Wrapping Up, and Looking Ahead

Been writing up a little reflection on my experiences with the Campus Europae exchange studies in Latvia: http://www.positive-ecology.org/cv/CampusEuropae-Latvia.html

Also, inquired about accreditation of courses for English. Went better than expected; with a little luck, it will go pretty well.

Out of the one China application that was futile, another opportunity has opened up. I'm trying not to get my hopes up, but at least it is one more chance.

Between Times

So, two of my three applications for going to East Asia have amounted to nothing; the decision on the last one will only become known mid-August. I'm not really hopeful anymore, but still waiting.

Meanwhile, this week I have started organizing accreditation of the courses I took in Latvia, and also of former lectures in biology for a potential teacher training in biology at University of Salzburg. I've been finding that I need to have biology, not only (but along with) languages and associated cultural issues be part of my work even in teacher training/teaching.
Should I really not make it to East Asia, the application for the second year abroad with Campus Europae will be handed in this summer... and I should have the money necessary for a little research trip in Europe.

Work is progressing with writing, both where publications and where my (planned, started, and immediately "resting") professional blogs are concerned. Planned timeframe: Finishing the first of these things this month. Let's see if I really manage that. Sure would be good to finally get a sense of progress... I've recently not felt like a researcher, even though I did some research and have been working on writing it up. It would be a lot better if I had a job (i.e., earned money) with that, but getting something published would be a step to breaking through my impasse, too.

Where training is concerned... that's another post today.

Recovery Week

The (lower) legs were pretty sore from the mountain marathon / Bergmarathon on July 5, and that for quite a while. Still, time to continue training - and blogging it.

• July 8: on the bike - 00:53:34 - 13.82 km - avg. HR 106 - TE 1.5
  Cross-training like that was very nice, I'm doing something this way, getting a low training effect for once, and still not abusing my legs.


• 7/11: running again - 00:50:30 - 8.44 km - avg. HR 138 - TE 2.5
  Running early in the morning to stay out of the heat (and to get in training before almost everything else), and it seems to have been very nice and easy. The legs are still a little heavy, but almost back to normal; I do wonder, though, if the heart rate is low because I'm doing better or because of some effect of overtraining...


• 7/12: biking - 01:09:05 - 20.78 km - avg. HR 109 - TE 1.4another nice and easy ride, not least, to keep doing something
  7/13: and back to running yet again - 01:22:57 - 13.89 km - avg. HR 148 - TE 3.3Looking, and feeling, good.

I am starting to think I really ought to find another event to train towards, and soon ;-)

Bergmarathon 2008 Report

By the organizers' description, Europe's most beautiful mountain run,
according to many participants, the hardest event...

70 km, 4300 meters of ascent are quite something, after all.
My GPS-POD actually recorded a distance of 85 km, but it jumped around like crazy...also, according to my Suunto t6c's analysis, I burnt nearly 10500 kcal.
A normal day's worth is 2000-3000 kilocalories.

It took me 14 hours and 10 minutes.
And yes, indeed, it is beautiful. And hard. - Just check out the altitude profile:

... read on and see more here.

Bergmarathon

Report is coming soon; posts while on the move (which were never finished) have been deleted