Dublin City Triathlon

I did the Dublin City Triathlon this morning. After having trained so much for the Ironman in July, it felt like a waste not to use that for something else.  After vacation in Switzerland and London, and then not doing anything for another two weeks, I was in no shape to do anything long. But an Olympic-distance triathlon sounded about right.
 About 375 people participated in the event (almost 500 had signed up!?). (There were another 350 people signed up for the shorter sprint-distance event.) We swam 1,500 meters (just under a mile) in the River Liffey, rode bikes in Phoenix park for 40 km (just under 25 miles), and then ran a 10 km (~6 miles) in the park.  At the end we got a nice shirt, free ice cream, and a burger.
 I have only done one race of that distance before: The Elephant Man Triathlon in September 2008.  That was the first race with my then new bike that I still use. The run was the problem though.  I had an Achilles tendon inflammation that was still bothering me at that race and had prevented proper run training. It took me 3:20:51 to finish. For today's race, my goal was to beat the three-hour mark. And I did; by 37 seconds.
I'm happy about that. Here is the comparison:

	2008		2011
Swim 1.5 km	0:31:29		0:31:52
Transition 1	0:03:03		0:04:41
Bike 40 km	1:38:27		1:23:38
Transition 2	0:01:49		0:02:49
Run 10 km	1:06:05		0:56:25
Total	3:20:51		2:59:23

 Of course, it is difficult to compare races like that, even if the distances are the same. The terrain is different, and the conditions, such as weather and altitude, are never the same. But, shaving 20 minutes off my time three years ago does indicate that I have made some progress.
 It's still discouraging though: Almost all the guys in my age group were faster overall.
 I used to chalk this up to them having been athletes all their lives, and me only recently started and 90% of the time that I'm not asleep, I'm sitting at a desk staring at a computer screen. (I have plenty of endurance for that ;-)
Now I'm beginning to rethink this attitude. I always thought of myself as an intermediate swimmer, with about half of the people in the pool swimming a little slower than me, and the other half, or a little more than that, swimming faster. Since I've come to Ireland this does not seem to be true anymore. People here are generally more fit and bike faster than me, walk faster, and also swim faster.
  And it's not only the slender ones that make me look like a snail. There is a group of guys at the National Aquatic Centre where I train, that sometimes swim in the lane next to me. They do 100 m in less than 1:20 on short intervals. On a good day I can do one of those, if that is all I do that day, and I train for it. The scary part is these guys are portly. I wonder what would happen, if they ever cut back on beer...
 The sun took its time to come out this morning. I'm guessing it was below 50 when the race started. That river is cold. Wetsuits were mandatory. I have a sleeveless one because I don't like the restrictive feeling I have in a full suit; this way I can move my arms more freely.  But this morning I was wishing for a full suit. As soon as I jumped in, my feet went numb and I didn't regain any sensation until well into the run. When they came back alive, they tried to tell my brain in a few seconds what had happened to them in the last couple of hours.  And since my brain didn't do anything about it, they kept sending the same signal over and over.
  We went out in waves of about 60 people. In theory that was to make it less chaotic than the 2000-people mass start at a full Ironman. It seemed it was just as bad. Early on I got kicked in the face and my upper lip is still swollen. I was able to draft a few times, but I also seemed to zigzag a lot, despite the organizers having put a floating line in the middle of the river for us to follow upstream, and then downstream on the other side.  It took me about to the halfway point before I found a rhythm and could pass a few people.
 The bike ride was rolling hills in the park. There are a couple of grades to go up, but noting serious. Going up, the wind was blowing into our faces, but it was not horrendous.  The most difficult part was pacing and counting the loops. It was up to us to do five of them and exit the park to get back to the transition area. At the pre-race briefing they said that every year they have a few people who do four or six laps. Once past the park exit, you are not allowed to backtrack to correct your mistake.
 The first part of the run was hard. First I couldn't feel my feet, and then later when I could, they hurt. I stopped at one point to check that my socks had not crumpled up in my shoe and were pinching my toes. Everything was fine; I was just getting weird signals from my feet.
 The last third was good. I still had energy, my feet were back to their normal pain level during running, and I was able to speed up a little. I even passed some people, although they might have been in a later wave, or doing the sprint distance. Most of the course was on grass or going through woods. I'm not really used to that and twice twisted my ankle on the uneven terrain.
 I'm happy with how this race went. I wish I was faster, but given what i can do, I think this one went well and the pacing worked out.
  So, now Mike can leave a comment about how this race report is much longer than the one I wrote for the four-times-as-long Ironman ;-) Maybe report lengths are supposed to be inversely proportional to the race distance.

