London 2012 at 5cm resolution

I had such a cool afternoon playing with some of the latest image mapping available in Europe. BLOM are a company that my company are exploring as a data provider. Hence, they have sent us some sample datasets and an online web portal to check out what they have. BLOM  are the people behind the oblique and birds eye views on bing maps.

I obviously can't show any of the stuff they have sent but to give you a flavour of what they are doing, here is a picture of the Olympic Stadium (pre-track being laid). The actual image is to a 5cm resolution and was taken using a c.196 megapixel camera (a normal camera has about 10 megapixels!). So this is basically a bit like google earth but much cooler and much more detailed. Very exciting!

My Achilles Heel

People often say that the hardest part is admiting it - well I am ready: "I am injured". Phew, with that over I can plough on with rehab (ice, ice, rest, ice, stretch, ice, massage, ice, ice, and jog!!) 

The story follows: I had an "end of season" tight achilies which I attributed to lots of hurdling. So I took a break. Then I resumed "jogging" on holiday where my tight achillies persisted and here I justified it as "dehydration and wearing flip flops". I returned from holidays and embarked on winter training during which my poor achillies gradually got worse and worse and the "start of winter training" excuse eventually fell flat. A full week off (that coincided with lots of biking during the late Sept heatwave) and I set off on my 3 mile jog return....ouch, back to square one. Then, I did what every runner knows they shouldn't but always does, I raced. Not good. Whilst my warm up was fine (a dull ache) racing over cross-country in spikes tested it a bit too much and left it feeling very vulnerable and sensitive.

Time to take some days off and get it fixed properly before resuming running! Booo hoo! 

Cononley

Gosh, it has been a long time since my last blog addition but the good news is that I have now moved house, my husband has joined me in Yorkshire, we have internet connected and it is substantially faster than my Aunts house and following my last blog, I have been reinstated as the English Champion and am the proud owner of a shiny gold medal. The full story behind this reinstatement is somewhat long winded and not for today. The only bad news that I can think of is that I appear to be even busier than before and have less time to write up my thoughts in a blog.

But I shall make a effort to squeeze a 15-min blog writing session into my weekly schedule.

I suppose I should really spend a paragraph or so writing about our new house - or rather about our new village, Cononley. Captured below on a misty, early morning last month, our village is a little gem. Nestled against the edge of a classic Yorkshire Dale, our olde-worlde village is almost perfect. It has an amazing pub featured in the Good Pub Guide 2011, a postoffice/shop selling local fruit and vegetables and locally produced milk, a train station, cricket field, hair dressers, abundant supply of blackberry bushes that continue to burst with fruit and its very own heard of dairy cows that walk right past our house twice a day! Yet despite its rural sleepiness, it is 3miles from Skiptonia, 30mins on the train to Leeds city centre and 10mins drive (or 20mins fabulous bike) to work! Awesome!

English Champ - I don't think so!

Wow, how do I sum up that weekend's racing experience - eventful, emotional, gutting, wet!

You would think that winning the English Championships 3000m steeplechase would be a joyous occasion. Instead, the first feeling I had to overcome upon crossing the finish line was a dripping sense of baffled embarrassment having spent a short time fully submerged, upside down in the water pit on the last lap. I can't help write this without smiling, but I still don't know quite what happened other than at the crucial take off moment, my brain failed me and that unique ability to tell your legs to jump (when logical sense actually says - big barrier, deep water, potential danger) sent me clumsily falling sideways and then onto my back into the deep end. But with a comfotable lead, I resurfaced and splodged home slowly in first place. 

This is what I must have looked like the second guy.......

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9haxOZvlAFs&feature=related

But then the real horror of the day started to unfold when I learnt that I was disqualified from the champs on the grounds of ineligibility (although I had started to suspect this from about lap 3 when the announcer starting talking about me as a "guest". What, how, no????????? Aparrently, 11 years residency is not sufficient to allow one to win an English title. Or so they say......but oddly enough we can't find a single rule that confirms this and as such we are in the process of appealing this DQ.

Even though the rain had now stopped, there were a few tears as I made the long solo 4-hour trip back up the M1 from Bedford with the only thing making me remotely smile being the mental image of myself splashing into the pit! 

Race Preview

On the eve of possibly the biggest race of my summer season, I thought I would spend my lunch break writing some pre-race thoughts as some form of mental preparation. After all, blogs are suppose to be reflective and running is as much about what goes on in your head as in your legs. 

