31 Seconds

Marathon Training - Weeks 8 to 12 (plus half-marathon and Rathfarnham 5k reports)

2010-09-26T22:49:00.000+01:00

I'll say it out straight:

My marathon training went to shite.

I'll explain. During the 10 mile race, I picked up a muscle strain injury in my left foot. Following that race, I decided to rest my foot for a week. No point trying to train on an injury. The inury will only be aggravated, will take longer to heal and so it'd take longer to get back to normal training. Also, I was flying out to Argentina on the Sunday of that training week. So, there went Week 8 out the window.

Week 9 I was in Argentina. Eating many fine steaks and drinking much red wine and beer. This counts as negative training.

Week 10 I was still in Argentina until I got back on the Thursday. Not in any state to train. On the Sunday, me and Ciaran went for a jog for and hour and 20 minutes around Maynooth. Following this jog, I picked up a slight injury to my left knee.

I began Week 11 with the slight injury below my left knee. Not wanting to make it worse with the half marathon coming up on the Saturday, I decided to let it rest. And that brings me on to the half marathon!

The first corner of the half marathon

I woke on the morning on the half marathon at 8:40. I was in a slight panic as I was meant to get up at 8:15. My plan was, get up at 8:15, get dressed, eat a light breakfast, drink plenty of water, get a bus to Parkgate St around 9, meet Ciaran and Sarah at the entrance to the Phoenix Park around 9:45, be at the start line around 10:20, start warming up and stretch properly for the race to start at 11. I had overslept slightly, but no big worries, still plenty of time.

Then I turned on the radio. They were reading out an email from some woman who was sitting outside the Phoenix Park after injuring herself, possibly by trapping a nerve in her ass (no joke) and she wanted to know what to do about it "because the race is starting at 10 o'clock". Fuck. Alarm bells in my head. The race was due to start at 10, not 11, and there I was sitting on my bed at 8:40 in Maynooth. Panic time.

I quickly got dressed, threw some stuff into a bag, took a mouthful of water and ran out the house. I ran to the 66 bus stop in the middle of Maynooth. The time was 8:50. A bus had passed at 8:45. The next bus was there at 8:15, which was no good since it takes 40 minutes just to get to the entrance of the Phoenix Park. Ran up to the 67A bus stop. A bus had left 10 minutes beforehand. The next one wasn't due until 9:20. Disaster. I had only one more hope. I ran down to the train station. There was a train waiting on the platform going towards Dublin. I bought a ticket to Connolly and sat down on the train. The time was 9:00. I had one hour to get to the start line in the middle of the Phoenix Park.

Now, my problem was figuring out what the quickest way there would be. I didn't even know if the train was direct to Connolly or stopping at all stations. I didn't know which one I wanted. At first I wanted the train to be direct to Connolly, where I could get a taxi to the Phoenix Park as quick as possible. The train left the platform at 9:10, the announcement said it was stopping at all stations. Disaster. Needed a new plan. Decided to find the nearest train station to the park and hope for the best. I knew the Phoenix Park train station isn't actually beside the park, so I took a chance on Ashtown.

Hopped off the train in Ashtown at 9:40. No idea where I was or which way to go. Asked a guy working at the station what the quickest way to the park was. His reply: "just straight up that road, you'll be there in two minutes if you jog" (he knew I was looking for the race from my race number). So I ran from the station. I was in the Phoenix Park at 9:45 and following more jogging through wet, grassy fields, I was standing in the first wave of runners at 9:58, right beside the sub-1:40 pace setters. I had jogged about 2 miles that morning already. I had nothing to eat and only a mouthful of water to drink. I hadn't done any stretching, my right hamstring was tight and I had a stitch. But it was time to run a half marathon and aim to beat 1:40:00.

So, with little-to-no proper preparation for this race, off I began in earnest. Ignore the stitch. Try strides to stretch the hamstring. Remember to drink the water at the water stations. For the first 5 miles, I kept with the 1:40 pacers without a bother. It was much easier keeping with their 7:30 min/mile pace than the 7 min/mile pace I had tried to keep at the 10 mile run. After those first 5 miles, I was feeling really good, so I decided to try push out a little bit. By the 6 mile marker, I was about half a minute ahead of the 1:40 pacers. Things were going relatively well. I had no sign of the foot injury from the last race, I was tiring but not too bad and my breathing was relaxed. Then came the hills.

The uphill sections of the route were killers, as I expected. I really had to push myself up them. They took a lot of effort and energy to get over and this really affected me. My legs were starting to tire and hurt. It was the 10 mile marker and I knew my pace was dropping off. By the 11 mile marker, I had fallen back to the sub-1:40 pacers. I tried to match their pace, but found it impossible. It was taking too much effort just to keep up with them. There was 2 miles to go, the sub-1:40 pacers were getting away from me and there was nothing I could do.

By the 12 mile mark, my legs were in agony. My thighs were on fire, my hamstrings were tight, my calves were weak and causing me a lot of pain and my foot injury had come back, though not as bad as before. I was jogging with a limp and every step was pain. When I say "jogging", my pace couldn't have been much faster than a brisk walk, but the effort felt herculean to me. I considered stopping with a mile to go. The pain was really getting to be too much and I couldn't even see the sub-1:40 pacers any more so my target looked missed. I fought through though and with about 300 meters to go I looked at my watch and it said 1:38. I had under two minutes to get across the finish line.