Stationary Engines and Pumps

The Blanchardstown shopping center is a small mall not far from where I live. In the first week I was here, I went there a few times to buy things I didn't bring in my suitcases and also to see what Irish stores sell. Eason is an Irish bookstore chain that has a store in Blanchardstown. That's where I found Stantionary Engine Magazine!
This is not a fancy bookstore that specializes in esoteric literature and carries hard-to-find magazines and out-of-print books. It's a typical mall bookstore with bestseller books, a shelf for local authors, candy, travel guides. and the usual stuff you find in these stores. But, they do carry Stationary Engine Magazine ;-)
The grocery store down the hall sells many of the same magazines and newspapers, but not Stationary Engine Magazine. So, Eason is one level up from them. They also sell several photography magazines like American bookstores do and some model railroad and tour bus magazines that I have never seen before. The tour bus magazines are full of pictures of what the next bus looks like that some city has ordered and how many horse powers it has, or descriptions and pictures of luxury tour buses. There are also magazines that do the same thing for tractors and other farm equipment.
I guess it is a little different from Barnes and Noble or Borders. But a Stationary Engine Magazine? Who reads that?
Well, maybe not that many people. Last month when I went to their web site, it was advertising the latest issue, but today the link (above) is dead. Maybe the issue I bought is one of the last ones.
In the introduction it talks about securing those engines. Theft of "sight-feed oilers and magnetos" doesn't seem all that common yet, but some of these engines have appreciated in value over the years and criminal incidents are on the raise! There are letters to the editor, pictures of engines and parts that people are seeking help with to identify, a bunch of ads, and several articles on restoring engines, an events calendar, and a market place.
I'll be checking the link to their web site and the bookstore for new issues. It would be kind of sad if something like that went under.

Art

One of the nice things about London is that many things are free. For example, we visited the British Museum and the Tate Modern without having to pay. Some special exhibits require a fee, but there is so much to see without paying, that we didn't have enough time event for that.
Another nice thing is that that some of these places let you take photographs. It would be even nicer if you were allowed to bring a tripod, but I was happy to take photos at all. I put my pictures for the British Museum and the Tate Modern up on Picasa.

Museum curators select pieces that are interesting and worthwhile to look at and display them for us to admire. Usually when taking pictures, you have to think what would make a good picture. At a museum that's already taken care of: Everything in there is worthwhile photographing! Then the question becomes what not to photograph. While it is tempting, there is no point in creating another museum catalog.

A replica of the Rosetta stone. They have the original too, but you are not allowed to touch that one.

 Taking pictures reduces to finding objects that are not constantly mobbed by people in your line of sight, things that have enough light on them to not turn out blurry, and items that make interesting subjects (more than all the others) for some reason. Time is also a factor, since our feet hurt after these marathon museum sessions: These places are big.

Now I had to narrow down my selection even further to show you here and on Picasa what I think are worthwhile pictures. For some that got cut out, even for some I included, I wish I could go back and retake from a different angle, or a slightly different camera setting. Although modern image processing software makes the latter almost unnecessary. At least in a controled environment like a museum. Outside is a different story. There might always be better sunlight or cloud formations to go back to a place and improve on the pictures taken last time.

The British Museum with a Utah sky.

