Karinsmiles

Ada Lovelace Day

I’m a day late for Ada Lovelace day because I fell asleep last night without finishing my post (oops!). Ada Lovelace Day is an international day of blogging set up Suw Charman-Anderson to celebrate the achievements of women in technology and science. Over 2000 people blogged on 24th March 2009 about a woman in technology or science who had inspired them and I contributed a short piece about cosmonauts Valentina Tereshkova and Helen Sharman.

My choice this year is Judith Hann.

My teenage years were in the 1970s, a decade characterised by industrial unrest and bad fashion, but also an age when technological innovation was moving at a rapid pace. Tomorrow’s World presented these innovations to the public. There was always a wide range of useful and outrageous inventions and developments and the early programmes were presented by presenters with a certain amount of gravitas. Judith Hann was one of these (along with Raymond Baxter and James Burke) and it was one of the first times I recall a woman presenter on a technology show where she appeared on an equal footing with her male colleagues and not as decoration.

While there was always an element of humour in some of the quirky, off-beat and unlikely inventions that were unlikely to get off the ground, I recall the Westinghouse induction stove, the digital calculator and the digital watch all being previewed on the show. If you only ever saw much later versions of the programme you probably don’t think of Tomorrow’s World as a serious programme, but such it was in the 1970’s.

Judith Hann was the longest-running presenter, appearing on the programme for 20 years from 1974, which itself is significant since the BBC has a reputation for not valuing women presenters of a certain age. In fact it only appears significant in retrospect. At the time it seemed perfectly normal to me that a woman should present the show and it was these beginnings of a change in attitude to women that paved the way for my generation, and those following, to enter technological and scientific fields, maybe as a minority but less as a curiosity.

These days, it would appear that while she still lectures on popular science topics and through work with the Royal Society, advises scientists on how explain their work in an exciting way to the public, she has a sideline in cooking with herbs.

This year’s Ada Lovelace day looks like it has attracted fewer bloggers than last year. I hope the numbers will swell again next year, because as well as making me think about women in technology and science who have influenced or inspired me, I’veenjoyed reading other peple’s blogs and researching my own I recommend that you out the date in your diary for next year. March 24th – Ada Lovelace Day

Two-faced maps

My next big race is the 55 mile Cateran Trail Race on 15th May. I had put it out of my mind completely until the canal run was over, but now it’s time to start planning. With two ultras down, I’ve realised I feel far more comfortable if I’ve been able to explore the route in advance. It was virtually impossible to get lost on the GEDM since it didn’t deviate from the north bank of the canas other than at the tiny detour in Broxburn, and the Devil follows the pedestrian motorway that is the West Highland Way, whose paths form a bare scar through Glencoe that can be seen from space.

The Cateran is a less-frequented long-distance walk but there is a Rucksack Readers guide and it’s marked on the 1:25 000 OS Explorer maps, so I bought both the guide and the two relevant maps. Karen Donoghue, the race director, has posted descriptions of sections of the route on her site as well, and I was looking forward to doing a recce in the comfort of my own home.

The guide and maps arrived the next day and I eagerly opened up the maps to have a look at the route. The OS sheets listed in the guide are 381 and 387 and I was disappointed to find that the trail occupied only about 4 square inches of the sheet 387, just south of Spittal of Glenshee. Assuming most of it must be on 381, I was really confused when I found it had nothing west of Bridge of Cally. So, basically, there were about 30 miles of the trail missing from my maps.

I hunted round the OS site to try to find which sheet I still needed but I couldn’t find the right one. I trawled round every other site that mentioned the Cateran Trail and printed off some stuff that might prove useful but any site that mentioned OS maps at all cited the same two maps. I even turned over map 381 to see if these maps are double-sided but it wasn’t.

What I didn’t do unfortunately, for four whole days after they dropped on my doorstep, was to turn over map 387. Unfortunate, because there on the back of the map is the whole of the missing link. Some of them are double-sided. The clues are in the format description on the OS site :
‘Format Folded map: double-sided (boarded cover)’

and this schematic on the back cover :

How on earth do I expect to navigate my way round the trail when I can’t even navigate my way from one surface of the map to the other ;-)?

Easter Eggs all the year round

Software developers occasionally used to bury little unexpected items in their code which would give you a little surprise if you hit the right combination of keystrokes, or entered something obscure on a form. I don’t know if they still do it, but these gifts were known as Easter Eggs and that’s the term I use for the occasional surprises you can get on a long run.

An Easter Egg can make a huge difference to your mood, turning it from despondency to joy in the space of a heartbeat. They range from little candy-coated eggs, giving a few moments of sweetness, to luxury, truffle-filled delights that can make your whole day.

On the Glasgow-Edinburgh runthere were a few moments that lifted the monotony of what was indeed a very long, flat run along the lowland canals. I looked forward to seeing my sister, Elli and Bill at the checkpoints. I had already seen the Dutch barge and the Wee Spark at Kilsyth and the ship-shaped bridge at Kirkintilloch on my recce run and it was good to see them again, but the moments that were most significant were the unexpected ones –

• the two old dears in Kilsyth that thought it was amazing I had run all the way from Glasgow, though I was less than a quarter of the way through
• finding other runners in the checkpoint in Linlithgow
• a huge flock of geese flying around and alighting on a field just outside Linlithgow. My mood had already lifted just speaking to other runners on the route and the geese made me forget for a few minutes how far there still was to go
• three people and a baby in a buggy cheered us on in Broxburn and then one of them shouted my name after we passed – it was an old colleague of Bill’s, his wife, daughter and grandchild. It was wonderful to see them there and they apologised for stopping us, but I was glad they had.
• as we passed Wilkie basin, Bill said “If you can spare a few seconds, you should turn round”, and I did that, to see a beautiful sunset at just the perfect moment. I was tired, aching and already digging deep with 9 miles still to go, and the red and orange-streaked sky definitely felt like a gift.

