Chris Worfolk's Blog

The Time Traveler’s Wife is a novel by Audrey Niffenegger, and a rare gift of one at that.

Like most great novels, it is a love story. In this case between Clare Abshire, a normal and well-to-do girl, and Henry DeTamble, a man who suffers from chrono-impairmen, which causes him to time travel randomly and unpredictably, living him to fight for his life in a variety of situations.

It sounds like science fiction, and technically it is. But it’s not for science fiction fans, so if sci-fi isn’t your thing, don’t let that put you off. It’s a love story through-and-through with interesting philosophy thrown in to boot.

I can’t honestly say I was gripped the whole way through. At first, the ideas are novel, which keeps it interesting. But, the middle of the novel dragged for me. I had to put in some willpower to keep reading.

The effort was well rewarded, though. The ending is powerful, moving and bittersweet. I don’t really do crying, but if anything came close, this was about it. If you enjoy fiction, this is well worth a read.

Last weekend, I headed back to Bramley Baths for another Go Tri event. The first was an indoor triathlon that took place in February. This one was a more traditional affair with the bike and the run outdoors.

The distances were a 230m swim, 5km bike and 1.5km run.

We set off in waves three minutes apart. I was in the third wave. The swim went well. I was 5:30 despite getting stuck behind someone else, which suggests I should easily be able to hit the 11:00 minute target at sprint distance.

The first transition took two minutes. Seems okay given I had to dry my feet and get my shoes and socks off. But now all of my stuff is covered in talc.

The bike was a mixed bag. I forgot to stop my watch until I had racked my bike, so although my average speed is 21.1 kmph, I think it was actually more like 23 if I had recorded it properly. In general, it feels like I overtook a lot more people than caught me.

The run was good. I was 4:25 per kilometre, which is a faster pace than my Parkrun PB. I overtook two people with no places conceded.

The results

I finished the race with a total time of:

27:53

Which translated to 8th out of a field of 31. The winning time was 23:45, with the first female home at 28:46 and the last person home at 51:48.

The event

Bramley Baths did an excellent job of organising everything. There were loads of volunteers including people lane counting in the pools, managing and helping out in transition and marshalling the bike and run courses.

Venla has been running around for a while now. She never stops. I’m tempted to attach my Garmin to her and see how many steps she does each day. Recently, though, we’ve moved up to walking outside. She has walked home from daycare a few times.

The Schartz herbs and spices bottles are better than the Sainsbury’s ones. They’re taller and thinner, meaning that you can fit more of them within the same shelf space. The labels on the top are also clear.

But the Sainsbury’s ones are cheaper. And, in any case, Sainsbury’s have refused to stock the Schwartz ones anymore because they want people to buy their own brand ones. So, I buy the Sainsbury’s ones and re-fill my Schwartz bottle.

What is odd, though, is that Schwartz sell 20g bottles and Sainsbury’s sell 25g bottles. But, when you tip the 25g of Sainsbury’s coriander seeds into the 20g Schwartz bottle, they all fit in.

The weather did not invite running. It had rained overnight and it was still raining when I woke up. Worse, I felt terrible. I normally feel pretty poor on the way there, but this time I had to walk some of the way there. Even my watch agreed that my condition this morning was poor.

Still, I had set off early so that I could start right at the front and I didn’t want to waste it. As the other people around me discussed whether it was too muddy to attempt a sub-17 or not, and prepared their starting stance (one leg bent, leaning slightly forward) I thought I would at least sprint off with them and see how it went.

As it turns out, not many people did come rushing past me. Although, this could be due to the reduced number of people that had braved the weather. I kept my pace just within the limits needed to set a new PB (personal best) and a gruelling five kilometres later I crossed the line, punching the air.

As it turns out, I was way ahead. Although I was only 10 seconds per kilometre ahead of where I needed to be, because I start my GPS at home and keep it running until then, it didn’t factor in that I ran the first section and the last section of Parkrun way above this pace.

I hadn’t just beaten my previous PB of 24:36, I had crushed it. It now stood at:

23:08

It almost seems too good to be true. But, reexamining my Garmin data, and comparing it to what I’ve been doing in training, it seems to fit. Indeed, potentially I could go faster: I wasn’t feeling great (though you often aren’t when you set a PB) and I had my rain jacket on. Or maybe I can’t: we’ll find out soon!