I don't usually care too much for modern art, but I thought it would be interesting anyway to go see the Tate Modern. Most of the things in there are junk, but some things are neat and the museum itself offers plenty of opportunity to take pictures.

I know everybody has a different opinion of what art is, and mine is not particularly relevant. I like thinks that are pretty, somehow clever, difficult to make, inventive, cause an emotion (other then blah), or somehow strike me as worthwhile. A piece of art for me is something that has more than one of these qualities.

 I consider most of the things I uploaded into my Tate album to be art. Not everything, though. Feel free to give us your opinion.

Some photography is art too. Which then begs the question, if you take a photo of a piece of art, is the photo art too?

Not sure whether the mirror was part of the piece behind it or not. Is a photo of a mirror showing a piece of art, art? ;-)

How quaint! A photo of a photo from a photographer's collection at the Tate.

A Goodwill Gesture

Remember when Airtricity, my electric company, turned the power off to my apartment? And then two months later they had a solicitor send me a threatening letter to pay the 147 Euros the previous renter owed them. I was very mad.
People advised me to ignore any letter that were addressed to occupier or some such, and did not have my name on it. That doesn't work, though, because they had two accounts pointing to the same apartment: One was mine, and the other was the delinquent one. If nobody responded to their mail, they would turn the power off again: no more blog writing for me!
So, I sent them, and their solicitor, an email followed by a registered postal letter in which I demanded (by return post) a letter of appology, a confirmation that my account was in good standing, stop of all mail to this address that was not intended for me, and 150 Euros in credit to my account for all this harassment and all the hours I lost dealing with them. I said that if they didn't do that, I would hire a solicitor of my own and it would cost them more, if I added that cost to the hours of work I had lost.
I came up with the 150 based on the 147 they wanted me to pay and my (under) estimate of what it would cost to send registered mail. I threw that in to make it more serious. What I really wanted, was for them to straighten out their records and leave me alone.
Nothing happens in Ireland by return post. But, while we were on vacation, I got an email response apologizing for the mixup and a promise of a 150 Euros credit.
Today I got the latest bill, and it shows 150 Euros credit as a good will gesture. This has never happened to me before! Maybe I should go back to school and learn to be a lawyer ;-)

Signs

In the previous post I listed two of the themes I was pursuing with my picture taking during our vacation. Another theme was signs. I was looking for interesting, nice looking, and colorful signs. The criteria for inclusion in this gallery were lower than the glass and mirror one. Some of these are simple vacation snapshots. The two below are good examples:

They are not exactly master pieces. The left one I took because it seemed such an important place. Is this where they make physics? Do they govern it from here? Who are they? This was just a building along a street we walked. It didn't seem to be associated with any kind of higher institution like a university or maybe the Queen's palace. Can I go there to complain, if I feel gravity is too high?

Others, like the one above, were place we have been or shopped at. Most, however, stood out for one reason or another. They were particularly artistic, or seemed to have hung in place for centuries and were there to announce the location of a business still in operation.

And then there were some that just seemed whimsical. As usual, you can look at all the pictures in this series in my picasa album.

Do you want more or fewer humps?

Bikes, Glass, and Mirrors

I have started processing the pictures from the Switzerland and London portion of our vacation. Processing means mostly straightening some crooked shots, removing dirt and smudges, and selecting those pictures that are worthwhile displaying. I took almost 1,200 during our two-week vacation with the hope that at least 10% are salvageable.
My goal over the last few years has been to increase the percentage of keepers: Spend a little bit more time thinking when taking the picture and save a lot of time weeding through boring pictures and trying to correct those that almost turned out. Today I uploaded 14 and 28. Let me know whether they are worthwhile looking at.
When I was looking for subjects I tried to gather shots for a few themes. The pictures I uploaded today fall into the category of Bicycles and Glass and Mirrors.

