Last year, as I have mentioned, I rewarded myself with a trip to Europe after passing my exams for work. I never really got around to posting anything, as that time in my life was quite busy! The trip was very last minute, but all I knew was that I wanted to do something active. I narrowed it down to Argentina, Peru and the Alps, but didn't make my final decision until about three weeks before I left, which is totally not like me. I finally decided on an Alpine vacation, since September was the perfect time of year for hiking in the Alps.

I started off my trip with a pit stop in New York for Labor Day to visit with my parents. After having a great time wandering, running and eating with them, I headed East once again, this time to Frankfurt, Germany. Why Frankfurt, you ask? Well, it's a long story, but basically it was much cheaper to fly to Frankfurt and take the train to wherever I wanted than to fly to where I wanted. So, Frankfurt it was! I took the red eye, which put me into Frankfurt in the morning. I immediately found a train to Munich, and had a very enjoyable train ride southward. I arrived in Munich in the late morning and although I was quite tired, I had a quick coffee, grabbed my camera, and headed out to see what I could find.

Glockenspiel

The best part about Munich was all of the fresh fruit stands, beer stands/halls, the bikes and the bakeries. Don't get me wrong, there were a ton of awesome buildings and of course there was the Glockenspiel, but I really enjoyed the laid back biking atmosphere and the smell of fresh bread. I got my fill of it all, literally and figuratively, and then headed to the Lidl, which is the European grocery store, for some supplies for the next day. Perhaps my kilo to pound conversion is off a bit, but it seemed like the fruit there was really cheap! 

Hofbrauhaus

Fruit Stand

I went to bed around 8 pm and woke up the next day around 7 am very refreshed. Take that, jet lag! The first thing I did was to take a nice run around town. The funny thing was that it seemed like there were no other runners out. I saw two other people the entire time I was running, which was about 6 miles. I ran up to the English Gardens (Englischer Garten) which is a huge park. The coolest part of that was that there were surfers in the waterways! I guess that is one way to get your surf on when you don't have an ocean nearby!

Picnic Lunch

English Garden Surfers

After my run, I had a nice breakfast of bread, cheese, cold cuts and fruit and I boarded a train headed south towards Austria.

Have you ever been to Germany? What is the price of an apple per pound where you live? Do you eat out when traveling or do you picnic?

Dear Monday -- Please go away. You are not as fun to play with as Saturday.

Dear Sleep -- Why have you abandoned me? We had such a great time on Friday night, but last night, you were gone.

Dear August -- You are so far away but you are already full. Why does it seem like everything happens all in the same month? I am looking forward to you but dreading you at the same time.

Dear Hair -- Today we will part ways. I am not sure how it will turn out, but I am sure that most of you will be gone.

Dear Running -- I miss you.

Dear California -- Your weather has been great and I love it. However, we really, REALLY need some rain. I would gladly sacrifice a few nice days now for good fruit prices later on!

Dear Toilet -- Why are you running?

Dear Closet full of work shirts -- Why don't any of you fit any more? Did I get taller or did you get shorter? I think it's time for you to be replaced.

Dear Readers -- who do you want to write a letter to today?

I am taking the lazy way out today and copying one of my favorite bloggers by doing a quick recap of the week, TGIF style.

The highlight of my week was my extra day off on Monday. I went for a leisurely run and it was a beautiful day and the sun was shining and I couldn't have asked for a much better day. Except if the day included a breakfast with thick cut bacon, an avocado bubble tea and a few really good craft beers, which Monday did include!

The low point of my week was a sickness that has taken hold of me. It started with an overall achy feeling and a minor sore throat and blossomed into a can-barely-swallow or concentrate kind of thing with a side of headache and exhaustion. It's really put a crimp in my running style, which was not really doing very well in the first place. 

The best book I read was probably Orange is the New Black. I am currently also reading Wonder and Behind the Beautiful Forevers, which are both really good so far.

This week's workouts were not super great. As I mentioned in the "low point" section, I have been sick for most of the week. Luckily I did get a chance to go hiking on Saturday and snowshoeing on Sunday, as well as my leisurely run on Monday. Other than that, I have been lying pretty darn low, workout wise.

The best money I spent was a on a lot of good food and a couple of new beers on Monday! I tried a 7 Seas Rude Parrot IPA, the Maritime Jolly Roger Christmas Ale and the Fremont Triple Trifecta.

