The Pain Cave

I left my bottle at the side of the 400m track when I was 11.  I could do the fast stuff, the anaerobic stuff, 100m sprint or 80m over hurdles but twice round the 400m circuit was too much to run. I'd stop halfway and walk a bit to get my wind back. I was known to be asthmatic, in those pre-inhaler days, but I think a big part of the problem was that my ambition genes were shot off in the war. I just couldn't lift myself across the smallest threshold of grit / determination / bottle . . . never mind Second Wind; The Wall; let alone The Pain Cave. Because it is so alien, I have an anthropologist's fascination with athletes who push that running envelope, who don't wimp out at the first wheeze / rainshower / twinge / rattlesnake / puke-up. Examples:
Zatopek - Andrew Lloyd - Lasse Viren & Emiel Puttemans - Luz Long - John Landy - Deratu Tulu - Scott Jurek - Tarahumara - Ernest Dalzell - Iditarod - Barkley 100 - Billy Mills - Mark Pollock

If you win the Soccer Cup Final, even if you score the winning goal, you gotta realise that the win is not solely due to you. But for runners, even those with coaches and pacers and a support team, win or lose is up to the runner alone. And in a real sense, as all the great Ultra-runners acknowledge, you're running against (and for) yourself: running you best life. I tried to capture this as doing the best you can . . . and then a little bit more. The last in can have run better than everyone else.

Anyway, I'm here because of a long interview [100 mins] between Joe Rogan and ultrarunner Courtney Dauwalter [her feet in the kitchen R] just after she won the Moab 240 [miles! = 380 km] in Utah in under 58 hours. Albeit that it was the first time this desert, canyon, mountain circuit has been run; Rogan has trouble getting his head round the fact that Dauwalter was 10 hours = 20 miles = 30 km = 8% ahead of the next best finisher. Reflecting on that led to the idea that certain barriers are known to be insurmountable . . . until they are surmounted. A lot of nonsense [hindsight!!] was talked about the 4 minute mile being a non plus ultra set by human physiology until Roger Bannister sailed through that 'barrier' after lunch on 6th May 1954. John Landy ran even faster a month later and sub-four became the new normal. Similar things are being said about a sub-two-hour marathon: all the 10 fastest marathoneers, male and female, were born in either Kenya or Ethiopia - except Paula Radcliffe [prev who incidentally Bob (ya wimp) had exercise-induced childhood asthma].

The other relatable thing about Courtney is that she is so normal about it: she stokes up for a race with natchos & beer and candy-bars. She doesn't do [insert your latest health/fitness fad here] but is not averse to giving yoga, stretches or cryotherapy (A Thing in California) - it just hasn't seemed necessary - and maybe seems a bit boring for something that has only uncertain benefit. Better to go out on a trail and, just, run. She's so freakin' normal that when she sees leopards in hammocks and silent cellists in the woods during a night run, she just nods howdydo and runs on. That sounds like Charles Bonnet Syndrome which has been normalised by my vision-impaired mother these last couple of years. Don't worry her none, though: it just is.  As a teacher of Human Physiology, I'm interested in how internal systems breakdown at the edges . . . of old age, stress, and now extreme exercise. And she's so freakin' 'ard that when she goes temporarily blind (possibly corneal oedema) on the last stage of a 100 mile race she just stumbles on to the finish trying to miss hazards, without 100% success [see L for most significant head-wound], with the 5% of her remaining vision.  Sure it cleared up within a few hours; sure why worry? Exec Summary 10 mins about physiology from the Joe Rogan interview.

Her day job? Is teaching science to middle school kids in Colorado. You can see it as she solves problems in her races: logistical, physiological, mental [see above] problems that require a solution that works . . . is evidence based, is scientfic rather than woowah. What's not to love about that? Could there be a better ambassador for the Enlightening Arts? A better role-model for young women?

Other Women in Science

To the rescue!

My pals Roy and Les were rescued from a flooded cave 27 years ago. Because he was a TV producer be made a dark wet docudrama about the experience: No Picnic at Sleet's Gill. It was less dramatic than last year's Thai cave rescue because it involved two middle-aged codgers. A couple of weeks ago I had the rare opportunity to flick through a hard-copy of the Irish Times and read an article about the volunteer mountain rescue service. One of the points made was that, in Ireland, all that expertise, devotion to duty, endurance and courage is held by volunteers. Seemingly The Lads [M & F!] don't even get their petrol money back and they've been giving their time for at least the last 50 years.

There are several such groups, like KMRT Kerry Mountain Rescue Team, ready for action wherever terrain is wild enough that people will have accidents or heart-attacks or just plain exhaustion having been benighted by the weather. I guess of you break a hip in Tesco, it would be a different class of chaps in hi-viz vests who bundle you into an ambulance for triage in A&E. One of the old hands was shaking his head with "wot were we like?" wonder at the mad things they did back in the day: no hard-hats, crappy ropes, wellington boots.

