Regularly, I mean. It turns out I'm a self-centered egotistical(I think that's just like self-centered squared) person who would only run at someone's else pace if a) they are faster than me and makes me push myself b) they are hot and I want to get in their pants c) I'm in love. And the last one is theory of my own making without any experimental support.
“Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well-preserved body. But rather, to skid in broadside, thoroughly used up,totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming .... WOW what a ride.” Mark Frost(The Match)
Thursday, October 04, 2012
Tuesday, September 25, 2012
Personal amusement...
It goes like this: "Curiosity killed the cat..."
You've got to face it, BOE!!!
I'm human!, I'm human! and,
Who is able to resist the temptation?
Silence fell when the question was asked
From lost to the Pond!
The worst that could happen is being Exterminated!
Alons-y!
Alons-y!
Sunday, September 16, 2012
A session with an accent...
That's how the chair of the session(and second speaker of it) described us when introducing my talk. It was just a remark as both speakers in that short session are Spanish and both have a remarkable thick accent. That was not a problem for the talks and no one complained about my accent nor my presentation(which is weird, as I'm sure it was kind of al-right but not perfect). Anyway, it was a good experience. I found it a bit difficult to write the talk, it was not for an expert audience but for people with a variety of backgrounds ranging, in principle, from atomic experimental physicists to hardcore condensed matter theorist. So I had to introduce two traditionally different fields pretty much from zero and build up to my work and my results, all in 25 minutes. I think I managed, leaving a trillion details out and only offering a hand wavy picture of everything but that's the most you can hope to do in such circumstances. I was asked a couple of interesting questions but I don't think I offered a good answer to any of them, sadly. That's something I need to get better at.
But anyway, this is not to say that my accent has not troubled me in the past. I can recall at least a couple of times where my accent/mispronunciation of some or many words has made the person I was talking to hear something completely different to what I originally said. Once I was about to enter the toilet and I told my housemate something like "if you need me, I'll be in there doing some vowel stretching" and for some reason he heard "if you need me, I'll be in there doing some balls stretching", hence the concerned look he gave me before I closed the door. A different time, I was discussing bouldering with another climber from the uni club and I was telling her how I am a bad climber but I have some considerable strength hence "I like big jugs". She heard "I like big Jack" and also glanced in a surprised manner at me(There's a guy called Jack in the club too, and he's certainly a big gentleman). These things happen less often nowadays, but from time to time, someone will get the wrong idea about me... :)
But anyway, this is not to say that my accent has not troubled me in the past. I can recall at least a couple of times where my accent/mispronunciation of some or many words has made the person I was talking to hear something completely different to what I originally said. Once I was about to enter the toilet and I told my housemate something like "if you need me, I'll be in there doing some vowel stretching" and for some reason he heard "if you need me, I'll be in there doing some balls stretching", hence the concerned look he gave me before I closed the door. A different time, I was discussing bouldering with another climber from the uni club and I was telling her how I am a bad climber but I have some considerable strength hence "I like big jugs". She heard "I like big Jack" and also glanced in a surprised manner at me(There's a guy called Jack in the club too, and he's certainly a big gentleman). These things happen less often nowadays, but from time to time, someone will get the wrong idea about me... :)
Tuesday, September 11, 2012
Once upon a time...
In a peninsula far far away, or so it seems, a past version of me wanted to be a writer. That kid could devour a thick book in a couple of afternoons. Thanks to the horrible education system in Spain at the time(only mentioning it because soon we'll have no system at all) I could basically ignore what was going on at school and concentrate in whatever novel I was reading at the moment. It was good, I did enjoy reading and, I guess it's because I was younger, I had a lower threshold and I would get anything to the end. I'd go an say that as with women, I've grown to have a taste, but with the latter I always had(ie, I've been extremely picky with women all my life and now I'm also with the books I finish). Anyway, I'm not writing this to talk about women. I was just thinking about that boy who wanted to be a writer and who wrote some short stories. I'm sure that literally speaking, they are much better than anything I could write these days but hopefully I've grown to live better stories though. Thing is that, around last summer, I discovered that not only I like theatre but in fact I do enjoy it a lot; both, reading plays and going to the theatre. I even started reading a book on how to write a play. That book has actually been in my bedroom for like a year, until I got it back to the library last week after having read some bits(it's actually good, at least to a neophyte like me) and never made it past the third line of "my play". "my play" is nothing else than an experiment with the LaTeX package for writing plays where I introduced some generic characters and a badly written first scene. That was last summer and I've been busy since then(it's been an awesome year, after all). In fact I haven't read that many plays during term time and only went to see one, Lovesong, which I liked quite a lot. And I just found out that you can rent online(although I am not sure you'll get all the visuals the production has in the theatre):
So, I had kind of forgotten again all about that boy who wanted to write.
Actually, that's not true. I just remembered, I went to see Top Girls by Caryl Churchill, which when I read it, I found difficult and which when played by actors is very good. Although, TOO MUCH DRAMA for my taste. By the way, and so I remember it, they have Much Ado About Nothing with David Tennant and Catherine Tate and it's on my TO WATCH list:
It's like £7, but I think it may be worth it.