Crossing the finish line

Usually, I have enough left at the end of a race to sprint across the finish line. I wouldn't call it a sprint, but I managed to push myself up to a good, solid "slow jog" pace for the finish line. Those last 20 seconds were the most painful thing I've done on purpose, but it all paid off in the end, when I crossed the finish line with a chip time of 1:39:49 - beating my target time by 11 seconds. I was in pain all over my body. My legs were shattered, my lungs exhausted and even my arms were sore for some reason. I limped on through the finishers area and grabbed some water and a pear - my breakfast.

Ciaran came through a few minutes behind me. He was late for the start of the race and actually began in the 2nd wave of runners. He had his own struggle in the race too. We got some pics taken of us in the finish area. The looks on our faces will tell you how we felt. We look like two sick, sick people.

Me and Ciaran after the half marathon

Now, as for Week 12, I was in recovery mode for the first few days. The half marathon took a lot out of me. I experienced pain simply trying to get up or down stairs, so training was out of the question. Went out for a 9 k jog on Thursday and then had a 5 k race on Sunday morning. I was meant to go for a long jog (18 miles I think) on the weekend, but didn't. I'll try do it during this week.

The 5 k race was fun. I was interested in it because it's a few days over 6 months since our first race in Portlaoise on Paddy's Day and I wanted to see how we'd progressed. Me, Brendan and Tony took part. We heard the course was fast beforehand but weren't really sure what to expect. My previous personal best for 5k was 21:28. I knew I'd beat 21 minutes, since I'd kept to that pace for the 5 mile race. I aimed to beat 20:30 and I dared to dream I'd beat 20 minutes. Brendan's personal best was 26:52 and he hoped to beat 25:00.

Us before the Rathfarnham race

The race started at the top of a hill, the first 1/3rd was downhill, the next 1/3rd was back uphill to the start line, then back downhill again to the finish line. So, 2/3rds of the race was downhill. I attacked the race from the word go and found that I had run the first kilometre in 3:30. I then ran my second km in 3:50, third km in 4:00 and the last two km in 7:28. My finish time was 18:48. Brendan's was 24:45. Tony's was 20:28.

Me and Brendan were delighted with our finish times. Tony less so, because his personal best was in the high 16 minutes years ago, before he picked up a bad injury. This was his first race in two years.

That's it for now. Starting Week 13 tomorrow. Going to try for a golden week. Think I need another one to get back on track for the marathon in 4 weeks time.

Marathon Training - Week 7 (plus 10 mile race report)

2010-08-24T00:17:00.001+01:00

Well then. Week 7 turned out to be nothing like I had hoped. On Sunday evening, I was all psyched up for another golden week. Unfortunately, my foot had other ideas. I picked up an injury in my left foot over the weekend and I'm still not sure how it happened. It felt like the muscle at the top of my foot connected to my big toe was strained. By Monday evening though, it was less painful, so I tried going for a 6 mile run. The injury came back worse than before. Knowing I had the 10 mile race in 5 days, I decided to take the remainder of the week off and rest the foot. Bye-bye golden week number two.

So I rested the foot for the days leading up to the race and come Saturday morning, my foot was feeling perfect - not even a niggle of pain. That didn't last though, which I'll get to.

The race was the 2010 Frank Duffy 10 mile road race, held at the Phoenix Park on the 21st of August. I got up at 7:30 am and had a breakfast of tea and two slices of toast with peanut butter. I took the bus to Parkgate St. and met up with Ciaran, Sarah and Niall (the first-timer). We then took the shuttle bus into the park and began our preparations - changing into gear, warming-up, stretching etc.

The race started at 11 am. Sarah, Ciaran and myself were in the first wave of runners - those aiming for sub-70 minutes. We looked around and immediately felt we were in the wrong place. Oh well. Too late. I immediately felt like this race was going to be tougher than the last one. It was a much warmer morning - the sun was actually out and shining in our faces. Not helpful. I had an idea in my head to try and keep to a 7 minute per mile pace and finish in under 70 minutes, but by the 3 mile marker I knew I wasn't going to be able to keep it. I was already 30 seconds behind where I would have needed to be for that and there was no way I'd be able to catch up. I resigned myself then to ensuring that I beat my original target time - 75 minutes.

5 miles into the race I noticed a now-familiar feeling of pain in my left foot. I tried to work out what I had been doing wrong that could have caused it - maybe I could fix whatever my mistake was. I worked out that, when I'm running, I'm constantly pulling my big toes upwards into the shoes. I reasoned that I've got into this habit and the pain is probably caused by repetitive strain. I tried changing how I ran by not pulling my toes up - but that didn't really work. So, nothing I could do about it, just put up with the pain for another 5 miles of running.

After the 6 mile marker, there was a noticeable long slope in the road. What followed was 5 minutes of pure agony in my legs while trying to get up it. It felt like I was jogging no faster than a 3 year-old would walk. My thighs and calves were burning. I actually felt like stopping and resting. What sadistic prick set this slope 6 miles into the race? Curse him. The slope passed, it was just a case of putting one foot in front of the other for 3 miles - the most difficult 3 miles I've ever jogged.

My legs were shattered, my feet in agony, heart bursting but when I was about 300 metres from the finish line, I had one thing in mind - sprint as hard as I could. Which I did. Passed about 20 people too. It's a great feeling doing that right at the finish line with spectators cheering. Makes me feel like an actual athlete. I crossed the finish line and stopped my stopwatch. I had run the 10 miles in 73 minutes and 44 seconds - beating my target time by just over a minute. Feels good, man.

So that was the race. Next up - the half-marathon in 5 weeks time. It's only an extra 3 miles on top of what I've just done, so I'm not worried about it. I think my target time will be 98 minutes. I've thought about aiming for 95, but that would require keeping the same pace I had for this race - but for 3 miles more. Maybe if I get lucky with the weather it might be possible - but I wouldn't be confident. 98 minutes is my target.

