Last May 14, it took place the premier of the movie “El cosmonauta”. You can read about the event that took place in the cinema Callao in the post from the blog of the project.
That same day Luca and I were visiting Hollywood and the Universal Studios theme park, and yes, you can imagine which t’shirt did I dress for the occasion: “I support piracy (of my movie)”.
El Cosmonauta in Hollywood (“I support piracy”)
PD: during the whole day I only got one comment from Universal’s staff 
.
Filed under Uncategorized
The Château de Montségur used to be a Cathar castle dating from late XII / early XIII century. For some time it was the centre of the Cathar church, though today only some ruins remain. The castle is at the top of a 1,200m-high rocky mountain, some kilometres away from the small village of Lavelanet out of which the Trail des Citadelles started.
This was my first long run and first race just 2 weeks after completing Rome marathon. I had only run 2 days between then and today, thus I took it more as a run in the nature than as a race, no stress from the departure. I even took the photo camera as I suspected I could take some nice pics.
The race consisted of 20km from Lavelanet to the castle and back, going as much as possible through the forest and as little as possible through paved roads (basically the first and last kilometres and little else). The rain of the previous days, of that precise morning and the passing of hundreds of runners left many of the paths impracticable, completely muddy and enabling the funniest situations.
Trail des Citadelles (20km) profile.
Before having completed the 2nd kilometre my running shoes and socks were already completely soaked. Before the 3rd kilometre we had been running through some stretches in which the feet were covered up to the ankles with mud (chop, chop, splash!).
I love trails for they put you in close contact with nature, the variety of their landscapes, the absence of time pressure; even if I acknowledge that I am not particularly good with difficult descents which require some technique and equipment that I lack of.
Today I missed some mountain sticks. At the starting line I saw many people with them. I wasn’t sure if it was because they would walk instead of run. Indeed. The thing is that I would also have to walk a lot, uphill, through rocks covered with very slippery mud. Only during the race I understood why they brought them. Between the 4th and 5th kilometre we started to walk uphill more than run, and it lasted like that for almost the next 7 kilometres.
Montségur castle from afar at the top of the mountain (notice the footprints in the mud). Picture taken at about km. 5
The mostly walking uphill took a full hour to cover about 5 kilometres to the bottom of the castle stairs.
Montségur castle from below.
Inside the castle.
The views from the castle are stunning. The picture below does not make enough justice so I took a panoramic video.
Views from the castle.
From the castle to the end of the race most of the time we would be descending. In theory, this should have made it easier. But that was only the theory. That is when the fun began (to call it that way).
The way down started with the same stairs of the castle, which we descended with much care. Then some hundreds of metres of going up and down over more or less dry surface and finally the same kind of very steep descent, sometimes along and others crossed by water flows, fully covered with slippery mud.
I lost count of how many times I slid without any control on the verge of falling down. I do keep count of the 5 times that these detours ended with me, my face, arms, whatever it was… in the mud. They were not especially painful, but left you with hands and face covered of mud, having to wash yourself in the next current of brownish water. Other times the sliding left you looking uphill to the wrong side of the race hands in the ground to prevent a full-blown fall. As I was not the only one going through this, you can get an idea of the image…
Eating at ~ km. 12.
Around the kilometre 11-12 there was the only point of supply so I did a little stop to drink some Coke, eat some chocolate, etc.
After this stop, the mix of sliding / running continued for about another kilometre until we entered a forest of pine trees where the ground was a bit drier. There I was happy as I started running faster, less worried about falling and more focused on keeping the pace… until I bent my ankle… the same ankle I strained 3 times during winter. That one was painful. I had to stop and walk for some 2-3 minutes to recover from it.
It was then that I took the camera to film another short video as an update of the race so far at 13.4 km (in Spanish):
The making of the video, the self-deprecating humour of the situation lifted my morale. I tried the ankle, which responded positively, so I started running again.
During the last 5 kilometres, more or less flat, even if still going at times through water flows or mud, I tried to enjoy running a little. I think it was only at this point that I was overtaking others instead of being overtaken . I discovered then that instead of avoiding water flows and poodles, it was indeed better going through them as their bottom used to be firmer. The guys of the organization took it seriously and somehow made us literally run along the river for about 200m! That was another high moment of the trail, which I recorded here (excuse my French):
When arriving at the village, one final sprint and done. I mean, done.
Finish line.
My performance: 2h49’16″, 201 out of 366 finishing within the time given of 3h30′ (see Garmin records).
—
PD: All this happened in the 20 km race; bear in mind that at the same time 2 other races were taking place one of 40 km and one of 73 km (the runners having departed at 6am to run… 9 hours? 12?). My admiration to all those heroes.
