A long Thanksgiving week

It's been a while since the last blog post, but I've been keeping busy.

Last Tuesday  night, I raced in the premier division over at the Manchester Regional Track League.  Once again, racing was really tough.  While I finished each of the events, it was a real effort to get through the 10-mile at the end of the night.

I took Wednesday off (if going to Crossfit counts as a day off) and kicked around Manchester for the day.

On Thursday, I made my way over to Liverpool to visit the Beatles Story at the Albert Docks and checked out the International Slavery Museum (located on the top floor of the maritime museum).

Last time, the line went up the stairs and around the corner, so I had to come back to Liverpool.

The Beatles Story was a highly entertaining collection of Beatles history, memorabilia, and concert posters spanning the Beatles' full range of popular size from the early days of being a local band at the Cavern to the height of Beatlemania.

The International Slavery Museum was an interesting place to visit on Thanksgiving.  It was a sobering reminder that many people have been born into far less favorable situations than I was.

Part of the museum featured a series of quotes from leaders, activists, and others who have been directly involved with the struggle against slavery.  I photographed a few of the quotes, as they were engraved onto the walls:

After learning about the history of slavery, the slave trade, and the on-going struggles with slavery (among other places, slavery still exists in the USA, China, and India).  There certainly is a lot to be thankful for!

After returning to Manchester, I jumped into another crossfit workout Thursday evening; 5 rounds for time of 10 box jumps and 10 pull-ups.

On Saturday, I joined the Crossfit group for a late-lunch at a Brazillian BBQ restaurant, and then we went ice skating and visited a downtown Christmas market.  The ice skating was really fun.  This winter I want to learn and/or try a handful of things including but not limited to: skating fast, winter biathlon, making Glühwein, and building up a pair of bike wheels from scratch.

Over the weekend, I managed to come down with some kind of illness.  In hindsight, I didn't do a good job of eating well and resting enough after all the training and racing this past week, so it is not a huge surprise that my immune system was struggling to keep up.  Still, it's never fun being sick.  After running a fever for a while Sunday afternoon, I slept about 18 hours Sunday night and felt much better Monday morning.

Monday night I headed back to the velodrome for the last night of ACT track league racing.  Normally, having 18 hours of sleep the night before some racing would be great, but having only one of my normal 3-5 meals on Sunday was not so great.  I was able to keep up in all four races, but was in no condition to win anything.  Oh well, it was still a super-fun night!

My appetite returned today, so I'm definitely on the mend, but I decided to sit out racing tonight since my legs were still feeling a little empty after last night.

Tomorrow, I'm off to Germany for more adventures in Berlin.

RYMLMTRF!

No, I did not learn to speak Welsh...  I just came up with an acronym to describe the past week.  RYMLMTRF!: Racing, York, Manchester, London, Manchester, Training, Racing, Fun!

Last week I made it to the track for Monday night ACT Track League and again for Tuesday night Manchester Regional Track League.

On Monday night we raced the normal program of events; 3-km scratch race, miss-n-out, 12-lap Courses Des Primes (point-a-lap for us Yanks), and a 50-lap points race.  Many of the riders in the Monday night field are juniors, and are quite quick in the shorter races.  In the 50-lap points race, it came down to a battle between one of the other older (not-junior) riders and me.  He ended up winning it, with me a close 2nd on the final sprint and 3rd overall.

Tuesday night, the Great Britain national academy riders were back out in force, and the racing was as fast as any I've done.  I was a bit worked over from a Monday WOD at Crossfit Central Manchester, but hung in and finished all four of the races.  In the 10-mile scratch race, I bridged up into an early breakaway and rode half the race with one of the national academy riders before we were swept up by the field just after the halfway point.  I was quite gassed at that point, and ended up losing a lap, but then rejoined the field and finished out the race one lap down with eyes crossed and tongue hanging to the ground.  That's what I came to the UK for, so all was good!

On Wednesday, I caught the train to York, a city about 70 miles north east of Manchester.

The train station exit welcomed me to the city.

As I learned at the Jorvik Viking Centre, York has been a significant settlement since Roman times, about 2000 years ago.  In the meantime, they have been a major center of Viking settlement, trade, and other Viking activities.

On the way from the train station to the hostel where I stayed, I passed through a medieval gateway, shown below:

This medieval gateway was located around the corner from the train station and on the walk to where I stayed in York.

