Johnny Hall's Travels and Travails

Happy days. Trailer Park Boys Season 6 is finally on Paramount. I love TPB, it's definitely the best comedy I've seen for years - I can watch it over and over, and I've seen every episode at least 2 or 3 times. They've made a movie, but I'm not hopeful it'll go on general release here. I'll have to wait for the DVD. Luckily, I have a multi-region player - I doubt it'll get released on Region 2 DVD (the TV series aren't available in the UK, either). If you haven't watched it before, then you are missing out. Jump in at any point - the series are quite short (6 or so episodes) and there isn't a huge amount of plot other than some money making plan revolving around growing and selling pot and getting drunk and going to jail. Here's a quick sample:

Ricky: Knock, knock. Randy: Who's there? Ricky: Fuck off!

Genius.

Two sub-4 hour marathons in 4 weeks. Today, I ran the Snowdonia Marathon in (just) under 4 hours (3 hours 59 minutes and 37 seconds), which I'm very pleased with. At the start of the day, I wasn't particularly concerned with my final time but by the time I got to Pen-y-Pass at 4 miles and 400 feet of ascent, I decided I was feeling good and that under 4 hours was possible. I paced the day pretty well and certainly much better than Loch Ness. I really enjoyed myself and despite dreading the last climb at 21 miles and descent (500 feet up in less than 2 miles and 500 feet down in one mile, most of it on unmetalled roads), I felt good. I needed a decent cushion before the climb and I had about 7 minutes which was borderline. I, along with 99% of the rest, was reduced to walking on the steepest part of the climb - not because I couldn't run up the slope - simply because walking was quicker, especially with legs as long as mine! In fact, I passed a lot of people on that final slope. The descent was very difficult but my legs felt good and I managed to get down without mishap. It was hard though. I got to 25 miles with about 10 minutes to the 4 hour mark, which meant I had to dig very deep on the finish through Llanberis. My finishing heart rate was around 190 at the end and I had to sprint to the finish line to ensure I was under the target. My gun time was a few seconds over 4 hours but I only care about my chip time (measured from when I crossed the start line). So, a good, if hard, day, only marred by the ridiculous traffic on the way back to Leek. I'm looking forward to taking a bit of a rest from running and concentrating on my swimming before the New Years Day Triathlon. Update: I placed 381st on chip time out of 1500 starters/entries and 1054 finishers. The high DNF rate shows how hard this marathon is, though I though it wasn't any harder than Loch Ness, especially if you discount the last steep climb, which most people walked anyway.

We're down at the outlaws again for a busy few days. We drove down on Wednesday through a lot of rain and poor driving (the motorways in this country grind to a halt at the first sign of adverse weather - I swear that most drivers would fail their driving test if they had to do it over again). I had my second swimming lesson at Swimshack. I've been working hard (even getting up before seven am to get to the pool before breakfast, which is unheard of for me) on my drills and I seem to be making good progress. I'm reasonably close to being able to string each of the drill movements together to make a complete swimming stroke. I'm going to keep working hard over the next 6 weeks before my third lesson and then hopefully I'll be ready to swim 400m in the Edinburgh New Years Day Triathlon. I had a meeting with a designer on Friday and then another meeting with a client to discuss a big IT upgrade. Then, on Friday night, we had our first night out without Emily as we went to Becky's friend Katherine's wedding at Rookery Hall in Nantwich. It was very swish. Becky's mum looked after Emily but to be honest (and not trying to downplay her contribution) it didn't (luckily) involve too much effort. Emily is getting pretty good at going to sleep at night. We've got her into a routine now which, by and large, she follows - breast feed, nap, bath, bottle, bed (by 8 o'clock). She has a little cry when she is put to bed but that's because she's tired. It seems to be getting shorter and shorter before she stops. She normally wakes up in the middle of the night for a quick feed but there doesn't seem to be a particular pattern to the timing. I'm avoiding doing too much today since I'm running another marathon tomorrow. I'm not not aiming for a fast time since it's the Snowdonia Marathon and it's pretty hilly which is a deterrent for fast running (especially for me). If I do (very) well I'll be under 4 hours but it's more likely to be a bit slower than that, which is fine. I'm running for the experience more than anything. After Snowdonia, my training will be focused on improving my swimming and working in the gym on improving my strength (particularly for cycling). I'll keep my cycling and running pretty easy and relatively short - I'll really just be trying to establish a bit of a routine through the winter, when it's so easy to pack it in. My intention is to run and cycle in all weather (within reason). No such thing as bad weather, only bad clothing! Before we head back to Scotland, I'll be attending the funeral of a former teaching colleague, who died a few days ago, from complications after an operation to relieve the symptoms of colitis. I didn't know him particularly well and it's been a few years since we worked together but he was a genuinely nice chap who has passed away far too soon and with a young family. I met him in Leek a few months ago and we had a short chat after not seeing each other for years. I had no idea that he was ill. I'm never too sure about whether to attend funerals when I wasn't particularly close to the deceased but on reflection, it may be some comfort to my friend's family that many people attend.

