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.

Race Report

Anika, her friend Matthew, and I are back in Dublin after spending a little over a week in Switzerland and another in London with Lee Ann and James. We'll go exploring Ireland this three day weekend and at the end of next week Anika and Matthew will head back to the States.
My fears of not finishing the Ironman were unfounded. Despite some problems I had plenty of time and am now the pround owner of a Ironman finisher medal and shirt.
I arrived two days before the event in Switzerland with my saddle, aero bars, helmet, shoes, wetsuit, and all the other stuff to do one of these events. My brother kindly lent me his bike which we outfitted with parts from mine and adjusted for my geometry. I was rushed traveling there and nervous, and promptly forgot the pedals and race tires I had wanted to bring along. I bought new tires and disassembled my brothers shoes to put the cleats that fit his pedals onto my shoes. This all worked fine until about ten minutes into the bike part of the race.

I did well in the swim, finishing in the first 20% of my age group, despite that I took it very easy and mostly let other people drag me through the water. The start was a mess with 2,000 people kicking and pushing each other. It got a little better after a while but about half way through we were funneled through the narrow straight in the picture above and had to run over a small island just to jump back into the water and finish the second loop. I'm happy with my time and the fact that it did not feel like I spent a lot of effort and energy on it.
Transition from swim to bike was slow, but there is no point in worrying about losing a minute or two in a fourteen hour race. Less than ten minutes on the bike and my feet felt funny. It was like they were floating on top of the pedals. After a while I had to stop and investigate. All six screws on both cleats were loose! I thought I had tightened them well enough and they held for two training rides on Friday and Saturday, but now there was a danger of the cleats falling off. About forty minutes ahead was an aid station with a mechanic, so I tried to pedal gingerly to keep constant pressure on the screws and not let them wiggle out and get lost. Fortunately, I did not have to wait that long. A mobile mechanic had stopped to helped a rider fix a flat, and he had a screwdriver I could borrow. In my haste, I fixed the right shoe cleat such that my foot was at a weird angle for the rest of the race. Near the end I was looking forward to the run, so I could put my feet back into parallel again.
I had a very carefully figured out pacing strategy that didn't work, but a failing bike computer helped me overcome that. Initially I had heart rate limits that I did not want to exceed in order to retain enough strength and endurance for the run. My heart rate was much lower than that, and when I went faster to reach those limits, I felt I was overexerting myself for this stage of the race. This worried me a lot, but the bike computer told me that I was going much faster than I had planed. So, I tried to keep a balance between how much exertion I felt and a good speed a little bit above what I had planed; ignoring my HR monitor for the most part.
During the second bike loop I realized that the bike computer would sometimes show zero km per hour and after a while started working again. During the time it showed zero it was not advancing the riding time that I had used to conclude I was going way faster than anticipated. Redoing these calculations using my wristwatch time, I saw that I was slightly ahead of plan, but nowhere near as much as the bike computer had shown.
This, I think, was a good thing. Otherwise I would have tried to bring my heart rate up more, thinking that I needed that to make the bike cut-off. I had a good bike time (for me) and came off the bike feeling like I could easily (slowly) run a marathon. Without the computer malfunction I would probably have stressed more and ruined my pacing.

The last part of the bike was in a heavy thunderstorm with strong head winds.

The second transition was also slow. I was soaking wet from the rain and changing into running gear took a little longer because of that. But that was fine, and soon the rain stopped.
The first loop out of four for the run was fine. It was slow, but I felt I could jog for the rest of the race and achieve my secondary goal of not having to walk during the running portion. Unfortunately, I missed that goal by a long shot.

Half way into the second lap, I bonked and had to start walking. At first I could not understand why, because I had felt good and things were going well. After a while I realized that I had not taken in any food during the first loop; only liquids. I walked to the next aid station and stuffed myself, and then walked some more to let the nutrition do its magic. It sort of worked. After a while I was able to jog again, but it was very hard. Part of it was psychological: once you start walking it is very difficult to convince yourself that running is worth the effort and pain it costs. The other part was probably physiological: it takes a while for food to be processed and be able to use the energy it contains.
Somewhere in there I was following an Italian guy my age or a little older. He was not doing all that well either, but he was faster than me when he was actually running. At one point we go by some park benches and he yells out in joy and plops down on one of them right in front of me. I cursed him, since it tool all my willpower not to sit down right next to him. After a while he passed me again, only to stop at the next aid station to chat with the pretty volunteer there. He did that a few times to me, but now I was one my fourth loop, he had only three arm bands and needed to do another lap, and I was feeling better, knowing that I could finish from here; and soon.
As is usual for me, I kept wondering why I was doing this and reminding myself to remember that I don't actually like pain. As a matter of fact, I hate it. That's why I always have signed up for the next race already, forcing me to continue training. This time I have no race lined up and am ready to retire from the sport (after a five-year, not greatly successful "career" ;-) I'm ready for the couch, some crisps, a beer, and a large-screen TV!