As I was saying, it was all a bit forgotten until about three weeks ago I decided I was going to start watching that famous British TV show called Doctor Who. All those carefully crafted scripts made me wonder again, how do they get their ideas? I mean, you've got to be very clever and very imaginative to come up with such amazing story-lines and more importantly, to develop them in 50 minutes of TV. So although I don't think I'll be writing anytime soon(other than my thesis, and I've been already told my writing style is too wordy for science) I am extremely curious about the creative process behind, at this particular moment, Doctor Who. Luckily for me, the first showrunner of the new series, Russel T. Davies, wrote a book just about that. Well, it's not actually a book, it's a collection of e-mails with a Doctor Who magazine writer during some years where the whole process, according to the book extract that I can read on Amazon, was documented for some episodes. And, also, I got the filming scripts for the first season(it was less than £3 and, like right now, it was late at night). So, that will be interesting to read.
PS: To those who ever come across with a play titled "Copenhagen" and feel attracted to it because it's about Heisenberg and Bohr, don't bother. It's the biggest bullshit ever and I can sincerely not understand why on earth it is so famous. On the other hand, if you want to read a good one with a famous physicists in, try Clever Dick by Crispin Whitell
In fact, this is a list of the plays a read and I enjoyed(in no particular order)
And I just bought Mirror Teeth by Nick Gill because I have wanted to read it for a while and because apparently that's what I do when I am in front of my computer at 3am, I buy books.
So, I had kind of forgotten again all about that boy who wanted to write.
Actually, that's not true. I just remembered, I went to see Top Girls by Caryl Churchill, which when I read it, I found difficult and which when played by actors is very good. Although, TOO MUCH DRAMA for my taste. By the way, and so I remember it, they have Much Ado About Nothing with David Tennant and Catherine Tate and it's on my TO WATCH list:
It's like £7, but I think it may be worth it.
As I was saying, it was all a bit forgotten until about three weeks ago I decided I was going to start watching that famous British TV show called Doctor Who. All those carefully crafted scripts made me wonder again, how do they get their ideas? I mean, you've got to be very clever and very imaginative to come up with such amazing story-lines and more importantly, to develop them in 50 minutes of TV. So although I don't think I'll be writing anytime soon(other than my thesis, and I've been already told my writing style is too wordy for science) I am extremely curious about the creative process behind, at this particular moment, Doctor Who. Luckily for me, the first showrunner of the new series, Russel T. Davies, wrote a book just about that. Well, it's not actually a book, it's a collection of e-mails with a Doctor Who magazine writer during some years where the whole process, according to the book extract that I can read on Amazon, was documented for some episodes. And, also, I got the filming scripts for the first season(it was less than £3 and, like right now, it was late at night). So, that will be interesting to read.
PS: To those who ever come across with a play titled "Copenhagen" and feel attracted to it because it's about Heisenberg and Bohr, don't bother. It's the biggest bullshit ever and I can sincerely not understand why on earth it is so famous. On the other hand, if you want to read a good one with a famous physicists in, try Clever Dick by Crispin Whitell
In fact, this is a list of the plays a read and I enjoyed(in no particular order)
- Clever Dick and Darwin in Malibu by Crispin Whitell
- Breathing cropses by Laura Wade
- Glengarry Glen Ross by David Mamet
- Peepshow by Isabel Wright(weird thing, I would have loved to see the original production).
- Kiss me like you mean it by the GREAT Chris Chibnall(I just realized that this little play, that I enjoyed so much is by the same guy who wrote "Dinosaurs in a spaceship" and other Doctor Who episodes :) ).
- Entertaining Angels by Richard Everett
And I just bought Mirror Teeth by Nick Gill because I have wanted to read it for a while and because apparently that's what I do when I am in front of my computer at 3am, I buy books.
And out of the blue, I miss you.
It may seem stupid, it may seem too easy, but this makes me miss you.
This makes me regret giving up on you.
This makes my hands feel a bit shaky and lost without your body, without ever been able to grip you, to tame you with my fingers, to squeeze noises out of you.
I know you're gone. Well, I know where you are, but you'll never be mine again. I've learned to accept that and I can only wonder if life will ever put something like you in my way.
PS: This post is about my, former, acoustic guitar.
This makes me regret giving up on you.
This makes my hands feel a bit shaky and lost without your body, without ever been able to grip you, to tame you with my fingers, to squeeze noises out of you.
I know you're gone. Well, I know where you are, but you'll never be mine again. I've learned to accept that and I can only wonder if life will ever put something like you in my way.
PS: This post is about my, former, acoustic guitar.
Saturday, September 08, 2012
I shouldn't by I am...
a bit crossed because I'm seeing this guys tonight
But anyway, I'll get over it. Enjoy the concert and watch Dinosaurs on a spaceship when I get home. And now, off to do some work, I've got a paper to finish and a talk to prepare(it sounds like I'm a scientist :) ).
and the concert clashes with the new Doctor Who episode on BBC1 :s. I know, I can watch it later, but I guess I'm on my Whovianism maximum.
