Cambridge Park Run (Week 9)

Today was week 9 for Cambridge Park Run. After last week's PB of 22:53 I was keen to know whether I could improve once again. My problem this time was that I'd been for a 6 mile run and a 4.5 mile run during the week so my legs felt sore. The Achilles tendon injury was still nagging despite being much improved. During a quick warm up I became aware that I had some groin discomfort on the right side. I expect this was caused by walking with a slight limp while I've had the achilles problem. Anyway I wasn't hopeful for a fast time due to all of these leg issues. 

My strategy this week was to go out more slowly and either build my speed or at least sustain it. Last week saw a fast first mile and then increasingly slower 2nd and 3rd miles. My strategy paid off this week as I managed to get a new PB of 22:39 and with a much lower max heart rate than the week before. I was averaging 7:20(ish) per mile.

Something else I've neglected to mention is that for the past 3 weeks my wife has accompanied me to the Park Run. This week she smashed her PB by 3 minutes which was incredible. I'm very proud of her. She's training for the Race for Life again so the 5K Park Run route is an ideal training distance.

Non default template

I was getting really tired of my blog template, i.e. the look and feel of things. All of the standard supplied templates were not inspiring me anymore. But then Mashable posted this: http://mashable.com/2010/03/24/free-blogger-templates/. I tried a few and settled on "Notepad". I think it looks great. I slightly hacked the HTML to remove a couple of things I didn't want and I'm happy with the result.....for now!. They have loads of templates but I couldn't be bothered to trawl them all. What do you think?

iPad Parody

Mashable posted this link to an awesome iPad parody video. I love the iPad but equally I'm more than happy to enjoy watching people mocking it. Enjoy it. Fingers crossed the link keeps working for a long time to come.

Sport Relief Mile 2010

At lunch time today I, along with my wife and kids headed down to Milton Country Park to participate in the Sport Relief Mile. The weather was fantastic. A great temperature for running and the sun shining. The park was full of people and the atmosphere was amazing. At exactly noon we set off. I was actually doing the 3 mile run (which turned out to be 3.3 miles according to my GPS). I got around in a good time finishing 3rd for the 3 milers in my time slot. The kids and my wife also completed their one mile in good time. It was great fun to be enjoying running whilst raising money for charity. 

I think the achievement that impressed me the most today was a young man, who presumably had cerebral palsy and would ordinarily be in a wheel chair, managed to walk the whole mile route aided by several helpers but nevertheless he took every step himself. It was inspirational and we gave him a big cheer and a huge round of applause as he finished the journey. What a fantastic person.

Multitasking to come in iPhone 4.0 software

According to several sites on the Internet the general opinion seems to be that in Summer version 4.0 of the iPhone software will be released and will include multi tasking capabilities. This will extend beyond the core apps to allow concurrent execution of 3rd party apps. Sounds good to me. 

The image above is a good representation of how the screen could display your running apps and allow you to switch between them. Power consumption and available memory are concerns with running several things at once. Plus the potential for Spyware\Malware being able to "lurk" in the background is now a threat. I for one will be keen to see how Apple handle these issues. I expect there will be a maximum number of apps that can run concurrently. Will my iPhone 3G be able to cope with v4.0 software and multitasking or will I have to get the next iPhone model which will probably have more memory a faster processor and a better battery (I hope!).

Cambridge Park Run (Week 8)

This morning at 9am it was Week 8 of Cambridge Park Run. A 5K run around Milton Country Park in Cambridge (UK). I've only managed to complete 3 runs in 8 weeks due to my long list of running injuries. I still have tendonitis in my right Achilles tendon but I pushed that to the back of my mind today and set out for a PB. I started way too fast and completed the 1st mile in sub 7 mins. My heart rate was off the scale (it finally peaked at 194BPM). Keeping up the pace was impossible but I kept as much pace as I could manage and did get around in 22:53 which was my PB by 12 secs. The photo here shows my pained face as I pushed to the finish line. Luckily despite gasping for air, feeling dizzy and monitoring my high BPM I returned to feeling ok pretty quickly. It's so good to get back out running. I've been laid up for 2 weeks without running a single step and even prior to that I've been on "light duties" because of the tendonitis.