But now my poor run performance is bugging me. This time I was worried about the bike but thought I would do really well on the run for a change. I'm not sure what to do about the bike. I was nearly last in my age group, but I don't think I should have gone much faster without jeopardizing my run. Maybe with more training something under seven hours would be possible and still able to walk afterward. Still not a great time, but better than what I did in Zurich.
On the run, however, I know I can do better. Simply not walking would easily shave of thirty minutes or more. I don't want to do all this training again, but not having done any exercise for three weeks is beginning to bother me, and I think I could do this a little bit faster. Yes, I did an Ironman, which very few people out of the total population have done, but I am one of the slowest in my age group to finish, which so far has never bothered me too much. Breaking into the first half of my age group would be nice, though. I have to think about this. Maybe I'll do another one for my 55th birthday ;-)

Pictures are courtesy of my brother. Thanks!

I am an Ironman

Did it: results
More news and details when I get back from my two-week vacation.

Taper

Trend doesn't look good.

One more week to go and I already have a week of tapering behind me. I thought I would monitor my resting heart rate to make sure I am getting enough rest, but after the first four days of doing that, things didn't look so good. But, as you can see in the graph above, my heart rate has stabilized since then in the low 40's and it seems my heart will still be beating on July 10th.
Resting heart rate, measured in the morning, before you get out of bed, don't move a finger, lay flat, don't turn on any brain functions other than what is needed to push the go button on your HR monitor, is a good indicator of how well your body is recovering and whether you are over training. The actual number is genetic, but you can lower it by becoming more fit. If your body is under (training) stress, or you lose fitness, it will go up. The 46 BPM at the left of the graph is after a medium hard ride the day before (54 miles with an elevation gain of 3,025 feet). Now I'm down to three-mile runs and fifteen-mile rides. Almost boring.
My panic about not making it has somewhat subsided. My run training is going well and my longer bike rides have been at the minimum speed required to make it in time, but with more elevation gain than I will encounter at the race. Of course, then those Swiss people decide to throw in some additional obstacles: Due to emergency road repairs there will be a detour which will add two miles to the bike distance and another 215 feet in elevation gain. Thanks a lot.

More trouble.

Despite that, I do think I will be able to make the bike cut-off, get onto the Marathon, and finish in fourteen hours and fifteen minutes. If things go really well, maybe in less time than that.
The first 56-mile bike loop will be crucial. I will feel great from all the resting and be tempted to go fast. But I'll have to discipline myself and stick to a much slower speed than I could do, and fight the urge to make up a little bit of time while I'm still fresh. I need all that energy and strength for the second loop and then the Marathon. Yet, I have to go fast enough to make the bike cut-off, otherwise I wont be allowed to start the run.
If I go my predicted speeds, I will be able to "comfortably" finish the race in time, although I will be using different words than comfortably to describe how my body feels after fourteen hours of torture. Looking at last year's results for men in my age group, I wont be last, but I wont be in the first half of that group either. Which is fine for me, but again, it will be hard to let all these people at the beginning of the race pass me and pull away while I'm feeling fresh enough to chase them.
One of the things I learned over the last few years doing this nonsense is that there is a mental component to it. It's not that you have to be good at algebra or chess to do this, but you have to be able to negotiate with your body on how much speed versus pain, and you do have to figure out a way to pace yourself such that you achieve your goal without going too fast at the beginning and then not reach the finish line.
Should any of the jocks from my high-school days be reading this: I apologize for some of the things I said about your muscle to brain mass ratio; but not all of them.

Food

Today's haul.