But anyway, I'll get over it. Enjoy the concert and watch Dinosaurs on a spaceship when I get home. And now, off to do some work, I've got a paper to finish and a talk to prepare(it sounds like I'm a scientist :) ).
Tuesday, September 04, 2012
Regeneration
I must admit I have watched far too much Doctor Who in the last two weeks. That's why I have used that title, but far from Sci Fi. By the way, if you don't know Doctor Who, IT'S A MUST! No, seriously, you have to watch it. It's brilliant. And has the potential of being a never-ending TV show, a good one.
But this post is about a different thing. I have have a goal and a plan(well, actually I lack the plan so far). I need to go from being a runner that swims to being a swimmer that runs in two months. Why? Well, during the past year I have tried many new things but I still haven't participated in a swimming competition and there's a chance I can go to my first one in the beginning of November. Hence why I need to change.
I have been focusing during the summer on my running, in fact I have not swam for the last three weeks or so. Currently I am following a training plan designed to bring my half-marathon time down to 1:35 but I've been a bit lazy and skipped the long runs under the excuse of... well, being tired. It's got 5 runs a week and I've been managing to only get 4 in, which I still plan on doing but now I have to put another 3 or 4 swimming sessions a week and some weights(that I'll start as soon as the Paralympics are finished and I can walk to the gym again). So I have a vague idea of what I want to do and some training sets for swimming but which are focused on long distance open water races(or actually the swimming leg of a half-ironman). I'll be using those as a guideline and as a way to recover my endurance and by the end of the month I hope to have gathered some freestyle competitive swimming sets so I can start doing proper training for a swimming competition. I'm very excited about it, even though it's not even sure I'll make the team and I know that if I make it, I'll be off in the heats and possibly with the slowest time. But still, it's exciting and new. :).
PS: Back to laziness and not reading before posting... I may edit it after I have posted it.
PS2: I miss climbing, I haven't climbed in a while :S.
But this post is about a different thing. I have have a goal and a plan(well, actually I lack the plan so far). I need to go from being a runner that swims to being a swimmer that runs in two months. Why? Well, during the past year I have tried many new things but I still haven't participated in a swimming competition and there's a chance I can go to my first one in the beginning of November. Hence why I need to change.
I have been focusing during the summer on my running, in fact I have not swam for the last three weeks or so. Currently I am following a training plan designed to bring my half-marathon time down to 1:35 but I've been a bit lazy and skipped the long runs under the excuse of... well, being tired. It's got 5 runs a week and I've been managing to only get 4 in, which I still plan on doing but now I have to put another 3 or 4 swimming sessions a week and some weights(that I'll start as soon as the Paralympics are finished and I can walk to the gym again). So I have a vague idea of what I want to do and some training sets for swimming but which are focused on long distance open water races(or actually the swimming leg of a half-ironman). I'll be using those as a guideline and as a way to recover my endurance and by the end of the month I hope to have gathered some freestyle competitive swimming sets so I can start doing proper training for a swimming competition. I'm very excited about it, even though it's not even sure I'll make the team and I know that if I make it, I'll be off in the heats and possibly with the slowest time. But still, it's exciting and new. :).
PS: Back to laziness and not reading before posting... I may edit it after I have posted it.
PS2: I miss climbing, I haven't climbed in a while :S.
Somewhat embarrassing or THAT awkward moment...
Yep, that awkward moment when you realize that the beautifully crafted wind-stopper that you have taken so much care on conserving its original properties(that being wind-stopping mainly) because you fucked up a running jacket by throwing it in the washing machine and then it stopped being water repellent.... And you have tried to keep it like new by not washing it(and ultimately due to infinite laziness maybe only rinsing it once) and one day you check the label and it's actually machine washable.
That's exactly what happened to me last week when after running about 1000km(or possibly more) I thought of checking the label to see if I could machine wash it without damaging the marvellous windstopping fabrics, and apparently I can :s. This is kind of embarrassing and I'm not going to lie, that jacket smelled horribly but I run alone and you actually only smell it when you take it off.
That's exactly what happened to me last week when after running about 1000km(or possibly more) I thought of checking the label to see if I could machine wash it without damaging the marvellous windstopping fabrics, and apparently I can :s. This is kind of embarrassing and I'm not going to lie, that jacket smelled horribly but I run alone and you actually only smell it when you take it off.
Sunday, July 29, 2012
Wednesday, July 11, 2012
What I ate yesterday.
Given that this is the first day of my experiment and well, I don't have any readers I don't think publishing here data that not even I care much about will harm my impact. Anyway, this is my figure today nearly 4000kcal which is alright and I guess representative of my diet for the last month. It would be even be healthy, I think, if I hadn't had the yogurt coated pineapple and the cheese twists, but in my defence I have to say that I only ate them today to avoid future versions of myself any temptations(but I shall not discuss why I bought them in the first place).
By the way, before you start calling me fat, I also had a nice run(actually hard as hell) that cost me, according to my wonderful Garmin Forerunner 305 >), about 981Kcal. Although the heart rate monitor strap is doing funny stuff, as according to it, I've been running for nearly an hour at an average of 208bpm and a maximum of 246bpm which seems quite impossible. Although hopefully, changing the batteries will solve it.