I had a very constructive and interesting conversation today with a design agency about working towards a more coherent identity and marketing strategy for Zorrino.

It was a difficult conversation to have because it's not particularly clear what steps should be taken at this point, if any. We're looking for a couple of things and there is more than one road to take in order to get to where we need to be. We need to determine some sort of brand identity for Mentor - a uniform look for all marketing materials from business cards to the website - and we need to develop and implement a successful marketing strategy in order to make sales.

We could spend a bunch of money and do both of those things at the same time - going through a lengthy process of market research and so on. Or, we could get some sort of brand identity going first and get the marketing together at a later stage, when the product and our operations are ready for it.

At this point, it's not certain that doing any definitive marketing would be worthwhile. It's my contention that we need to sort out the branding sooner rather than later. The question is whether it's constructive to get the identity right without going through the lengthy process that would be necessary if we were building a complete marketing strategy now.

It's a thorny issue which is made more complicated by the cost of doing it. The design agency would rather do things "right" at this point but I'm not entirely sure that we need to go through that whole process in order to sort out the branding.

Anyway, in the meantime I'm back in Photoshop trying to rework the Zorrino website. Look for the results soon. It's a bit bland and unfocused at the moment and I need to get all the content together before we unleash Mentor upon an unsuspecting world.

Oh, and I got a bloody parking ticket after being ten minutes late getting out of the meeting. Which is poor.

Here's my tentative list of races for next year. I've entered a couple of them and it's subject to my ability to get the training done but at the moment I'm fairly certain that this is it.

• New Year's Day Triathlon 1 January
• Coniston 14 24 March
• Lochaber Marathon 22 April
• Wetherby Olympic Triathlon 20 May
• Ironman UK 70.3 17 June
• Update: The Dee Mile 11 July
• National 100 Mile TT Championships 15 July (or another 50/100 mile TT if I don't get an entry)
• Gullane Olympic Triathlon 28 July
• Ironman UK 19 August
• Update: Helvellyn Tri 9 September

I think that's it. Cunningly planned to allow me to build a decent aerobic base, get some road racing done, including another marathon, gain some critical triathlon experience and race 100 miles on the bike. After Ironman UK Helvellyn Tri, I have no plans but I'll find something to do, I'm sure. Maybe I'll try to beat my time for Loch Ness. Update: I've added the Helvellyn Tri to the schedule. It'll depend on how I've recovered after Ironman but it should be feasible.

I've taken the first steps towards becoming a good enough swimmer to compete in Ironman next year.

I decided to take a look at learning to swim using the Total Immersion method a while ago but I've waited until now to make a start, so that I could get the marathon out of the way.

I had a clear choice when I made the decision to take up triathlon and realised that my swimming was too poor to get by. Either I join a club and get lessons and/or coaching with them, or I could get one-on-one lessons with a TI coach. I decided to go the expensive route and found Iain at Swimshack. Unfortunately, he's in Loughborough but it's close enough to my in-laws to drive over there in around an hour.