Tomorrow is the English National Track and Field Champs and on paper, I am by far the fastest entrant with Sarah Hood (running as a guest) my nearest rival. I feel a bit nervous but also excited about the prospect of winning the race and adding this title to the Scottish one that I won last year. I suppose it is "being favourtie" that is actually making me nervous with my friend and rival Sarah causing me greatest cause for concern. And particularly since she is long overdue a big chase PB.  

In terms of training and race-prep, things have improved over the last two weeks and aside from a total lack of track training and track races, I am confidently fit as a fiddle. I really have whacked in the summer mileage and over a 7-day period ending last sunday, I ran 70miles, raced a 5km, ran two sessions, did some hurdling and lots of core/arm stuff. So I have no doubts about my endurance and leg strength. Furtehrmore, based on my 5km race two weeks ago and the session I did last Saturday, I sure do have the longer endurance and 80sec/lap leg pace. Plus, with 10-days of hurdling reguarly now in the bag (albeit using my wooden hurdles hammered into a slightly rough grass field on a gently hill), I am confident about the barriers and actually think my left leg leads are OK. And after Loughborough and am more than happy about the water jump - I just need to attack away.

Having said all that, I do naturally, have some reservations. First is a lack of anaerobic work (or 1500m work) which some suggest a good steeplchaser needs - but I can overcome this by starting steady and not running into the anaerobic zone until the later stages. A big error would be to go off too hard. Indeed, given the "championship" nature of the race, I am keen to relax and cool the pace down early on. The other main area of concern I am hanging onto is that I am about 4 pounds above my racing weight - although what this is in the first instance is somewhat debatable since you only need to look at the likes of Helen C / Erin Don etc and note that being stick thin does not always equate to running fast. Furthermore, steeplechase is a strength event and perhaps these 4-pounds are muscle and will help propel me around the track.

All in all, I have a plan in my head, I am confident of beating everyone and fundamentally, the most important thing, is to be relaxed - if I am relaxed, then my hurdling technique will take less out of me. Oh and one other thing, I really do want to race and to win - something I was admittedly lacking earlier in the season. 

So good luck to me and I do hope that my next blog entry is a happy one!

Pendle Witches

Last week, I climbed Pendle Hill with five members of my work team. We discussed the story of the Pendle witches and only Jane knew a version of the story. I decided that it was my duty to investigate the story some more and report my new knowledge back to my team. Here goes:

Pendle Hill in Lancashire, is a lump of hill made of millstone grit (I think) that was tougher to erode that the surrounding limestone dales during the last glaciation. Hence it was left. In glaciology terminology, it is like a giant drumlin, with a steep east facing end and a gentler westerly side. Other than moorland grass, not a lot else grows and it is relatively featureless. Hence, it is a good job that it is shrouded in the mysterious story of the witches.

In 1612, twelve people, mainly women, were accused of the murders of ten people by use of witchcraft, put on trial and all but one was found guilty and hung. They all lived in the area around Pendle Hill and most came from two families and included four generations of women. The Lancashire witch trials were unusual due to the number of simultaneous hangings with fewer than 500 executions of witches in England between the 15th and 18th centuries.

We all have to work somewhere....

The consultancy firm I now work for, have their HQ in the Broughton Hall Business Park, just outside Skipton. Unlike most work-related parks that have fancy names because they were built on top of historic structure (such as the Victoria Park Shopping centre, built on the Victoria Park, or the Castle Business Park in Stirling which is merely in sight of the Castle), we really are housed in the Hall's South Barn. It's rather clever really: the upkeep of Broughton Hall (the fabulous stately home of the Tempest family) must cost a bit so Mr Tempest rents out his outbuildings, barns, orangery and courtyard to a moderate list of small and medium-sized businesses (including the Dalesman magazine, local radio station Fresh FM, and some funky BBQ provider next door). In return we get an amazing place to work.

JBA occupy one of the larger properties in the estate, the South Barn, which is distinguished by its blue-faced clock on the end wall facing the car park. With 5 or so open plan rooms, each seating 15 of so budding flood experts, a kitchen, a couple of meeting rooms and a room full of high-powered computers, it has pretty much everything the company needs. My room is at the top of the barn with high ceilings, exposed wooden beams and a few token exposed wall features. Outside, there are fields with sheep, birds of prey, an old railway, a river, a tennis court and outdoor pool, secret gardens and the large manicured wall gardens (including a fancy, modern glass sided cafe within the garden for visitors). So when I sit reading my book over lunch between the immaculately rounded evergreen trees and bushes, overlooking the glass domed roof of the Hall's rear glass house and listening to the 1pm chime from the bell tower, it is easy to become immersed in Jane Austin's Emma and imagine that Broughton is instead Highbury. 

It definitely beats London!