By the way, before you start calling me fat, I also had a nice run(actually hard as hell) that cost me, according to my wonderful Garmin Forerunner 305 >), about 981Kcal. Although the heart rate monitor strap is doing funny stuff, as according to it, I've been running for nearly an hour at an average of 208bpm and a maximum of 246bpm which seems quite impossible. Although hopefully, changing the batteries will solve it.
Foods |
Calories | Carbs | Fat | Protein | Cholest | Sodium | Sugars | Fiber |
| Breakfast | ||||||||
| Tesco - Crunchy Oat Cereal With Coconut, Sultanas and Almonds, 100 g | 450 | 61g | 19g | 10g | 0mg | 100mg | 22g | 7g |
| My Protein - Impact Whey Protein (Unflavoured), 50 g (1 scoop) | 197 | 3g | 3g | 41g | 1mg | 0mg | 0g | 0g |
| Tesco - Low Fat Natural Yogurt, 210 g | 147 | 16g | 3g | 12g | 0mg | 210mg | 16g | 0g |
| Tesco - Strawberry Jam, 3 tablespoon | 120 | 29g | 0g | 0g | 0mg | 0mg | 26g | 0g |
| Tesco - Semi-Skimmed Milk, 300 ml | 150 | 14g | 5g | 11g | 0mg | 132mg | 14g | 0g |
| Lunch | ||||||||
| Tesco - Chilli Con Carne (400g Can), 1 Can | 440 | 26g | 23g | 31g | 0mg | 1,000mg | 10g | 19g |
| Generic - Baked Potato, Microwaved, Flesh & Skin, 250 g | 263 | 60g | 0g | 8g | 0mg | 28mg | 3g | 5g |
| Tesco - Gala Apple*, 1 Apple (133g) | 71 | 16g | 0g | 1g | 0mg | 0mg | 16g | 2g |
| Dinner | ||||||||
| Wheatfield Bakery - Wholemeal Farmhouse - Soft Batch, 1 slice (50g) | 105 | 18g | 1g | 5g | 0mg | 0mg | 2g | 4g |
| Snacks | ||||||||
| Produce - Medium Banana, 236 g | 180 | 54g | 1g | 3g | 0mg | 2mg | 29g | 6g |
| Tesco Bakery - Cheese Twist, 2 twist (80g) | 712 | 78g | 39g | 12g | 0mg | 160mg | 32g | 7g |
| Neal's Yard Wholefoods - Yogurt Coated Pineapple Pieces, 150 g | 770 | 106g | 31g | 5g | 0mg | 15mg | 73g | 3g |
| Post-Workout | ||||||||
| Myprotein - Impact Whey Protein (Unflavoured), 13 g (1 Scoop) | 51 | 1g | 1g | 11g | 0mg | 0mg | 0g | 0g |
| Tesco - British Semi-Skimmed Milk Uht, 600 ml | 300 | 29g | 11g | 22g | 0mg | 1mg | 29g | 0g |
| TOTAL: | 3,956 | 511g | 137g | 172g | 1mg | 1,648mg | 272g | 53g |
Tuesday, July 10, 2012
Fine tuning, aka, calorie counting.
I reckon that in some aspects last year has been possibly the best in my life. I have found again an important part of myself that I seemed to have lost during my degree. The active guy inside me, the one that didn't have a problem when workout time came, mainly because it was the thing to do, there was no other option(ok, from time to time I tend to skip a workout or like this morning, reschedule it for the afternoon, but overall I'm basically a new person if you compare me with the 4 years ago me). Also, I have found an improved version of it, less lazy, more willing to push(although I'm still working on pushing myself even more :) ). So, it only comes natural that this period of happiness and good times has to come to an end. I mean, I've been building some endurance and getting back in shape. Now I am in some sort of shape, which I still want to improve a lot, but I can start thinking about fine tuning bits of it. And the first one that comes to mind is my diet. I say this period of happiness has to end cos I'm going to put a bit of care on how much I eat(I already care about the what). Up until now I've basically eaten as much as I wanted or as much as I could find in my fridge shelf(that has happened many times). I generally eat a healthy, if somewhat no very varied, diet based on carbs, roasted chicken and fruits but I'm going to start controlling the amounts or at least during a couple of weeks, I'm going to keep track of everything I eat and I will even try to only eat 3500kcal a day :). It should be enough to keep me running(and swimming and climbing) and see how this food depletion turns out.
PS: Calorie counting is a pain in the ass... Although I'm using a website that makes it much easier as it has info from most of the food I can find in Tesco :).
PS: Calorie counting is a pain in the ass... Although I'm using a website that makes it much easier as it has info from most of the food I can find in Tesco :).
