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When I joined my running club, Bella, I was keen to try different types of running event. Largely that meant different distances, and a spot of cross country and trail running. But hill running just wasn’t something I’d thought I’d find myself including. Hill runners, to me, seemed one stop short of ultra-marathoners, and to be looked at a bit carefully…

But as time passed, I’ve got to know one or two, and rarely heard a bad thing said about the activity. Whilst on holiday, I also read a wonderful book “Feet in the Clouds: A Tale of Fell-Running and Obsession” (highly recommended to any runner), which sowed a few seeds in my mind, and began to feel that perhaps it wasn’t quite so bad after all. After all, you don’t have to run up the hills – just do your best to get up and down again as quickly/safely as possible, and enjoy the experience.

So when my Road Running club decided to organise a hill run – The Bella Ben Venue Challenge – it seemed like a custom made opportunity to try it out. I knew there’d be plenty of hill-running newbies taking part, so I wouldn’t feel completely outpaced.

The weather forecast though, wasn’t too promising. High winds and rain seemed to be on the agenda, as a low-pressure decided to sit over the northern reaches of Scotland. The Forth road bridge was closed to high sided vehicles. 80mph winds. I’d been assured though that a run would happen, regardless of the forecast, so seemed rude not to go and see what it was all about. It was all in a good cause too, proceeds going to Lomond Mountain Rescue team, so despite a slightly concerned wife, and baffled comments from my Glasgow parkrun co-organisers, I set off up to Aberfoyle and into the Trossachs to run up a hill not that far from where I was married last year.

After parking up, I headed through the paths to the start area, and sorted out registration. £5 is incredibly good value for a race, particularly for such a good cause, and given the marshals had a heck of a way to go to get to their various points.

Given the high winds, the course was altered. Quite sensibly. That the marshals – Mountain rescue team members I should add – couldn’t stand up on the ridge, it was felt appropriate to adjust the course. Even though it looked delightful at the start, we were sheltered, and I’d seen how changeable the weather was.

After the start, we headed up through hard-packed forest paths, which were really quite delightful. For a road-runner like myself, quite a novelty, but the steep inclines were taken steadily, and it felt quite odd (for a road runner) to be “allowed” to walk as much as I did. I was also determined to enjoy the experience, and not push too hard. Nonetheless, I had perhaps set off a bit too fast, so deliberately eased off and let a few folk past.

The checkpoint at the edge of the forest marked the start of the ‘real’ hill running. We were out onto exposed hillside, which had a generally visible path up, but it was heavy going. Very muddy indeed, and quite disconcerting to place your feet into what looked like wet grass, only to sink knee deep into quite slurpy mud! Thankfully my shoes didn’t come off, but it was a close thing! I put the prospect of having to wash my clothes out of my mind and just enjoyed it: It’s not every day you’re able to get quite as muddy

It was tough going at points. A few scrambles required, and if not a scramble then a bog to navigate, but my legs seemed to hold their own, although I was very grateful to finally see the lead runners approaching in the opposite direction. Fellow club runner Matt Williamson was just in the lead, and haring downhill at quite a rate. Impressive stuff, but I knew I had nowhere near the confidence to do anything like the lead runners were managing!

The top was approaching, and I was passed by plenty more fellow club runners, one or two of whom warned about the winds at the top. And I was grateful for the warning, as no sooner as the cairn that marked the turning point came into sight, the winds hit, and it was quite something. I was blown in all directions, and it was everything I could do to get to the cairn and see the incredibly resilient marshal note down my number, before turning and struggling back down, passing on the warning about the wind to everybody I passed!

The descent was, at first, wonderful for the fact that I had my breath back and could enjoy the experience a bit more. But soon found focusing on finding a safe path at the higher speed I was travelling more than made up for it. A few slips and a nearly twisted ankle made me certain to be careful, but also not to think too much. Instinct felt more reliable than trying to rationalise which path seemed better. Just get on with it!

Getting to the bottom of the exposed hill and on to the hard-packed forest paths was a welcome relief, and it was a thoroughly enjoyable run down through the forest. Rather than belt it out, I decided to enjoy the run, and fell into an evenly paced run with another runner, and we had a lovely chat as we descended. Some absolutely stunning views out over the Trossachs, with Loch Achray in the distance. After a while though I felt strong enough to push on a bit harder, and set off in search of a needed cup of tea!

