The Independent reveals that satellite photography techniques have finally allowed historians to read a vast collection of ancient Greek & Roman documents. Known as the Oxyrhynchus Papyri, the collection was discovered in Egypt in the late 1800s and has been stored in Oxford University ever since. Should be interesting to see what lessons we’ll learn.

Got up this morning, and while Jacqui went off to her exercise class, I went for my last run of the week. Felt pretty good, so did 4 laps this time instead of 2, for a total time of 20mins and approximately 3.6km.

There was a film crew at Diamond Bay who seemed to be filming a Toyota commercial. There was a Kluger and a RAV4 parked right at the cliff edge and a couple of guys with surfboards around, so it will be interesting to see what the final result comes out as.

WK2: S: 100m – R: 7.2km – W: 3 sessions

Made it to the gym this morning just after 7am. It took longer to warm up than going in the evening, and seemed to be a bit harder to lift than it was on Wednesday. Whether that’s due to the time, or the fact that it’s my third gym session of the week I couldn’t say. Had a big feed afterwards to keep my energy up for the lunch-time swim…

200 warm up
2 * {100 K/200 FS} on 5:30
200 swim down
Total: 1000m

…which didn’t go to well. I’d eaten too much for breakfast (who knew pasta would take 4 hours to digest?) so was a bit bloated. Couple that with the fact that my arms were exhausted after the morning’s weights session and I decided to call it quits after a km.

WK2: S: 1000m – R: 3.6km – W: 3 sessions

The ABC reports that new slime-mould beetles have been named after the US administration:

Two former Cornell University entomologists named three species in the genus Agathidium after the US leaders, Cornell has announced.

Quentin Wheeler and Kelly Miller christened 65 new species of slime-mould beetles, named for the fungi-like moulds on which they feed, which they discovered after collecting thousands of specimens for a study of their evolution and classification.

Last week, at the start of Fitness Phase 2, I decided that I’d try getting up earlier in the morning so I’d have more time to do stuff. After about 10.30pm there’s nothing interesting on TV (apart from Lateline maybe) so there’s not much point staying up. I figured that I’d start getting up at 6 and go to bed around 10.30 and see how that worked out.

The plan was to do some exercise in the morning before going in to work, but I’ve been a bit knackered so I usually just go straight in to work, arriving around 7am. It sounds crazy, but the plus side is that I can clock off around 4pm, exercise then instead and still be home at a reasonable hour.

It’s all been working out well so far, and I’m slowly getting used to crawling out of bed at that hour. This morning was the first time I managed to do some morning exercise as I went for my short run again. I put the iPod Shuffle on the arm-band and off I went. It’s pretty nice being out and about at that hour, with the sun low in the sky and some classical music for company. There’s a surprising number of people around as well, with lots of chicks doing their power-walking and a group of dog owners chatting while their pets ran around barking at each other. I could get used to this.

Oh yeah, the run was the same as Tuesday. About 10mins, 2 laps, average lap time of 4:45. I’ll take the MTB out tonight to measure the loop if I get time.

Wk 2: R: 3.2km – W: 2 sessions

I haven’t done any running for ages, so I decided that it was about time I got back into it. Went for a short run around the park last night after work, and seeing as how I’m so crap at it I decided to limit myself to 10mins or so and build up from there. The intention is to get three 10min runs in this week, and then increase by about 5mins per week from there. I did just over two laps of the park at an average time of 4m 50s.

I’ve no idea how long a lap of the park is, so I decided to time a lap of the marked rugby pitch, then find out what the dimensions of a rugby pitch are and work my speed out from that (nerd)! So, doing all the calcuations gives me a run speed of 11.25km/h, and 1 lap distance of 900m. Given that rugby dimensions are not set in stone, and that I used the maximum, my speed is probably a little slower, but I’ll get my bike computer set up on my MTB and use that to figure the distance out once and for all.

Week 2: R: 1.8km – W: 1 session

Weighed in at 86.4kg yesterday morning.

Skipped the lunch time swim to meet an old collegaue who i hadn’t seen for quite a while, but went to the gym after work. The weights program I am doing is divided into four 4-week segments. I’m in the first of these segments at the mometn, which calls for light weights and lots of reps as follows:

Low weights, minimal strain – 30 reps of:

Squats

Lat Pulldown

Knee Extension

Hamstring Curl

Bent-arm Pulldown

Bench Press

Bicep Curl

Core

Calf Raise

Seated Row

Dips (machine)

Tricep Extension

The idea behind the low weight/minimal strain approach is that your muscles respond to work much quicker than your joints & connective tissues, leading to an imbalance and hence greater potential for injury. To combat this, a slow build-up is appropriate before increasing the weights and decreasing the reps in the later segments of the program. This segment is the ‘adaptation’ phase, where you’re not really doing any significant lifting, just getting your body used to the idea.

I usually precede the weights with a 10min row as a warm-up too, gradually getting faster as the clock counts down.

Week 2: W: 1 session

The original article was about bias in political science university courses, but I think the following quote sums up quite accurately what the aim of a third-level education really is:

The question is, whether students come out of the class having learned to reason about a set of problems or not. The content is not as important, since they’ll forget a lot of the content anyway, and will receive it selectively, both during and after the class. But if you teach them to take things apart and see how they work, to think about social and political causation, to see how things work together, in a particular field, then they can produce their own knowledge and understanding about it thereafter.