On Thursday, I set out to explore York by foot.  It was cold, drizzly, and generally unpleasant, but I brought my heavy coat and maintained a brisk pace to remain comfortable.  The castle museum was closed, as was the old castle tower (shown below), but I enjoyed walking around them and taking a few pictures.

The castle tower in York sits upon a hill overlooking the Castle Museum.

I continued my walk through the city, checking out the Shambles area and poking my head into the Barley Hall museum before ending up by the Minster.  The Minster was closed to visitors that day due to a university graduation (Darn!  I guess I'll have to come back...) but even the outside was quite impressive.  There was quite a lot of stone restoration work happening on the very intricate stonework of the exterior.

After checking out the Minster, I made my way over to the National Railway Museum before catching a train to Knaresborough to see the castle ruins and railway bridge located there.  Knaresborough is located about 15 miles west of York, and has some very scenic views around the castle area.

The Knaresborough Castle has seen better days and is probably a little drafty for sleeping.

The castle overlooks a creek gorge, where there is a rather impressive 19th century railway bridge shown below.

A picture of this scene is what motivated me to take the train trip out to Knaresborough.

After returning to York, I took another walk through the National Railway Museum, and checked out an exhibit on the Japanese bullet train.  Did you know the train cars on the Japanese bullet train have sleeves covering the gaps between cars to improve the aerodynamics of the train and reduce noise pollution in crowded metropolitan areas?

Thursday evening, I headed back to Manchester for a one-night layover before taking the train south to London.  There was one must-see area on my list for London: Lombard Street.  Last year I read the 1873 book Lombard Street: A Description of the Money Market by Walter Bagehot.  Most of the book is about the interactions between the privately held banks and the Bank of England which acts as the banking reserve (federal reserve for us Americans).  I found it a fascinating book, and wanted to visit Lombard Street, which was the banking center of the world in the mid-19th century.

I made it!  As dorky as it sounds, I thought this was really cool.

After checking out the financial district of London (where almost every business is closed on Saturdays), I walked by the Tower of London, the Tower Bridge, and along the river.  Eventually, I made my way to the London Eye, where I took a self portrait doing a handstand (pictured below).  Time delay shots on the camera are fun.

A short time delay on the camera allows for interesting self portraits.  I just have to remember to empty my pockets first...

After visiting the Eye, I made my way over to Piccadilly Circus, and then walked to Trafalgar Square, where there was a big anti-war rally going on.  While the US state department advises against going near rallys, demonstrations, or protests, I figured that an anti-war rally would probably not turn violent (and if it did, I would be sadly disappointed to have missed out on that kind of irony) so went and watched.

As the V-dressed citizens did in V for Vendetta, we walked from Trafalgar square down Whitehall Street towards Parliament.  Unlike V for Vendetta, there were no explosions and no loud music when we arrived at Parliament Square, just some people waving signs, a couple people pounding on drums, and some police watching from a distance (mostly on the opposite side of the street).  All in all, it appeared to me a good, peaceful demonstration, indicating a healthy free society here in the UK.

After checking out the government centers in London, I made my way to the Victoria tube station to meet up with a former SOLO Swim Club and M-A swim team teammate who has been living in London for a few years.  We met up and went for a beer at Filthy McNasty's (a pub that has come under new management and fortunately no longer lives up to its name).

On Sunday, it was back to Manchester, back to the hostel, and then over to the velodrome for the Sunday evening structured training session.  We did another exercise simulating a Madison where 7 riders take to the sprinters lane at a fast pace, with all the remaining riders in the workout circling the track well above the blue line.  After one lap at the front of the bunch, the lead rider of the 7 pulls off and the next relief rider who is passed dives down the track and drops into the slipstream of the bunch, making it seven riders again.  This was a really fun exercise that is a good workout and a good introduction to the awareness necessary for Madison riding, without forcing anyone to do handslings that they're not necessarily comfortable with yet.

Yesterday (Monday) I made my way to the velodrome in the evening for the ACT league racing again.  We did the normal line-up of events, with a Madison at the end.  I was paired up with another Karl.  What are the chances?!?  We rode pretty well and made it a fairly hard race, but didn't quite click on the sprint laps, so I think we ended up in 4th place.  All in all, it was a good night of racing.  Some of those juniors are going really fast now that we're in the closing weeks of the season!

Tonight, it's back to the track for MRTL Premier Division; woohoo!