Crossing the finish line (a time of 1:22:09, the winner finishing in 51:17!) was a great relief, with an enormous sense of achievement, but nothing as compared to the wonderfully warming cups of tea the club had put on in abundance, and a marvellous spread of home baking. Plenty of post-run analysis with the many experienced (and newbies like myself) hill runners. All seemed to agree the decision to adjust the race the correct one, and all seemed to feel it was a great new addition to the hill running calendar.

Looking at the course profile here (via Chris Upson), it seems there was 860m (1,800ft) of climb involved, over a 6.4 mile (just over 10k course). A few years ago I’d have felt that would be quite a decent achievement for a hill walk, but the idea of running up and down just not something to ever consider. Madness. Yet delighted to have felt able to have taken on the challenge, experienced hill running for the first time. Amusingly I even now find myself with an athletes entry on the Scottish Hill Racing website!

My legs aren’t too bad, two days afterwards. Much better than I expected to be honest: perhaps the hill work paid off! Whilst not a hill running convert just yet, I’m absolutely delighted to have taken part, and certainly going to try another hill run in the not too distant future. Living in Scotland means I have some of the best scenery in the world on my doorstep, and being able to combine seeing it and experiencing it through my passion for running, just seems an ideal combination.

It’s not often you get to write about running and books at the same time. The few running books I have are quite technical books, dealing more with the actual process of running and providing a reference point for my questions. They’re not so much in them about what it is to actually be a runner. Consequently, they’re more functional, reference material, and there’s not much to be said for writing about them, much as I don’t really feel the need to write about dictionaries!

Saturday’s Guardian has an extract in the magazine from Haruki Murakami’s forthcoming book “What I Talk About When I Talk About Running” therefore jumped out at me. It’s an excellent piece – well worth a read by any other runners – and as a result I’ve got the book in my shopping basket already. There are some superb extracts about the joys of running: the thoughts you have, observations you find yourself making, routines and mantras you go through, and the challenges you face. One section jumped out at me, particularly in light of my comments yesterday about running being every bit a mental challenge as a physical one:

One runner told of a mantra his older brother, also a runner, had taught him which he’s pondered ever since. Here it is: “Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional.” Say you’re running and you start to think, Man this hurts, I can’t take it any more. The hurt part is an unavoidable reality, but whether or not you can stand any more is up to the runner himself. This pretty much sums up the most important aspect of marathon running.

Click here for the full article.

Frances is coincidentally currently reading Norweigian Wood, by the same author, which I gave her for Christmas. I’ve heard great things about that book, and hoping to read it when she’s finished. I just hope she doesn’t finish it just before this book comes out!

It’s been a while since I’ve posted any ‘new gadget’ reviews, so felt it was time to put that right. I’m very pleased with my iPod Nano, and the Nike+ pedometer is proving a great success (more here).

However, until recently I’d been carrying my iPod in my hands, which wasn’t very good – it affected my posture, and exposed the iPod to the elements. I was not convinced that the Nike armband carrier for the iPod with Nike+ sensor attached was any good – it seems a poor design and makes it difficult to see or control the iPod. I was hopeful then that US outfit Marware would come to the rescue.

And come they did. Unfortunately for UK residents like myself, their new “Sportsuite Relay” setup was not available from any of the main Marware importers after it’s launch a month or so ago. However, I decided I’d buy it direct, and pay the $12 shipping on top of the $29.95 for the iPod Nano and Nike+ arm/wrist-band, and the ‘pouch’ for the Nike+ pedometer. The total in proper money was £22.83p, which compares extremely well to the poor Nike-branded strap. I’m pleased to say that the shipment was about a week (I don’t know precisely, as I was away for the week when it arrived), and there wasn’t (for me anyway) any customs duty to pay – presumably because ‘computer case’ didn’t really warrant attention, much less for such a small amount. Your mileage may vary of course.

The arm-band/iPod carrier is excellent. Surprised you need the ‘extension’ strap to get it around your arm, but I’ve already found I’m not so keen on it being on my arm (given I’m forever jumping tracks), and prefer it on my wrist right now. But then I’m faffing about with playlists all the time, and haven’t found my ideal just yet.

The shoe attachment makes me much more confident that it won’t fall off than with my original hack. Whilst the hack is fine, it’s preferable to have it in a shower-proof holder, and feel more secure.