My plans this weekend include some trail runs (hopefully) if I am not too sick, a lot of reading and relaxing if I am, and a bunch of errands, such as grocery shopping and cleaning.

What are your plans this weekend? What good books have you read lately?

Last year, after running the Jedediah Smith 50k, I said to myself that I probably would not run this race again and that I would rather, "sit in the sun and drink beer and watch everyone else run by me 6 times." Unfortunately, this year it was supposed to rain, so I signed up for the race again.

It is a 4.9 mile loop on the American River Bike Path that you do 6 times, plus a little out and back at the beginning to bring the total up to 31 miles. However, as I mentioned in this post, it is the first Pacific USA Track and Field (PAUSATF, otherwise known as "PA") race of the year, and after having some down time in December, it's fun to get the season started, to see some of your racing buddies, and to get the legs moving.

The course is set up so that the start/finish line is in the parking lot of the park, so you can park your car and open up the back and have a personal "aid station" right there in the parking lot. That is what we did.

Car Aid Station and Finish Line Party

Although it was supposed to rain the entire morning, it actually only sprinkled on us a few times. It was also very warm and humid, as opposed to last year, when it was quite chilly! Since I had sprained my ankle a few weeks back and was still taking it easier on myself, I went into this race with the attitude that I would just run it at a steady easy pace and that if I felt ANY pain, I would stop and walk or just not finish at all. It's not worth injuring myself worse just to finish a silly race.

The first out and back was fun, as you see everyone in front of and behind you. It is about a mile and a half long in total. It got back to the start line in 13:19.  Then the loops start....

Loop 1 and 2 (58:13 and 44:31 / 8:49 and 9:05/mi): I ran both of these with a friend, and we kept up an easy conversation as we ran along. These miles went by quickly, until she stopped to go to the restroom and I carried on.

Loop 3 (44:09 / 9:01/mi): I put on my headphones in order to dull the boredom. I got lapped by two of the lead runners at the beginning of this loop. I remember thinking that last year I was nearer to the end of this loop when they lapped me.

Loop 4 (45:44 / 9:20/mi): My headphones died, leaving me with nothing. I kept getting passed by the lead runners, and it was fine, but it did keep reminding me that I was not running as fast as I should be.

Loop 5 (46:52 / 9:34/mi): As I started this loop, my ankle was starting to feel a little stiff. It wasn't really in pain, but I was starting to baby it, and this caused the other side of my foot to start to ache. On top of this, the fact that I hadn't run in three weeks was catching up to me. I told myself that if I could just finish this last loop, which would take me to a marathon distance, in less than 4 hours, I would walk the last loop. I got to the end of the fifth loop at 3:59.

Loop 6 (53:24 / 10:54/mi): As I neared the end of loop five, a friend said to me, "hurry and finish so you can have some soup", and in my mind I was thinking that I really could not wait, but on the other hand, now I was going to walk! I started to walk along and in my mind I was doing running math: if I walked a 15 minute mile, it would take me about an hour and 15 minutes to get to the end; if I ran a 10 minute mile, I could be done in 50 minutes. So I started to run once again.

A bit of a puddle

I finished in 4:52, which is about a half an hour slower than last year. However, I felt pretty good, aside from some soreness in the bottoms of my feet, which haven't been used as much lately as they normally have. I came in 4th in my age group. What I didn't know is that I was only 1 minute behind the 3rd place girl and 3 minutes behind 2nd place. If only I hadn't walked on that last lap!

The best part about the race was that we sat around afterward eating and drinking beers and watching everyone else come in and it only rained on us a little bit. I used to head home right after I raced, but one of the things I have learned over the years is that we don't run these for the race itself; we run them for the after party!

So, another Jed Smith in the books. Will I run it again? I want to say no, but the answer is probably yes.

Have you ever repeated a race? Do you stay after races or do you go home right away? 

I normally yield to no-one in my defence of MPs and their workload; the sense of public spirit that has led them into parliament; the fact that they are significantly under appreciated etc.  But tonight, such warm, positive feelings evaporated. They are a bunch of workshy charlatans who wouldn't know a hard day's work if it came and danced in the aisles of their under used committee rooms.