A lot of people ride bicycles in Switzerland, but in London it was almost difficult to take a picture without having a bike in the frame. It was obvious that that should be one of my themes, but I didn't realize that until later, so that collection is relatively small. With the rain helping along, some of these could actually be in both albums:

The other thing that was obvious in London was that glass and mirror effects were everywhere. This provided lots of opportunities to catch colors, reflections, and play with focus to create interesting pictures.
What make some of these pictures interesting is that you can look at them for a while and still discover new elements. The one at the top of this post is an example. After looking at it for a while and changing what you are focusing at, you start seeing new things. I think I can see a man in that picture.
Here are a couple more that have multiple levels and it takes a while to figure out what belongs where.

You can view the remaining pictures of these two collections here and here. Now I have to work on the other pictures and hope to find another 78 good ones to reach my 10% goal. I'll let you know when I upload the next batch.

Barney's Rescue (no, not THAT Barney!)

While doing some reading about the river Liffey here in Dublin I came across this story that's weird, heartwarming, and sad all at the same time.
Last month an 18-year old man grabbed the pet rabbit of homeless John Byrne (38) and threw the helpless animal into the river Liffey. John jumped off the O'Connel bridge and rescued his rabbit named Barney. It took about 40 minutes for John, and the rabbit, to be rescued themselves: The river is quite a bit below street level in that area, and there is no easy way to get back up from it.
The young man who committed the crime was charged with animal cruelty and abusive behavior to the gardai who arrested him. John got offered a job at an animal farm for showing such compassion.
You can read the story here and here. This article has a video of the rescuer being rescued.

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When I read this article I didn't know what to think. When I first encountered the story, it wasn't clear where the rabbit had come from. Then, who would do such a thing? Why? Who is that homeless person? Strange, but nice; I think.

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News articles in Europe often include the age in parenthesis after the name of the people mentioned in the article. Sometimes a story makes more sense when you know how old the people are participating in it. Not this one, though.
Sometime the river Liffey flows backward, uphill! When the tide in the Irish Sea rises, it pushes the river water back inland.

Tour of Ireland

After my race, all of us spent a week in Switzerland and then another week in London. Anika and her friend Matthew had more vacation time than us working adults and so had time to visit me in Ireland. They explored Dublin and its surroundings on their own while I had to go back to work, but last weekend I had three days off, rented a car, and we went to a few places further away from Dublin.
I'll post pictures from our vacation soon. In the meantime have a look at the ones I took on our mini vacation here in Ireland. I posted them on picasa.
Even though Ireland is small, it is not possible to see it all in a few days. We selected the Burren, the Dingle peninsula, and the ring of Kerry as our destinations for that weekend.
The weather, always unpredictable and changing, wasn't great and I hope to go back to some of these sites and take pictures in sunlight. We had quite a bit of rain, but also a lucky few moments when we didn't have to use our umbrellas to take in a view or hide in a visitor center.

Living just below the clouds. At sea level!

Sometimes bad weather can make for good photo opportunities.

Driving on the left required concentration but it wasn't hard after a while. Shifting with my left hand was more difficult. Our car had six forward gears and I was never quite sure which one it was in at the time I released the clutch. The hardest part, though, was navigating the narrow roads. Even main roads are often just barely wide enough to let two cars cross each other. Most roads have no shoulder but are lined with hedges on either side. Leaving enough room for oncoming cars means brushing and scraping along those hedges and getting hit by the occasional branch that sticks out. After being accused by Anika of driving too far to the left (and hitting a mirror or two on parked cars) I watched cars in front of me. They were doing the same thing. It seemed better to brush along a hedge than colliding with an oncoming car. Driving here takes a lot of concentration and makes you tired.
The Clifs of Moher are a world-famous attraction but were a little underwhelming in the weather we saw them. In proper sunset light, like on the postcards, or from a boat, these tall walls look much more impressive. We need to go back and have another look.