Should have done
Monday: 5 miles
Tuesday: 6 miles
Wednesday: 5 miles
Thursday: 6 miles
Friday: rest
Saturday: 10 mile race
Sunday: 5 miles

Total: 37 miles

Actually did
Monday: 6 miles
Tuesday: rest
Wednesday: rest
Thursday: rest
Friday: rest
Saturday: 10 mile race
Sunday: rest

Total: 16 miles

Golden week failed. Oh well.

10 mile race tomorrow... eek.

2010-08-20T11:40:00.001+01:00

Tomorrow morning is the 10 mile road race in the Phoenix Park. It'll be the longest race I've participated in and, actually, one of the longest runs I've ever done too. 10 miles is 16 kilometres... a distance I've only nearly completed twice before. On top of that, I've only gone for one run this week, since I've been resting an injured foot. I'm not sure how well this is going to work out. The picture up there is meant to represent the challenge I'm facing. Like.. I'm Fry and the 10 mile race is Zoidberg... and I'm not well prepared..... I know it's not a great metaphor but it is a cool picture.

I'm aiming for 75 minutes. I think that'll be a good time to aim for. My 5 mile time was 34:48, so I figure 75 minutes makes sense. I will, however, be trying to keep to a 7 minute mile for as long as I can. Maybe... just maybe I'll be able to hold onto a pace like that.

Tomorrow also sees the first outing of my full running gear. Luminous green running vest and matching black shorts. You will not miss me in the pictures.

I'm really looking forward to this race. Can't wait to get out there with the 6000 other entrants and have a good time. It's another stepping stone on the way to the marathon.

Lastly, I always keep in mind these words of Steve Prefontaine:
"A lot of people run to see who is fastest. I run to see who has the most guts, who can punish himself into exhausting pace, and then at the end, punish himself even more."

Marthon Training - Week 6

2010-08-16T15:30:00.000+01:00

Success! My first golden week! Didn't miss a single day of running plus ran the full distance - and a touch extra. Feels good, man.

Should have done
Monday: 5 miles
Tuesday: 6 miles
Wednesday: 5 miles
Thursday: 6 miles
Friday: rest
Saturday: 5 miles
Sunday: 8 miles
Total: 35 miles

Actually did
Monday: 5.25 miles
Tuesday: 5.65 miles
Wednesday: 5.65 miles
Thursday: 5.65 miles
Friday: rest
Saturday: 8 miles
Sunday: 4.9 miles
Total: 35.1 miles

BAM!

It was a pretty tiring week and my left foot is a little sore, but I couldn't be happier about it. 10 mile race next Saturday morning. Half-marathon in 5 weeks. Full marathon in 10 weeks. Then rest.

I did discover one downside to this training. I lost weight in the past few weeks that I really shouldn't be losing. I've always weighed between 10.5 and 11 stone ever since I was around 13 but I weighed myself on Saturday after the long run and found my weight had dropped to 10 st 4 lb (10.25 stone). This is pretty worrying as I'm not meant to be losing any weight at all. I guess that I simply haven't been eating enough to make up for all of the exercise I've been doing lately. Time to up my portions and start eating properly.

Maybe I should make myself one of these:

Source: http://www.geekologie.com/2009/03/bacon_and_cheese_stuffed_pizza.php

Anyway, week 7 beckons. Only 4 chapters of the first Harry Potter book left to listen to!

A music festival to die for

2010-08-11T17:11:00.002+01:00

FESTIV-HELL

... the hottest music festival of your afterlife

Main Stage

AC/DC

Dio

Bon Scott

Jimi Hendrix

Jim Morrison

Rory Gallagher

Kurt Cobain

Second Stage

John Lennon

Phil Lynott

Freddie Mercury

Syd Barrett w/Richard Wright

Michael Jackson

Beethoven

Sid Vicious

Poetry Corner

Richey Edwards

Dante Alighieri

Comedy Tent

George Carlin

Richard Pryor

Bill Hicks

Eternity-long Tickets (with camping): 1 soul.
Purchase tickets now by repeating out load: "I deny the Holy Spirit".
FESTIV-HELL tickets can be collected at the Gates of Hades on your arrival.
Patrons are encouraged to use the Park & Ride facilities at the River Styx.

Marathon Training - Week 5

2010-08-09T17:44:00.000+01:00

NOOOOOOO!!! I was so close to my golden week. So very, very close. It was going great all week. I even bought new running gear on Saturday (pic to follow in a later post) but plans for the run on Sunday went to crap when I had to go to Dublin unexpectedly for the evening.

Should have done

Monday: 5 miles

Tuesday: 6 miles

Wednesday: 5 miles

Thursday: 6 miles

Friday: rest

Saturday: 5 miles

Sunday: 8 miles

Total: 35 miles

Actually did

Monday: 5.24 miles (o.o)

Tuesday: 5.24 miles (o_o)

Wednesday: 5.24 miles (0_0)

Thursday: 5.24 miles (O_O)

Friday: rest (^.^)

Saturday: 4.5 miles (o.o)

Sunday: nothing (-_-)

Total: 25.46 miles

10 miles off my target, but I did much better than last week, when I only did half the required training. I really need a proper golden week for myself, so I know I can do it. Don't have much planned for this weekend anyways, except for my parents jumping out of a plane, so I should be able to get the weekend run in.

Back to my new gear. I bought Nike running shorts and vest in Lifestyle Sports in Newbidge. The vest is luminous lime green. You will not miss me when I'm wearing it. I actually notice a difference wearing the shorts for a run though. They're quite short and really light. It almost... feels like I'm wearing NOTHING AT ALL.