Birmingham and Another Old Post

This afternoon I returned to Manchester from another side trip.  This time I visited Birmingham, childhood home of Ozzy Osbourne and a city with more canals than Venice.  While Birmingham is not as well-known as some other cities for being a center of British culture, I had a good time there and enjoyed walking the canals and seeing a bit of the Christmas parade and fireworks on Saturday night.

The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Birmingham was partially illuminated at night.  The artificial lighting gave the statues multiple shadows, symbolic of the many lost identities wrapped up in the entity of the unknown soldier.

On Saturday afternoon, I caught a football (soccer for us Americans) game at The Church Inn, a charming English-style pub that has been serving beer and tasty food for about 150 years.  Today I saw part of a Remembrance Day service in downtown Birmingham, and then walked around the city for a while before catching the train back to Manchester.

While leaving Birmingham, I saw this set of lights and signs at an intersection and was amused.  Don't turn!!!

Here is another post that I dragged out of my drafts folder.  It describes a week in the middle of September, before I took off for track nationals and the adventures in the UK.  It is rather bike-centric, so may be inappropriate for anyone who finds my enthusiasm for bicycles to be somewhat deranged...

A week at the Olympic Training Center

In the middle of September, I made my way to Colorado Springs for the introduction to bike racing camp at the US Olympic Training Center. I was recruited to pilot a tandem on the road and track, a good fit for a big lug like me. I showed up on Sunday afternoon, and starting Monday we did two rides per day all week. On Tuesday and Wednesday, we rode the tandems on the track, which was a ton of fun. During the first flying lap, turn two gave me a momentary fear that the remains of my stoker, Chester, and I would be scraped off of Union Blvd after flying up, off the track, over the fence, and into the busy street. We kept the bike down however, and finished off the flying lap without incident. The next day, we had our first real opportunity to put some power into the pedals and rode “Emerging Talent” standards in both the 1km and 4km time trials.

On Thursday morning, we learned about climbing and descending on a tandem. Piloting a tandem is way different than a single bike. On my single bike, my body weight is about 90% of the weight of the system, so most of the mass has direct muscle control and nervous system feedback. On the tandem, however, my body weight is only about 40% of the weight of the system, so it takes more of a concentrated effort to guide the bike through an ideal path. While descending Gold Camp Road on Thursday, we had no problem negotiating the turns, but I had to constantly feather the brakes to keep our speed under control. I had the feeling that left to its own devices, the bike would have carried us down that hill much faster than what was safe with the various driveways and intersecting side streets. Better safe than sorry, especially when I'm not the only person on the bike...

Jon (our fearless mechanic), Chester, and I took a breather after one of our descents from Gold Camp Road.

Thursday afternoon, Chester and I had a team-building exercise in self reliance. A short distance into the afternoon recovery ride, we had a puncture and our rear tire went flat. I was carrying tire levers, a spare tube, and a hand pump. I had not taken into account the larger tires on the tandem compared to my road bike. The tube was not made for tires that size, so we ended up riding over to the local bike shop and bought a couple new tubes of the correct size and then borrowed a floor pump to re-inflate the tires. While we were dealing with the bike issue, the rest of the camp group did their recovery ride, so we pedaled easy back to the training center and rejoined the group at the end of the ride.

Friday was a recovery day, in preparation for a road time trial on Saturday. It was nice to have fairly short and low intensity efforts for the 10^th and 11^th rides of the week. On Saturday morning, the group headed out east of town for the road time trial. The course was just under 5-km in length, almost perfectly flat, and featured four right turns. Each rider or tandem pair completed three laps of the course. Chester and I were the last two riders to start. During our warm-up, we did one lap of the course at (or very close to) time trial pace, so we had a good feeling for what to expect (pain, for those not familiar with time trials). With the exception of a mail delivery truck that made a U-turn in front of us on the first lap, the official ride went just like we planned. We took our time to ramp up to full TT speed at the start, and then put our heads down to suffer for the rest of the effort. We finished in 19-minutes 21-seconds, which was the fast time for the day and worked out to an average pace of 1:18.35 per kilometer, good enough for another “Emerging Talent” time standard.

Evidently I am not an expert tandem pilot yet.  I lost Chester!

On Saturday evening, the last night of the camp, a handful of camp participants went to the Finish Line Lounge, across Union Blvd from the Olympic Training Center, for drinks and karaoke. Chester and I both sang karaoke and a good time was had by all. On Sunday morning, everyone left the OTC to begin their travels home. I stuck around for a little while and linked up with Aaron Trent, one of the resident athlete para-cyclists, for some Madison exchange practice at the velodrome. Look for Aaron to be mixing it up in the Madison races next year!