In the old days, MRTs would get a message when somebody failed to return home. That was usually after dark. If the Lost One was smart, like Roy & Les, then s/he would have left a message about their planned itinerary. The MRT would muster their best available team and start quartering their best guess for location. Even if it wasn't full dark, accidents were more likely if the weather was atrocious and visibility piss-poor.

You might think that modern tech - smart-phones, GPS, Gortex - would help. For example, On 2012 Russ Hore invented an App called SARLOC [search & rescue locator]. This extracts the GPS coordinates from  the Lost Phone and relays this key information to the relevant MRT. Begob but that works a treat IF the phone has coverage - so great in Tesco; no so good in Gleann Dorcha and other remote locations. KMRT estimates that SARLOC helps only about 50% of the time.

And Drones? They must be handy?! Not really, great for swoopy video on windless sunny days, useless if the wind gets up or the fog comes down; and the battery life is real short. But when you get close infra-red sensors can pick up a Live One. Drones' best use is to get food, medicine and a hot drink across inhospitable terrain. As of now, old style foot-slog is still very much needed in the field.

Pea? bean? pea?

Advised background music. Sonny Terry & Brownie McGee [I don't want no] Cornbread, peas, black molasses.

Legumes, anyone? One of our friends has gorn all vegan on us and invited us to dinner last week. Because the cook is English, one of the dishes involved carlins. carlings or carlin peas beans PEAS. As I hint, we had an argument robust discussion about the definition of, and difference between, peas and beans.

Well the quick answer is: whatever you're having yerself. Or like Humpty-Dumpty "When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, "it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less." You say potahto, I say potayto. Garbanzo beans and chick peas, are after all, exactly the same thing.

For me, a helpful sort of scientific answer is to declare that peas - marrowfat; yellow split; snow; sugar-snap; mange-tout; and Birdseye frozen - are all members of the species Pisum sativum.

Another, more helpful definition is that peas is round, beans is longer. In microbiology, a similar gross morphology definition is between coccus (round) and bacillus (rod-shaped). Inevitably, there is a grey area in both classifications: ovoid-like. What you call a thing is contra Humpty-Dumpty important if you plan on communicating with other people about it. This is why science is quite particular about Latin binomers: bat or bear or bean are extremely imprecise lumpings of quite different things.

My contribution to the pea/bean dinner debate (apart from requiring a better definition of the terms before a useful answer was possible) was to say that afaik peas were all the same species but beans embraced a much wider genetic landscape. Some post-prandial research showed that this is true. All the commonloy edible pea/beans are in the family Fabaceae. Current phylogenetic consensus reports 6 tribes, 10 genera and 16 separate species within the family; thus:
Family Fabaceae

• Dalbergieae
• Arachis 
•  A. hypogaea peanut
• Cicereae 
• Cicer 
• C. arietinum chickpea 
• Fabeae
• Pisum
• P. sativum pea
• Millettieae
• Millettia
• M. pinnata Indian beechnut
• Phaseoleae
• Cajanus
• C. Cajan pigeon pea
• C. cajanwas carlins
• Glycine 
• G. max soybean
• Phaseolus
• P. lunatus lima bean
• P. vulgaris common bean incl kidney beans, haricot
• Vigna
• V. angularis adzuki bean
• V. mungo black gram
• V. radiata mung bean
• V. subterranea Bambara groundnut
• V. unguiculata cowpea, incl. black-eyed peas
• Vicieae
• Lens
• L. culinaris lentil
• Vicia
• V. faba broad bean

I hope that's helpful. Now I know.

Very Misc Sund 1108

Horses; a dead sheep; lactobacillus; a small grey cat; a small grey aardvark

• Ever been in a yurt? Mongolia in 5 minutes.
• Buzkashi? A game where you have to launch self and dead sheep into a large bucket
• The lads from Ballygunnar think they're well 'ard. Let them try it on horses.
• Even though this sonsy chiel is wearing a skirt and a pink waistcoat, he looks well 'ard also.
• Dance?
• If you ever though there were totalitarian overtones to Riverdance.
• Hillary Klug plays "Le Petit Chat Gris"
• Sword?
• Armourer compromises on film
• Sue Brunning BM curator's favorite [prev 111118]
• Sue on Sutton Hoo - fingering King Southpaw 
• Leftie-previe: [presidents] - [microbiologists] - [flounders]
• Swords the town of champions 
• 4Ocean [prev] clean-up campaign; is it a scam? Update.
• You may get more bang for your buck with PlasticBank
• OceanCrusaders are another crew with a mission.
• Mordor with wind-turbines? Storm chaser with art!
• Calm needed? Allegri's Miserere mei, Deus
• Living in a closet dainty small in Tokyo.
• Orycteropus afer baby.
• Food
• Steps towards an ecology of sourdough starter.
• Oscypek is a cheese only made in the Tatra Mts