Really though, they make a difference. Plus, at only €20, I think they're well worth it. They're light, they wont stick to your leg with sweat, they're super sexy and they have a little pocket, which is handy for putting the house key into.

Have the 10 mile race in the Phoenix Part in 12 days, so it may be time to start thinking about that. My 5 mile time was something like 34:40, so I want to beat 75 minutes. On the day though, I'm going to try for as long as I can to beat 70. I'd be well chuffed.

Marathon Training - Week 4

2010-08-02T15:12:00.003+01:00

Dammit. I really didn't do well this week. I'll start off with what I should have done and what I actually did.

Should have done
Monday: 4 miles
Tuesday: 4 miles (easy fartlek)
Wednesday: 4 miles
Thursday: 6 miles
Friday: rest
Saturday: 5 miles
Sunday: 4 miles
Total: 27 miles

Actually did
Monday: 3.7 miles
Tuesday: 5.2 miles
Wednesday: zilch
Thursday: 4.5 miles
Friday: zip
Saturday: nada
Sunday: not a bit
Total: 13.4 miles

This is terrible. I only jogged half the distance I should have. I'm meant to be in marathon training but I'm letting other things get in the way. I'm making excuses for myself and ignoring the training plan. Not good.

The excuses? Yeah, plenty. Wednesday afternoon I was travelling back to Newbridge. At the time I decided it would be my rest day for the week. Friday I was shattered tired and still a little hungover from the night before (played a gig in Newbridge, went to a club, ended up getting to bed at 5 in the morning, up again at half 10). Saturday, I was still recovering from tiredness and decided to play games all day. Sunday I went to Croke Park for the Kildare vs Meath match. Had intentions to go jog that night but.... I didn't. Laziness. Call it laziness.

Kildare forward James Kavanagh about to score the cheekiest goal I've ever seen (source)

It appears that marathon training is difficult in more than one way. The actual distance having to jog each day is the first challenge and it can be quite tiring but I'm finding it much more difficult to motivate myself to get out there. That's the mental challenge. I don't know why exactly I'm finding it hard either. I know what has to be done, I know why it has to be done and I know when it has to be done. But still, it's a struggle.

I think it's time to have a 'golden week' where I stick to the training schedule exactly. No excuses. Forget cinema, forget games, forget the pub, forget it all... just go run. Maybe I'll watch Without Limits again for inspiration. Go Pre!

Marathon Training - Week 3

2010-07-25T15:29:00.002+01:00

As you probably know, I'm taking part in the Dublin City marathon later this year. You probably also know that I have been building up to it for it for most of the year by jogging occasionally and have been taking part in short road races. Well, the time has come to get serious about training. I'm going to keep updates here about my marathon training - distances jogged, how it's going, challenges faced... things like that.

I'm doing this because I know many of you are interested in what marathon training is like and also for myself to get my thoughts down and think about my progress. I have already been keeping a record of my jogging over the past year on my running diary, but this will give me a chance to write about other subjects related to training or jogging in general.

This past week marks the start of my 'serious' marathon training. I took part in the Irish Runner 5 Mile race in the Phoenix Park a week ago. The 'goodie bag' handed out to all runners at the end of the race contained a booklet which had in it a marathon training plan for a range of expected finish times. I'm sticking to the training schedule for a 4:00-4:45 marathon. This seems realistic to me... although I can't really tell! Last week was actually Week 3 out of 16 of the training program but it's only my first week of trying to stick to it... so I have a little catching up to do.

Only picture of me at the Irish Runner 5 Mile in the Phoenix Park. And a terrible picture it is too.

According to the training schedule, Weeks 3 & 4 should look like this:
Monday: 4 miles
Tuesday: 4 miles (easy fartlek)
Wednesday: 4 miles
Thursday: 6 miles
Friday: rest
Saturday: 5 miles
Sunday: 4 miles

Fartlek is a type of running training. It involves sprinting as fast as you can for a short time, then slowing right down until you're ready to sprint again. Hard fartlek training can be very, very tiring. Easy fartlek training means just slowly increasing your pace for a minute or two, then slowing down, then repeat.

Here is what I actually did this week:
Monday: nothing
Tuesday: 6.3 miles
Wednesday: 4 miles
Thursday: 6.3 miles
Friday: rest
Saturday: rest
Sunday: nothing yet

So, it appears my first training week hasn't been a complete success. I'll try make up for it in Week 4!

Reading and Me

2010-07-03T01:07:00.001+01:00

I was browsing through my photos on my laptop and I cam across this picture I took in the Summer of 2008:

That's a picture of all of my books two years ago this month. All eight of them. Actually... Nineteen Eighty-Four belongs to my sister and I took To Kill A Mockingbird from the rented house I was living in at the time, so I really only owned six. It's also very obvious from this photo what I was most interested in reading about at that time too!

In my childhood, I read plenty of books (mainly Roald Dahl) but sometime around age 12 I got big into computer games and stopped reading. I don't think I picked up a single book outside of school required reading throughout my teens. That said, I did really like reading To Kill A Mockingbird and Wuthering Heights. I think the characters of Heathcliff and Atticus Finch are fantastic. My other teenage interests always took precedence over reading though - computer games, music and Warhammer.

It wasn't until Spring 2007 that I started reading again. I was in the university book shop and saw a copy of The God Delusion in the Physics section (right beside the Theology section). I only recognised the book from the South Park episodes with Richard Dawkins. From what I'd seen on TV, I knew the subject would interest me, so it was bought. I devoured the book and it changed my life. Suddenly I was aware of a completely new way of thinking about life that made so much sense to me. Two weeks after buying the book, I "came out" to my parents as an atheist - religion simply stopped making sense to me. The whole atheist thing was suddenly very interesting to me, I wanted to read more books about it. And thus began my book collection!

