Sore legs, decent result

I’m in a rather unusual situation at work at the moment, in that I’m trying to write a paper on maintaining levels of service across an organization or some such, and in order to do so I need to refer to some stuff on the internet, and our internet access is currently down, so I’m a bit stuck. I’m also completely devoid of blood sugar and thus concentration, so trying to even draft a structure for the thing is futile at this point. So, I’ve decided to write a blog entry in the 30 mins or so that remain before it could be considered reasonable for me to head out to lunch, for one of those amazing ciabattas that the Tasting Room serve in Borough Market.

One of the main reasons my blood sugar is so low, I’m sure, relates to my efforts yesterday in the London Duathlon. Without a doubt, it was one of the most demanding things I’ve done, right up there with the second sprint triathlon I did a few years back. A 9k run, 20k bike and 5k run strung together, I was a bit concerned before going into it, especially as I’d done next to no training, and had spent the previous week drinking and eating to excess in southern Spain; not ideal.

On the day though, after I’d warmed up in the first 3-4k, I began to really enjoy it. The legs were starting to feel a little fatigued towards the end of the 9K (45:08 – bit below par), but a decent transition of 02:23 went smoothly enough and gave me a bit of time to get some fluids in comfortably before getting on the bike. Two laps of Richmond Park is something I’ve done before, but not after a 9k run. To be honest it wasn’t that bad; running then biking is ok, it’s the other way around you’ve got to watch out for. Two downsides on the bike: firstly I’d done pretty much no training, so my legs weren’t as up for it as they could’ve been, secondly the fastest downhill bit of the course suffered from a massive headwind, so I managed a time of 49:45, some way off what I think I could have done.

Still, a slightly quicker transition (02:07) got me out on the run without any trouble, save the inevitable crunch when you start running and the pain begins. It was basically 5k of sheer slog, with a slight incline up the first 3k or so. Quite a few walkers on this bit, which sort of spurred me on to not stop at all. Kilometer 4 was probably the worst; constantly thinking my legs were going to give out and a few of the quicker runners flying past me. I got home in 25:41, surprisingly quick considering how slow it felt and only a few minutes off what I’d have done with fresh legs.

That gives a total of 02:05:03, which is an improvement on my target of 02:15:00, which is great. Making the day pretty much perfect was the sight of the Kiwi and some friends of ours cheering me on every now and then, and being there to meet me at the end. The highlight of the day? Hearing that wonderful woman say ‘I’m so proud of you’ at the end. Simple things, but there you go, means a lot to me.

Now, I’m hoping that I can get my legs to work properly again in time for the Half Marathon. I’m still short on sponsorship, so all are welcome to donate at http://www.justgiving.com/[my name with no spaces]. Thanks!

Houston, we have a conference

A bit of a day of firsts for me, yesterday (or at least, the past 36 hours or so, thinking in terms of days is challenging at the moment). Getting into the Virgin Atlantic lounge was one, all lovely and great and all but somehow not quite the land of dreams I'd hoped for. Perhaps, because we only had about 30 minutes in there, I didn't really get the full effect. That said, it was a damn sight better than the alternative, fast track security and free wine and all.

Second on my list was actually flying Virgin, which it sort of surprises me I've not done before for some reason. Although the promised upgrade to Upper Class didn't materialise, I was in Premium Economy, which is better than it sounds. I spent most of the flight in the bar being force-fed red Bordeaux by the barman.

Third was actually being late for a flight. I know how anal this sounds, but this is something I just. don't. do, and haring through Newark airport trying to negotiate the (irritatingly chatty) immigration and customs people, pick my bags up, re-check in, go through security AGAIN (this time with the plebs) and get to the gate isn't really my idea of fun. Travelling's mental enough without that sort of stress, and to top it all we proceeded to spend the next hour on the tarmac. Fortunately, for some reason I was in first class, which meant there was a lovely lady on hand to make sure my wine glass didn't get empty. So much so that I had to pretend to be asleep so she'd stop.

So after all this, we got into Houston at about midnight-ish, which as far as my body was concerned was 0600. Getting a good 6 hours' sleep meant today's been reasonably ok, but I'm not sure how tonight's going to be - a networking cocktail thing followed by a dinner we're hosting for some people or other. I'm currently wearing a pink striped shirt with a frankly enormous collar, which I'm rather enjoying - most Merkins are so excruciatingly dull and conservative with what they wear that I'm standing out as if I was wearing a clown suit.

Fortunately we're taking cabs everywhere. I don't imagine they like pink shirt-wearers here, it's still very much a moustache and cowboy hat sort of place*. Over lunch, I was introduced to the various forms of the contraction 'y'all': 'y'all' refers to one person. 'All y'all' refers to more than one person.  And, dear god, 'y'all's' means 'your'.

Needless to say, my accent has moved into the sort of RP register of which Laurence Olivier would have been proud. I might even start drinking tea.

 

*yes, the irony hasn't gone unnoticed. The Village People are probably seen as 'good hard-workin' decent men, 'cept for that injun' by those who remember them.

Keeping it going

Everything's gone sort of mental this week, and it's been a while since I had a proper rant so here it is. It's the first proper week of building the Irish project, and as I sort of suspected, it's taking the team some time to grasp the relatively complex concepts we're dealing with. Unfortunately it tends to come down to the business analyst to sort all this stuff out. Which is me.