The Cliffs of Moher

 More of the cliff walk used to be accessible to tourists but had been blocked off for safety reasons. 650-feet falls aren't especially healthy. If you google for Cliffs of Moher accidents and falls, you find plenty of reports. Until a few years ago, people were allowed to go right to the ledge and peek over it. Even looking at these people doing that looks scary. Now, they have fences and try to keep people at a safe distance. As the picture below shows, success is limited and resentment against the restrictions is high. While we were there, people in the safe zone were talking about the people living dangerously and how the gene pool could be improved with a good gust of wind (which happens frequently here). Some parents took their small kids out onto the cliffs which caused even more comments.

On day two we drove around the Dingle peninsula. The sights were fantastic, but mostly rained out. On the other hand, we learned a lot about the history of this area. Stone ring forts and beehive dwellings from prehistoric times show that people have lived here for thousands of years. The writings from more recent inhabitants show that life here was difficult at times.
Peig Sawers married a farmer on Blasket Island and later told her life story in a Gaelic autobiography. The success of the book ignited a small literary movement and encouraged other inhabitants to write about their struggles and experiences.
This area is close to the western-most point of Europe. The next county to the west is the USA. A lot of the stories written on Blasket Island tell of hardship and famine, and friends and family who have left to settle in the USA. Some of them never heard of again, others in regular contact sending news of hope and loan money for a ship passage to the USA. In the 1950's the Blasket Islands were evacuated. The dwindling number of inhabitants and supply of peat (turf), their heat energy supply, made continued inhabitation too difficult. Today, tourists roam the ruins left behind.

Peig Sayers is buried on the mainland, overlooking the Blasket Islands.

The ring of Kerry is on the larger peninsula just south of the Dingle peninsula. The guide books warned us of hordes of tourists and big tour buses, but we had to negotiate crossing them on the narrow roads only a few times. The weather was also much better on that day, but we had less time, since we had to drive back all the way to Dublin that evening.
An impressive sight are the store ring forts built between 1,700 and 1,500 years ago. Mostly the outer walls remain, and the small entrance gives an indication that defense was an important part of daily life back then.

Another aspect that intrigues me is how religion has shaped the lives of people and is reflected here in monuments, buildings, and the history of this land. It is not uncommon to see a place here that was holy to a group of long-forgotten people, and then find that when Christians arrived, they would build churches on the same sites, putting graveyards on top of older ones, mixing pre-christian symbols with crucifixes. What made the Christians believe that a site for worshiping Norse or Celtic gods was also a site favored by their god?

An ogham stone near Kilmalkedar where the Normans later built this Romanesque church.

 Ogham is an old irish language alphabet that consists of stick marks cut into the edge of rocks or pieces of wood. The stone above is burried deep into the ground from hundreds of years of buildup in that graveyard that has been used by the Celts and Christians alike. The ogham stone had been there about 900 years before the Normans build the church about 800 years ago.
The cross in the picture below has been placed many hundred years ago and suffered the same fate as the ogham stone: Most of it is underground now.

The ground has risen, covering the base of that cross.

Another interesting site of religious significance is Skellig Michael. It is the larger of two islands off the Irish coast, about seven miles from the ring of Kerry. Bad weather and stormy seas make it often unsafe to dock a boat there. In the sixth century, a group of monks decided that it would be an ideal place to live a harsh and isolated life. This close to the edge of the world, they believed themselves closer, and more true, to their god. It is hard to imagine how these people survived there for nearly six hundred years when they finally moved to the mainland nine hundred years ago.

Skellig Michael and Little Skellig.

We did not have time to make the often-canceled-due-to-bad-weather boat trip to Skellig. But I want to come back, climb the steep steps leading up the 700 feet mountain splinter (Gaelic: skellig) sticking out of the ocean, and see the abandoned monastery and oratories. I'll probably never figure out what makes people do weird things in the name of religion, but it is interesting to see the artifacts they leave behind and trying to understand what drove them to such extremes.

A mural in the visitor center for Blasket Island.

The remaining pictures are on picasa. I wish we had more sun to brighten them up a little, but we had a fascinating trip nevertheless.