So, this is what my book collection looks like today (on the right... DVDs on the left):

That's not all of them, there's two currently on loan to family members. I have 32 books in total now and topics include: atheism and anti-religion, quantum mechanics, the universe, evolution, physics, maths and the workings of the brain. I've only read 18 of them though so I have plenty to get through. It's a little frustrating when I go into Eason, straight to the 'Natural World' section and see books that I want to read, such as Bad Medicine or The Drunkard's Walk, but I can't buy them cos I've already got plenty of reading material to get though. Most of my books are non-fiction. I think I like learning about things. Things that fascinate me. Things like the brain and the universe.

My favourite fiction book is probably Nineteen Eighty-Four, with The Hitchiker's Guide a close second. The God Delusion is my favourite book though and I even have a second copy of it, signed by Richard Dawkins. I bought it at the Edinburgh Book Festival because he was doing a signing. This is the perfect opportunity for me to use this terrible picture, taken that day (August '08):

So, I am currently reading The Plastic Mind, which is about how the brain restructures itself under certain conditions. It's a very good account and history of what my PhD is based around, so I find it all very interesting. Like, they describe how OCD, dyslexia and depression can be fixed through particular exercises and thoughts. Fascinating stuff.

As I'm writing this post, I keep looking over at that mini-tower of books on my desk and one in particular stands out, because it's the biggest: The Divine Comedy. That book is huge. What was I thinking when I bought it?

Some music on my mind

2010-06-22T16:16:00.000+01:00

I'm probably not the best person to be recommending music to anyone, seeing as my tastes include rock, punk, metal, jazz, classical and even a bit of pop. I'm also very aware that I haven't been keeping up with recent music, especially in the Irish music scene. But anyway, here is some music that you may have missed.

How to reduce the constant drone of the World Cup

2010-06-12T16:14:00.007+01:00

I missed the opening match of the 2010 World Cup yesterday, but got to watch the France v Uruguay game. The game was terrible in the end. Only a handful of shots on target and with the earlier match a draw, both sides were scared of losing and so neither took chances. In my mind, only one thing could have made the game worse: having to listen to a constant loud droning sound for the duration of the game... oh... wait...

The drone of those horns is a real negative about this World Cup. It might be what this competition lives on in our memories for in the years to come. I hate those horns. So, when I sat down to watch the (much more entertaining) South Korea v Greece match earlier on today, I decided to do something about the drone. Something engineering-ey.

My solution: audio filtering. I was going to filter out the drone and enjoy, not endure, the remainder of the tournament.

Here's how I reduced the drone of the 2010 World Cup. You can probably adapt these steps for your own hardware and software.

The audio processing was going to have to be done on my laptop. So this meant I needed an audio input into my computer. My old Mitsubishi TV doesn't have a headphone output, so I used the audio output at the back of my Sky Digibox as my audio source. I connected the Digibox to my laptop using a phono-to-jack lead, which was inserted into the line-in port.

At this point, the audio from the Digibox was coming through my laptop speakers - Step 1 success! I could mute the TV and listen to the audio through my laptop speakers, or any external speakers I plugged into the headphone output.

In the end, I didn't want the audio input to be relayed straight to the output, so I muted the playback volume of the line-in port in my audio settings.

The next step was to process the audio coming in and output that straight to the speakers. There are a few way to do this, but the first one that came to my mind was to use a digital audio workstation. I turned on Reaper, added a new track and set it to record the audio input from the line-in. I then turned on track monitoring so that the audio the track would be recording is played live through the speakers. Now, all I had to do was add an equaliser effect to the track, which would effectively filter the incoming audio in almost-real-time (maybe a tenth of a second delay - not noticeable). All I needed to know was what frequencies I had to filter out.

In order to find out the frequency content of the drone, I used Audacity to record about 30 seconds of match audio, which had the drone throughout. I selected a 3 seconds portion of audio when the commentators weren't talking and used the 'Plot Spectrum' function. This showed me what frequencies were prominent in the drone.

I identified the frequencies as 240 Hz (B), 477 Hz (A#), 720 Hz (F#), 968 Hz (B), 1193 Hz (D), 1431 Hz (F), 1721 Hz (A), 1875 Hz (A#), 2216 Hz (C#), 2985 Hz (F#). I then added notch filters at each of these frequencies to the EQ effect on the audio input in Reaper. The important difference between this method and other, simpler methods us that the bandwidth of the filter can be controlled here. In simple systems, like the Samsung TV equaliser, the bandwidth cannot be controlled and is usually pretty high. This means that the filter is not very selective. In Reaper, I set the bandwidth to be quite low, so that the drone frequencies were being removed, but the commentator's voices were not noticeably affected.

And that's it!

In Reaper, I could turn on monitoring of the input audio so that it was being played through my speakers, then turn on the EQ effect to reduce the drone of the horns. And it works!

There is a bit of tweaking to do. Maybe I'll add in more notch filters to remove higher-frequency components. Maybe I'll fine tune the notch filter frequencies. Maybe I'll just leave it as it is and enjoy the tournament a lot more than I would have otherwise. COME ON ARGENTINAAAAAAA!!!!

If you have any questions about what I've done here, just leave a comment below.