Now, as I've said before on this blog, I'm not a natural business analyst. It's all about detail, translating business and functional requirements into technical tasks and so on. I hate this sort of stuff, and because I'm not naturally predisposed to break things out to the tiniest bit of detail, it's a bit of a struggle for me, and I'm convinced that I'm not doing a particularly good job. To be brutally honest, there are natural BAs in the business who could be doing this job much better. They're the buttoned-down looking people with lots of pens.

My natural role, as colleagues have pretty much mentioned in my reviews, is business consultant - the strategy, business modeling pieces which use my experience to bring context to the businesses we work with. This is where I'm comfortable - the fluffy stuff, basically. Delivering on it is one great big bore.

Add this to the fact that there's still loads of genuinely exciting stuff going on elsewhere in the business that I ought to be involved in, not to mention very real requests for help coming from colleagues involved in projects with very large clients, and you get one rather conflicted blogger.

However, I'm not blind to the fact that beggars can't be choosers and, particularly with a mere six months under my belt, I'm not in a position to go around demanding certain roles, and billable work is billable work. So, I'm buckling down and sifting through the billion pieces of detail that go to make up a website these days, answering the billion tiny (and some massive) questions that the development team have to ask, and all this until Christmas. There's another 5 months to go on this project, but frankly the that thought terrifies me.

So this gives me three weeks to engineer my way out of this and onto something more interesting. Watch. This. Space.

Grumpy, stress, but some good news

Ooooh something of a day of contradictions today. On one hand, the Irish project I'm on is becoming somewhat tiresome, with fiddly bits of detail bothering me slightly and those who know me will know that I'm so not in the detail. So this is bothering me. I'm also seeing things going on in the business that I'm sure could benefit from my input but instead I'm here counting servers and adding up license costs.

Bah.

Anyway, if I'm seeming a little bit ungrateful and unwilling to do the necessary grunt work to get ahead career-wise, that's because I am. I reckon I just need to get my head down and plough on through it for a month or so before pulling the 'been there, done that, now show me something interesting' card and we'll see what happens.

That said, I am learning a ton of stuff at the moment, not only in terms of the techie stuff I'm being forced to read up on (who knew how useful an MVC Model could be?), but also in the whole project management, business analyst sense. Much though it galls me to say. It's a bit like muesli - you know what I mean, good for you but no fun.

On the other hand then, I've passed my six month probation period, which means I'm now officially an employee with rights and everything. The feedback I've had has been really quite good too, and constructive, so I'm feeling an odd mixture of massive smugness and huge inadequacy as I make my shoddy attempts to write technical specifications.

So woo for that. And for my Kiwi, who despite her monthly headache, presented me with a pretty good-looking bottle of wine as a well done present. No drinking in the week right now mind... GOD I'm so dull right now. I'm going to have to have a moment of irresponsibility soon, I can feel it coming on...

Quickie

A few quick words before bed (remember, that timestamp isn't accurate for some reason - it's actually 00:45 on Friday morning, have been up chatting on MSN for hours).

SHE'S BACK TOMORROW! And once again all will be well - can't tell you how much I'm looking forwards to seeing her again - I've tried to downplay it a bit for the sake of a less sugary blog read but there you go - sugary warts and all. Ewww. So my beloved will be on a plane right about now, heading for touchdown about the time I wake up tomorrow.

This week has seemed reasonably productive, in the way that a month spent prising a teeny diamond out of solid rock seems productive. It's been mighty intense, tricky and we feel like we're moving forwards in measurements of millimetres, but at least we're moving forwards. Final presentation minus two weeks.

Marigold update: they're now such monsters they're falling over in light breezes. I've had to wedge the pot up with the Kiwi's herb trough. I'm a victim of my own success, I think.

Other stuff - had two significantly ego-puncturing moments recently:

1. Walking down High St Kensington with the Kiwi, woman strides up to her thrusting a leaflet and says "do you need your eyes testing, love?"
2. Bought two pairs of trousers later that day, the only two out of several my size I tried on to fit me. Later noted that both pairs have no fewer than four (four!) trusses and fastenings intended to keep my burgeoning beer baby in check.

My only conclusion: I *am* the rightful heir to Jabba the Hutt's throne. Might as well learn to wash myself with a rag on a stick right now.

Head : Boom

So, half way through Week 3 (I'm as old as my first project and am tending to have an all-too obvious measuring point as a result), I'm feeling strangely calm. The project manager on this one is less so, but she's got nothing to worry about, I'm sure. At least, I keep telling her (and myself) that...

It's been a while since my last post - longer than I'd hoped - mainly as by the time I get home I'm KNACKERED and can't look my laptop in the eye without feeling guilty about how much there is left to do before we present at the end of Week 7. Doing this much thinking has been a bit of a shock to me - it feels like I've gone from mentally running a 5k once a week to attempting a full marathon every day in full view of the olympic council. Although were that the case I'd still find time to ask what that godforsaken logo is all about.

I'm still enjoying it though. Tomorrow morning we have a bit of an update with our MD who's sponsoring this project internally, so things may be different after that, but I'm quietly confident things will be ok. Thinking about it, you could say that the honeymoon period is wearing off, and I'm starting to become aware that what we're doing here is really quite serious so I'd better like, do some, like, 'work' and all.

Anyway, more on this later in the week, with any luck. The Kiwi has wonderfully made dinner and I'm being very rude still typing whilst it's ready and on the table. So I'm told.