That was another tough race. Who'd have thought a race track would be so hilly?

I didn't get the pace I was wanting, 10 minutes for the first lap, but slipped to about 11 minutes for the other two. Yet again I forgot to stop my watch as I crossed the line. Four races I've done now and I've only remembered to stop my watch on the first one. Just so glad to get over the finish line I'm not thinking about it. When I did eventually stop it it read 32:26. I'll be very happy if my time is under the 32 minutes. I'll find out tomorrow, hopefully, when the race results are published. Apparently there was a big clock next to the finish line, but I didn't even notice it. I saw Mel as I crossed and heard her congratulations, always good to hear after a race, and staggered away.

One good thing about the hills on Knockhill is that you get to run down some of them. The steep one after the first bend was fun, especially on the last lap. I really just let myself go and sprinted down it.

For the first lap I'd been able to keep pace with Shiona, but slipped a little. I could see her gradually get further and further ahead of me. On the last lap, going round the tri-oval part of the track, we could see each other as the track turned back sharply, and up an steep hill. She looked so far ahead of me. Yet I was only about 40 seconds behind her crossing the finish line. Managed to find a spurt of energy for the last twenty-thirty meters.

Jenni, who had been concerned that she hadn't done enough running the last couple of week while she was away on holiday, left us behind easily.

My blood sugar level was gone by the end, my hands shaking visibly, slightly dizzy and a bit of a shiver setting in once I'd sat down. Changed into a warm top and tucked into Mel's amazing gluten free carrot cake soon sorted that out.

Ah, the blog. Must really remember to feed this thing more often.

Back in May I started running. Some friends I know through BMF were running in the Edinburgh 10K. I thought "They're about the same level of fitness as me. I could be doing that." So I looked for the next 10K near by, and found the Forth Road Bridge 10K. I can see the bridge from my kitchen window. So I signed up and started running. I might talk about that another time. Another race got shoe-horned in before that one.

My next race is up tomorrow night. This will be my fourth race. It is the Graham Clark 3.9 Mile Memorial Race at Knockhill Racing Circuit. I'm hoping for a time below 30 minutes.

I certainly hope to place better than I did on Saturday at the Cloybank 6K Trail Race at Cloybank Estate. Coming 23rd sounds good, but there were only 23 runners. Someone has to be last, and on Saturday, it was my turn. I was just happy to have finished. I was even happy with my time and pace. 32:21 with a pace of 5:24/km. And by place better, I mean, "not last".

That was a tough wee course.

Tomorrow's race starts at 19:30 and is three full laps of the Knockhill Circuit. The distance isn't a problem. 3.9 miles, 6.3km. Most of the training runs I've done have been further than that. Compared to Cloybank, this is a level course. I've also managed to con two of my friends that I run with into doing the race too, Shiona and Jenni. And I'm looking forward to the delicious gluten free carrot cake that Mel is making for the post-race feeding frenzy.

Actually, I think Mel is crazy. She ran in the Ochil's 2000 on Saturday. Over 20 miles across the Ochils range near Stirling. What worries me is that it might be catching.

Normally on a Tuesday at that time I'd be at rehearsal for DDS. Tomorrow we will be casting our next show, Twelfth Night. I'll find out what part(s) I'll be playing sometime after the race.

On Sunday I discovered that Goodreads have free book give aways.  The idea is that you get early copies of new books, or earlier books in a series when a new title is coming out, and you ideally write and publish a review of them.  Writing the review is not required, but it is kind of why the publishers are giving the books away.

So I thought, "I don't have nearly enough books on my to-read book cases." No, seriously, I have a bookcase and a half of to-read books. "I'll look and see if I can get any."  I found a few that were available in the UK and were science fiction and or fantasy.

Nothing complicated in applying; just supply an address where the book is to be shipped, accept the completely reasonable (and brief) terms and conditions and that's you.

About only a day I've been notified that I'm going to receive one of these books.

The Digital Plague (Avery Cates, #2) by Jeff Somers:

Avery Cates is a very rich man. He's probably the richest criminal in New York City. But right now, Avery Cates is pissed. Because everyone around him has just started to die - in a particularly gruesome way. With every moment bringing the human race closer to extinction, Cates finds himself in the role of both executioner and savior of the entire world.

Okay, it's book two in its series and I've not read the first book.  Should be interesting to see if it can be read on its own.

I have only written reviews for audio books so far, so this is my chance to see how different one for a print novel is.

I've just run into a small bug in subversion.  Not sure what causes it, but I've found a fix.

svn ls https://svn.hostname
Password for '(null)' GNOME keyring:
svn: OPTIONS of 'https://svn.hostname': authorisation failed: Could not 
authenticate to server: rejected Basic challenge (https://svn.hostname)

 Simply added

password-stores =

to the ~/.subversion/config file and it was fixed.

(Solution found on launchpad.)

Check you credit card statements. I found an item I didn't recognise. The item described itself as "WWW.COMWEBSEC.COM INTERNET". I found this two weeks before my statement was due because I was checking my recent transactions online. Could have been another two weeks if I only looked at the print statement.

RBS's Fraud line (0845 300 4350) were very helpful and that card has been cancelled. Only took a few minutes.

My first review in a while is now up at SFFAudio.com. Lev Grossman's The Magician.

Yeah. So, I'm guessing enough time has passed that this won't be spoiler material any more.

The writers of Lost claimed that they had that final scene written right from when they finished the Pilot episode. Did it never occur to them that they might have wanted to update it a bit so that they answer the questions that they kept raising? Overall, very disappointed. If they had answered the questions I'd be all fired up and ready to watch it all again. (See, that would be a sale of the DVDs or BlueRay there) Unfortunately, the only thing I know I'll get from a rewatch is a bunch of questions with no answers. I won't be watching Lost again.

I'll be very wary of any series that Lindelof and Cuse are ever in charge of.

Video found via Scott Sigler

All flights across Britain and much of Europe have been grounded for several days due to the Volcanic eruption of the Eyjafjallajökull volcano on Iceland. According to this New Scientist article, we could be looking at decades more of eruptions from Iceland.

Could this herald the return of Airships to the skies of Europe as a regular form of passenger and cargo transport?  They don't travel at the same altitudes of jet aircraft (only at about 3,000 feet), nor do they travel at the same speed (only 80-100mph).  They would avoid encountering the ash and when they did, they would do so at a much reduced velocity.  Scoring of windscreens would be vastly reduced.  No jets, so no melting of the ash into glass and thus damaging the engines.

There's also a Katamari level where everything is just slightly bigger than you, and a Mario level with a star just out of reach.

I'm taking part in Script Frenzy this year. I'm using it as an incentive to get work on Estalvin's Legacy back into gear. As such I'm writing episodes 11-14 of Estalvin's Legacy.

I do my writing in OpenOffice.org Writer using a set of styles that I've created myself. They are based on the formatting for Radio Plays that Celtx uses. If anyone is interested in using these styles, they are available here. (See the links below)

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