- Darren

Translation Party - Fresh Prince of Bel-Air

2010-05-30T14:34:00.003+01:00

Translation Party is a cool little website for wasting a lot of time. You put in a phrase or sentence in English, it's then translated into Japanese, then translated back into English, then back into Japanese and so on, until there is no change from one English translation to the next. When that happens, the phrase is said to have reached 'equilibrium'. Sometimes though, the phase constantly gets stuck between a few translations and the website gives up.

I've messed around with Translation Party a few times, but I wanted to try something a bit different. So here, for your enjoyment, is the theme song to The Fresh Prince of Bel Air, according to Translation Party:

But now back in, shut down all of my life, how can
My prince, I can go sit in my town atmosphere.

Pureiguraundofiraderufia I spent most of the day raising of the West
Out Cold is cool and all the b schools have relaxed restrictions on entry take some balls
I must be close to a good start man
I was surprised by her fight. She said, "You are moving with his aunt and uncle in Bel Air," he said

My taxi, whistle, license plate yesterday, "Close" Now, fresh dice Miller
If anything, I would say unusual in this cab, I Bel Air, I'd forget it at home!

I was crying a 7-8 home, my taxi driver, "Yohomu not, ya is the smell of Thailand," he said.
Look at my kingdom, I was sitting on my throne as the prince of Bel Air last.

Complete nonsense, but it's interesting to see how the original lyrics ended up there. Click on one of the links below to have a look for yourself:

1 - Now this is the story all about how my life got flipped, turned upside down
2 - And I'd like to take a minute, just sit right there, I'll tell you how I became the prince of a town called Bel Air.

3 - In west Philadelphia, born and raised, on the playground was where I spent most of my days
4 - Chilling out, maxing, relaxing all cool and shooting some b-ball outside of the school
5 - When a couple of guys, who were up to no good, started causing trouble in my neighbourhood
6 - I got in one little fight and my mom got scared. She said "You're moving with your auntie and uncle in Bel-Air"

7 - I whistled for a cab and when it came near, the licence plate said "Fresh" and it had dice in the mirror
8 - If anything, I could say that this cab was rare but I thought nah, forget it, yo homes, to Bel-Air!

9 - I pulled up to the house about seven or eight and I yelled to the cabbie "Yo homes, smell ya later!"
10 - Looked at my kingdom, I was finally there, to sit on my throne as the prince of Bel-Air.

You knife me in CS... I knife you in real life.

2010-05-29T13:24:00.004+01:00

These stories just keep on coming. According to the Telegraph, a Counter-Strike player spent seven months hunting down another player who killed him in a knife fight online.

Seriously... what is wrong with people?

Julien Barreaux, the 20 year-old French harcode leet gamer was none too happy when he lost a knife fight online to another player known as Mikhael. He spent the next seven months tracking down Mikhael and plotting his revenge. Barreaux clearly has a screw loose in his head.

On finding the location of Mikhael only a few miles from his home, Barreaux called to his house for a friendly chat and a bit of an ear bashing.

LOL JK - he plunged a kitchen knife into Mikhael's chest.

Fortunately for Mikhael, the knife was an inch off his heart, so he's still alive. Unfortunately for Barreaux, he's a nut case and is spending two years in jail. The police reported "Barreaux was arrested within the hour and told us he had wanted to see his rival wiped out for killing off his character."

This has been another great story to add to this growing pile:
Kid stabs brother for playing PS3
Chinese gamer knifes CS cheater in the head

(picture source)

Changes to the blog

2010-05-27T14:28:00.000+01:00

So I decided to not just have this as a gaming blog. Turns out not very many interesting things happen in the gaming world, to my utter amazement. So I'm just going to be posting whatever I feel like from now on!

First order of business, I'd like to share a story of wondrous money-saving on my part.

See, there's this book that I want for my PhD work. It's called 'The Biomedical Engineering Handbook: Vol. 1 (2nd ed.)'. This book has a lot of relevant information in it to my work, so I want my own copy. The book is in the library, but I don't want to have to keep checking the book out and the bringing it back for the next 2 and a half years.

I have an electronic copy of the book, but the book is over 3000 pages long and printing it out would cost somewhere in the region of €100. The book is around €280 new, so things weren't looking good. Then I found a copy of the book on amazon.co.uk. It was a used copy, from a library in America... which cost €17 plus €5 shipping. So the book is on it's way now, for a total cost of €22. Boo yah.

Free Games on Steam!

2010-05-15T15:35:00.002+01:00

A new offer from Steam of free games for Windows users who have ATI or NVIDIA graphics cards!

The games are Half Life 2: Lost Coast and Half-Life 2: Deathmatch. Free. For nothing. All you need is an ATI or NVIDIA graphics card and they're yours!

But wait! There's more!

As an extra bonus for NVIDIA users, you also get Portal: First Slice (a demo of Portal) and Peggle Extreme.

Bosh.

ATI users: click here.
NVIDIA users: click here.

Steam is just awesome lately.

Portal Free on PC/Mac until the 24th

2010-05-12T21:04:00.000+01:00

Highly acclaimed PC game Portal is available for free to all PC and Mac users via Steam. This is Valve's way of celebrating the launch of Steam on Mac. So, today is officially the first day that Macs have decent games.

Anyway, if you have a Steam account, go and grab Portal now. It's free until the 24th.

If you haven't heard of the game, I'll fill you in. Portal is a Half Life 2 mod that is part FPS, part puzzle game. Puzzles are solved by creating portals around the level. Slap a blue portal on the wall beside you and shoot the orange portal to the ceiling and you can walk through the blue one and fall out of the orange one.

This is one of the most original games ever made and has been widely acclaimed for years, winning several award since being released in 2007 as part of The Orange Box.

