rions jaune….

talks at CIRM with special tee-shirts

another tee-shirt issue

I bought this burgundy mountain equipment tee-shirt last time I was in Coventry as I found the play on the seam as a crack rather clever. (As if I needed new tee shirts!) I later reflected that the posture of the climber is quite wrong as this climber should not be holding the rope when falling: as I became rather painfully aware a few years, ropes can become dangerous when stretched in the vicinity of fingers… So I dropped a line to the company, which kindly replied to my email that they had digitised an actual picture of a falling climber, hoping no one would take this tee-shirt as a recommendation for lead falls! (Their site actually opens with a great picture of a climber on the iconic Totem Pole, Tasmania.)

for a coincidence

Last night in Vancouver, we were walking back to Chinatown under an expressway, in a rather uninspiring section of town. Waiting at a cross-light with another couple on the other side. As we crossed the street I glanced at the man and noticed his Chamonix North Face tee-shirt. He happened to do the same and… noticed my identical Chamonix North Face tee-shirt! We shared a laugh at this (huge?) coincidence and continued on our respective ways. (He was not taking part in MCMskiii in case this seems a likely explanation!)

JASP, a really really fresh way to do stats

winning entry at MCqMC’16

The nice logo of MCqMC 2016 was a collection of eight series of QMC dots on the unit (?) cube. The organisers set a competition to identify the principles behind those quasi-random sets and as I had no idea for most of them I entered very random sets unconnected with algorithmia, for which I got an honourable mention and a CD prize (if not the conference staff tee-shirt I was coveting!) Art Owen sent me back my entry, posted below and hopefully (or not!) readable.

San Francisco ½ marathon [1:26:32 – 15/7533]

Just completed the 2016 San Francisco ½ marathon. And this despite Air France’s best efforts to keep me out of it (and thanks to my son!), a long flight and hardly any sleep before the 5:30am start. This is the most brutal, unforgiving, relentless ½ I ever ran, with a significant positive differential of more than 700 feet (215 meters) and according to other runners with tracking devices possibly 0.3 miles extra (close to 500 meters). And fierce winds on the Golden Gate Bridge, both ways! So I am utterly flabbergasted by the outcome, which sees me arriving 15th altogether and first in the over 50 group [and third French!]… Even though I presume the training for Monte Rosa, the (unsuccessful) attempt at Monte Rosa, and the additional bike rides the previous month helped, although I did very little speed sessions. The race got hard the moment we started climbing, first a little hill near Fort Mason, then the slope to the bridge that truly slowed me down. Crossing the Golden Gate Bridge both ways was exhilarating, although I could not see one pile from the previous one, being in a cloud the whole time and Sun being not up yet. And although this section of the race was the most exposed, with no runner around to run in packs. Thankfully, there was one big downhill run around the 11th mile (that I passed in 1:11:11!) which helped me gaining back some time if no position, and facing the last climb, which seemed to last till the finish line in the Golden Gate Park… My overall time of 1:26:32 is surprising in itself if I account for the elevation: by Naismith’s rule, that would brings the time on a flat terrain under 1:20, a feat I only achieved once. And many other things are just weird in this race, from the 7500 runners I never saw, many of which finished over 4 hours, to the number of young winners (the third male runner is 17, the first female runner 20, a 14 year old came 22nd and even weirder the second female in the 5k is 8 year old!). And to the fact my ranking changed several times from 18th to 16th, 15th, 17th, and eventually 15th again.  [Congratulations to the organisers, by the way! The whole race was brilliantly organised with all kinds of amenities I had never seen before. And thanks to the supportive Erythrean taxi who took me from the airport and offered me a free ride back if I ended up in the top ten! It sounded like a joke at the time….]