Headphones - Sennheiser PMX80

If you're like me sometimes you just want to run free and unencumbered by technology. No music, just the delights of nature. Birds singing, the breeze dancing through the trees, the steady thud, thud of your feet, your senses clear to drink in the joyful smell of nature and freedom. Absolute freedom and relaxation. There's nothing like it. It's why I run.

But sometimes I just feel like I do want to go out and run with some music playing. So I'll load up my iPod with some great tunes and hit the road. Now, this is where my first few ventures out with music didn't go as planned. Why? because my headphones were not giving me the pleasure I had hoped. Some reasons for this were:-

• They were just too hot and sweaty after a few miles of running
• They would stop working if too much sweat leaked into them
• They kept vibrating themselves out of my ears
• They blocked out too much external noise so I felt nervous when running near traffic
• The sound quality was poor against my breathing and footfall
• I kept snagging the cable with my arm and yanking the headphones out of my ears

So what to do? Luckily this is when I stumbled upon the Sennheiser PMX80's. A lovely lightweight pair of headphones. What's so good about them?

• They look great
• They fit perfectly
• The do not move at all when I'm running
• The cable only goes up to one ear instead of both so I can avoid snagging
• The sound quality (for the price) is great
• They're water\sweat resistant

I heartily recommend them to anyone who wants a good set of running headphones. My wife borrowed mine and liked them so much she asked me to buy her a pair, so I did. They're currently at Play.com for £17.99.

Great North Run 2010

I'm running the Great North Run again this year. I'm doing it for the mental health charity MIND. Please visit my sponsorship page and give whatever you can to support this great charity - http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/DavidJenkinson

The Inaugural Cambridge Park Run

Today was the first ever Cambridge Park Run. In sub zero temperatures and with a layer of icy snow to contend with, 71 hardened runners converged at 8:45am in Milton Country Park to participate in a 5K run. I was amazed at such a good turn out for the first ever race meet. At 9am sharp, after a quick brief on the route, we were underway. It felt great to be running in a group as so often I'm out on my own. I started a little too fast with all the excitement but found a nice rhythm over the first kilometre. The first 20 or so runners (including me!) took a slight wrong turn and ended up running out of the park. We stopped to consider where we'd missed a turning and as other runners started to catch up we had to run back the way we'd come and pick up the correct route. No great problem and only 0.2K added to the distance. I was happy enough with my performance. It's not really a contest between runners, more a case of competing with yourself each week to see if you can improve your time over the same circuit. I'm really looking forward to next weeks race. This will be a regular weekly event at 9am every saturday morning. I'll go as often as I can. A great way to start the weekend instead of lounging in bed for hours wasting the day. For those that don't know about Park Run visit "http://www.parkrun.com". There are events all over the country. It's free to take part and you get an official time for each race. It is run by volunteers and financed through sponsorship deals. Check it out if you like running.

Yotel - the smallest UK based hotel rooms

I had to take a trip to Jersey on an early flight so booked myself into this place at Gatwick South Terminal
http://www.yotel.com/. From the company that brought us Yo! Sushi comes Yotel!. Remember Simon Woodroffe who was a Dragon in the first series of Dragon's den? It's all his idea. He wanted to mimic Japanese sleep capsules but with a more sophisticated westernised edge. Inspired by first class sleeper beds on British Airways he contacted the designers and worked with them to develop the Yotel cabins. Your room is very small and compact but it actually has everything you need to rest your weary head. The quality is excellent. I'd go again for sure.

The Poem of the Poppy

Back in October I posted one of my daughter's poems. Here's another one that she wrote for Remembrance Day. Once again it just blows me away. How she can evoke such emotion and capture such poignancy whilst still so young astounds me. Anyway, enjoy it.

The Poem of the Poppy

You sacrificed your life for me

for I am the blood red and black poppy.

I dance upon the graves of so many lost men.

My friends join me in this scarlet cemetery.

Day after day I see never ending landscape and the cities of grass

But always in front of my eyes are the memories,

memories of the war that come to haunt me.

I see so many men as they fall to their death, everywhere.