I've never played it before, but I've been dying to give it a try. I'm downloading now.

My MW2 Videos

2010-05-11T13:39:00.003+01:00

Just posting links to three videos I've done from Modern Warfare 2.

Taa-daa!

Ever get so annoyed at your brother you just want to stab him?

2010-04-29T18:24:00.000+01:00

Yaaay! More video game-related acts of extreme violence! Last time this kind of thing happened, a Chinese teenager was stabbed in the head after being accused of cheating in a game of Counter Strike.

It appears that this time, however, we have a very simple case of sibling rivalry. Where one sibling stabbed another in the chest with a kitchen knife.

According to a BBC report, a 16-year-old Chilean boy was quite miffed when his 18-year-old brother turned on his Playstation without permission. We have no confirmation of which number Playstation was involved. He then went and retrieved a kitchen knife and plunged it into his older brother's chest, killing him. Yikes.

The boys had a rough history, having being abandoned by their mother and taken into care for 10 years before being taken in by a Belgian woman. Their guardian was away in Belgium at the time.

The youth said to the police that "things got out of control".

No shit.

Modern Warfare 2D

2010-04-18T21:55:00.000+01:00

Modern Warfare 2D is a simple, short and sweet 2D adaptation of Modern Warfare 2 (the title kind of says it all). Takes only a few minutes to play through but it has everything from the single player campaign. Yes, including that.

I don't want to give too much away, so just download it here and enjoy!

Plain Sight

2010-04-09T14:33:00.003+01:00

Plain Sight is a recently released independent game that's all about sword-wielding robots battling each other and blowing up. I bought it for the measly price of €9 on Steam and it's awesome.

MW2 Gun Stats

2010-04-05T13:27:00.002+01:00

This is a very cool and very useful page for anyone that plays Modern Warfare 2:
http://denkirson.xanga.com/715966769/modern-warfare-2/

Den Kirson looked into the files that set the damage and range of each weapon and compiled these very useful charts. For each weapon, you can look at and compare damage per bullet, range, reload time, effect of using a silencer and loads more.

Most interesting facts I've found:

The FAL has the highest damage per bullet over short range for assault rifles (55 damage per bullet).
The FAL has long range damage increased when used with the Holographic sight.
The FAMAS has the longest assault rifle range, followed by the ACR.
The Vector is the weakest gun in the game (25 dpb).
All of the sniper rifles have the same base damage (70 dpb). But the M21 EBR and WA2000 have lower damage multipliers for the crotch and chest area than the Barret and Intervention.
The Masterkey shotgun attachment for assault rifles has a huge range compared to the normal shotguns.
FMJ does not increase damage.

There's a section further down the page that details the health and damage of the Killstreak rewards, info on the effects of perks and loads more.

Introducing WeGame

2010-04-04T15:49:00.000+01:00

WeGame.com is a sort of social network for gamers that I've been trying out for a few weeks. It serves a few purposes for gamers everywhere and is definately something worth trying out.

Basically, WeGame is a network for gamers. You set up your profile, put in your gaming-related info and you're off. The main feature though is the free-to-download client which you can use to record gameplay video or take screenshots.

Recording gameplay video is nothing new and there are plenty of applications out there already (such as Fraps) but WeGame is the best I've found. It records video at 30 fps and doesn't record full-quality vids, meaning that games are still playable while recording. The only noticeable downside is that the game framerate drops to 30 fps while recording - noticable, but not unplayable.

I've recorded a few videos and have a profile over there with vids I've recorded (http://www.wegame.com/users/voodoodoll1654/) so if you're a gamer, get over to WeGame, download the client and get recording.

Real-life MW2 Training Level

2010-03-24T12:25:00.002Z

A real-life version of Modern Warfare 2's training level 'The Pit' was built by a fan a few months ago. This clip is from some gadget show where an SAS soldier takes on the real-life version of the level with a live ammo MP5 while the presenter tries to beat his time on the in-game version. It's a little naff... "I was on foooyyyrrrr!"

I didn't expect the outcome though...

Don't fuck with Chinese gamers

2010-03-22T16:43:00.000Z

Seriously... just... don't.

Here's what happened one gamer who decided to use a wallhack cheat while playing Counter Strike in a Chinese gaming centre:

Yup. He got knifed. In the head. With a rusty 12 inch blade.

And he survived. [Insert 'Final Stand' joke here].

Source

So, yeah... this guy's pretty good at MS Paint

2010-03-18T11:37:00.001Z

I've seen a few great videos of what some talented people can do with MS Paint, but this one features the ACR from Modern Warfare 2. This makes it extra special, in my opinion.

R.U.S.E. Public Beta

2010-03-09T09:31:00.003Z

R.U.S.E. is a new World War II-based RTS game that I completely forgot about until only a few days ago. I'd been watching the previews and gameplay video releases for a while and now I really can't wait to try it.

R.U.S.E. brings a new dimension to RTS games in the form of "special abilities" that can be applied to sections of the game map. For example, the ability to see where opponent's units are moving to or hiding your units until you fire.

Have a look at this preview vid of the "Pump Fake" strategy:

The great news is that the public Beta is open now and available on Steam. Just do a search for "R.U.S.E." and it'll show up along with the full game pre-order and a bunch of trailer videos.

I'll definitely be giving this a go later on. I think it looks far more promising than Supreme Commander 2.

All-in-one Emulator

2010-03-02T14:49:00.001Z

Puppy Arcade 7 is an all-in-one emulator package which fits neatly onto a CD (or USB memory).

