Astronomy | Obsessive Ramblings

May 2nd, 2012 | Comments Off

There will be a very special astronomical event this Saturday which, weather permitting, you’ll not want to miss. As the full moon rises, around 8:25pm (in the UK) above the south-eastern horizon on the evening of the 5 May, it will appear spectacularly large – larger, in fact, than it has for about 100 years, when this set of circumstances last occurred. Popularly dubbed the ‘Mega Moon’ this effect is caused by a combination of factors, not … Read entire article »

Running more slowly – Venus and Me

February 28th, 2012 | Comments Off

It seems that Venus and I have something in common. ESA’s Venus Express spacecraft has discovered that Venus is running a little more slower than previously measured. According to the European Space Agency, a team of researchers used an instrument on-board the orbiter to penetrate the cloud cover over our neighbour at infra-red wavelengths. They studied surface features and discovered that some were displaced by up to 20 km from where they should be given the accepted … Read entire article »

A Glimmer of Hope

February 2nd, 2012 | Comments Off

I set fairly tough targets for myself and as a consequence I have to have a reality check every once in a while. A healthy review never caused anyone a problem. As you may know, I have recently been struggling to better 5 min/km without practically expiring. I have to remember that I’ve realistically only been running for a shade over 5 months and 6 months before that, the bone of my leg, the biggest bone in … Read entire article »

Training and Planets

January 23rd, 2012 | Comments Off

The late mornings seem to be catching My alarm went off for me to get out for a run this morning before work, but Liz had uncharacteristically not woken up with her alarm so I said she could go out and I would run at lunchtime, so at least she got her run in. I managed to get out on the streets again at lunchtime, a familiar run from work to the Thames, across Tower … Read entire article »

Leap Seconds

January 18th, 2012 | Comments Off

So there it is. We might be about to lose our leap seconds and disconnect with the age old tradition of correcting for the Earth’s wobble. Let me explain. Atomic clocks are accurate. Very accurate. In fact, so accurate that they are used as the basis of the ISO standard definition of a second. If you want the figures (which I know you do) they are accurate to 1 second in every 6 million years. Advances in technology … Read entire article »

10 miles and Corn Muffins

January 8th, 2012 | 2 Comments

Long run planned for this morning. Another milestone successfully passed as well, as this was the first time I’d done 10 miles since my ‘incident’ at Leadville – woo-hoo!. I completed it this morning although it wasn’t pretty; I am still looking to improve my speed by (at least) one minute per km to get back to the point of being competitive over the longer distances. When I got home just after 8:00am, I was greeted by … Read entire article »