Here’s an updated graph:

Next week I may or may not be able to do Parkrun depending on whether it clashes with the Bramley Baths triathlon, and the week after that I will have to go easy in preparation for Skipton. So, it might be a while before I get to run another fast one. We’ll see how it compares.

Are you looking for an eco-friendly way to remove weeds from your garden or land? Then look no further than Rent A Goat.

Last month, I wrote about people wasting money on advertising. I said it happens a lot: and it does. Here are two more examples I found this month.

First, here is a Google AdWords advert by Treatwell. Except the page does not work.

And here is an advert from Live Strong. The link does work: it takes you to the article on tips for women over a 40. Bear in mind that you put the targeting parameters in when you create a Facebook ad. Facebook knows I a man under 40, so they could easily exclude me from seeing an ad I obviously have no interest it.

On Saturday I ran the Leeds Liverpool Canal Canter, organised by It’s Grim Up North Running.

I’ve set some big fitness goals for 2018, including running a sub-2 hour half marathon. It was looking like I would smash this really early as the Sir Titus Trot took place on the first Saturday of January. 6 days in and I could nail one of my goals. But, alas, I injured my foot and had to miss the race.

This was my next opportunity. Things didn’t start well: there was a big queue for registration. I thought 45 minutes would be enough time to get registered and prepared for the start time, but it wasn’t. So, I came to the line flustered and having forgotten my energy gels.

Armed with nothing but a handful of jelly babies from the water station, I set off. The start reminded me of Parkrun: hundreds of people trying to fit down a narrow canal towpath. I felt sorry for the cyclists coming the other way. But, as the race drew on, everything thinned out.

Despite going off faster than in training I managed to maintain the pace the whole way. In the end, I clocked in at:

1:52:24

This is slightly below my watch’s time of 1:52:36. This knocks the socks off my time of 2:03:42 from last year’s Leeds half marathon. They are not directly comparable, though. The Leeds half is much hillier and takes place in May when the weather is a lot warmer. So, 11 minutes is a hefty chunk to take off, but I wouldn’t be running the Leeds half as quick as I ran this.

Regardless, though, it is a new PB, strikes off a big fitness goal for the year and means that I beat Eliud Kipchoge to the sub-2 hour mark. Sure, he’s doing the full marathon, but then he’s a professional marathon runner from Keyna and I’m a computer programmer from England, so in terms of how hard it was to beat the 2-hour mark, I think it’s similar (and I did it without cheating).

Post-race, there were was a huge selection of free cake to be had.

The custom medals are pretty cool, too.

Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them is a book by J. K. Rowling. I listened to the audiobook, which is narrated Eddie Redmayne.

I had seen the film, which also stars Eddie Redmayne as Newt, but I wasn’t really sure how the original book would translate into an audiobook as it seemed like a picture book about monsters, something that wouldn’t lend itself well to being without said pictures.

But that wasn’t the case. In large part, because of the production values used. Each entry was accompanied by music and sound effects that added atmosphere. That, combined with my existing knowledge, provided a rich description.

It did make the entire thing quite short: around 2 hours. Which was fine; I like short books.

Triathlon: Winning at 70.3: How to Dominate the Middle Distance is a book by Dan Golding.

Golding is the same guy that wrote Triathlon For Beginners, which I wrote about in December. I think that Winning at 70.3 is probably even better.

Although it is focused on middle distance triathlon (also known as 70.3 or half-ironman), I think this is worthwhile reading for anyone doing Olympic distance because it will put you in good habits. Sure, you can get away with less core strength training at Olympic. But do you want to get away with it, or do you want to stay injury free and put in place patterns that would allow you to move up if you ever wanted to? I would suggest the latter.

It’s not a beginners book, so if you’re not familiar with the basics of triathlon or the terminology, you might struggle. It’s not inaccessible, but it doesn’t break things down to anywhere near the same level as Golding’s other book.

For me, one of the most useful parts of the book was the specific exercises and tests to do. For example, how to measure your sweat rate so you know how much water to drink during a race. Others bit were a bit confusing. Golding talks about heart rate zones, for example, saying they are the “common” ones. But they don’t seem to map onto Garmin’s, or the 7 zones a lot of cyclists talk about, so it’s not clear how to incorporate them into training.

It’s also full of helpful tips, such as saving time by strategically weeing towards the end of your swim and thus avoiding the chance that you’ll have to go again.

All in all, an excellent guide to triathlon.