Today I completed the first week on my 50K training plan. This was four runs of 7 km (Monday) , 7 km (Wednesday), 6 km (Thursday) and 8 km (Saturday), classified as Easy, Intervals, Easy and Long respectively. I ran all these on the treadmill. Overall progress can be seen here.
| Week | To date | |
|---|---|---|
| Distance | 28.15 km | 28.15 km |
| Time | 3h 37m | 3h 37m |
| Runs | 4 | 4 |
| Runalyze 50K Prognosis | 7h 20m 49s |
In a moment of madness (or sheer stupidity) I have managed to sign myself up for an Ultra marathon next year – the 2024 Chiltern 50 Ultra Challenge that starts and ends at Henley on Thames with an evelation of 920 m. The good news is that it’s over a year away so I should at least be able to put in some serious training! To that end I have signed up with Runna and enrolled on their 50 K training plan. The plan covers a 16-week period so I will be able to supplement it or even complete a couple of iterations.
So why a 50 K? Well aside from being a serious challenge it’s mainly because I think that the slower pace of a longer event like this would suit me better than a marathon or a half. Also there’s absolutely no shame in walking large parts of the distance! I think too that having a large event booked far in advance it will give me the impetus to enroll in other events along the way,
Canon 5D 26 mm, ISO 200, 5 sec @ f/16
This is a photo from the archives, taken way back in May 2008 whilst I was working in Dublin. According to the EXIF data this was taken at around 23:00 and I remember the thinking the reflection of the lights in the River Liffey may have made nice image.
Unfortunately I was wrong and this sat until very recently unloved and untouched in my Lightroom catalog. The lighting was vey warm and I just didn’t like the way it looked as it distracted from the architecture.
I decided to try converting to monochrome using the ever reliable Lenswork Warm Tone, then dodged and burned in a couple of locations. Finally, a tight crop to accentuate the width of the building and the job’s a good ‘un!
Canon M6 25 mm, ISO 100, 5 sec @ f/16
A recently built roundabout near me has red street lighting installed, apparently for the benefit of bats. I thought this would make a decent photo when the conditions were right and today was the day! Heavy fog throughout the day persisted into the evening and I decided to try my luck. I was pleased to see a red glow in the distance as I made my way there and the challenge then became three-fold:
In terms of post processing, the image is simply cropped and the contrast increased slightly.
I have called this ‘Close Encounters’ as the arrangement of the light and the their direction reminds me of the spaceship in Steven Spielberg‘s 1977 film, Close Encounters of the Third Kind.
Canon 5D, 25 mm, ISO 200, 150 sec @ f/11
Well it’s been a long time since my last post and it’s been for a number of reasons that I won’t bore myself let alone anyone else with! This is a morning shot of New Brighton Lighthouse – taken at around mid-morning so the sun was already pretty high and falling directly onto the lighthouse.
I had been thinking about the purpose of the lighthouse and how mariners would view it as a welcome sight, being guided and reassured by its calming presence. Of course there are no rocks to be dashed up at the mouth of the Mersey but there are shallows and sandbars all the same. To help enhance the feeling of calmness I chose a long exposure to smooth the clouds and water, and applied the good old Lenswork Warm Tone preset in Lightroom. I pushed the shadows slightly to reduce contrast and added a gentle vignette. Whilst the lighthouse is the main subject, I really like the presence of the huge cranes in the background; their brooding presence highlighting the solitary nature of the lighthouse…
I tried a new crop ratio with this image too and I have to say I like it.