My first lesson was last Thursday. I made a start on three aspects - breathing, kicking and balance in the water. My kicking is ok but breathing and balance are a lot harder. I have another lesson next week, so I have to practise a lot before then. I've joined the leisure club at the local hotel here in Cardrona, so I have access to a pool 5 minutes walk away, which is handy.

I don't think I'll be doing any actual swimming for a while - I will be doing drills, drills and more drills until I'm comfortable in the water. There are a lot of movements to learn but the end result should be that I will be able to swim freestyle efficiently and smoothly.

It seems to me to be a bit like learning to snowboard (or ski). It feels alien at first but by learning the technique a little bit at a time and by practising a lot, it becomes second nature (not that my snowboarding is too great).

I have a triathlon on New Year's Day but the distance is only 400 metres so if I've not got to the point where I can swim freestyle, I'll just have to bite the bullet and swim breast stroke.

I've drawn up the first draft of my Ironman 2007 training plan and I'm going to be swimming/drilling for 3 hours a week for the next 10 months, Mondays, Wednesdays and Thursdays. If I don't get truly comfortable with the swim, then the Ironman will be a difficult target to achieve.

Part of my IM training involves running another marathon next spring. To be honest it's probably not the best thing to do since I have to recover to continue training hard but I've recovered pretty well from my first marathon, so what the hell. I want need to build my confidence and experience over the distance. I've got an entry form for the London Marathon but there's only a one in five chance of getting in without going the charity route. It looks a lot of fun but I'm allergic to large crowds and despite the fact that I love London and it'd be a good chance to catch up with my friends there, I've decided to pass this time. I'll get around to it another year. So, there are lots of choices - if I want to go abroad. But that's obviously quite expensive and long distance triathlon is going to skin me as it is. Anyway, I've put my entry in for the Lochaber Marathon at Fort William. It's in my country, it's as flat as it gets in Scotland, it only has about 500 runners and it's amongst some beautiful scenery. Perfect. Team Recipher enters it's second race.

Becky and I have only been to one wedding (Neil and Jennifer's) since we got married (over 4 years ago now), which, on the face of it, is pretty unusual for people of our age (mid twenties and mid thirties). You'd expect all our pals would be getting married. Apparently not. That's about to change though. No weddings for the last 4 years and now 3 in a little over a month. Becky's Uncle is getting married in the middle of this month, Becky's friend Katherine is getting married at the end of this month and my friend David is getting hitched at the end of November (with a stag in Tarbert which I'm looking forward to). Breast-feeding Emily will make life a little tricky, since it's quite difficult to get baby-sitters who are wet nurses, so she'll have to come along to them (though we're only going to the reception at Katherine's, so Becky's mum can babysit, since Emily should be tucked up in bed by then). I hope they are all as enjoyable as our wedding was - I'm comfortable with stating that our wedding was the most fun I've ever been to. Admittedly, I am biased though I think quite a few people that went thought so as well.

Astute readers will have noticed that I don't write about my work much. Unfortunately, the reason for that is simple - there isn't a great deal to say at the moment. It's gone a bit quiet over the last few months (for a variety of reasons outwith my direct control - I might blog about those reasons at some point in the future but not right now).

Hopefully, things are about to liven up with Zorrino. I'm working on Mentor (adding some cool new functions), the company website is about to get an update ("finishing" it off - about time), I have a couple of important meetings in the next couple of weeks (I'll talk about them if anything occurs) and Becky is about to start working for with me (doing the stuff that I'm not so good at - administration mostly).

So, I'm hopeful that I'll be blogging more about Zorrino in the weeks to come. I plan on setting up a Zorrino development blog (using Community Server) on the company site, so I'll probably cross-post occasionally.

I'm almost fully recovered from my weekend exertions, which is pretty good, I think. I've been mountain biking twice (last night with Ally and this morning with Iain) and my legs have felt ok. My friend Kirstyn gave them a sports massage yesterday afternoon which really, really hurt but they needed it.

I'll maybe go for a short run tomorrow and then the plan is to run 10 miles on Saturday or Sunday. Then we're back into "full" training again next week culminating in a hilly long run of around 20 miles in the Peak District (with Iain) as preparation for the next race.