Photographic evidence of my karaoke prowess.  Imagine I sound just like John Geils.

I have to give a big "Thank You!" to the organizers, coaches, volunteers, and mechanic who put in the effort to make the camp run smoothly and did the hard work while us campers pedaled bikes, learned about para-cycle racing, and had a ton of fun.  The photos from the para-cycling camp were taken by Robyn Glang, one of the camp volunteers, and then stolen by me via Facebook.  Thanks Robyn!

On Monday I headed back to Boulder and began preparing for the extended trip away from home (now in progress) that would take me to Los Angeles, CA for elite track nationals, to the San Francisco bay area for a visit with family and friends, and then on to the UK (where I am now) for bike racing, training, meeting new people, and seeing the sights in Europe.

Why are the Brits so fast on the track?

After racing a couple weeks in Manchester, with 10-km scratch races on Tuesday league nights routinely being faster than the scratch races at US Nationals, I was wondering the other night, what makes Great Britain cyclists so fast?

I think the answer may be related to Squidgy Energy. I'm not sure what it is, yet, but it is advertised extensively along the bus journey I take each time I go to visit the Manchester Velodrome. The following images are all examples of advertisements for Squidgy Energy:

On the way to the bus to the velodrome, I see advertisements for Squidgy Energy.

It's not just one; this was the 2nd ad between the hostel and the bus stop.

Near the Piccadilly Gardens area, there was another Squidgy Energy ad.

And in front of the Tesco near the hostel, there was yet another Squidgy Energy ad.

On the way back from the velodrome, I caught two more Squidgy Energy ads.  Taking a picture out of a moving bus, with a pocket-sized camera, does not always turn out well.  Even without much focus, one can tell this is a Squidgy Energy ad from the blurred bits of butter in the top-center.

After departing the bus on the return from the velodrome, I passed by another Squidgy Energy ad.

If this Squidgy Energy is the Brit's secret weapon for riding fast and winning Olympic gold medals and world championship jerseys, I should see about importing some of this Squidgy goodness into the US and see if its properties work to enhance track cycling on the west side of the Atlantic.

Now, to find some Squidgy Energy...

Crossing Paths

Yesterday I took the train from Edinburgh, Scotland, back to the Manchester area after spending a couple days exploring Edinburgh. During my first visit to Scotland, I had a chance to try some haggis (as part of a full breakfast), do an L-sit on top of Arthur's Seat (pictured below), see a statue commemorating Adam Smith (not pictured below), see and hear the 1:00pm cannon shot, browse the Scottish National Museum, take a look at the Crown Jewels of Scotland (and the Stone of Destiny), and make some new friends.

It was too windy for me to do a handstand here. My baseball hat blew off three times.

At the half-way point of this trip, I have had heaps of fun, and met a wide variety of interesting people. As one would expect, I have met lots of people at the track. The velodrome has a curious ability to bring together people of different nationalities, languages, and customs to simultaneously attack each other in points races but have fun and become friends.

I have also met quite a few people outside the walls of the National Cycling Centre. At hostels, on trains, in restaurants, and walking along sidewalks, I have crossed paths with all kinds of interesting people. They have been traveling around, having fun, exploring, and broadening their world view.

Last week in Manchester, I crossed paths for the 2^nd time with a Canadian who has been traveling the UK and Europe. We first met at a hostel in Liverpool, and kept each other company will cooking and eating dinner. When we crossed paths two weeks later in Manchester, it was a bit like seeing an old friend. To be fair, we barely knew each other, but when you are far from home, even a half-way familiar and friendly face can be comforting. Since we met up a 2^nd time without specifically planning to, we made a point of going for beers and spent some more time hanging out before continuing on our separate ways.

Upon arriving in Edinburgh on Wednesday evening, I checked into a hostel there and was rather surprised to walk into my room and see another Canadian who had been in the same dorm room as me in Manchester about two weeks ago. What are the chances? Well, not overwhelmingly high, but also not so low as to be terribly surprised. So, my three days in Edinburgh ended up being spent primarily with a group of Canadians who were all traveling separately but whose paths intersected in Edinburgh.

At this point I am feeling very fortunate to have crossed paths with so many nice, friendly, and interesting people so far. Here's to another four weeks of good paths! Cheers!