The terrible screaming, even as I cover my ears ~
all penetrate my leafy hands and I hear it louder and louder than ever.

The taste of bitter blood, falls to my mouth

but I can't run and hide from this nightmare.

Now it's just a memory, still vivid, but a memory

You sacrificed your life for me

for I am the blood red and black poppy.

I dance upon the graves of so many lost men,

my friends join me in this scarlet cemetery.

by Katy Jenkinson

(my daughter, Aged 10)

Am I proud of her? You bet I am. Incredible stuff!

ZooStorm Desktop PC - Problem Resolved

Folks, on June 22nd I posted a blog entry about this product that I'd just bought. http://www.ebuyer.com/product/161642. Well since then I have had an intermittent problem with the computer powering off randomly. I started running a tech support incident with ZooStorm to try and get to the bottom of it. They recommended running the "Memory Diagnostic Tool" in Extended mode to see if I had bad or failing memory. Each time I tried this the computer powered off after about 15% of the test. They then advised me to open up the unit and re-seat the memory DIMMs. I opened up the computer to do this and went ahead with the task. However I also noticed that the CPU cooling fan was not plugged in to the motherboard. Now this was surely not good. Had they simply forgotten to plug it in? Did it snag the first time the fan spun up and unplugged itself? or did I accidentally unplug it whilst re-seating the memory. I favour option 1. They forgot to plug it in. When I reviewed all of the evidence it certainly looked like a thermal shutdown problem. Anyway it's been a week since I plugged in the fan and I've not had a single problem since doing this. I had been getting 3 or 4 power off's every day before this so I'm sure it was always an overheating problem. If anyone else has strange power off problems open up your computer and check the power cable for the CPU fan. I really like this computer. It looks good and when working correctly performs really well. It's fast which considering it's running Vista is saying something. I have no real reason to upgrade to Windows 7 as apart from a few cosmetic improvements none of the other innovations seem to be of significant benefit to me (well not in my capacity as a home user anyway).

Parrot MKi9200 Car Kit

Hi there good people of the Internet. I have great news to share with you all. For some time now I have been getting along very nicely with a VW iPod kit in my VW Passat to use with my good old trusty 4th Gen iPod. However since Spotify came out for the iPhone and I signed up for Spotify Premium I have been wanting to play my Spotify music in the car. But how? What would be the best way? As soon as you plug a dock connector into your iPhone it only wants to use the native "iPod" app. I needed another way. A method that used no cables. And then I discovered the Parrot MKi9200. What a beauty!!  Let me tell you what it can do for me. First of all it's a wonderful bluetooth car kit that sync's my iPhone contacts list so that I can call people easily and receive calls. Nothing that clever there really but I've never had a car kit before so I find it exciting. Anyway I can also use voice tags to call, reject incoming calls or hang up. My iPhone 3G does not have this function. Then I can do bluetooth media streaming so I can choose to use the iPod app or the Spotify app from my iPhone. Both work great. Additionally I could put music on an SD card and insert that into the display screen. The device also has a cable in the glove box with 3 adapters on it. One is an iPhone connector so that when I'm using the iPod app I have full control over its features from the MKi9200. Album artwork, picking the music I want, track skipping, volume etc. Or I could use the standard headphone jack adapter to plug in any MP3 player that is not clever enough to have bluetooth or I could use the USB adapter and plug a USB memory stick in that happens to have a bunch of music on it. So any music listening option is possible really. The device also has themes and other customisations to personalise it. I'm well suited. It's perfect. I bought mine from Halfords which whilst far from the cheapest place to buy it was very convenient and they fitted the device for free. If, like me, you love to have your music in the car and want a device that makes that very simple whilst providing a great range of methods for listening you can't go wrong with the MKi9200. Buy one today!! Treat yourself for Christmas. That's what I did.