In April, I explained how difficult it was to shop when all you have is sporadic Dublin Bus service and a bicycle. Afrodri suggested to try out the delivery service offered by several of the grocery stores around here. There are four, soon to be five, grocery stores within walk/bike distance from my apartment. The last one tried out was Superquinn. There is one in Blanchardstown and is therefore farther away than the Spar, Lidl, and Dunnes, that I already know. Tesco,  is building an Express store here in Mulhuddart; basically a beefed-up 7/11.
I heard of Superquinn when I first arrived, and that they are a little bit more expensive, but really good (and of Irish origin, unlike Spar and Lidl). So I tried it. They have a very nice selection, a large clean store, and lots of fresh fruit, bread, etc. It didn't seem that much more expensive than the others. And they had signs proclaiming that they had hundreds of items at the same price as the other guys. (Wonder how many items are in the store ;-) I usually just grab stuff that looks good and never remember how much it costs at other stores.
Last week I tried their delivery service. You pick stuff on a web site, enter your address and a credit card, and then pick a two-hour time window for delivery sometime in the next week. Some time slots cost 8 Euros for delivery, but it is easy to use those that charge only 4 Euros. And that's per delivery, independent on how much stuff you get.
Last Saturday two grumpy guys showed up promptly at seven, the start of my time window, and handed me my groceries in plastic bags sorted into frozen, cold, and ambient. They have compartments for each in their truck. You can return the bags for reuse the next time a delivery arrives.

I don't depend on these guys for my food supply anymore.

On the web site there is a box that allows them to substitute items when they don't have something you ordered. It's on by default and I forgot to uncheck it. At delivery they give you an itemized list of what they actually delivered and a list of substitutions, if any. There was only one: A Cabernet Sauvignon I ordered had turned into a Sauvignon Blanc. That was a little strange, since there where no other whites on my order, but I'll drink it anyway.
Ordering for this weekend was much faster. You can import a previous order and use it as a template to start shopping. This morning as I was planing my day, I thought, "What would happen if they called, and wanted to delivery early?". Guess what? They called in the afternoon to see if I was home and could accept the delivery! Maybe I should buy a lotto ticket today.
Unfortunately I was on a bike ride when he called, so that didn't work out. I was right in the middle of Worried Sheep Hill when the phone rang. This was the steepest part for today's ride. Lowest gear, out of your saddle steep. It was also narrow, so starting again was a little bit tricky.
After I got home, a different guy showed up with my groceries. He seemed a little bit more enthusiastic about the whole process than the two guys last week. He exclaimed "Fair play!" when I handed him his tip. I added that to my growing list of words and phrases for an upcoming blog on the Irish usage of English.
When I was picking out things on the web site, one caught my attention. Man-size Kleenex tissues; but these were extra soft! Of course, I had to get some of those, if only for the picture:

A regular-size Kleenex under the glasses. The ones in the box are folded.

They're at it Again

Hello, my name is Occupier, New Occupier. At least that's what Airtricity, my electric company, and their lawyers think.

Remember a couple of months ago, when those cretins turned the power to my apartment off? Well, they're at it again. Today I got a letter from Buchanan, Clark, and Wells telling me that they'd rather not commence Legal Proceedings (in bold face), but it was time for me to pay the 147.24 Euros they think I owe them.
My account with them, which carries my real name, has a zero balance. It is setup for them to automatically withdraw from my bank account how much ever they think I owe them. They have happily made use of that feature over the last couple of months.
Their letter is addressed to New Occupier at my address. Maybe they noticed that I was taking pictures in the dark and are unhappy with the lack of power consumption? I guess it is time to sit down and write some strongly worded letters. If you don't hear from me in a while, I'm sitting in the dark again.

Saturday Night in Mulhuddart

Jelly beans at night

The deadline for the paper I'm working on got extended. Back into procrastination mode until the deadline re-approaches. I'm in tapper for the Ironman, so training load this weekend is low: 3.5 hour bike on Saturday and an hour run today.
I'm not much of a disco dancer, so going out on Saturday night is not all that appealing to me. But I do like photography. I had read an article that describes Painting with Light and decided to try it. You need a camera where you can select shutter speed, a tripod, and a flashlight. Turn off all the lights, open the camera shutter, and use the flashlight to "paint" over your subject.
It took me a bunch of attempts to figure out which subjects would work, how to focus in the dark, and what shutter speed/aperture size combination works best.

