Avoiding the world’s most expensive metro fare for my commute

Avoiding the world’s most expensive metro fare for my commute

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It has been a long time since my last post about my life in the UK. I have finally got a job which goes well in London since March this year, which is a rail consulting company, and I am a full-stack developer in the company. Unfortunately it is located in Central London (the closest stations are Chancery Lane and Farringdon), understandable because the company wants people to commute by rail as Farringdon is the central point of the rail…

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BLDSA Champion of Champions (Dover)

BLDSA Champion of Champions (Dover)

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The open water race season has started and my first event is BLDSA Champion of Champions. This event is 3 races, 5 miles, 3 miles and 1 mile, held successively on the same day, with the ranking determined by the total time. The race course was a triangular loop of 800 m length, i.e. 10 laps, 6 laps and 2 laps for the 3 races respectively. 5 miles The water temperature was reported as 15.3°C by the organiser. It was…

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2022 year review

2022 year review

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The year is coming to the end and it’s time to refer back to what I wrote at the beginning of the year, to see what I have done and what I have failed in this year. This year is, again, another disaster as I have failed so many things, including my job and my marathon swim. The failures are now affecting me so much that I can no longer get on with my life. My achievements in career, swimming…

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English Channel relay swim

English Channel relay swim

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Update 2022-11-22: Unfortunately our swim ended up as a DQ due to the a failed changeover at 04:52. According to the observer log, Ingrid missed the deadline and entered the water at 04:55, making my 1st shift overrun by 3 minutes. As a result the swim was declared invalid by the CS&PF committee. We hope to try again in 2023. All times in this article are in British Summer Time (UTC+1). Photo credit to my crew Paul Cribb unless otherwise…

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Train trip to the North West and Midlands

Train trip to the North West and Midlands

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On the last weekend I had my second long-distance train trip this year in order to do races in the North West and Midlands. Although the trip ended up nice, the preparation was a mess and I had to written off a few tickets due to changes of circumstances. Trip planning I was going for a race in Windermere, from the south to the north. The race registration was 07:15 – 08:00 at Fell Foot Park which was also where…

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Race report: BLDSA Windermere

Race report: BLDSA Windermere

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Today, I attempted to do my second marathon swim race this year but unfortunately I didn’t end up well. I pulled myself out just 3.5 km from the finish due to extreme leg pain. This blog article is only about the race itself. My marvellous train journeys will be described in another article coming later. Motivation The race of swimming the whole length of Windermere, at 16.5 km, is one of the longer distance marathon swimming races in the UK,…

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Race report: SEOUL Nailsworth

Race report: SEOUL Nailsworth

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On the summer bank holiday, I went to Nailsworth to race orienteering. It was a very steep courses with plenty of route choices and contour reading. In order to save words I ain’t going to show every leg here, only those with significant route choices. 5 to 6 I and the majority of people used the blue route (1513 m), but a few used the green route (1608 m). There were 7 up-contours after the valley on the final part…

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What will be my future?

What will be my future?

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It has now been 11 months since my swimming life has been damaged, and 6 months since I lost my job in Bournemouth. I moved to North West London in June instead of South London as originally planned, mainly because the train service is too bad there with most lines only running every half an hour in South London. North London is dominated by TfL-run services, including Tube and Overground, while South London is dominated by National Rail services run…

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Race report: Lincoln City Race

Race report: Lincoln City Race

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I went to the University of Lincoln earlier today to participate in Lincoln City Race, organised by Lincoln Orienteering Group (LOG), which is the 16th race of the UK Urban League this year. Journey to the race The event centre is approximately 1.1 km from Lincoln train station, therefore in order to get there I just need to take the train. The normal route for me to get from my home, Cricklewood, to Lincoln is to take a Thameslink train…

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World Trail Orienteering Championships 2022

World Trail Orienteering Championships 2022

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After the PreWTOC TrailO Adventure, we had a rest day before we head to the world championships. I went to the city pool again to swim, while Chi Hang, Louis and Sophie also went there as well being attracted by the water slide. However, I didn’t swim a lot – only 2.5 km – as I still hadn’t fully recovered from my illness two days before. Model event The model event was held on 19 July in Borowice. There were…

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