My only criticism is the iPod is a bit of a pain to get in and out of the sleeve, out of necessity I suppose that it won’t fall out when running. However, it’s a trivial hassle all said.

This is an excellent, I’d say mandatory, accessory for anybody using the Nike+with their iPod Nano, and importing it from the US really isn’t very expensive at all. But I imagine it’ll be available in the UK before too long if you’d rather deal with UK companies.

Sportsuite Relay details here.

This is a post from Frances, which makes a nice change!

I’ve seen other postings from people with the same problem, and still haven’t been able to find an answer through any searches (the list I got the answer on doesn’t seem to show up on google searches, and the other places I’ve seen it posted to won’t allow any replies now since it’s been too long), so I thought it might be nice to post the answer for any poor developers coming along behind with the same problem. Let’s face it, if they’re doing driver development for Windows, they could use a few breaks

The Problem:

I’d been trying to develop a mirror driver for Windows XP, but unfortunately the sample mirror driver that Microsoft provides in the DDK (Windows Server 2003 SP1 DDK, and previous XP DDK) stops Excel from working – once the driver is installed and has been used, any attempt to start Excel (even an empty worksheet) causes an error dialog with “Not enough system resources to display completely”.

The solution (provided by Avinash Jha on osronline ntdev mailing list):

The excel problem is due to the DDI calls returning FALSE in the sample mirror driver. To solve the problem, please change following functions to return TRUE in enable.c file :

DrvCopyBits

DrvBitBlt

DrvTextOut

DrvStrokePath

Now rebuild the driver, replace the .dll in system32 directory and reboot your PC. That’s it, you can start playing with Excel again!

A mailing list I’m on drew my attention to a phone interview on Radio 5 last night by Stephen Nolan, with Philip Pullman (author of the His Dark Materials trilogy, my review here). What follows is probably one of the most unbelievably rude treatments I’ve heard of a well respected author by somebody who seemed intent on foisting viewpoints on Pullman that he didn’t share or state.

I’ve long stopped listening to music radio for just this reason. Whilst Radio 5 isn’t music radio as such, it’s this sort of mindless blathering on the part of the DJ that I can’t stand, striving to fill silence with something. It’s all so much worse on talk-radio, where it’s merely the size of the DJ’s ego that can fill the gap. In this case, throw in a religiously biased axe to grind, and you’re ready for blood-boiling (in me at least).

The subject was on the teaching of the secular/atheist/humanist perspective in Religious Education classes. Thankfully, the other interviewee (Graham Taylor) did a good job of backing Pullman’s case of taking the religion out of school altogether. I’ve been sent an MP3 of the interview, which I’m hosting for the benefit of the secular mailing list I’m on. Make sure you’ve a sound constitution and an ice-bag nearby to calm yourself if you’re anything like me. (listen to it here). The Stephen Nolan Wikipedia page says it all. “somewhat in the style of Jeremy Clarkson“. Yikes.

If you prefer a DJ-less music experience, and like supporting independent musicians, check out Indie Feed. I’ve just purchased a couple of tracks from the Techno Squirrels (Best. Band. Name. Ever.) on iTunes, and certainly now fear the day I have to go back to listening to pundits with inflated egos wasting valuable music-playing time with opinionated, argumentative and outrightly rude crap, like this guy.

Excuse the extended absence these last few days, but I’ve been down in London working (mostly), and catching up with friends. Busy busy busy as they say.

Anyway, to the point, via neil, comes cute overload, and they’re really not kidding.

Somehow the creatures nicking food appeals to me most: The bunny with the biscuit, and the chipmunk with the entire peanut in it’s mouth. Marvellous.

We’ve spent this weekend tidying up, emptying boxes, and generally working out what needs to go where. It’s time consuming work, and things like unpacking clothes (very much Frances’ realm) takes time and doesn’t actually feel like you’re progressing much. Putting up pictures – the few that we have – takes less time and adds a lot more to the comfort factor.

Bathroom is sorted, front room is empty (nothing to put in it yet!), kitchen/lounge (it’s a through and through) has stuff in it and feels a bit more like home, Bedroom is getting there. Spare rooms are piled with boxes and miscellaneous “stuff”, plus the 15+ boxes of books I have, many of which are destined for charity shops.