I like my coffee

I took these pictures over the course of three evenings (I wasn't just avoiding the Saturday night crowd ;-) It doesn't really get dark here until well after ten at night and last night, with nothing better to do, I started early. It was really not dark enough yet to achieve th effect described in the article above, but the technique produced some interesting pictures nontheless:

Low rider choo-choo

I lit up the bottom of the train with an LED light through the glass table it was sitting on. Then I used the incandescent flashlight to add some light from the side. When I clean glass, it never really works. There are always streaks. Last night I got reminded that getting rid of dust seems to be an equally difficult problem for me. Click on the image above to enlarge it and you'll see what I mean.
I also played around with a green laser pointer, but even a couple of seconds with that thing produces too many photons for most of these pictures. Although I like the swirly candy-striped pattern in this one:

Using a laser pointer and a flashlight

I found out that light-colored jelly beans, when briefly illuminated with a laser, give off an incredible glow.

You can view the entire collection, free of charge, on my Picasa page.

My Sinks

I spy three things wrong with my sink!

No complaining about my Ironman training this week. I'm still fretting it and I know I'll be back in panic mode soon enough, but I thought I'll change the topic for a couple of posts. Although, I did find a cool quote yesterday when I was trying to calculate my optimal bike pace in the hills of Switzerland:

"If God invented marathons to keep people from doing anything more stupid, triathlon must have taken Him completely by surprise." P. Z. Pearce, M.D.

Anyway, Can you identify the three things wrong with my bathroom sink? Yes, the Stöpsel and chain is missing (I mean plug ;-), but what is it with this two-faucets-four-inches-apart thing? I know it's the British' fault, but why have the Irish kept this design? We're approaching a hundred years since the British left. The apartment is less than two years old!
How are you supposed to wash your hands exactly? When shaving, I alternate between splashing cold and hot water on my face. Just another thing I don't understand.
It's not like they don't know how to do it right. It takes me ten steps (yes, I counted real quick) to go from weird to normal:

Normal

They know what makes sense. Why would they chose weird?
Granted, even in the kitchen when you turn on both faucets, the single stream of water coming out is distinctly hotter on the left side than on the right. I have no idea how you would accomplish that. The Irish do, though.
Oh, and the third thing wrong with my bathroom sink? Blue on the right is hot and red on the left is cold. In the kitchen red is hot.

Today's Ride

The cockpit of my bike: Pump, heart rate monitor, phone with mapping software, and areobars.

Today I repeated the ride to Glendalough I did a couple of weeks ago. This was my last long bike ride before the race, and now tapering starts. I watched my heart rate carefully and pushed as hard as I could without jeopardizing the later part of today's ride. If I can keep that pace during the race, I should be able to make the cut-off time I'm worried about. Barely.
Going through Dublin into the Wicklow mountains involves a lot of red lights and stops. I stopped my watch during those interruptions and also when I had to eat, with the justification that I wont have them during the race. But, of course, it skews the results. I'm a little bit more confident than two weeks ago that I will make the cutoff, but not by much.
At the race I will have better roads, volunteers to guide me and stop other traffic, a faster bike with faster tires --- and a marathon to run afterwards. My legs were pretty much toast after today's ride...
I am happy that I found a route that mimics the elevation profile I will encounter in Zürich.

Elevation profile for today's ride

The two-loop elevation profile for Ironman Zürich

As you can see the total amount of climbing is about the same. The distances in the figures are wrong: I did 90 miles today, and the Ironman will be 112 miles. So, today's ride should be representative for what to expect in three weeks.
I mentioned before that I am not doing this to beat someone's record. The goal for me is to finish. I'm doing this, and the shorter races I have done before, to motivate me to exercise. In some sense, when I step to the starting line in three weeks, I have already won. I put in all the work and burned thousands of calories, improved my cardiovascular health, lowered my resting heart rate to around 40 beats per minute, lost some weight, and improved my cholesterol ratio. All that before 7 O'clock Sunday morning, July 10th!
To celebrate and replenish my sodium levels (and because it's a cool brand), I had those yesterday:

With a brand name like that, what could possibly go wrong ;-)

(In the US, Honky Dory means everything is alright.)

