Training for Trailwalker

Back in April I helped out as support crew for my friend Christina's Trailwalker team (you might remember this). I said then that I'd be willing to do the walking next year. So our team is now registered and I have started training. Incidentally this coincides with a 'walking programme' IRL is doing for 6 weeks from now until Christmas, where teams of four combine how many steps they do each day (measured by an oh-so-accurate pedometer) and see how far down the length of the country they can get. Some people seem to be taking it really competitively; I think our team is just interested in seeing just how many steps we do take on an average day. (For example, just pottering around home, driving to work, pottering around there gets me about 5000 - that's without going for a walk at lunch time as we normally do, or playing sport, or going for a run when I get home.)

So most days I will go for a walk or play soccer at lunchtime, and if I'm feeling energetic when I get home and have time to, I'll go for a run. Anyway on Thursday I walked to work, and back home, 7 km each way. It's a start for the 100 km and if I learnt anything from watching people last Trailwalker, the key to completing it is how much training you do.

You can donate to our team here. If everyone I knew donated just $5 it would see my share covered...

I've been a slacker... and I've been to Melbourne

Sorry to all the regulars out there for not having written anything for *gasp* over a month - I sort of feel like there hasn't been much that's happened lately that's of interest. But then maybe what I think is dull other people think is interesting? Let me know, write a comment!

So since I got back, let's see. Had a few weeks at work catching up on things and getting back into the groove. About 2 weeks went by before I realised, heck, I'm going to Melbourne in two weeks and I'm not prepared! Anyway everything came together in the end, but it did give me a bit of a shock. The same is true now - I go back in another 2 weeks or so and there is a lot that needs preparing beforehand; hopefully I can do it in time.

In addition to the above I went on a 'leadership development programme' at work after being encouraged to by my boss. It was one of those things where you put eight strangers in a room and give them some information and tell them to come up with an answer. They psychoanalyse you and report back at the end of the week with their observations. Apparently I am 'empathetic' yet 'intolerant' (no surprises to the latter, but the former??), have 'clear leadership potential' but I don't 'understand how the company functions'. I'm still seeing it as just a box that needs ticking to get people off my back about going. The trouble is we have a part 2 coming up in between me getting back from Melbourne next time, and a group meeting down in Tekapo, which gives me no time to prepare for a neutron scattering symposium in Sydney the week after that! (Ok so maybe my life is not as boring as I think.)

So, the most recent trip. There were two experiments I was involved with this time. The first was looking at the melting behaviour of small In particles: members of our group who do computer modelling 'found' some interesting behaviour when the particle size is below a certain value, so we are trying to prove it experimentally. We have tried various experiments 3 or 4 times before, and these ones actually worked, which is great.
The second was helping some students from Imperial College who were looking at small-angle x-ray scattering of gold particles as they stick together through connector molecules and then when an enzyme is added, how they redisperse. Don't ask me what it's actually useful for.

While we were doing the first experiments, they were setting up for their annual open day that weekend. We had a bit of fun with the pedestrian fencing that surrounded our beamline.