It's got a ton of emulators, including:

Amiga (500, 1000, 2000)
Atari (ST, 800, 800XL, 130XE, 5200)
Amstrad (CPC, Plus, VEB)
Arcades
Colecovision
Commodore (64, 128, VIC20, PET)
GameBoys (GB, GBC, GBA)
GameGear
Genesis/MegaDrive
MasterSystem
MS DOS
N64
NeoGeo
NeoGeo CD
NES/Famicom
PC Engine/TurboGrafix
PSX
ScummVM
SNES
ZX Spectrum (16k, 48k, 128k, +2, +2A, +3)

... and more, apparently.

I haven't downloaded it yet, going to give it a go later. Seems like a handy package to have.

There are links to ROM sites on the page too.

Some gaming news

2010-02-26T17:16:00.000Z

This is just a few gaming-related announcements.

First, Steam has a new beta UI available. Open Steam, go to 'Settings' and there's a drop-down menu where you can opt-in to the new UI. It's pretty sweet and I really like it. It gives you gameplay stats with the Shift+Tab menu in-game and the look is just so much nicer.

Infinity Ward's Robert Bowling has announced that there absolutely, definitely will not be any Nazis or zombies in the upcoming Modern Warfare 2 DLC (link). Which is fair enough. So long as we get to take on some Nazi's in 'Nam when Call of Duty 7 comes out later this year!

The first expansion to the excellent Dawn of War 2 is coming on the 11th of March. 'Chaos Rising' introduces the Chaos army to the game and, presumedly, a new single-player campaign. €30 on Steam.

Next, a demo of Supreme Commander 2 is available online. I got mine through Steam, but I assume it's available elsewhere too. Gave it a little go. I like the new research tree and the UI. Controls have been simplified and there seems to be more action. Maybe things have been dumbed down since the game will also be released on PS3 and XBox. Try the demo to see if you like it.

If you don't like SupCom2, Comand & Conquer 4: Tiberian Twiligh t is out soon and Starcraft 2 is out later this year. Don't want to wait? Download Command & Conquer: Tiberian Sun for free or get Defcon (available for $10 on Steam). All good options!

Finally, if you haven't seen it yet, below is a trailer for the film adaptation of Tekken. It looks really, really terrible. Like, Super Street Fighter: The Movie terrible.

New SupCom2 Experimentals

2010-02-25T11:40:00.002Z

Videos of new Supreme Commander 2 Experimental units.

First, the Aeon Illuminate 'Pullinsmash' which creates a gravity field that sucks in any nearby units.

Next, the UEF 'AC1000'. Based on the AC130, this gunship pack a load of power.

And the Cybran 'Bomb Bouncer'. This has a shield that bounces all missiles off it and uses energy weapons fired at it to charge up it's weapon - and explosion outwards to take down nearby enemies.

Also, the Cybran experimental submarine, the 'Kraken'. Has a bunch of laser-firing tentacles. Enough said.

Cannot wait for this game. Released on March 2nd.

C&C Tiberian Sun is now free!

2010-02-14T12:51:00.003Z

EA (who took over Westwood studios in 2003) have added another original Command & Conquer game to their collection of freeware on their website.

The games available (yes, for free) are:

Command & Conquer: Tiberian Dawn (1995)
Command & Conquer: Red Alert (1996)
Command & Conquer: Tiberian Sun (1999) + Firestorm (2000)

Tiberian Dawn and Red Alert were already released as freeware in 2007 and 2008.

I can't wait to play Tiberian Sun again. I had it years ago but have long since lost the installation discs.

Get the games and get a LAN going!

Aliens vs. Predator Demo

2010-02-06T19:45:00.001Z

You may be interested to know that the demo for Aliens vs. Predator is out now on all platforms. For those of you who are PC gamers, grab it off Steam here.

I downloaded it today to my laptop and gave it a quick go. Seems pretty cool, especially the predator. The demo allows you to enter into online multiplayer deathmatches, which is nice. If anyone is up for a game, let me know!

Vinyl Fantasy 7

2010-02-01T12:18:00.002Z

Okay, this is incredible and I've only listened to the first few tracks.

Vinyl Fantasy 7 , by Team Teamwork, is a 12 track album of Hip-Hop mixed with the Final Fantasy VII soundtrack.

It's available for download at the site, for whatever price you wish to pay for it. Or, you can just listen to the songs online too. Can pay with PayPal, so I think I'll pay $3. That's fair, right?

My favourite so far: Battle Music mixed with 'Ante Up'. These guys are geniuses. They also have a similar thing with the soundtrack from The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, called, wait for it, The Ocarina of Rhyme.

Familiar looking building

2010-01-30T23:49:00.005Z

I took this pic on my phone when coming out of work earlier. It's the new building on the North Campus of NUI Maynooth under construction. One thing stuck out in my mind while looking at it: the classic 'DM_Crane' map from Unreal Tournament. If you've played it, you know what I'm talking about. Brings me back to my PC gaming youth. Now to climb up for the sniper rifle and UT damage...

First Post!

2010-01-30T21:41:00.001Z

Isn't this all very exciting. I'm only about 10 years behind the explosion of blogs. So I guess it'll be another 9 years until I start using Twitter.

I started this blog because I like to keep track of cool things I come across online and share some of it with others. I usually do that with Facebook, but then some of the things I feel like sharing, are only actually interesting to about 4 people and I don't want to annoy everyone.

Most of my blog posts will be related to, in no particular order:

Music
Games
Popular Science
Tech news
Funny videos of cats
Basically, anything I'm interested in.

Thanks for reading my first post. I'll try not write too much in subsequent posts, I know how boring it is to read an unedited constant stream of someone's thoughts. Hope you enjoy.