Google Wave

Well I've got me a Google Wave account courtesy of my old work colleague and friend,  Matt Fitchett. Thanks Matt if you're reading this. It looks like it could be a lot of fun and very powerful but not until you have a worthwhile set of contacts, which frankly I don't. Don't get me wrong, me and Matt have lots to talk about :o) but it'd be good to share the fun around with a wider set of people. Matt seems to get invites that he can send out from time to time, so if I get the same I shall surely pass them on to my friends and family. I've not worked out too much of the good stuff as yet but I like the idea of a single wave between friends rather than sending an email to loads of people and trying to keep track of all the "Reply to Alls" that clutter up your Inbox. The collaborative nature of a Wave seems really sensible. I'm interested to see what happens with this product as more and more people get connected to it. I feel that the power is in the ability to have a wide network of contacts to collaborate with. Anyone else got a Google Wave account?

Meeting Newton Faulkner

Well what can I say? I met Newton Faulkner today. He came to our office to play a few tunes. He's a really nice bloke. Very friendly. Very talented. His guitar playing is just astounding. He played a beautiful version of Teardrop, a great version of Dream Catch Me and a few tunes off his new album. He signed my album and as you can see he posed for a photo with me. What a good lad!

4.5 mile fast run

I went for a 4.5 mile run at lunch time today with my work mate James. I normally do 6 miles but decided that if we were only going to do 4.5 miles that I would try and go a bit faster. It took me about 33:30. This was an average of 7:26 mins\mile. Not too bad at all for me. My fastest over that distance so far. However I now have a nasty chest pain. It feels like a muscle strain, but in my chest? How would that have happened? Weird.

Forthcoming Gigs

Off to see "The Unthanks" on wednesday night at the Junction in Cambridge with my lovely wife. It'll be quite a low key affair. It's in Junction 2 which is a really small all-seater venue. Very intimate. Well suited to a band such as the Unthanks with their lovely lilting folky voices. Not exactly a rock gig by any stretch. Anyway on friday night (Oct 23rd) I'm off to the Cambridge Corn Exchange. Once again with my lovely wife and this time to see Newton Faulkner. We saw him last year (or thereabouts) and it was a fantastic gig. Great atmosphere and Newton was fully engaging the crowd in his banter. Hopefully this year the gig will be equally fantastic. I'm not that familiar with his new album as yet but the wonderful Spotify App is helping me out there (see my previous post for more details!). From first listen there seems to be less genius guitar work and guitar body slapping cleverness. I'll report back after the gig to confirm that.

Spotify Premium

I've done it. I took the plunge and paid my £9.99 for my first month of Spotify Premium. Yes the adverts have all gone and yes I have a little more choice of music plus early availability of new releases. But that's minor compared to the wonderful iPhone App. I have set up 15 or 20 "offline" albums on my iPhone bringing me loads of great new material all legal and proper. The quality is great, the application is great and well....frankly...the price is great too. For about the cost of 1 CD album per month I can listen to more or less whatever I choose on my iPhone and it's all legal. I also plug my iPhone into its "Dock" and connect it to my stereo at home so that I get great quality music pumping from my big speakers. Also been for a few runs recently using my iPhone as an iPod and enjoying the great music of Spotify. Everyone should invest as it's a great way to listen to legal music advert free and portable.

My Daughter's Amazing Poem

I have to post this as I'm just blown away by how good it is. My daughter wrote this poem inspired by a small sheltered cove\beach we went to on holiday in Devon. If you saw the place you would see how much this poem brings it to life. She had no help with this. Frankly I lack the talent to come up with anything half as good as this anyway. Here it is....

The Empty Beach
Far away, as if in my dreams,
there is a secret place I know
A mysterious place, a secret place
a sandy beach by a rocky face

A little cove, so far away,
that I visited on a sunny day
The sand was shiny with coloured stones
The boats so tiny on the sea's blue tones

The little cove, a happy beach
Where magic seems to be in reach
And when you have to leave it soon
It's night, stars light up and so does the moon


Did I say that she's only 10? It literally chokes me up when I read it. Such powerful emotions well up inside me. I'm a very proud Dad!

Neglecting the Blog

I guess after initial enthusiasm I have started neglecting my blog. It's partly cos I'm so very busy at work at the moment pushing hard to deliver a project, but also I never wanted to just post any old nonsense just for the sake of it. Maybe I've been too hard on myself of late in terms of what I constitute as worthy news that I have failed to post anything. I'm gonna try and get back into posting things, even if they're just brief comments about what is going on or what I'm into at present. Watch this space....