Nihilification

Nihilification, n. Considering that something is valueless.  Among the infinity of things that won't be remembered this weekend: The Heron Bridge Collapse, Ottawa, 10th August 1966. There was a brief flurry of retrospect when the 50th anniversary came round in 2016.  50 years is a good interval for such things: you can reasonably hope to get a soundbyte from people who were witnesses or participants. At 53 years, the event is lucky to get an "On this day . . ." mention by Wikipedia. The wannabe engineer in me is interested in structural failures [ABC, Florida - Resonance, Salford - Too low, Emmiscorthy - Gusset-plate, Minneapolis - Rust, Connecticut and don't get me started on the damn dams] because we can learn something from them; and maybe even tighten up the specs to prevent them re-occurring.

The Heron Bridge across the Rideau River and Canal was mandated by the Canadian Federal Government in deference to the great god Car, which we in Ireland still worship to the exclusion of other, healthier modes of transport. A lot of similar infra-structural projects were going on across North America, it being the boom-time for the US Interstate System, authorised by President Eisenhower in 1956 and finally "completed" in 1991. I say "completed" because by the time the project was coming to an end, significant structural problems were starting to cry out for refurb or replace. One thing we've learned is that road-salt, rusting and rebar are not a good mix: hint spalling [R].

Usually with bridges, if you can get them up, they stay up for a long time, mainly because of engineers' tendency to calculate the structural design specs and then add 50% for the unexpected.
If they fail later, it is because of unknown unknowns . . . which thereby become known unknowns that get incorporated into future engineering text books. Things like resonance [see above] which entrained the Tacoma Narrows Bridge until it bucketed itself to death by "Aeroelastic Flutter" [famous movie - good technical explanation]. Or, because engineers are fallible, they just forget to include something that, with 20/20 hindsight, elicits a big "duh!, I would never have done that" from the community of [smug] engineers who haven't [yet] made a similar mistake. The text-book example of this is the collapse of the skywalk in the lobby of the Hyatt Regency Hotel in 1981. A poorly thought through design modification put 2x pressure on a series of nuts holding up the stack of floors [detail L]. 2x is 100% an increase: well over the generous 50% for emergencies usually factored in. The design mod was driven by a desire to save costs by one of the sub-contractors; several people were found to be culpably negligent and stripped of their engineering epaulets.
Heron was ambitious: The Man wanted two 3 lane highways across the river built of ferro-concrete, the wonder material of the age. The slabs of the road-bed were supported on ferro-concrete pillars and poured in situ. The wet concrete didn't fall down into the river because it was poured into timber shuttering supported on a forest of timber trusses [above]. When the concrete set it was able to support its own weight between the trusses but until then, it had the structural integrity of wet tissue.

At 3.30pm on 10 August 1966, after a day pouring 2,000 tonnes of concrete, the timber framing of one section of the bridge collapsed and flipped the other side of the structure on top of the debris. That debris included several dozen workers who fell 15m to the riverbed only to be slobbed with wet concrete, shafted by rebar , clonked by 4x4s and generally turned into a mess sandwich. Nine men died and 60 were admitted to hospital covered in setting cement, some with rebar sticking out both sides of limbs. Emergency services worked tirelessly into the small hours of the next day pulling people and bodies from the heap. In those days, the widows of the dead were pensioned by the company, but the injured gave thanks for their survival without thinking to lawyer up. Mike Lecuyer had only been on the job two days. George Davis was at the epicentre of the disaster minutes before the event but took himself for a short walk and quite randomly thereby finished up above one of the pillars in comparative safety.

You really don't want to over-think these things.  Lecuyer and Davis are duly grateful to be alive but don't imagine that their survival is a message from God. If you believe that you have to accept that the deity had no use for Clarence Beattie, Lucien Regimbald and Joas Viegas who were among the dead. In the grand scheme of things we are all equally without value, except to ourselves and those we love. Trying to work out a reason for it all will just get you in trouble like Brother Juniper in The Bridge of San Luis Rey. He finishes up burned at the stake along with his report on that collapsed bridge because his accumulated evidence questions the omniscience and ultimate benevolence of God. The conclusion that "the wicked [were] visited by destruction and the good called early to Heaven" is not what we would call a testable hypothesis, that's for sure because both black hats and white hats finish up dead. Maybe Charles Bowen is more realistic:

“The rain it raineth on the just

And also on the unjust fella;

But chiefly on the just, because

The unjust hath the just’s umbrella.”

Dang missed!

