Mr-F.org

Monday
Sea Swim: 15 minutes

Tuesday
Cycle: Distance 4, Time 16:32.5, Average 14.5, Max 23.0

Wednesday
Cycle: Dsitance 5.45, Time 21:16.5, Average 15.3, Max 31.4

Hmmm, not a very good week

Sunday
Sea Swim: 15minutes in Dover Harbor

Monday
Cycle: Distance 5.45 , Time 22:33.0, Average 14.5, Max 28.3

Tuesday
Cycle: (new route) Distance 5.02, Time 21:30.06, Average 14.0, Max 32.0

Wednesday
Cycle: (old route) Distance 5.45, Time 22:22.0, Average 14.6, Max 31.4

Thursday
Badminton: 50minutes, 3 games of doubles

Friday
Cycle: (old route) Distance 5.46, Time 22:50.6, Average 14.2, Max 26.8

Sunday Katy and I managed my first sea swim of the year and it wasn’t too cold either, which was a pleasant surprise. Although having said that it was very windy and the tidy was pretty strong, making the return swim a lot hard.

On Tuesday I decided to venture out and cycle a different route. I knew it was going to be harder, as the return trip was always on an upwards incline, but decided to still try and keep to the same amount of time cycling out and back. However, while I managed to keep within my time window, I was surprise just by how much I had dropped in distance.

Well as I previously suspected, I’ve had a rather busy week. Having said this I feel slightly ashamed that I’ve not manged to do any exercise this week. I could just try and make excuses that I was running round like a headless chicken, which for part of the week would be true. However, there were a couple of days where if I had planned my time better I could have managed to fit in a quick bike ride or something. So I’m not going to, but instead try and learn something from this week of no exercise. Hopefully in future weeks I’ll be able to use it to help motivate myself a little better.

Oh and for some unknown reason I managed to date the last two exercise logs with the wrong month on them. I’ve updated them now just in case people thought I was living in a time warp or something

Well tonight four of my students at the lifesaving club took their first set of higher awards from the royal life saving society (RLSS). They spent half an hour taking their life support 1 exam, which requires them to show a basic level of knowledge and understanding on how to diagnose and treat a number of different conditions, perform CPR and understand the difference in lifesupport between adults, children and babies. After this, they then participated in a water based exam which required them to demonstrate an understanding of how to safely perform a range of different rescue techniques. Quite a heavy night especially at the end of term for the four 14 year olds. However, I’m glad to say that all four students passed and no officially hold their bronze medallion. So I just wanted to say congratulations to them all, as I know they were all a bag of nerves.

Monday
Cycle: Distance 6.69, Time 32:07.0, Average 12.8, Max 32.7

Tuesday
Cycle: Distance 5.44, Time 22:51.2, Average 14.2, Max 26.2

Thursday
Badminton: 50mins

Friday
Cycle: Distance 5.44, Time 21:31.7, Average 15.1, Max 25.6

Well considering this is week two and I can see that things are on the up. My average speed has increases and the time taken to do the 5.44 has come down slightly from the rides last week. However, I wonder at the moment if this is just my body reacting and toning the muscles in my legs that had already been developed, but recently let slide due to the lack of exercise. If this is the case then I suspect that my first plateau is just around the corner. When that happens I think it will be time to pick a new route so that I’m not just training on the same route, with the same sets of gradients to deal with.

Next week is going to be hard to get all the cycling in due to traveling for meetings and also my graduation, which has finally arrived. I’m still hopeful to get some in, but realise I’m not going to reach my target of one session each weekday. Maybe I’ll try and go for an early morning ride, though not sure that will happen.

Monday
Cycle: Distance 5.43, Time 23:07:3, Average 14.0, Max 24.2

Tuesday
Cycle: Distance 5.45, Time 22:00:2, Average 14.8, Max 21.3

Thursday
Badminton: Doubles, 50minutes

It dawned on me last week that over the past couple of months with one thing or another, my regular exercise routine has fallen by the wayside. My karate stopped as the hall was booked for exams, and the instructor didn’t want to use the squash courts (not that I blame him as they are little ovens). I haven’t been swimming for ages as I’m constantly teaching, and well badminton really did just die out all together, what with the lack of players and the rise in costs for Mrs F to come and play. So all in all I feel I’ve become a bit of a couch potato, and I’m starting to feel the affects. So considering my age, family history of high blood pressure, and the fact that I really don’t want to get any bigger, I’ve decided that I need to take some firm action. So now the plan is to aim to do some sort of exercise five times a week. To help me keep track of what I’m doing, I’m going to use my blog, so please excuse the added posts.

Well the title pretty much says it all, I’m just sitting here waiting. Now that I’ve only got a couple of days left, all that there is left of me to do is nuke my office machine and set up a clean machine for the next person. However, before I start that I need to backup everything of mine and so I’m just sitting here waiting for files to copy across. After that I’ll start the reinstall process and wait for it to complete. Then I’ll just be waiting for 1700 on Friday to roll around.

Well today for the very first time I’ve experienced what a lot of other photographers seem to moan about on photography/modeling websites, the “no show”. I’ve been so luck up till now with never having experienced this particular issue that seems to plague others. What is even worse is that is was the model that contacted me just over a month ago because she like my work and wanted to work with me! We made all the basic arrangements back then and then at the beginning of last week I emailed to confirm that she was still going to come. After she confirmed I sent her full details of location, times, and other things that she might find useful including my phone number. So yesterday my wife and I went in and setup the studio (which always takes longer than you expect) so that I wouldn’t be rushing around this morning. I arrived this morning to do the last little bits such as position lights for the first idea, run power cables and so on, and then sat and waited for the model to arrive. The agreed start time came and no model. I waited ten minutes and nothing, no phone call, no text message, no email. So I sent her a text message just asking if she was still able to make today, not wanting to seem to over bearing or anything. Half an hour later, no reply so I decided to call it a day and started to pack everything up.

As you might guess I’m annoyed. Not only have I wasted time setting everything up for nothing, I also could have used the time to help a friend shoot a local musician that wants some images done.

It seems that now my time in the department is coming to an end I’m starting to notice more and more ways in which things could be improved. One thing that has shocked me over this weekend is the speed in which you can effectively collect data online. Now I know online studies in the student population are more effective. I’m guessing that it due to the fact that you can collect RPS credits whilst still laying in bed. However, I put a study online for a final year project student on Friday evening, and it’s already collected eighty eight participants. Now you may be thinking that eighty eight people really isn’t that many in approximately two days. Well you have to take into consideration the following:

• Many students are no longer need to collect credits, and in general they don’t participate in extra studies
• Most of the students are focusing on exam revisions (well at least that is what they tell us)
• For those students not revising, and not partying hard, they are focusing on writing up their project proposals/dissertations/essays
• Oh and it is a weekend of sun shine, need I say anymore

So to get this number of people, this quickly is pretty impressive. Considering the student in question only came to me a couple of weeks ago, and the deadline for the whole project is less than a month away, its rather lucky. However, I just wondering the number of other studies that we could possibly convert to run via the web, which would make it easier to collect larger amounts of information, or just run studies more quickly. Obviously there are some limitations such as experiments that require timing constraints, but, well there is plenty of scope for some of the studies that are conducted to be transferred.