Outdoor lover. Lecturer and scientist at the University of Kent (and a bit of an engineer, as well!). Rower. Runner. Road cyclist. A bit of a geeky nerd, too. All opinions my own.
You might have wondered why during the run described in a previous post I had a camera strapped to my forehead, cyborgue-like. The intention was to film the whole race to keep it as a nice memento for all of us to remember – unfortunately the small 4 GB card ran out of memory 200m away from the finish line! (I guess I was thinking we would finish in under 50 minutes… optimistic! š )
Anyway, the lighting conditions were perfect and this time I managed to hold the camera quite well (read: not pointed at the sky during the whole race). Enjoy!
(hopefully you’ll not mind too much my constant remarks throughout the race… let’s say that a 5:00-5:30/km pace is clearly not enough to leave me breathless – to be honest I quite enjoyed not being completely dead by the end of the race!! š )
Been busying myself with some lab work lately, assembling a new interferometer – a refreshing and welcoming change from all that desk work I had been doing until recently!
No photo of the day, hence I had to make do with something from Flickr… š
Last week it was Election Day! All over the UK people voted for the General and Local Elections, with the polling stations opening at 7 AM and closing late at night (10 PM). Definitely a few differences from back home, where the elections are always on a Sunday and there are a few weird historic laws regarding them (such as prohibiting people from hunting…). And, perhaps more interestingly, the local elections are open for participation not just to UK citizens but to anybody who is legally in the country, such as EU citizens.
The mechanics of the local elections are also quite strange, I have to say… you don’t vote for a specific candidate who might head the council for a few years; instead, you elect a few people of your sub-region (in my case it included a few of the villages nearby) who will between themselves (and the other elected councillors from other areas) decide who is heading the council. Due to that, things like the image below are simply not there, and I have to say that my local councillors did not actually campaign that much – I did get quite a few leaflets regarding the general election, though! (I’ll leave the general election for a future post…)
This is the kind of local elections you’d expect to find in Portugal. Gigantic billboards everywhere, and people campaigning for both councils and parishes. Here you wouldn’t know that a pre-election campaign was underway unless you consulted the relevant websites!
Perhaps not surprisingly, Canterbury maintained the Tory-dominated council from previous years. Actually, practically the whole of Kent is Tory-dominated, council- (and MP-) wise; apart from Thanet which now has a UKIP local council and Maidstone (Labour) , everything else got the Tories. And as for me, I can’t say I could make an informed choice regarding the local elections given that I had scarcely any information regarding the candidates or their manifestos. Very strange indeed!
Ice on the windscreen at 6 AM – this took place just last week! It tricked me because there was only ice in the middle section of the windscreen, I’ve swiped my finger on the side and it looked just wet, not icy, I then had a nasty surprise when I used the wipers! š
Thankfully now there’s a balmy 13 degrees C outside! Not bad, if it wasn’t for the very strong winds that came with the temperature increase…
And why was I driving away at 6 AM? I guess you already know the answer… š
Back to work! (albeit on a shorter week this time) The weather has made a turn for the worse, it has been very windy over these last days which makes cycling a bit more challenging (especially when you have the wind and the rain on your face). And the fact that I’m riding a 20+ kg commuter bike fully loaded with pannier bags does not help! š
Race day! Yesterday it was finally the day both myself and my fellow colleagues whom I have been coaching were waiting for – the Whitstable 10k run! We did ok, the main goals were accomplished and we had a lot of fun with everybody cheering us on the way!
And to top things the race was followed by a nice BBQ party at my place – summer is coming, definitely!
Again, this photo of the day was actually not taken by me (because I feature in it), my thanks to the guys from the Romanian Social Club (in Canterbury) for taking it!
This was another photo they took of us during the race. I'm actually smiling!
Today the “photo of the day” is not actually mine because I’m featuring in it! š I’ve been doing these parkruns in Canterbury on and off since January (and when I say on and off I really mean it, as we are already in May and this is only my 5th parkrun!), they are a wonderful opportunity to do a high intensity training (timed 5k run at maximum speed, with 4 hills to conquer!) and meet interesting people too. In this particular occasion I managed to beat my PB and lowered it to 20:27. One of my goals for the year is to go under 20′Ā – but that is going to be painful as I have to sustain an average of 04:00/km throughout the 4 hills in the course! š
I really like this photo because not only I’m having a half-decent expression and my running form is actually not that bad, but you can see the sense of fun and quirkiness that goes in these events – indeed that is someone pushing a buggy down there! (we actually have two regulars doing that every Saturday!) We congratulate ourselves at the end, smile a little bit for the cameras and get cheered by the fantastic volunteers along the course (I will volunteer soon too, I really need to give back to the community!).
Tidying up the garden in preparation for a big BBQ party happening over the bank holiday weekend! So much garden waste that had to be cleared…
Now all we need is some grass seed and it will look great!
I just love Pad Thai noodles!! From time to time I indulge myself with a nice big box of chicken Pad Thai, complete with lots of peanuts and dried chillies topping it over. Yum!
Hello there, and welcome to my personal web page/blog!
My name is Manuel Marques, and Iām a lecturer in the School of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Kent (United Kingdom). I am also a researcher in the Applied Optics Group at the same institution. My work lies mostly in the area of Applied Optics, namely white light interferometry and its two/three-dimensional variant, optical coherence tomography.
Outside work I'm a keen runner/sculler/rower/cyclist, and I do enjoy being in the outdoors (photographing them is a bonus, too!). Other hobbies include tinkering with things, both big and small (not always with a positive outcome, I must say), travelling, reading, in no specific order.