Tuesday, July 03, 2012
Functional English speaker
Some days I feel quite optimistic about my English, I mean that I feel like I have a good grasp of it, beyond the fact that it has certainly improved by a couple of orders of magnitude(in an arbitrary scale defined as one that would match my improvement as equivalent to a couple of orders of magnitude :P) since I arrived here nearly three years ago. But then, I go back to my native language and I find things like this:
Sabina is a master of language, the depth and beauty of his lyrics are far beyond anything I can dream of putting down into words, no matter how intense my feelings may be, I will simply not be able to tame sentences in anything that may even have a hint of his craft. But that's fine, I also know that I won't be able to run a sub 2:30 marathon(although I may give that one a go :) )(and yes, note that sub 3, which is tremendously hard, I have not ruled out :) ). Actually what I wanted to say is not how good he is and how much I lack his skill but that I still haven't found a similar thing in English, which I am sure exists(I believe there was a guy called William something who was good at it...), it's just my English is not that good and I believe it to be far from it. I am at the point where stand-up comedy is funny, but I guess that's mainly because I have a cultural background more than because of the lyrical skills displayed by comedians(other than his masterful mind Tim Minchin!)
So, I guess I have just achieved a practical level of English but I am far from mastering it. I guess it will take to read many more books and possibly many years.
PS: I have the feeling that I suffer from premature posting, I mean, I have what seems like a good idea about what I want to write and the message I want it to convey, then, all the energy goes away with the first paragraph and I end up feeling like I didn't perform well and the rest is just a bigger piece of shit than the first one. But I guess I'm not up for saving it and rewriting it sometime later. :S
Sabina is a master of language, the depth and beauty of his lyrics are far beyond anything I can dream of putting down into words, no matter how intense my feelings may be, I will simply not be able to tame sentences in anything that may even have a hint of his craft. But that's fine, I also know that I won't be able to run a sub 2:30 marathon(although I may give that one a go :) )(and yes, note that sub 3, which is tremendously hard, I have not ruled out :) ). Actually what I wanted to say is not how good he is and how much I lack his skill but that I still haven't found a similar thing in English, which I am sure exists(I believe there was a guy called William something who was good at it...), it's just my English is not that good and I believe it to be far from it. I am at the point where stand-up comedy is funny, but I guess that's mainly because I have a cultural background more than because of the lyrical skills displayed by comedians(other than his masterful mind Tim Minchin!)
So, I guess I have just achieved a practical level of English but I am far from mastering it. I guess it will take to read many more books and possibly many years.
PS: I have the feeling that I suffer from premature posting, I mean, I have what seems like a good idea about what I want to write and the message I want it to convey, then, all the energy goes away with the first paragraph and I end up feeling like I didn't perform well and the rest is just a bigger piece of shit than the first one. But I guess I'm not up for saving it and rewriting it sometime later. :S
Friday, June 29, 2012
Really hot shirtless men...
Or the rise of indoor bouldering centers. Well, I definitively shouldn't complain that much about the journalist using that line when portraying bouldering centers as "a place for the single girl" given that it's full of sweaty muscular men as I've used it myself everytime I try to convince a female friend to come with me(although most of them came during the winter and given that there were no shirtless guys around,none of them repeated :(; although I guess that the soreness in their arms the week after and the fact that none of them are really the sporty type, also counts). Anyway, I am glad bouldering made it yesterday to the cover of the Guardian.
Although it's not exactly like they portrait it either. Bouldering is not just an alternative to the gym, bouldering is a wonderful sport on its own(or a training method for sport climbing). It has a mixture between gymnastics moves and a kind of vertical dance(or hanging from a roof if your arms and fingers can deal with it). But contrary to common opinion, it's not actually about strength(ok, other than for overhangs and roof sections), it's all about balance and good feet placement(like dancing, I guess, although I can't dance at all and I can boulder a bit :) ). I am sure I have already said it here but it's got the perfect mixture of accomplishment and frustration: there is always plenty of stuff you can do, some of it very easily and most often than not with plenty of sweat and some falls. But, there will be ALWAYS(unless your surname is Sharma, Ondra, Andrada or you are friends with them) something you can't. Some routes you'll fall over and over and that will take you two or three visits to the place to finish and when you do, you'll feel the thrill, the accomplishment, for a fraction of a second, and then will go onto another problem and start all over again :). It has a, I'm using a metaphore here!, soul cleansing effect that can only be compared with running at least 10 miles :) (and you can certainly do both regularly, although running is cheaper).
And yes, ladies, there are plenty of really symmetric men without a t-shirt around.
Although it's not exactly like they portrait it either. Bouldering is not just an alternative to the gym, bouldering is a wonderful sport on its own(or a training method for sport climbing). It has a mixture between gymnastics moves and a kind of vertical dance(or hanging from a roof if your arms and fingers can deal with it). But contrary to common opinion, it's not actually about strength(ok, other than for overhangs and roof sections), it's all about balance and good feet placement(like dancing, I guess, although I can't dance at all and I can boulder a bit :) ). I am sure I have already said it here but it's got the perfect mixture of accomplishment and frustration: there is always plenty of stuff you can do, some of it very easily and most often than not with plenty of sweat and some falls. But, there will be ALWAYS(unless your surname is Sharma, Ondra, Andrada or you are friends with them) something you can't. Some routes you'll fall over and over and that will take you two or three visits to the place to finish and when you do, you'll feel the thrill, the accomplishment, for a fraction of a second, and then will go onto another problem and start all over again :). It has a, I'm using a metaphore here!, soul cleansing effect that can only be compared with running at least 10 miles :) (and you can certainly do both regularly, although running is cheaper).