Juan Cole

Just back from a good swim session at lunch. Felt a bit tired, but not as bad as on Monday, so managed to finish the session quite comfortably. Was a little bit stiff after weights yesterday but no ill effects apart from that.

400 warm up
200 IM
4 * 400 FS, last 50 BC on 6:10 (5:55)
4 * {
    100 FS on 1:40
    100 IM on 1:40 }
100 swim down
Total: 3100m

Week 1: S: 4800m – W: 2 sessions

Joined the gym at Cook & Phillip yesterday and did my first session. I plan on taking it pretty easy for the first few weeks, just to get used to doing weights again without killing myself. Will write more on my intended program later.

Week 1: S: 1700m – W: 1

The lunch-time pool session didn’t go too well. Felt really sluggish half way through and just thoroughly exhausted, so decided to finish up early as I’d like to do some regular exercise this week rather than killing myself on the first day!

400 warm up
4 * {50 K/100 P/100 FS} on 4:40
200 FS on 3:20
100 FS warm down
Total: 1700m

On a more positive note, I’ve decided to join the gym at Cook & Phillip as it will only cost me an extra $20 per month over and above the cost of swim squad, rather than an extra $80pm for somewhere like Fitness First.

Week 1: S: 1700m

Right, today marks the start of Phase 2 of the weight-loss/fitness program. Weighed in this morning at 86.7kg, showing a dangerous tendency to creep back up towards 90!

Update: 18.6% BF as well…

Turns out Mum didn’t sprain her ankle in NZ after all, she broke her leg!

A few photos from the walk are now online.

Mum & Dad left Sydney for Singapore yeaterday afternoon. We had intended doing the Bondi to Bronte walk with them, but Mum managed to sprain her ankle while in New Zealand, so that put paid to that and we drove instead. We arrived in Bronte for a relaxing breakfast with Caoimhe and Dave, then hung around for a last view of the surf before heading home so they could go to the airport. I was sad to see them go, but at least now they know what it’s like here and why I’ve chosen to make it my home.

Woke up this morning to a text from Cormac saying that Mum & Dad were OK and weren’t near the earthquake at all. I had no idea what he was talking about so jumped up and checked the papers, only to find that there was an 8.7 magnitude quake off Indonesia!

Made it to Canberra safely this morning, after taking over the steering wheel from Tom for the final 210km. It was a very uneventful drive with the only incident being some guy flashing his lights because I was forced to move into the overtaking lane as four cars merged onto the motorway beside me. As I’m restricted to 80km/h instead of 110, the manoeuver caused that tosser to arrive at his destination approximately 10 seconds later than normal. Anyway, he got pissed off enough that he flashed his lights and overtook on the inside. After that it was plain sailing.

Myself and Becs have been talking of doing the Spit Bridge to Manly walk for ages, and yeterday we finally got around to it. Jacqui, Rachel and Nicki came along as well, so it was me and the chicks. We elected to start from Becs’ place in Mosman, which added annother 4km to the distance, giving us a 14km total. It was an easy enough walk, with a couple of muddy bits as a result of the recent tain, though in fairness the weather was a bit confused. We had to wait a bit until the rain stopped before setting off, there were occasional showers en route yet in other parts it was roasting. About 1km out of Manly I could see the storm clouds advancing across the harbour, with a demarcating rain line on the sea, so we finished with some power walking and reached the safety of a cafe without getting soaked.

I rang Graham to get him to come down for some lunch as I hadn’t seen him for ages. As it turned out it was his birthday as well, so he brought along some wine and the two of us spent the next few hours getting trashed. Probably not the best recovery from a monster walk, but who cares! My hips are killing me today though, so I probably should have done some streatching. On a brighter note, Becs is keen to get involved in some Adventure Racing with me, so all I need is to round up one more team member and choose an upcoming event to get involved in.

I brought Jacqui’s camera along and busied myself taking snaps along the route as the girls nattered away. I’d never seen the harbour from that side before, which was a major motivation for doing the walk in the first place, so it made sense to document it a bit. I’ll get the film developed during the week and upload some photos.

I’ve put some of Dad’s photos from their trip up for viewing here.

Got back in the pool today for the first time in three weeks. James, the new fast guy from the UK, had managed to get food poisoning which had left him bed-ridden and unable to eat for almost the last two weeks, which was a blessing in disguise for me as he’s now the same speed as me (for the moment anyway).

400 warm up
2 * {
    100 Single Arm FS
    100 Catch
    100 Single Arm BF
    100 Free/Back }
2 * 400 FS on 6:15 (5:45)
3 * 200 FS on 3:15 (2:50)
100 warm down
Total: 2700m

S: 2700m

Brought Mum & Dad up to the Blue Mountains last week to see the sights. Started off at Govett’s Leap and did the what I remembered as the short walk to Bridal Veil Falls lookout. We’re halfway there before I remember that there’s a lot of steps down to the lookout, which meant the same again up on the way back. I wasn’t sure how Mum would cope, but she handled it with aplomb and there were no worries. After that it was off to the other side of Balckheath for more views out over Megalong Valley, then to Katoomba for a spot of lunch.

Having had a bit of food we headed to the Scenic Railway and travelled down the steepest railway in the world at 52 degrees, then walked through the rainforest at the bottom before getting the cable car back to the top. Then it was on to the final stop at the Three Sisters before indulging in coffee and cakes in Leura.

Here’s a few photos of the day.