Thursday, May 21, 2009

Mixed Feelings

I went for an "unscheduled" run this passed Saturday, a friend is going to be in Europe while the local branch of his company does a fun run, so he's got a bee in his bonnet that he needs to get fit. Anyway I went for the run on Saturday evening and well my heartrate jumped up to 180+ and refused to stay down if I ran at all! I still ran intervals, but from then it was clear that my heart was no longer in sinus rythm. Once again I can't identify one cause but I know what the joint causes probably are. This time I'm not sure it's worth going for a cardioversion, but if nothing changes by this coming Monday I'll give the doctor a call. So thats got me feeling pretty bleak, I had kindof gotten used to the idea of having a heart that beats regularly and I was really looking forward to getting off Warfarin. Believe it or not I think perhaps part of it is the lack of regular exercise recently so maybe if I build myself up again gently things will fall into place again.

The other side of the coin is that my masters is going really well, it feels like I'm making very good regular progress and the light at the end of the tunnel is definitely shining brighter. There are a few wrinkles that still need to be ironed out but it seems like the learning curve is getting gentler. As for my writeup well thats stagnated for a few days, but my supervisor has promised to add to the incentive by hounding me for a chapter every week. Whats more he discussed with my boss that I should get half of my day to writeup, so there will really be no excuse! I think I might still need to do a lot of work at home tho, cause that feels right and I'd really like to have this done sooner than later.

Tuesday, May 12, 2009

Really good day

I went for a really nice 5km run today, not very fast, about 39 mins which is pretty pedestrian, anyway I was chatting about where I am with my project at the moment, and I realised just how close I really am to finishing this project! I mean I've known I'm almost there for some time and there are certainly a few niggly things that I need to sort out, but on the whole, most of the problems are solved. The only major task that needs to be completed now is the software. It just sortof struck me properly this time.

It's about time! So with renewed vigour I came home showere, had a quick bite to eat and then sat down to tackle the software again! Ofcourse a vnc connection over wireless and through vpn is REALLY frustrating and I gave that up as a bad job, to be completed in work time! Then i thought I'd start preparing some of the illustrations! Which require a drawing package, but who knew that this would also be dead slow!? So I've resigned myself to the fact that I'll have to do text only writing at home, and all the other niggly little things will need to be done at work. Which sucks a bit, but oh well such is life.

All in all I think my writeup is coming along slowly but surely. I think I'm almost done with a first draft of one of my chapters. Without drawings it's only 7 pages long, which is perhaps a bit sparse but i'll ask my supervisor to give it a read anyway. Much of the most difficult chapter that I need to write has already been written, as a sortof article I started to write, so I'm almost 2 chapters down! But still, the clock is ticking, I haven't worked out the days left lately, but I know I'll be alarmed!

Sunday, May 10, 2009

A bad week

This week has been rather bad for both running and for my new mission. I only got two 5km runs in and there appears to be a problem with my polar getting interference from Melodie's monitor, which effects my results and makes me a little nervous at times. Showing me a heart rate of aroung 160bpm, when I'm pretty sure it's only around 110. We'll have to work something out, but I don't understand why it's happening now, when I had no trouble at the 2 Oceans.

I spent much of last weekend preparing for a presentation i needed to do on Wednesday and my first session with a new student I will be tutoring. I've been considering tutoring as an extra income, because lets face it, we can all do with a few extra bucks. Then I went away with work for Wednesday and Thursday. Pure laziness prevented me from doing much on Friday or Saturday. So all this adds up to not a lot of work happening on the new mission. I plan to get a few pages written today, but I have to watch the Formula 1.