Other Blogs

There is a spot somewhere on here where I could list the blogs I follow. I don't really follow any particular blogs, but I do browse around and look at things.
Once in a while I click at the Next Blog link at the top of this page. It seems to go to a random location each time you reload the page. Usually it's some religious nut telling you the end of the world is near and that the time to repent is now, or some exercise freak who is either trying to lose weight or who is trying to beat somebody in some sport. (My blog is different; I have no illusion about beating anybody ;-)
But once in a while you come across something really creative. I'm not quite sure how I found this one. I think it was in some list of favored or much frequented blogs. Go there and look at the pictures. It takes a moment to figure out what is going on, but then you start asking how are they doing that?
Well, there is a YouTube video showing you some of the secrets:

Last Long Run

On Wednesday I did my last long run before the race. It was the same route I took on May 26th. I wanted to see if I had improved. Then, I jogged it in three hours and 26 minutes, which was 40 seconds longer per mile than my training plan dictated.
I sometimes say "run", but jogging or brisk walk more accurately describes my locomotion when I do my exercises. Nevertheless, I'm happy to report that I did the most recent 20-miler in three hours and nineteen minutes; corresponding to a sub-ten minute per mile pace. The training plan had me do it at a 10:05 pace. That last rest week must have helped.
That's it for long runs. Next week is a twelve-miler, then an eight, and then it is race week. Some tempo work and speed runs, but none of that hours-long grueling endurance stuff.
Part of being faster was that I sped it up a little over the last six miles or so, because my poor arithmetic skills get even worse when all my oxygen is concentrated in my thighs, and not much is going on in my brain other than "push, push, push, ...". I thought I was going much slower than my actual speed. While a 20-mile run is not easy for me, this one was not horrible. Not that I was jumping up and down for joy afterwards; my legs wouldn't take that, but I was not completely dead. A couple of ibuprofen took care of the problems I had.
I had occasional cramping in my left calf, and over the last two miles my right knee started acting up again. Most of March and April I couldn't do the runs I was supposed to do, because my knees were killing me. I need to be careful to make sure that doesn't come back just before the race!
At mile 19 I was huffing and puffing through a park. A bunch of girls were sitting in the grass snickering at me. After a long run, I look like a Borg with the water tube of my camelback sticking out to the side and me all worn out.
One of the girls yelled out "Nice legs!" to me. I guess it's nice to be not completely invisible to the sub-twenty set. Even if it is just for them to taunt me. My legs sure didn't feel nice at that point.
It's better than what happened to me a few years back when I was running around Academy. A group of much younger kids passed me with their gym instructor. A boy, who barely reached my hips, turned around, gave me the thumbs up and said: "Good job!". Then I got passed by a slightly taller girl whose T-shirt read: "I bust mine, so I can kick yours."

You be the judge

Bad Weather

No bike ride today!

If I was hard core, I would have gone on the bike ride I was supposed to do today; it was only a light rain (by Irish standards). But I'm a wimp, so I didn't. I worked on code for work instead and made good progress. If the 20% chance of rain tomorrow morning does not materialize, I'll do the missed bike ride today morning.
When I first came here, I used weather web sites to plan my bike rides and training runs for the week, but that doesn't seem to work very well. The sites don't really agree with each other and they usually predict rain anyway (which is a save prediction). The reality is that, on any given day, you get rain, sun, wind, and no wind. Many days start out beautiful and you look forward to a pleasant evening ride, just to come out of work and find it pouring.
Today was an exception. It pretty much rained all day long. It stopped in the evening, but the sun never came out. The other exception was that the web sites I consult for weather pretty much agreed that today would be a crappy day. They also mostly agree that tomorrow should be better, but colder.

The Weathernetwork

The UK Metoffice

WeatherUnderground

BBS Weather

Weather Channel

Intellicast

And Ireland's own:

Irish Met

Note the 30 km/h winds predicted for tomorrow (about 20 miles/h). The text on the above site describes this as:

Monday will be a much brighter day with sunny spells developing and it will be dry apart from the risk of a few isolated light showers. A mild day, highs of 14 to 17 Celsius, with a moderate west to northwest breeze.

A moderate breeze? Whatever!
The Irish are stoic when it comes to weather, although they do like to talk about it. When I arrived here at the end of February it was bitter cold. I've been in colder weather, but I think the humidity made it feel much colder for me. But, there was an ice cream truck driving around selling to kids. (I guess to toughen them up; early on.)

Candy floss is cotton candy.

And he was out again today! I've been wanting a picture of him ever since I saw him the first time, and today I caught him. Look at the gray sky in the picture below. This was just after it had stopped raining. And he was selling! I heard him turn off his nefarious music several times while he was in my apartment complex. He does that when someone flags him down to make a purchase.

Look at that sky and the person in the heavy rain gear.

It's usually not as depressing as it was today. Often the sun comes out and all these clouds help creating conditions for marvelous sunsets. I photographed the indirect one below a few days ago.