Tuesday, October 31, 2006

Run Done, and other news

Well, it's done. Finally the running season's finished for me after completing the Rainforest Foundation's 10km run.

My target for the year was to beat 55 minutes, and I managed it twice. Sunday's run was finished in 54:01, but I managed to beat that 3 weeks ago in the Nike Run London event... 53:23. So say I'm pleased is an understatement!

Happy Bob

Aside: To those people protesting against Nike at the event: You have my sympathies, you really do, but it was a Nike 10km 2 years ago that go me running. I'd not long before given up smoking and the Nike run gave me a real incentive to get myself fit again (I say again, but really I'm not sure I've ever been that fit).

Now that doesn't mean that Nike is a great company that gave me my health, or anything like that. But it does illustrate a point... the vast majority of the people at the event were runners, and Nike took the time to organise a great run, probably not an audience that's going to be swayed by your argument. As I said to the protesters on the day, and I really mean this: You organise a 10km run, and I'll run it. An anti-globalisation 10km run in the middle of the most multi-cultural city in the world...

Anyway, next year I'll be stepping it up a touch more and the aim is to get under 50 minutes. The first run's booked already.

And the other news? Well, over the last few weeks I've been trying to get some coding done on a small open source project. It's a PHP library that will generate documentation on arbitrary relational databases. It's in its early stages right now, but I thought it was time to mention it and see if there's any interest out there.

It'll produce bog standard HTML documentation as well as dotty files that you can use to generate diagrams like this:

ExamplePddDiagram

It'll be available soon...

Thursday, October 05, 2006

Doing things I'm not very good at

Well, last night was my last training run before my next 10Km run. And this time I've got a target...

When it's come to official timing, I've managed a 10Km in just over 58 minutes. This time I want to get it to under 55. But what's the point in me doing a run if that's the kind of time I'm going to manage? Odds on bet the winner will do it in something like 35 minutes; I'm not unfit, it's just that I'm not a very good runner; I eat fairly well and am generally pretty healthy, so I don't need to do this in order to keep fit.

I do it because I'm not very good at it. Because running reminds me that I'm not the best at things that I do. It's blindingly obvious that there are people out there that are vastly superior to me on the track. In fact, there are 60 year olds out there that are faster than me. When I did my one and only half marathon I was beaten by a veteran speed walker.

But I'm getting better. I'm learning more about running and training, and I will get faster. One day I may manage under 45 minutes... and then I'll have to pick something else.

The last run of the year will be the Rainforest Foundation 10Km, and if you know me (and want to), you can sponsor me.