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Sunday, January 23, 2005 |
After the post I just wrote about running, I checked out the Great Wall
Marathon site. Maybe I will run the marathon this year, I still have 4
months to practice for the race. I also found back some pictures of
myself running in the 2002 edition. Check them out here,
select 'Great Wall Marathon' under 2002. On the index page one of the
pictures is me (crossing the finish line with a tight bandage around my
knee to reduce the pain). If you do a search on 'chijs' there I found 5
other pictures. Anybody wants to join this year? The race is on May 21
this year on the Great Wall about a 2 hours drive from Beijing.
5:18:54 PM 
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The fastest way between two cities in Norway is a route through Sweden, Denmark, Holland and the UK. At least that[base ']s what MSN says.
4:56:50 PM
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The nice thing about Sundays is that there is a bit more time to do
sports than on weekdays. Today I decided to run a half marathon (21.1
km) in the gym. I first did a warming up: 2 km slowly jogging (12
min.), 10 min. of bike riding, 10 min. of weight lifting. Then I
started to run. It went quite well, 11.4 km in the first 60 min. and
then I slowed down a little bit. At 1h 35 min and 17.5 km the machine
suddenly stopped. I don't know what happened, but maybe it's programmed
to stop after 95 minutes?
Because I could not restart the treadmill right away (had to wait for
about a minute) I decided to call it a quits. Too bad. But then again,
maybe it's actually good. I always tend to build up running too
quickly. I started to seriously run again just before Christmas, and
this was already my 3rd run over 13 km in 8 days. Maybe I should take
it a bit easier in order to avoid injuries. The last time I ran a half
marathon (the Great Wall half marathon) I only trained for 4 weeks or so and completely ruined my meniscus afterwards. I couldn't run for about 3 months after that!
4:52:00 PM
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For all Apprentice fans: Donald Trump married his long-time girlfriend and model Melania Krauss
in Palm Beach this weekend. In typical Trump style he partly financed
the wedding by making business deals out of it: he got a 50% discount
on the USD 1.5 million wedding ring by giving the jeweler some free
publicity, he sold the photo rights to the wedding, and florists lined
up to provide the flowers for the lavish wedding.
1:40:23 PM
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When I was in Holland over Christmas it struck me how silent it is
there at night. Even in the center of Rotterdam it is often silent in
the middle of the night. In Shanghai there is always some noise
somewhere. Hooping cars, road or building construction, noisy trucks,
it goes on 24/7. The Shanghai goverrnment is now considering to set up
a noise control plan, because 50% of all complaints to the police are
noise-related. Measures include setting up plastic screens along
elevated roads and regulating urban construction.
There is one solution that is probably much more effective, but until
now has always been overlooked. Pass a law that obliges developers to
put double-paned glass in all residential buildings. For some reason
(probably construction costs) even the most expensive buildings have
single layer glass in Shanghai. Putting double layer glass in will
greatly reduce noise pollution. But not only that, it will also reduce
the amount of energy used. Shanghai buildings do not have heating, as
the city is located just south of the Yangtze river (all cities north
of the Yangtze have heating, south of it none has). So people used
mobile heaters or airco units to control the temperature.
In summer this has led to an energy shortage that was solved by forcing
factories to only work at night. In winter many companies (including
some multinationals such as Bertelsmann) are not allowed to switch on
their heating on Friday. Forcing developers to put in double glass
would also greatly reduce the amount of energy used.
11:50:00 AM
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© Copyright 2005 Marc van der Chijs.
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