And yes, ladies, there are plenty of really symmetric men without a t-shirt around.
Wednesday, June 06, 2012
Glass pinching and other hobbies...
English, as you may know or suspect, is not my native language. I've been using this language for some years now, but I'm still rubbish at it, most of the time, at least. My native language is Spanish and partly due to the fact that I have used English too often for the last three years, I am rubbish at it too(well, I'm blaming the fact that I live in England, but the truth is that I need to blame my High School Philosophy teacher for that, but that's a totally different story and I'll tell you about how he saved me another time(or never)).
Originally I am lucky enough to have grown up in the most beautiful part of Spain. Ok, I should clarify I grew up in a desertic flat patch of the most beautiful part of Spain. But what I want to talk about today is not the landscape, brownish from the terrain, with some yellow and dark green coming from the wheat plants and olive trees, but I want to talk about the language and the special, wonderful things the inhabitants of Andalucia do with it when they speak. There are lots of original expressions that I find amusing, even though I have heard them since I was little, that are very peculiar and that I have great fun translating into English with a proper meaningful translation and I wanted to list them here, just for my own amusement and maybe yours.
Originally I am lucky enough to have grown up in the most beautiful part of Spain. Ok, I should clarify I grew up in a desertic flat patch of the most beautiful part of Spain. But what I want to talk about today is not the landscape, brownish from the terrain, with some yellow and dark green coming from the wheat plants and olive trees, but I want to talk about the language and the special, wonderful things the inhabitants of Andalucia do with it when they speak. There are lots of original expressions that I find amusing, even though I have heard them since I was little, that are very peculiar and that I have great fun translating into English with a proper meaningful translation and I wanted to list them here, just for my own amusement and maybe yours.
- ¿eres tonto o le pegas pellizcos a los cristales? Are you dumb or do you pinch glasses?
- Ninguna es fea por donde mea. No woman is ugly where they pee.
- En tiempo de guerra, todo agujero es trinchera. During wartime, every hole is a trench (although I've been told that "Every hole is a goal" is the English equivalent).
- Hace más calor que follando en verano en un soberao debajo de un plástico. It's warmer than summer shagging under a plastic in a loft.
- No ni na. Yes
Thursday, May 31, 2012
1:24:13
That is my Sprint distance triathlon finishing time, more or less. I lost the timing chip on the water, which is a pain in the ass and the reason I had no idea of my real finishing time until now. I had a rough idea, of course, and I was nearly sure it was below 1h30m, but I could not be sure(swimming in the pool is not AT ALL the same as open water swimming so my pool times were a very rough estimation of my open water times). I finished 179th of 366 on my category and 242th of 521 on the general, which is not bad; after all, I was doing my first tri, I had not trained that much on the bike mainly due to a lack of bike and I hadn't run in like three weeks because of my left knee(but I think I could have finished the Olympic distance, suffering a lot, but I would have finished below 3h :) ).
Given that I know my total time now and I know that the bike took 40 minutes(actually 40m30s is more likely, I should have actually practised the timing on the forerunner before the actual race which would have avoid, among others things, a risky turn that could have finished my race and smashed my face...). Anyway, the forerunner time is 39:07 but you have to add a minute and a half because that's more or less how much it had passed when I realized my timer was still counting as "T1". That makes 40:30 for the bike(not bad, given that it was the first bike outdoor bike ride I had in like a year and I had never ridden a road bike before). The run was not my fastest, but it was not my slower 5km either, 23m45s(after 750m swim and a 20km bike ride). Stupidly enough, Garmin connect does not support for multisport mode and I don't have the transition times at hand now. But the first one took me like 3 min and the second like 1min, I think. That makes, 4 min on transitions(really bad, but putting my shirt on wet turned out to be very tricky). That makes for a total of 68m15s for anything but the swim and hence a swimming time of 16:02 approximately. By looking at the results list and finding someone with a similar time that means I came out of the water positioned around 125th. Which, given that I think it counts the people in the first, fast, wave too, it's not bad. But I'd swear that I came out of the water top 20 of my wave. Anyway, next time I'll be more careful with the damn stupid chip(and I'll be getting my own fat velcro strap).
Times aside, it was an awesome day, although my brother got a bit bored with all the waiting and specially when I was racing. There was a lot of people and the Olympic distance guys and girls were awesome. And, after all, I got a new PB :).
Next one: Olympic distance on August 17th :)(I have not registered yet, but that's very likely to happen).
PS: I lost my sport climbing virginity last Sunday, in Portland, I did my first outdoors(and ever actually) lead with an F4 climb :) (I need to find it's name on the guide).
2nd PS: I should read a book from time to time so my English stops free falling into such rubbish.
