DNA path

My running track at the moment is along the very Cambridge DNA path. From our apartment we can nip down onto the busway bike path, running alongside meadows down to the Addenbrooke biomedical campus. From there I can cut onto the DNA path, with 10,257 stripes representing the four nucleotides of the BRCA2  breast cancer susceptibility gene sequence. The track runs down to Great Shelford. There and back, ~11km, for a frosty morning run.

First half-marathon

I just ran my first half-marathon (21.1km). I've never been a runner, I just find it boring and not especially satisfying. Runners have always told me that once you get it into your schedule you'll get addicted to it. Nope, I've been running almost daily (usually 4-5km) since lockdown started in March, and I can honestly say it doesn't bring me any particular enjoyment.

I didn't especially mean to run a half-marathon today. Until last weekend I've never run more than 6-7km in a day. Last weekend I tried a 10km run on Saturday and another on Sunday, and found it easy enough. Then this morning on my morning run I decided to see if I could get to 21.1km.

A first for me, but not a huge accomplishment. My time (2h25'3") was not very impressive. I did sweat 2.3 litres of water out (based on weight before and after), so I understand now why actual half-marathons have people handing out water. It also burned a grant total of 988 Calories, which is a really good example of how terrible exercise is for losing weight. 988 Calories is 0.13kg of fat, so assuming that you don't eat anything extra, it would take 8 half-marathons to lose 1kg of weight. Throw in an energy drink and a protein bar per race, and it would take 20 half-marathons to lose 1kg of weight. By contrast, skipping meals on a 500 Calorie/day diet is enough for me to lose 1kg per two days. In most cases, skipping a lunch is about the same as running a half-marathon, when it comes to weight loss.

Which is why it is really toxic that doctors and public health officials so often conflate exercise with weight loss. Exercise is fantastic for your health - that is proven and unambiguous. It is also terrible as a weight loss strategy. By focusing in on weight and BMI (which doctors can directly measure), instead of exercise (where they have to believe their patients), doctors are basically setting up people to get dissapointed in the outcomes of exercise and to quit. If the medical profession actually cared about health first, they would say "I'm not going to weigh you, and you shouldn't weigh yourself. It just doesn't matter. Let's focus on an exercise routine and healthy foods, and completely ignore your weight". In my dreams!

Update on Saturday, November 28, 2020 at 2:01PM by Adrian Liston

Post-script: second half-marathon attempt. 1 hour, 59 minutes, 56 seconds.

Lost 5.9 litres of fluid, run plus hot tub afterwards. Do not recommend.

Halloween 2020 edition

I carved a chameleon under direction from Hayden; he was responsible for decorating the pumpkin :)

Hastings

Morning runs along the beach. Fish and chips for lunch. Smuggler's Cave and Hastings Castle. A fun fair and minature golf. Small cafes and family time. Rainy days inside with a good book. The odd familiarity of the English seaside.

 

 

The depressing reality of the 2020 US election

I've been a compulsive following of American Presidential politics for twenty years now. I shudder to think of the hours I've spent refreshing the same few pages, reading re-hashed opinion pieces and following polling averages. Bush's wins were a tragedy, Obama's win in 2008 was one of my highlights of living in America. Trump's win in 2016 was beyond tragedy. At first it was merely disbelief, that a woman I admired so much lost to such a chump, but seeing friends comment on Facebook about "both sides" just killed me. I quit Facebook, Twitter, watching all news sites and following any politics. I just couldn't, and it took years to permit myself to care enough to engage again.

The big difference in 2020 is that there are no false illusions. We know exactly who Trump is. He has paraded it front of us for four years, without even the pretence that Republicans of old used as a veil. We all have our own breaking points, for me it was Trump ordering kids to be torn from their families and kept in cages. Despite being told by the department of immigration that they did not have the facilities to house children, Trump insisted on stealing children and keeping them in cages. 4368 children were torn from their parents. Children as young as eight months old were put in cages with no parental supervision, being looked after by the older children and fed instant noodles. Despite being shut down by a Federal judge after only three months, with orders to return the children, two years later and 545 children are still lost, with no records of what happened to their parents. At least seven children, as young as 2 years of age, died in those cages. Lying in a pool of their own vomit, dying on a concrete slab from preventable illnesses. Countless others were sexually, physically or mentally abused, and many of those returned to their parents still wake up at night screaming their parents' names. I think of those children, weeping for their daddy, and my heart breaks. I think of smug Republicans, enabling this evil, and my heart hardens against forgiveness.

Every poll tells me Biden will win big. America will once again be governed by a decent man. I could attribute 2016 down to a set of unique factors - the anti-democratic voting rules of the US, Republican voter suppression, the out-dated electoral college, misogyny effectively harnessed against Hillary Clinton. It is all true. And yet. Trump "won" 2016 on 46%. Best estimates are that Trump will lose 2020 on 43%. With all of that evil, only 3% of people changed their minds (if that, changing demographics probably account for most of the shift). Trump has literally mishandled a pandemic, killing >200,000 Americans. More than every war since WWII combined. Largest economic collapse since the Great Depression. More scandals and indictments then every American President put together. And 43% of Americans will still vote for him. Trump will almost certainly win a majority of white voters. Another 10% of America probably want Trump's policies, but hidden behind the thin veneer of plausible deniability that a Pence or Bush can provide.

We know who Trump is. We know that he screwed up the economy, he screwed up the pandemic, that everything he touches turns to mud. This turned off maybe a couple of percent of voters. For everyone else, the Republican base, they support him because of his evil. Because of his racism. Because he tortured children and mocks the poor. This is a feature not a bug for the average Republican voter. That is why I'm depressed about the 2020 election. Yes, decency will win the day, but it is horrifying that we have to fall to such depths before even a small fraction of voters will recoil in horror. I wrote something similar 12 years ago. We live in a world where a solid 40% of people would joyfully butcher the majority. It its dystopian and cruel; actual civilisation teetering on the brink. I don't think I will ever be able to forgive Republican voters for the cries of those stolen children. I know I will never be able to forgive them for trying to destroy the promise of a future world that my children will inherit.

Just... why?

Four years ago I asked how this monstrosity was ever produced.

Today it is the UK's turn for food shaming.

Why?

Small town news

Cambridge may be a major university, but it is also a small town. Hard-hitting front cover news this week:

Pottering around on the Great Ouse

We just finished our first narrow boat cruise, captaining the Rioja for a week through the Fens. 

From Ely to St Ives 

And down the River Lark

A slow meander with friends and family 

 

Hayden of course was a wonderful help

A beautiful week

 

The world's greatest fruit platter creator

Hayden always takes his jobs seriously. For the past five months, one of Hayden's jobs has been to make a fruit platter for lunch. This has progressed from throwing the fruit on a platter, to his self-declared mastery of the fruit platter. According to Hayden, every fruit platter has to have a unique name and theme, and a true fruit platter master cannot reuse a name or theme used by any other fruit platter, in the history of the universe. It is quite a task, but can you really question the creator of the eye-shaped "Keep an eye on Daddy so he doesn't eat the fruit before dinner" platter?   

  

  

 

Spring garden

April

Early May

Late May

June