While writing this blog post (riding the train from Manchester to Birmingham), I found a couple of old draft blog posts.  They'll be added over the next couple weeks.

Here is one about an interesting conversation I had in Boulder, shortly before embarking on my drive to California for velodrome nationals:

The morning before I left Boulder, I had a brief (but strange) conversation at the traffic light at the intersection of 13^th and Pine. A fellow cyclist on a mountain bike rolled up next to me. The conversation went something like this:

Guy – Nice day for a ride.

Me – Yeah.

Guy – Are you riding far today?

Me – Just heading home from a doctor appointment. You?

Guy – I'm going up Flagstaff.

Me – That's a bit of a climb.

Guy – Yeah. I'm going to do hill sprint repeats.

Me – Ok.

Guy – They are pretty awesome for some people.

Me - …

Guy – Like me.

Germany and Monday racing

This past week I went to Germany, flying from Manchester to Berlin by way of Zurich, as described in my previous post.

In Germany, I saw all kinds of wonderful things.  The next three pictures (each of which is worth considerably more than 1000 words) each demonstrate some of the marvelous things I saw:

A local bike shop had an innertube vending machine outside their front door.  That way, if you have a flat tire outside of normal business hours, you can still buy a new tube and be back up and running before the next morning.

In a grocery store, there was an aisle with bike tires.  Right there in the grocery store!  How civilized...

Possibly the most impressive innovation I encountered was the German 11-pack.  Taking into account exchange rates, the 11-pack of 500-mL bottles is only slightly more expensive than a 6-pack of 12-oz bottles in America, but you get way more beer!

I also encountered the spiced warm red wine (Gluhwein, but with a pair of dots unavailable in my English font selection over the 'u') at a Berlin Christmas market (delicious), schnitzel, white asparagus, partying on the S-Bahn and U-Bahn at 5:15am on a Sunday, and some wonderful guiding around by my new friends.

After returning to the UK, it was back to aspiring-to-be-a-mostly-OK track racer mode.  I headed to the velodrome Sunday night for another SQT session where we did a fun exercise near the end where all but seven riders rode easy around the top of the track.  The other seven riders dropped into the lane and rode at a pretty hard pace.  After a lap pull, the lead rider would pull up and swing way up track, and then the next rider to be passed by the line (now a group of six riders) would drop into the lane and join the back of the fast riding line.  It was like a Madison, but without the hand slings.  It was great for practicing situational awareness on the track and putting in some hard efforts at the same time.

Last night, Monday, I headed over to the velodrome for the ACT Track League.  We did a 12-lap scratch race, Devil Take the Hindmost, 12-lap Courses Des Primes, and then a 50-lap Madison.

After being boxed in at the end of the scratch race last week, I made a point of being near the front, and found myself at the front with 2.75 laps to go.  I eased the pressure off the pedals slightly, but stayed in the lane and patiently waited to unleash a sprint.  The 2 to go sign went by, then 1 to go.  In turns 1 and 2, one of the GB para cyclists came up to my hip, so I opened up my sprint full gas and held him high through the turn and down the back straight.  We were neck-and-neck, elbow to elbow, hip to hip all the way through turns 3 and 4, but then he pulled ahead by just under a bike length on the finishing straight and took the win.  I held on for 2nd, and about 5 other riders came through within two bike lengths of me.

In the Devil Race, I felt like I did a good job of positioning and reacting to changing conditions in the race.  On the first lap, I went to the front and sat on the hip of the lead rider who was in the lane.  We rode tempo for some time as riders were pulled from the back.  After a few laps, someone came over the top, but I immediately accelerated and moved onto their hip as they took the lead position in the lane.  This process repeated twice more as the field was whittled down to about 7 riders.  Then it became time for bursty accelerations, which my 81" gear was perfectly suited to.  I punched a few of these accelerations until there were only 4 riders remaining.  Then, one of the young guys put in a vicious attack, and pulled the other two guys away from me.  I was off the back and was eliminated as the 4th place rider while the other three went on to take 1st through 3rd.  All in all, I was really happy with how the race played out and felt it was good practice for the way I need to ride miss-n-outs back in Colorado and in the Omnium at nationals.

The 12-lap Courses Des Primes was a hammer-fest right from the start.  The field shattered about two laps into the race, and I was left bridging gaps and moving up from group to group.  I reconnected with the leaders with 2.25 laps to go and then followed an attack with just over a lap to go.  The attacker was obviously saving something because he rode away from us all.  I hung on for 2nd on the finish lap, but don't know how that placed me overall in the points.