Given that I know my total time now and I know that the bike took 40 minutes(actually 40m30s is more likely, I should have actually practised the timing on the forerunner before the actual race which would have avoid, among others things, a risky turn that could have finished my race and smashed my face...). Anyway, the forerunner time is 39:07 but you have to add a minute and a half because that's more or less how much it had passed when I realized my timer was still counting as "T1". That makes 40:30 for the bike(not bad, given that it was the first bike outdoor bike ride I had in like a year and I had never ridden a road bike before). The run was not my fastest, but it was not my slower 5km either, 23m45s(after 750m swim and a 20km bike ride). Stupidly enough, Garmin connect does not support for multisport mode and I don't have the transition times at hand now. But the first one took me like 3 min and the second like 1min, I think. That makes, 4 min on transitions(really bad, but putting my shirt on wet turned out to be very tricky). That makes for a total of 68m15s for anything but the swim and hence a swimming time of 16:02 approximately. By looking at the results list and finding someone with a similar time that means I came out of the water positioned around 125th. Which, given that I think it counts the people in the first, fast, wave too, it's not bad. But I'd swear that I came out of the water top 20 of my wave. Anyway, next time I'll be more careful with the damn stupid chip(and I'll be getting my own fat velcro strap).
Times aside, it was an awesome day, although my brother got a bit bored with all the waiting and specially when I was racing. There was a lot of people and the Olympic distance guys and girls were awesome. And, after all, I got a new PB :).
Next one: Olympic distance on August 17th :)(I have not registered yet, but that's very likely to happen).
PS: I lost my sport climbing virginity last Sunday, in Portland, I did my first outdoors(and ever actually) lead with an F4 climb :) (I need to find it's name on the guide).
2nd PS: I should read a book from time to time so my English stops free falling into such rubbish.
Sunday, May 13, 2012
A big blank canvas... with some scribbles
It says: Lanzarote, Kona, Ultra-Trail du Mont-Blanc and Marathon des Sables.
The rest: time will tell, there's no hurry. I have plenty of years to do it and I plan to reach triple figures.
PS: I finished my half-marathon in 1:50:30. I am very proud of the result even though I run slower than in the first one, although I finished much stronger. Now, I'll be racing my first triathlon in six days, in the city that I was born. A place that has a special colour. It's a sprint one, the shortest possible one, but as I say, I have the rest of my life to build up the distance.
The rest: time will tell, there's no hurry. I have plenty of years to do it and I plan to reach triple figures.
PS: I finished my half-marathon in 1:50:30. I am very proud of the result even though I run slower than in the first one, although I finished much stronger. Now, I'll be racing my first triathlon in six days, in the city that I was born. A place that has a special colour. It's a sprint one, the shortest possible one, but as I say, I have the rest of my life to build up the distance.
Friday, January 13, 2012
Thoughts on chocolate covered coffee beans
Because some days 10km is not enough...
Today is already feeling too long.
Wednesday, January 11, 2012
It's on baby!
81 days to go.
I was going to title this Songs for days when nothing works, then I went for my run, had a great session and realized I only have 81 days to my turning 26 crisis solving half-marathon. And actually only 80 days until I turn 26.
I did, indeed, started training for it officially or at least, I started the training plan I will be following. I started running with the nike running website training plans a couple of years ago with the 5k beginners and after a year break from running I went back in September to the 10k intermediate 1 and now I have upgraded to the half-marathon intermediate 2. It surely could be better, but I'm very pleased with my progress. By the way, I seem not to be able to stop listening to this song:
As I was saying or at least you could guess from the original title for this entry, I had a very unproductive and frustrating day work-wise as I could not make my program work and I seem unable to detect what was going wrong with it. But my running, on the treadmill though, changed my mood. For my first day, the training plan had prepared some intervals(this plan is described as a plan that concentrates on quality work and speed work for those trying to improve their times). 4x800m and 4x200m in particular and a total of around 10km running. It happens that whenever I am introducing something relatively new in my training I experience during the previous hours or even days some mild anxiety. It's like going from school to high school or from high school to uni but in a scaled down version. It happened to me the first time I run 10 miles, I was somewhat nervous about not finishing(I had actually aborted a 9miles run the previous week). It didn't happen the time I run a half-marathon in the treadmill but that's just because it was not planned and it actually happened the week after that when I went for a planned 22km long run. Hence it's not really odd that it happened yesterday again. I mean, I've run 10km before, and in fact that its becoming a somewhat short run these days and I always finish it feeling I need at least a couple of kilometers more. It was the intervals that were making me nervous, my former training plan had them, but since November I was a bit sloppy and dropped them and concentrated only on logging miles(truth be told, I've been running at a high pace the whole time so I've been doing sloppy permanent Fartlek or at least pushing my heart a lot). As I was saying, intervals were making me nervous so I decided to err on the side of caution because I wanted to be able to finish all of them, not just run a very fast one and not be able to even run the whole 10km(I dropped them last time because I had a horrible session where I could only run two intervals and was destroyed after that and I kind of chickened out a bit). I did so and had a lovely session with, I think good paces. My cadence was shit though.
Note: This has been waiting to be finished for more than a week, but now that I read it, I think there's nothing more too add, so, I'll just publish it as it is.
I was going to title this Songs for days when nothing works, then I went for my run, had a great session and realized I only have 81 days to my turning 26 crisis solving half-marathon. And actually only 80 days until I turn 26.
