Swimming, 5th October 2018

Posted on October 5, 2018 by james

Missed my intended session yesterday as I didn’t have a car to get to the pool, but I went today to attempt a new set similar to the last but with a reduced rest interval:

400m front crawl warm-up
25 x 50m front crawl, target time 55s, rest interval 20s
200m front crawl swim down

This was fairly tough. I had two fails. The first was on rep 6. I think I’d probably gone a bit too fast for the first five and after those I couldn’t control my breathing properly. The second was rep 11. After that things went ok, one or two reps drifting into the 53s and low 54s, but mainly around 51 or 52 seconds.

USRPT distance this year: 57,300m
Total distance this year: 147,450m

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Building an observatory. Construction #19

Posted on October 2, 2018 by james

The next step with the roof is to put some bracing across some of the joins, partly to strengthen them, but also to provide fixing points for the rest of the roof. I had some spare steel sheet to do this with, but cutting it took somewhat longer than planned as it was just too big to fit in the cut-off saw. I ended up doing it all with the angle grinder in the end, which took quite a while. Good job I bought some more metal-cutting discs the other day…

Anyhow, that done I got the frame back up on the saw benches so I didn’t have to grovel around on the ground too much whilst doing the welding.

Then it was just a case of working my way around, clamping a plate into position and welding as I went. The welding wasn’t that easy and I’ve not made as good a job of it as I’d like because the breeze was a bit gusty, but I think it’s ok if not very pretty.

In all I got half of the pieces attached before having to call it a day, though the ones on the roof are only welded on one side at the moment, whereas those on the sides are welded on both sides.

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Swimming, 2nd October 2018

Posted on October 2, 2018 by james

A second attempt at yesterday’s set:

400m front crawl warm-up
25 x 50m front crawl, target time 55s, rest interval 25s
200m front crawl swim down

There was definitely still some tiredness from yesterday and I went through a tough patch between 15 and 20 reps where I dropped into the 52s a few times, but happily I made it all the way through again.

Next time I do this set I’ll drop the rest interval down to 20s. That won’t be tomorrow. Possibly the day after depending on how I feel, though I’m half-tempted to try a slightly different set with a bit more speed over a shorter distance.

USRPT distance this year: 56,750m
Total distance this year: 146,300m

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Building an observatory. Construction #18

Posted on October 1, 2018 by james

A moment of truth now, when I try to put everything I’ve constructed piecemeal all together to form the entire roof.

The first job was to take the two sides and get them set up parallel and square to each other. I used bits of spare timber to get everything lined up and some of the blocks that will form my piers to take the weight of the steel.

Then with all the uprights clamped to each other to preserve the spacing I put one of the roof sections on one end. It fitted very nicely, needing very little adjustment to match up.

Fortunately the day was still and clear, so welding outside wasn’t a problem. Once that end was done I moved to the other end and repeated the procedure there with the other roof section.

Then all that was required to complete this stage was to add the three missing horizontal sections in the middle. I also temporarily fitted the wheels to make it easier to move the entire thing around and get it out of the way when I’m not working on it.

The next step will be to add bracing across some of the joins.

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Swimming, 1st October 2018

Posted on October 1, 2018 by james

Back to my USRPT sessions today, but given that I’ve been struggling a bit recently I decided I’d take a step back and build back up to the pace I was at in July. So, for today my session was:

400m front crawl warm-up
25 x 50m front crawl, target time 55s, rest interval 25s
200m front crawl swim down

This I managed without a failure. I think I had two reps over 52s, two more over 51s and the rest were spread between 47s and 51s.

If I can repeat this once more than I’ll drop the rest interval down to 20s and proceed from there.

USRPT distance this year: 55,500m
Total distance this year: 144,450m

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Swimming, 28th September 2018

Posted on September 28, 2018 by james

Got out on poolside today to find the school session prior to the public one over-running. By the time we could actually get into the water it was already ten minutes into the hour session. I was not happy 🙁

Despite swimming right up to the very last few seconds of the session I didn’t get quite as much as I wanted done. The plan was to repeat the sessions I’ve done already this week. I was getting pretty tired by the end though, so I can live with the loss this time.

USRPT distance this year: 54,250m
Total distance this year: 142,600m

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Swimming, 27th September 2018

Posted on September 28, 2018 by james

Same thing as Monday and Tuesday today. Just getting myself back into it.

USRPT distance this year: 54,250m
Total distance this year: 141,300m

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A reminder of six months ago

Posted on September 25, 2018 by james

I just found these photos sitting around. Given how hot this summer was and then how wet it’s been over the last week or so, it’s hardly believable that back in mid-March this was how my home looked.

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Swimming, 25th September 2018

Posted on September 25, 2018 by james

Another swim just to get back into things. The water still doesn’t really feel as though it’s back to the usual temperature, but it was very cold last night and there was a frost this morning so perhaps that didn’t help. The pool is hardly the best insulated of buildings.

USRPT distance this year: 54,250m
Total distance this year: 139,800m

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“Astro Swag”

Posted on September 25, 2018 by james

It’s been some time since I posted about oacapture, but work progresses with that as I have time. One of the things I’ve been working on is using an external timer and camera controller for generating timestamped images of occultations. I was sent some new hardware by the person who has been doing that side of things this week. He works at an observatory in the US. One of the other staff there is retiring and left some mementos of his time working on the NASA SOFIA project (used for observing occultations, but also and perhaps more famously for mapping the Cosmic Microwave Background) for his co-workers. A few found their way into my package 🙂

My daughter was particularly impressed with them, so I need to be careful they don’t disappear 🙂

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