The reason for my onset of annoyed angst has nothing to do, of course, with a misplaced attempt to bring my students to the heart of the mother of parliaments to watch a twilight session of the Houses in operation.  Having checked the daily schedule s of both Houses it looked as if there might be enough to keep them going until the noted adjournment times of 10.30 pm.  Admittedly the last Commons debate, on the vexed topic of nut allergies on flights could, it might be argued, have yielded fewer lengthy considerations than some other important elements of the body politic, but with counter-terrorism and the HSBC scandal on the agenda of the Lords,  7.30 didn't thus seem to be a particularly risky time to arrive for at least one chamber to still be operating; surely our hard working representatives would be bringing their fine minds to bear on the important details of their country's legislative agenda for a little while yet? After all, it was only Monday.  Half days in public service normally don't crop up until at least Thursday do they?

Not a bit of it.  Our evening journey to Westminster had been in vain.  The pleasant officials on duty at the gate broke the news to us gently but firmly that there were no sittings still going on.  Business was done. Democracy was on hold.

Getting a bunch of teenagers to agree to extend their working day is never easy.  When it's proved to be in vain it is well nigh a disaster.  There was no explaining away this one.  My earlier  exhortations that they were in for some high level political debate looked as hollow as an Easter egg.  A lame group photo later, and our trip was done. 

MPs workloads? As mythical as Stephen Fry's God.

The first of the powerpoints (from the lessons) for AS students are now up and published here (Link also opposite for easy access).  I will keep adding to the resources on the "SGS Politics Extra" blog, including relevant resources to complement AS Unit 2 and A2 resources for Global Politics (3D) and the US (4C). 

It was conventional wisdom that the AV referendum in 2011 had effectively 'parked' the issue of electoral reform for a generation or so.  Just, of course, as it was conventional wisdom that the Scottish referendum would also 'park' the issue of Scottish independence.  Neither of these wisdoms look very secure now.  In the case of Scotland, the problem was that the referendum was never allowed to run its proper course as with a week to go David Cameron and his fellow English party leaders changed the issue to something that wasn't on the ballot paper - gerrymandering of a high order.  In the case of electoral reform, Professor John Curtice's interesting figures look as if they too could bring the issue of reform firmly back into the main stream - and, since they were published by the Electoral Reform society that's probably what they were intended to do.

Professor Curtice notes that the key factor for success in the First Past the Post system is the geographic concentration of votes, and he further adds that this is effectively undermining the national claim of the system to be a "winner takes all" one.  His findings (full report here; Electoral Reform summary here) suggest the possibility of a Labour Party which comes second in votes securing the highest number of seats, and being shoehorned into government by an SNP which may well have come only sixth in terms of UK-wide votes, but have enough seats to secure Labour a majority in a coalition.

Curtice looks at the relative prospects of the smaller parties, on whom much of the election outcome will depend, and finds that the SNPs geographic concentration of votes could well propel them into winning significantly higher numbers of seats than the more geographically spread UKIP, even if UKIP scores significantly more votes.  To add to the possible post-election chaos is, of course, the fact that not only will SNP MPs only hail from one part of the UK, but - since the notorious devolution 'vow' - it is part with barely any domestic issues actually decided at Westminster.

Curtice discussed his report on the 'Today' programme (scroll in to around 45.55 minutes) and it makes fascinating listening.  No longer is the issue of whether FPTP throws up another coalition the only point of discussion.  Just as crucial, given the SNP surge in support (largely at Labour's expense in Scotland) is the question of who the coalition might actually comprise.  Thus, to the disproportionality of FPTP is added the unresolved headache of an incomplete devolution settlement.

If this looks like an issue of unfairness to the main parties - and I suspect it is the Tories who would make the most ground on this - then they might like to reflect that their own leaders have led them to this potential impasse.  All three leaders were guilty of panicking att he sight of the Scottish referendum polling figures, and unforgivably altered the basis of the referendum with no thought to the consequences.  In addition, only Clegg campaigned for reform of the Westminster system when he argued for the AV option in the referendum, although his acceptance of a hopelessly skewed referendum question (which only posited AV as an alternative, rather than the principle of proportionality) showed, at best, considerable political naivety.  David Cameron and the rest of the Conservative Party, meanwhile, have consistently failed to consider the inequities of the FPTP system, and then fell foul of their coalition partners in the tit-for-tat of blocking Lords reform (the Conservatives) and constituency boundary changes (the Lib Dems).

Whatever mess emerges after the next election, it is an irony that the men responsible for its genesis will also be the ones charged with resolving it.