In the Madison, like two weeks ago, we paired up one rider from the senior group 1 with a rider from senior group 2.  The first eight laps were relatively neutral, and then sprints began with 40-laps to go and went every 10 laps until the finish.  My teammate and I did a good job of maintaining a position in the lead group for the whole race.  We missed an exchange before the 40-lap to go sprint, which may have cost us the race, but after that we came roaring back and were able to put the hurt on a few of the other teams in the intermediate sprints.  With four laps to go, my teammate threw me in to a 4th wheel position which was just about a perfect for the finishing sprint.  The winning team took the final sprint, but we finished 2nd and took 2nd overall in the points, so it was a pretty respectable result.

Tonight: Manchester Regional Track League, racing with the big guns!

Most complicated travel day yet

Today was arguably the most complicated travel day I have yet experienced in my 28 years and 15 days of life on this planet.

A recurring thought; what is it with all-day or all-the-time activities not really being continuous?!?  Here is another example from today's journey:

Here is the breakfast menu you can order from all day, so long as you are there before 11:00am.  Come on Britain!

Before going to bed, I will try to recall all the segments of today's trip:
-Walk from hostel in Manchester's Northern Quarter to Piccadilly train station, ignoring some punk kids who threw a rolled up newspaper at me (they missed).

-Train from Piccadilly to Manchester airport, where I read a newspaper article about a 10-year-old girl who gave birth to a child in Spain and nearly vomited.  Maybe that's why the punk kids threw the newspaper... they saw the article too?

If this vehicle comes to service your airplane, things have gone horribly wrong.

-Swiss Air flight from Manchester to Zurich.  The Swiss know how to do air travel right, with a small sandwich on a fresh-baked baguette and some Swiss-made chocolate.

-Bus from the airplane to the terminal.  Next time, get off the bus a little quicker.

-Short walk from the bus drop-off location to customs where I got to convince the customs agent I was not a viking raider here to sack central Europe (or at least not for more than 90 days).

-Another bus from the gate to the next plane.  Apparently Zurich does not have a lot of jetways...

-Swiss Air flight from Zurich to Berlin.  I slept most of this flight, but still enjoyed the fresh-baked baguette sandwich and chocolates (the couple sitting next to me woke me up when the sandwiches were being passed out, maybe I looked hungry?).

-Walk from the gate to the bus station in the Berlin airport.  Along the way, I picked up some monopoly, I mean Euro, money from a cash machine.  I also bought a smoothie which was outrageously expensive for how tiny it was, but it hit the spot in terms of a quick boost until I reached the hostel.

-Bus 128.  Hey, you've got to respect bus 128.  That's 2 to the 7th power...

-U8.  Sort of like a U-boat, which I learned about at the Maritime Museum in Liverpool, but this one goes under the city of Berlin and is not subject to being blown up by the British Navy.

I arrived at the hostel in the correct number of pieces, found a store to buy airplane-compatible toothpaste, stumbled through ordering dinner, enjoyed a pizza-like thing with feta cheese and spinach on it and 500ml of beer, and now am off to bed.

Liverpool and the Fitness Decathlon

This past week I visited Liverpool, home of the Beatles, registration point of the Titanic, and a main hub in the triangular trade routes between England, west Africa, and the USA up until the abolition of slave trading in the British empire in 1807.

Liverpool is home to two large cathedrals; the Metropolitan Cathedral and the Liverpool Cathedral. 

This is a view looking north-west from the top of the Liverpool Cathedral.

Here is the Metropolitan Cathedral, as seen from the top of the Liverpool Cathedral tower, looking north (roughly along Hope Street).

This is the south side of the Liverpool Cathedral, seen from the St. James Gardens, which are also an old cemetary.  Kind of spooky!

After arriving in Liverpool on Wednesday, I walked around for a while, exploring some of the interesting little streets between the hostel and the waterfront area.

Then on Thursday, I headed over to the Walker Gallery, St. George Hall (a courthouse and concert hall), and the mall area in the Queen's Square town center area.

On Friday, I visited the cathedrals (pictured above) in the morning and then returned to the waterfront to visit the Tate Gallery, Maritime Museum, and the Beatles Story Museum.  The Tate Gallery was very cool, with lots of sculpture and interactive mixed-media exhibits.  One of my favorites was a box constructed of mirrors on the inside and outside, with observation holes cut into each of the faces.  Changing one's viewing position, there were all kinds of fun iterative reflections to enjoy.