The room I’m most excited about is the loft. It’s floored, has a couple of dormier windows, and is ideal for a dedicated office. I’d previously thought we’d convert the small bedroom into an office, but the loft space is better for a number of reasons. First, it means we don’t have to ‘ruin’ a perfectly good bedroom with an office layout (always with a view to resale value, more dedicated bedrooms are better, plus more space to put up friends and family). Secondly, it’s out of the way, so quiet at all times of the day (we can occasionally hear next door, and in the loft there’s less risk of that). Thirdly, it’s a space Frances doesn’t care about. I’m not the most tidy of people (stop laughing at the back there), so a space that is mine to make as much a mess of as I like is ideal.

Of course, the risk is that the room is likely to get quite cold in the winter: There’s not much insulation above the false ceiling. So at this point we’re just holding for a few months before doing anything serious to it, just to make sure it’s suitable for my purposes before spending money on it. But that said, a heater and an open door to the ladder (and it is a ladder, not a staircase) should mean it’s usable during the day.

Not without it’s mishaps. The washing machine’s pump has failed after only getting a couple of washes through it, so we need to get that fixed. I’ve not got a good history with washing machines, as some folk may know… Still this shouldn’t be too difficult. It’s clearly the pump as it’s not draining out, and does so only when gravity comes to it’s assistance. You can here the feeble sounds of a motor straining inside (anybody who’s ever played Scaletrix will know what I mean). I also needed to burn some things the mice had got to yesterday, which resulted in a lot more smoke than I’d bargained on. Despite it raining, and no risk of washing out to annoy the neighbours, the guilt inside of me meant I decided it’d be better just to let the rubbish folk clear the stuff away. It’s testament to the lack of coal fireplaces that people are getting more intolerant of smoke in urban areas.

So we’re slowly bringing order to the chaos. We took a stroll into Shawlands today to visit the Beanscene there. It was their fifth anniversary, so it was packed to the rafters with kids getting their faces painted. It’s a nice place to go, but during the day at a weekend it’s filled with parents and kids (see previous rants), but it’s a great place in an evening.

Anyway, the apple tree in the garden has produced lots of fruit this year, and I’ve an apple crumble almost ready in the oven. The smell has just reached my desk in the loft, so I best go check it out before it starts burning!

Podcasting is a new term that is being used with increased frequency. It’s essentially a combination of RSS (used for desktop news headline aggregation) and mp3’s. The content is entirely dependent on the feeds you subscribe to.

One of the very best is the BBC’s Podcast of “In Our Time”, where Melvyn Bragg discusses matters ranging from the origins of the universe to renaissance art. I’ve passed many an hour with my iPod (note that you don’t need to specifically own an iPod to take part!) listening to episodes whilst travelling. Plenty of other Podcasts exist – it’s rapidly gaining popularity.

Download the software, and hunt out the content. You can’t go much better than the BBC though as it continues to push podcasting, by making The 2005 Reith Lectures available, the first of which is on “The Triumph of Technology” (via boingboing).

When I first bought my iMac G5, I commented that a TV tuner meant that the iMac couldn’t take over in the living room. Since then Apple have launched the Mac Mini, which I think sets out a plan to get in on the living room market.

So a TV tuner would make a lot of sense for either the Mac Mini, or the TV-like iMac G5. Thankfully, Elgato make just such a thing, the eyetv 410. I’ve had one for over a month now, and thought I’d share my opinion on the product. Read the rest of this entry »

Yesterday I bemoaned that the UK government had pledged a paltry £411,000 to the disaster relief effort in Asia. That’s less than 0.7p per person in this country.

Well, the good news is today they have increased that to £15m (approx $28.5m), which is almost as much as the US government ($35m). A country four times the size, with the largest economy in the world. Hillary Ben spoke on the Today programme on radio 4, and his words certainly demonstrated to me that the Government was helping how it could. Aid of this magnitude is what’s needed.

So it’s much better than before, and for that I think the people of Asia will be grateful. It’s now more a logistical problem than anything else, as the scale of the disaster, and the remoteness of the areas affected becomes apparant. The last thing the region needs is penny pinching: It’s times like this that humanity needs to show it can stand above regional, political and religious differences.

There is still – of course – lots of room for personal donations, so as you finish off your Christmas Turkey, and pop down the off-license for a bottle of bubbly to see in the new year, spare a thought and perhaps consider giving something to Oxfam or the red cross. Consider having a word with your employer too about whether they might consider donating something, or organising a collection.