deceptive and consistent his pace was, as the going is uphill for quite a way and he just hacked away at it as before.

Despite Mark slowing for me, the pace was fast enough for me to feel knackered and as we reached the top of the rise the desire to slog it home to the north evaporated. Which just left the slog back to Jack & Jill to contend with. It seemed rude to suggest he run on ahead so I resigned myself to just having to go with the flow.

There’s a lovely point on the return trip where you mount an oh-so-gentle summit and Jack and Jill sit below you… pure joy to behold! The going underfoot for the first part of the descent is soft and springy and here my gait lengthened and I relaxed into the freefall. We crunched down the last path, managing to avoid a couple of startled walkers who were looking at us over opposite shoulders while they tried to get out of our way, each pinned by the other’s shoulder going in the opposite direction.

Kim and I used this route, with some minor variation, when we were training for Berlin in 2004 and it used to take us two and a half hours; so it took some time for the 1 hour 51 minute time to sink into my skull! On the map I realised that I hadn’t been quite as observant as I should, so I’m not certain where we turned, but I make it a minimum of 19.75 km, or 12.3 miles, making for a 6.65 mph speed.

Interestingly, this is more or less the pace I ran at Berlin, coming home in a thoroughly depressing four hours, two minutes (having stopped to pee five times), but that was on flat tarmac whist this was anything but!

Overall a really lovely run on a beautiful morning and with great company… thanks Mark!

Note to self: introduce Mark to Pete and Cliff – he has a strange desire to cycle some of the Tour de France sections and also to compete in La Via Marenca or Mont Blanc Ultra next year!

Second note to self – figure out where I went wrong sending the photo from the phone, as it didn’t arrive! (got the photo now, after sending four messages!)

Third note to self – don’t write blog on Mac. And if you do, don’t edit it on there. Remember, you lose ALL the formatting every time you open it!

November 23, 2007

Nick’s runners… by special request

Nick took this photo of his runners when they arrived back at the house the other morning… some minutes after he did: that’s how fast he was running!

I had to clean the photo up a bit as you couldn’t see the trainers for all the smoke that was coming off of them.

I’ve just been reading about how the Inuit in Greenland used to hunt Whales in the 12th Century from kayaks and umiaks (small, skin boats). They clearly couldn’t kill a whale with a single hand-thrown harpoon, let alone hang onto it on a rope afterwards, so they developed a harpoon that released itself on impact leaving behind a barb with an air-filled bladder attached. As the whale tired of this extra drag, so it would surface and the Inuit hunters would repeat the exercise, and again, until the whale was so exhausted that an umiak could pull alongside and a hunter could kill the whale.

This puts me in mind of a sea anchor, designed, I guess, to float upstream or upwind in a driving sea and slow the craft down, making it more stable in otherwise difficult conditions.

Where I’m going with this is, well, think of a bath towel, rolled lengthways, with the ends secured to stop it unravelling.

Now think of a cord, say a metre in length, at each end attaching it to one of the trainers pictured above.

I reckon this kind of contraption might just slow the Bok down sufficiently for me to keep up. What do you think?