After leaving the Tate, I headed to the Maritime museum, and looked at exhibits for the three major passenger ocean liner disasters (most everybody knows the Titanic, do you know the other two?) and the Battle of the Atlantic from World War II.  Some of the early sonar and radar equipment was very interesting to see.  While it might not have been very polished from the perspective of modern electronic warfare systems, there was undoubtedly an advantage to be had by using this technology.

When the Maritime Museum closed, I headed to the Beatles Story.  It was supposed to be open for another two hours, but as I approached the entrance, a couple came walking out and a museum employee locked the doors behind them.  Bummer!

As a consolation, I found an interesting interactive art exhibit in an otherwise empty building on the way back to the hostel.  This exhibit was part of the No Longer Empty program that places art in abandoned or otherwise unoccupied buildings, making them no longer empty.  There were a variety of audio, visual, and mechatronic creations on display; quite a few microcontroller based projects, I think.

On Saturday, I revisited the Maritime Museum to check out the Ernest Shackleton exhibit, titled Endurance.  It chronicled his failed attempt to be the first person to reach the south pole.  I can only imagine how terrifying it must have been for the crew when the ice flow finally crushed the ship and the men had to take refuge in igloos on the ocean-covering ice.  Evidently, the men also became quite familiar with the taste of penguin and seal, as they had to eat those for quite some time.

After departing the Maritime Museum, I headed back to see if I could visit the Beatles Story, but the line at the entrance went up the stairs, along the plaza, and around the corner, so I gave up on seeing the Beatles Story this time.  Maybe I can take a day-trip to Liverpool on a Tuesday or Wednesday when it is not so busy.  Day tripper, yeah!

For lunch, I went back to the hostel and warmed up some leftovers from dinner on Friday, and then headed back to the waterfront to take a ride on the River Mersey ferry boat.  There wasn't time to take any of the stops on the other side of the river, but the ride was worthwhile as the on-board narration gave some interesting explanations of historical buildings and sites that we passed.

After the ferry ride, it was back to the hostel to pick up my pack, and then over to the train station for a ride back to Manchester.  On Saturday evening, I joined some family friends for a dinner-party with a delicious multi-course meal, tasty desserts, a variety of exotic (by Colorado standards) beverages, and a generous helping of interesting conversation.  Thankfully, we set the clocks back an hour or else Sunday morning would have been painful after such a late night.

On Sunday, I met up with the crew from Crossfit Central Manchester and we carpooled to Deeside College in (northern) Wales for an event called the Fitness Decathlon.  Like a standard decathlon, it consisted of 10 events, but unlike the standard decathlon, they were not all track and field events.  Over the course of the day, we completed:
1.5-mile run for time
100-meter sprint
2-minute 20-kg sandbag carry for distance
A short timed "agility run"
An overhead medicine ball throw for distance
A one-rep-max deadlift
Max reps of continuous push-ups (press-ups to some on this side of the Atlantic)
2-minute 60-kg back squats for maximum reps
1.5-minute maximum crossings of an elevated balance beam
A brief series of exercises including running, rowing, box jumps, overhead plate swings (think kettlebell swings, but with a plate), sit-ups, push-ups, and another run.

The 1.5 mile run went very well for me, with an easy pace at the start and a finish time around 8-minutes 41-seconds.  I didn't have spectacular results in any of the other events, but did pull a 140-kg deadlift around the 7th of the 10 events, so I had to be pretty happy with that.

140-kg is 308 pounds, only 7 pounds short of my personal record.  Woohoo!

The Fitness Decathlon wrapped up with Daz from Crossfit Central Manchester taking top honors on the men's side, and Sam (also from CFCM) taking the top spot on the women's side (including the highest score in the max reps of push-ups, outright).  Good work Daz and Sam!  CFCM had a great showing overall, with lots of athletes setting new personal bests and pushing themselves to keep performing well throughout a long (long, long, long!) day of events.

After the competition, it was back to Manchester for dinner and a triumphant return to the hostel.  Tonight, we have another edition of the ACT track league racing, and then tomorrow night will be my 3rd week of Manchester Regional Track League premier league racing.  Then on Wednesday, I am off to Germany to explore strange new worlds and boldly go where I have never gone before.