Filed under Sports
This morning, as this post is being published I’ll be starting the 19th Rome marathon, together with my friends Serna, Manuel and brother Jaime.
I am very satisfied with the way I could train towards this marathon, no injuries this time.
Since running Berlin marathon last September 30th, I only stopped for a couple of weeks and swiftly started running again. Even if I started a bit late to pick up with the number of miles run per week (from mid December instead of mid November) I have amounted almost 800km in these last months, including:
You can see below the mileage run per week:
Maratona di Roma 2013 training season. Kilometres run per week.
A lesson learned from previous training sessions: when I noticed that some muscle or tendon was getting sore from too much training I did not hesitate in slowing down that week, instead of keeping up with the training until getting seriously injured. Let’s see today how it goes, anyway, as Jaime says, it’ll sure be a day for the epic .
Filed under Sports, Travelling
In these days in which the sequester is being often in the media, this will be a very brief post to bring to the memory a study prepared by Mitchell Institute for Airpower Studies, founded by the Air Force Association, “ARSENAL OF AIRPOWER: USAF Aircraft Inventory 1950-2009” [PDF, 6.5 MB], published in November 2010.
I wanted to bring forward some comments and two graphics:
- “To put matters into perspective, a single C-17 can carry the equivalent of 15 C-47 loads (as well as cargo that could never fit inside a C-47) and deliver that cargo anywhere in the world within hours without requiring en-route staging bases.”
- “The average cost of a flying hour over the past decade is around $23,000 (in constant FY11 dollars), compared to about $11,000 in 1985 and roughly $4,800 in 1970.”
- “For example, a single B-2 now armed with 80 Joint Direct Attack Munitions (JDAMs) could strike as many targets as five of the 75-aircraft 1991 Gulf War era packages.”
US Air Force fleet evolution 1950-2009.
US Air Force Airlift fleet, 1950-2009.
The keyword here is capability, not numbers.
I will come back to here in following posts.
Filed under Aerospace & Defence
In a few days (March 7th) Bombardier will provide a CSeries program update. I do not normally follow very closely this program, but I was reminded of it twice during the last month.
The first time was when a colleague shared the following article: “Bombardier CSeries: How will Boeing/Airbus Duopoly Respond?“.
The article is interesting as long as it tries to make a strategic analysis of the possible moves that Airbus would arguably have to make because of the entry into market of a new entrant (taking Boeing 737 strategy as similar to Airbus’). That theoretical exercise is… an exercise.
I found some arguments difficult to sustain:
I must say that I am no expert in commercial aviation market, but from my point of view, here are some rebuttals:
CSeries, 737 & A320 net orders and market shares.
In the table and graphic you can see that since the CSeries launch it started piling orders in 2009. If we compare its net orders to Airbus and Boeing ones in these years, the CSeries has captured a 3.2% of the market share, in contrast to 50.5% of Airbus A320 family and Boeing 737 46.4%. I would not derive from these figures that the CSeries is perceived as value advanted product.
It is curious to note how 737 and A320 families have been alternating market share lead year by year in the recent years.
“Price will go up also when delivery dates are confirmed, and we’re flying the aircraft. Whether we like it or not there is a Boeing discount. We’re being told [by our customers]: “We want 100 [aircraft], but because you won’t be on time, we want a discount.” I say, “Listen, we will be on time. We will be performing as promised. So, if you want to wait, wait.”
If I take that statement as truthful, and having myself estimated for years Boeing Commercial discounts, I would not describe Bombardier as “aggressive”.
As I said to my friend, rather than doing this strategic analysis about CSeries versus A320, I would have done it in the past about A320neo and 737, and now about A350 vs. 777 (where there must be really going this kind of analysis), take bold assumptions and check in a few years how the strategy of each company has evolved.
The second time was after this tweet from the aerospace analyst Scott Hamilton:
Bombardier expects 20-30 CSeries production yr 1, 120 by yr 3 1/2: earnings webcast. To reveal first production CSeries March 7—
Scott Hamilton (@LeehamNews) February 21, 2013
My impression, despite of Bombardier’s earnings webcast information, is that:
… the programme is closed by 2017 (1).
****
(1) A bold statement for my forecasting career, this one to be checked with some colleagues down the road.
Filed under Aerospace & Defence
After 6 months running together, it has come the time to retire the old Saucony Triumph 8 running shoes and start using the new Saucony Triumph 9.
Saucony’s: old Triumph 8 and new Triumph 9.
Let this short post be a tribute to the Triumph 8s, which have run to date over 770km, in several cities and countries, and including 6 races, among them a marathon and a half-marathon. A similar curriculum awaits the Triumph 9 pair: several races including 2 marathons and no less than 700 km in a few months.
Triumph 8s will live side by side with the 9s, as casual sport shoes from now on, instead of running shoes.
