Last weekend should have been the Beastie Triathlon. Hayley Laidlow had planned on doing it to raise money for the Beatson Cancer Charity. Unfortunately, the event was cancelled.

That didn’t stop her. She organised a local home made triathlon and I was happy to help by filming it.

If you’d like to donate you can do so here https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/hayley-laidlaw

“My husband was given the terrifying news that he has small cell lung cancer at the beginning of December. To say we were shocked was an understatement. He started intensive treatment almost straight away and was prescribed the highest level of treatment that can be given.  He has been strong throughout each and every treatment and he blows me away with how coragious and determined he is to fight this nasty illness. 

Due to side effects of radiotherapy, he spent a lot of time at the Beatson where the care from medical nursing staff was outstanding. During his stay we found the Beatson to be a safe haven for all of us. From 100% care the staff give to the facilities that is offered for patients and their families. 

I have decided to take part in the Beastie Sprint Triathlon on Saturday 25th July to raise money for the Beatson. There, I will have to open water swim 750m, cycle 17km and finally run 5k. This will be a huge challenge but for a hugely worthwhile cause.”

I wrote about my lockdown project to become a YouTube sensation here.

If you are interested in doing something similar this is what I learnt.

Equipment

I use an iPhone X. The video footage is 1080p HD and the sound quality is pretty good. It was also free as I already owned the phone.

The downside of using an iPhone was that the video lacked image stabilisation. This is OK, if I didn’t move the phone but if I did move it then the footage was jerky.

To improve the video quality I purchased a gimble. This is a device that steadies the camera. Unlike the non gimble footage, viewers did not get seasick when the camera moved.

The second issue was that the iPhone microphone picked up wind and other background noise. Many a take was ruined by a big blast of wind blowing in and deafening the vocals.

I purchased a mic with a wind sock. This dampened the wind noise and improved the quality of the vocal recording.

Editing

I initially tried a few free video editing tools but they were all too complicated. I’d previously learnt how to use Adobe Photoshop for a project called The Fat Minister.

I decided to try Adobe Premiere as it was a similar interface. It’s an expensive product but thankfully I get it for a discount because I work for a University. I’d highly recommend it. It is very easy to use and makes even the worst footage look professional.

Music

The music is completely free. I googled free music and found a website https://freemusicarchive.org/ I clicked on the first link on the page and that is the Bonnie Gardener theme tune!

I clicked on a lot of other links afterwards but I never found anything else as good as that first bit of music. It must have been fate!

As the season progressed I added in some other music. It is all from https://www.epidemicsound.com/ I had to pay a samll fee for the music but the choice and quality was much higher than the free archive.

Upgrades

The next step would be to upgrade the iPhone to a proper camera. Andrew has a good one. I’ll ask nicely to borrow it and then hope he forgets to ask for it back!

One of the joys of lockdown has been the opportunity to spend time at home. So much time at home. So, so much time… PLEASE HELP. MAKE IT STOP! LET ME GO!!!

Sorry. I’ll start again.

One of the joys of lockdown has been the opportunity to learn new skills. Some people learn a language; some people learn to play a musical instrument; I thought it would fun to learn how to become a YouTube sensation.

There was only one problem. I’m not very interesting! I wouldn’t want to watch a show about me so why would anyone else?

Instead I convinced my wife to be the star. She runs a successful gardening business and loves plants, nature and the outdoors. I told her I’d be her Svengali. Thankfully she was unaware of what the term meant.

We decided to make ten shows because that is how many Game Of Thrones made in their first season and it became the biggest show in the world. Game of Thrones killed off its main star in its last episode. You will have to watch to see if we did the same.

I recommend watching episode one and then episode 10. It shows you how much progress we made in ten weeks.

Episode 1:

Episode 10:

I’ll write a blog about how we filmed it and what we learnt. It was an interesting experience. Doing it every week required more discipline than following any race training plan!

This weekend I went for a socially distanced swim.

Social distancing is a silly thing to have to mention.

I have to social distance. It’s the law. Everyone is doing it. I don’t mention other laws I also did not break. This weekend I went for a murder free swim. This weekend I manged to avoid robbing a bank whilst swimming. This weekend….I think you get the point.

So, from now on, don’t mention you are social distancing. Only mention it if you don’t do it.

The last time I swam was pre lockdown. It was in Loch Chon (https://twinbikerun.com/2020/03/06/outdoor-swim-review-loch-chon-iain/)

It was cold.

This weekend the water temperature was 18.6C. Turtleometer nearly became turteometer soup.

My tips for swimming after being out of the water for so long.

1. Take it easy
2. TAKE IT EASY!!

It is not complicated. I have all summer to enjoy swimming. I will enjoy being back outside first and I will worry about getting the speed and distance up later.

I took up the challenge of https://twinbikerun.com/2020/05/07/run-everystreet-may-andrew/ to run every street. I thought it would be easy as I live in small town. I was wrong!

I went out on my lunch break thinking I could do it in an hour and that it would be 10K at most.

90 minutes and 10 miles later I had to abort the run and head home otherwise I’d be late for a work meeting.

What I took from my attempt is that it’s very hard to do it without a map. I wanted to challenge myself by trying to find my own way around town rather than relying on technology. But the mental strain of trying to remember which roads to visit and where I’d been was hard. I haven’t concentrated that hard on a task since my school exams!

New build estates are a killer to run around. So many dead ends and identikit houses makes navigation a challenge.

I got some strange looks from locals when I did run down dead end streets especially if the street was only a couple of hundred metres long. The locals must have wondered why I was bothering.

Long streets with lots of roads running off it are also tricky. I couldn’t work out whether I was better running the street in one go and then coming back to do the turn offs or just do each turnoff as I came to it.

Its an interesting challenge a mixture of running and mind skills.

I’ll try again but give myself more time.