Month: March 2010

  • Heart rate and power

    Heart rate and power, originally uploaded by samwebster. Here is an example of why I think it’s helpful to know both heart rate and power. Here’s a screenshot of a part of today’s ride, climbing the main hill. You can see that heart rate rises early in the climb and continues to increase as the…

  • Neuroscience podcast no. 3 – Neurotransmitters

    Phil tried really hard to teach me about neurotransmitters in our most recent podcast. We talked about how they work and went through a list of the key neurotransmitters and gave an overview of what they do. Many of them will be talked about in more detail in future podcasts! My poor brain. MP3: Neuroscience…

  • Cast off

    by

    in

    46 days post-fracture and I had the fibreglass cast cut off my left leg today, and my foot and its x-ray images examined. All seems good (although the callus looks messy on the x-ray – it would be great to look at the same bone in 12 months time to see the remodelling). Notes from…

  • Walking

    by

    in

    41 days of healing. I walked 3km or so with Annabel with no pain in the area of the repairing bone today. At about a kilometre I had a dull sensation in the region of the fracture that quickly faded. After that the only discomfort was from the cast flexing and crushing my toes and…

  • Week 6 in plaster

    I’m finally into my 6th and hopefully final week in plaster. My foot is feeling really solid still, and the only discomfort I’m getting is from the plaster cast flexing and squashing my toes and banging against my heels. Walking is still a bit of a hobble because the cast prevents any ankle movement and…

  • Anatomy: the orbit & superior orbital fissure

    On Monday we went through the bones of the orbit, what the superior orbital fissure (and inferior orbital fissure and optic canal) were, and what went through it (and them). To review the bones of the orbit look at these images. Hover over the bones to be reminded of their names. We also noted that…

  • 5 weeks in plaster

    I’ve done 5 weeks in plaster now. That’s 35 days in a cast from my toes to my knee on my left leg. From the end of week 4 the foot started to feel really solid again with no pain. I can sometimes wiggle it and find an interesting sensation, like probing a painful tooth…

  • How busy?

    by

    in

    You never realise how much you do until you stop. This seems to be particularly true of training. Skills swims, endurance swims, long runs, 800m track intervals, ME swims, easy bikes, cruise intervals, hilly bikes, long bikes, tempo runs, sea swims, maximum strength sessions, massage and foam rollers. When you stop all that a huge…

  • Neuroscience podcast no. 2

    Another neuroscience podcast is out: Phil tells me why my weight is fairly stable, what happens in my brain when I get hungry and what changes when I have eaten. We talk about the adipostat, leptin, ghrelin and obesity, why we choose particular foods and how dopamine, opioids and (probably) serotonin are involved. MP3: Neuroscience…