Bogle Training Part I

This year sees the 50th anniversary of Manchester RAG’s Bogle. Since getting involved with Manchester RAG as a student and running their 2006 beer festival, Bogle has been one of those events on the calendar. I’ve helped a few times as a marshal, driver, co-ordinator and in 2009 I tried walking. Sadly that time I neglected to do any training so after 29 miles, at the 5th checkpoint I gave in.

This time I am training… alongside one of my team mates for this year, Richard.

Angry skies above St Stephen's Tower

So the basic premise was this – we walk from our flat to Cask, Pimlico. (You seriously thought beer wouldn’t be involved somewhere right?). This took us across Walthamstow marshes, through the back of Hackney, right through Smithfield Market onto the Embankment finally widing through the back streets behind the Catholic Cathedral to the pub.

The protesters were apparently not evicted on Friday as decreed by the media...

Cask is a fantastic little pub, serving a wide selection of food and ales.  Sadly for us we had essentially booked in for a (well-deserved and required!) pitstop for some food. And 2 half pints each. (It would be rude not to!)

Cask, Pimlico formerly Pimlico Tram

From here we headed south of the water to the places where Taxi’s infamously don’t go. Through Vauxhall, across to Elephant and Castle finally reaching the Draft House at Tower Bridge just as the sun had set. Cue more beer! Just the one pint though as after c. 17 miles we were both pretty tired. The calorific value of beer is probably helpful, but I am sure the alcohol isn’t!

Sadly recording all of the journey was a leap too far for my Nokia (it’s almost 2 years old now) – Sports tracker made it almost to E&C with us – it’s stats are below.

Statistics – recorded by Nokia Sports Tracker…
Distance recorded by GPS	Average page	Steps	kCal burned
12.97 mi	16:01 min/mi	23995	1598
2.67 mi	15:00 min/mi	4707	328

Bogle is the first weekend in March so much more training required if I am to get around the full 55 miles.  Of course, sponsorship information will appear in due course… 🙂

Cycle Hired #4

I promise not to write every time I get on a damn bike, honest! Today saw me take one of the borisbikes from Victoria to Liverpool St. According to my phone GPS this was 5 miles (8km) – which I achieved in the respectable time of 23 mins. Sadly the GPS lies – it’s just 3.3 miles (5.3km) which is only an average of 8mph.

Homeward bound

Never mind, I’ll try again tomorrow and might try a different route. (I might also try not wearing a suit!).

Am I alone in thinking the Victoria Embankment would make a great cycle super-highway?

The view from the afternoon…friday afternoon

On Friday we had half decent weather down here in London town. As I had my camera with me and I’d mentioned to Jon at work that many of the top brass were taking photos of the view before the office move, perhaps it was my turn.

I’m now splitting myself in two between North Greenwich and Victoria (which is fun) but really it isn’t so bad. I have a choice of lunch for a start. Enough wibbling… here’s the views.

55 Broadway, London Underground HQ

The Mall

Looking Eastwards

CentrePoint – The Centre Point

If you’ve been following my twitter lately you’ll have seen a couple of pix from CentrePoint.

Well… here’s a few more. I may not get to travel out of London – but sometimes the London opportunities are fascinating enough.

The City

The British Museum

Westminster

Black Helicopters Approach…

Westminster Skyline - with Helicopters

Not an awesome photo I know but this is the helicopter flypast – taken from one of the meeting rooms on the 16th floor where I work.

NUJ Protest

Today I became an honorary journalist. Well, I say journalist. Not really… Today, around 11am there was a gathering outside New Scotland Yard to protest against new legislation that means the police could prevent you from taking photographs. (It assumes you are a terrorist of course.). 11 am is close enough to lunch to mean I could lunch early!

Mark Thomas was meant to be leading the impromptu gathering (to avoid being an “organised” protest, especially within the SOCA desiginated no-protest area!) but I couldn’t see him anywhere.

The police didn’t move them on for at least an hour (I could see from the warmth of my office!) – though there was a few flashpoints where photographers stopped the traffic on Broadway!