I did, indeed, started training for it officially or at least, I started the training plan I will be following. I started running with the nike running website training plans a couple of years ago with the 5k beginners and after a year break from running I went back in September to the 10k intermediate 1 and now I have upgraded to the half-marathon intermediate 2. It surely could be better, but I'm very pleased with my progress. By the way, I seem not to be able to stop listening to this song:
As I was saying or at least you could guess from the original title for this entry, I had a very unproductive and frustrating day work-wise as I could not make my program work and I seem unable to detect what was going wrong with it. But my running, on the treadmill though, changed my mood. For my first day, the training plan had prepared some intervals(this plan is described as a plan that concentrates on quality work and speed work for those trying to improve their times). 4x800m and 4x200m in particular and a total of around 10km running. It happens that whenever I am introducing something relatively new in my training I experience during the previous hours or even days some mild anxiety. It's like going from school to high school or from high school to uni but in a scaled down version. It happened to me the first time I run 10 miles, I was somewhat nervous about not finishing(I had actually aborted a 9miles run the previous week). It didn't happen the time I run a half-marathon in the treadmill but that's just because it was not planned and it actually happened the week after that when I went for a planned 22km long run. Hence it's not really odd that it happened yesterday again. I mean, I've run 10km before, and in fact that its becoming a somewhat short run these days and I always finish it feeling I need at least a couple of kilometers more. It was the intervals that were making me nervous, my former training plan had them, but since November I was a bit sloppy and dropped them and concentrated only on logging miles(truth be told, I've been running at a high pace the whole time so I've been doing sloppy permanent Fartlek or at least pushing my heart a lot). As I was saying, intervals were making me nervous so I decided to err on the side of caution because I wanted to be able to finish all of them, not just run a very fast one and not be able to even run the whole 10km(I dropped them last time because I had a horrible session where I could only run two intervals and was destroyed after that and I kind of chickened out a bit). I did so and had a lovely session with, I think good paces. My cadence was shit though.
Note: This has been waiting to be finished for more than a week, but now that I read it, I think there's nothing more too add, so, I'll just publish it as it is.
Saturday, January 07, 2012
Most marvellous thing in the universe
And sometimes, most beautiful too. I was just reading the EROS BLOG from the Spanish newspaper El Pais, somewhat lefthanded but kind of neutral, and to me possibly the only readable one. Although sometimes I'd like to email some of their writers either a dictionary of the Spanish language or a grammar or both. And that being me and my own grammar is sloppy. I can only imagine what goes through the mind of those well educated who also read it. Anyway, I digress, I was reading that blog and I was admiring the pictures of their last post about noises that lovers make in bed. If you're curious, I discovered the other day, when listening to Love of Lesbian in Spotify,that the same way that you can buy a CD with sounds from the middle of the amazonic forest, you can buy CD's with sounds of orgasms and sex(or listen to them in Spotify if you feel like it). Again, I digress. What I was about to say is that in that post, the pictures are taken from the blog I have just discovered and which from what I've seen so far, is a wonderful recollection of artistic pictures of naked bodies. And that is the most beautiful thing ever evolved in the universe(that we know of).
Thursday, January 05, 2012
Scatology
Or my theory on the new Facebook timeline cover picture.
Because I am sure I am not the first one to think of, and possibly someone has already done it, using that cover to put a picture of my erect penis in all its glory. I mean, it's not like I am thinking of actually doing it, but my theory is that it was created by some facebook engineer with that in mind. A sort of twenty first century equivalent of photocopying one's arse when the office is empty but broadcast to the entire world this time.
On the other hand this post may just be a proof of the unusual connections that happen between the neurons in my brain.
On the other hand this post may just be a proof of the unusual connections that happen between the neurons in my brain.
Monday, January 02, 2012
I'm going to be my own Pavlov's dog...
Pavlov's dog or classical conditioning is something I've read/heard of plenty of times(although I have not read the wikipedia entry I link to). Also, it's somewhat what I've realized I've been experiencing lately when I am somewhere and one of the FOUR songs they have always on at the gym starts playing. I just feel like I need to move, I need/want to start exercising. It works surprisingly effectively and I have not even been to the gym that many times. So I, in my infinite wisdom, have decided to try something similar to what Sheldon tries with Penny in the following clip:
But on myself. Just to see what happens. I, again in my infinite wisdom, think that instead of using chocolates I'll go for the cheapest and always available option of inflicting a bit of pain. Possibly the result of negative feedback for conditioning it's described in the wikipedia entry but it will be more fun to see whether it works or not. I'm also not sure that self-conditioning will work, but yet again, I'll just have to try.
What kind of pain? Well, first thing that I thought of was extreme pain as in that produced by hitting my infinitely sensitive to pain testicles. I'm just NOT going to do it. So I'll go for something less stupid like pinching myself or something similar. After all, I just want to test whether I can slightly modify my own behaviour indirectly or induce an indirect repetitive response to something, not get injured or loose my reproductive abilities.
What kind of pain? Well, first thing that I thought of was extreme pain as in that produced by hitting my infinitely sensitive to pain testicles. I'm just NOT going to do it. So I'll go for something less stupid like pinching myself or something similar. After all, I just want to test whether I can slightly modify my own behaviour indirectly or induce an indirect repetitive response to something, not get injured or loose my reproductive abilities.
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