Running is great … well most of the time … but sometimes a little unexpected surprise is all it takes to remind me of that.

It runs in the family

I must have inspired my eighteen year old son in some way because on Monday he asked if I wanted to go out for a run with him. Now, I was still recovering from the small matter of 55 miles on Saturday, but I didn’t want to miss a rare chance to go out running with him, so we went out for a slowish 3 miles. He was talking about maybe doing a marathon next year and I said I would help him train if he didn’t mind being seen in my company.

Tonight I came in after a short run at a slowish pace which was all I wanted since I’m still in recovery mode, and I got a phone call about 20 past 7.

G: “Hi, it’s me. I just thought I would let you know where I was so you wouldn’t worry”.
Ma (now worried, he’s never bothered before) : “So where are you then?”
G (sounding a bit breathless): “Near Ratho, I’ve just run here and I’m on my way back”.
Ma (thinking my hearing isn’t what it used to be): “Did you say Ratho? It’s about 6 miles … and it’s dark”
G : “I’ve got a head torch, I think I’ll be about an hour before I get home”
Ma : “You’re running back from Ratho … in the dark … when you’ve never run that far before. What on earth were you thinking, that’s just crazy!”
(then relenting a bit … he is my favourite son … actually he’s my only son)
“Do you want one of us to come and meet you?”
G : “No, it’s OK, I’ll be OK …it would be nice if you did though”.

So Bill and I changed back into running gear (we had only just changed out of it), grabbed headtorches, phones and a spare thermal top and headed out along the canal towards Ratho. Now the last time I was on the towpath in the dark was Saturday night, and I hadn’t really planned to repeat the experience quite so soon; nor had I planned a second run tonight but I felt partly responsible. After all half his genes come from me (the rest are Bill’s but that was never going to endow him with much sense either).

We finally saw him just coming under the Calder Road Bridge, in a sleeveless vest, barely a glimmer shining from his headtorch, completely knackered, no food, water or bus fare and proclaiming he hadn’t meant to go as far as Ratho. I had a job finding a big enough Compeed to cover the blister on his foot and he fell asleep almost as soon as he’d swallowed the last bite of dinner.

He says he’ll never do that again … but then we’ve all said that before; I think he has the makings of an ultra runner 🙂

Last gasp buddy

Bill offered to buddy me on the last miles of the Glasgow-Edinburgh double marathon. He was willing to join me anywhere from Linlithgow onwards which would have been a 20 mile run but I coped up until Broxburn, where I was really glad of his company. I had checked with the organiser that it was OK and he replied that it was though “no piggybacks” 🙂

Now, Bill’s not the most active conversationalist when we’re running, in truth he rarely gets a word in when he’s running with me, so he hasn’t had a lot of practice at talking as a distraction. He made a brave effort though and told a couple of jokes one of which goes a bit like this :

“George was going up to bed when he heard noises coming from his garage so he phoned the police and said that he thought there were intruders in his garage. The police asked if they were in his house and when he said ‘No’, they said there were no patrols available at the moment but someone would come along later.

A little while later he phoned back and said “these guys that broke into my garage are now trying to steal my car”. Again the police asked if anyone was in danger and said there were no patrols available but that he should give them the registration so they could track down the car if they managed to steal it.

A few minures later he phoned back again and that they needn’t worry about the intruders because he had just shot them. Within a couple of minutes several police cars, blue lights flashing, screeched to a halt outside his house to find the intruders alive and well, still engaged in hot-wiring his car.

One of the policemen said to George: “I thought you said that you’d shot them!”

George said, “I thought you said there was nobody available!”

Now it’s not a very funny joke, but that doesn’t really matter, it was exactly the kind of distraction I needed (and it must have been distracting because I can remember it).

He did make a couple of attempts to ask questions but I’m afraid this is one situation where only closed questions will do. He asked “How was the Falkirk tunnel then?” …. …. …. “…crap…”, then he tried “so what’s happening at Cargo later?” …. …. …. “crap”. Now that’s not even an intelligible answer to the second question (though it’s an accurate, if concise, answer to the first), but I was largely down to “Yes”, “No” or just a grunt and I had to summon up enough energy for one of those. He got the idea pretty quickly though and didn’t ask any more questions. I read an article recently on mental tips for ultras, and one of them was a tip for supporters

“BEWARE – of asking too many questions. A question is a request for information from someone’s head, when that head feels tired and battered a question can feel like someone delving their hand into their brain and pulling things out. You wouldn’t want that done to you would you?”

Mostly he told me I was doing really well, distorted the truth somewhat when I asked the time and just was good company when I needed it. He was there to reassure me that the sudden change in surface at Hermiston was just tarmac (I almost stopped dead because I couldn’t understand why the path suddenly looked different; the tarmac is less than a fortnight old). He was there to remove the prickly branches I managed to get tangled in, when bending down would have taken a supreme effort. He went in front of me over both the Linn’s Mill and Slateford aqueducts so that I only had to watch his heels rather than see the drop down to the river (I don’t like high bridges and there are monsters below them in the dark).

It’s a thankless task being a last gasp buddy but I really did appreciate his company and I hope I managed to show it in my own way. Though I think I twice asked him to tuck in on my shoulder rather than run slightly in front where the path was narrow, I don’t think I mentioned the loud pounding of his feet once, even though it was particularly pronounced with his new GTS 9s. 🙂