In the wee hours of Friday morning we had a mighty thunderstorm pass over our mountain. Having been brought to life by Dr Frankenstein the first rumble, I stumbled about the house unplugging the Wifi modem and and phone. We lost the last wireless phone-set to a lightning surge a few months ago and are currently working with a friend's cast-off. At the moment, as the Celtic II Tiger capers about, you could almost live for free off the things that the neighbours and supermarkets throw away.  I then set to obsessively counting seconds between the flash and rrrrummmble. Closest it got was 3 seconds = 1 km and it seemed like two events were showing off to each other - one effectively  on top of us and one 12-15 seconds = 4-5km away. Then I got bored and composed myself for sleep, but the flashes still came at me through my closed eye-lids. There was some very drummy rain as more of less the same time, but it didn't last long enough to worry me that the drains, running beside our single track access road, would be overwhelmed.

Nevertheless at 0600 hrs, I was up and out of the house to see if the lane was still there. After our experience from The Great Thaw of Feb 2010, you can never be sure. What happened was that one of several ⌀=30cm drain pipes got choked at the uphill end and the water spilled out into the lane itself, ripping great clefts and gullies through it. It has been a concern of mine ever since and last Winter I did something about my anxiety by building a single concrete block dam [shown R] upstream from our longest under-gateway pipe to catch any gravel in the rushing water and allow it a little time to sift to the bottom of the deluge. When it was almost too late, I remembered to open a 2-3cm drain-hole at the bottom of the dam so that any water can seep out of the silt. This most recent storm is really the first time when I had a proof of principle opportunity and, at 0600 yesterday, I was heartened to see the sump was almost brimful with road-sweepings:

Which I duly shovelled out. Later in the day, the sump was brimful with dirty rain-water because the wee drainhole was blocked by a round stone about the size of my thumbnail. I think that's okay though: the current solution will let some sand and mud through but keep larger than a thumb-nail out.

Later in the day, we were comparing notes with Dau.II in Cork.  She had been looking at the same storm from her grand-stand view on the 4th Floor above Union Quay in Cork City centre. She called to make sure her parents hadn't been struck by lightning. Apparently a couple in Cobh had their house take a direct bolt which blew all the electrical sockets and light-fittings, but also also knocked a mirror and a fitted wardrobe off the interior walls . . . and left a smoking hole in the ceiling. Terence [or Terrance] Alcock, the man of the house, attributes his survival to the fact that he was wearing rubber sandals. I share this with the Interweb, in case the news of this miracle didn't reach Ukraine.

Library [at your] service.

I signed off from my ramble about Adam Thorpe's rambling On Silbury Hill when I was passing the night in Tramore last week:
I look forward to getting his latest book Notes from the Cévennes: half a lifetime in provincial France out of the library. Even though it was published last May, I don't think there will be a long line of people wanting to do the same thing.

The thought being the deed, when I woke up the following morning, I was hopping from one foot to the other waiting for the Tramore branch library to open at 10am.  As I usually spring out of bed about 0600hrs, that was a lot of hopping.

Then >!duh!<, I remembered that Dau.I the Librarian had forged my sig on an application for a Library Card, so I could do the ordering on-line and transfer the foot-hopping to waiting for the arrival call. One of the great advances towards a civilised society in recent years has been to create a National Library Service in Ireland even if each branch is supported by the local county council. In the old days, you could get a book, any book, even if it wasn't on the shelf in your library branch, even if it wasn't in stock with your local authority. But it was a Big Thing: the librarian would have to fill out an Inter Library Loan ILL form, in triplicate. One copy for the county accountants, one to be sent to a distant library, one copy for filing in perpetuity in a vault inside the armageddon bunker.

In the last year or so, librarians across the country have parked their turf-wars and internecine squabbles to join forces against the barbarians at the gates of literacy. Dau.I reports that fines for late return have been abolished; and for children's books even replacement costs are being absorbed by the service. They would rather have kids read books to destruction than not read at all. Dau.I, being who she is, has all kinds of plans for including the dispossessed - immigrants, the deaf, teenagers - in the warm embrace of The Stacks.

Mais revenone nous a nos memoires I went on-line and found two separate entries for the book I wanted:
Notes from the Cévennes : half a lifetime in provincial France / Adam Thorpe
Thorpe, Adam, 1956- author.
Book | 2019
On shelf at Carlow Branch Non Fiction (828.9203)
&&
Notes from the Cévennes : half a lifetime in provincial France / Adam Thorpe
Thorpe, Adam, 1956- author.
Book | 2018
Available at Cork City Blackpool Non Fiction (828.9203 THO) plus 5+ more
rather endearingly, the catalogue clerk in Carlow looked at the book, with bleary eyes, in early 2019 and assumed it was published this year rather than May 2018 as it says inside the book. Because of this slight difference, there are two entries for the same book in the National Catalogue.