The blog of Steve Root

  • Marathon training, turning planned run times into distances

    I’m training to run a marathon (Run Rootie!) and basing my training plan on the Chris Evans book “119 days to go”. That training plan is based around time you spend running rather than distance to run each time.

    I like the approach but it’s made it really hard for me to plan my running routes. Now I know that I’m running around 7 minutes per km I wanted to convert every run duration into distance and add it to my calendar.

    To do that, I made a spreadsheet with a few formulas, then exported a CSV file in a format calendars like, import it into my google calendar, and quicker than Steve can run a marathon I now have every training run suggested time and distance in my calendar

    If you’re doing the same thing, here’s my spreadsheet you can download an change to suit your own marathon date. It’s a ODS file (which is Open Document Spreadsheet format) that will open in Excel and many other spreadsheet applications.

    Marathon Training PlanDownload

  • Sharing a plane cut out for use in videos (a banner tow plane)

    I recently made a video for a new youtube channel and created a plane towing a banner graphic. The plane came from a photo that was shared with a creative commons licence. That licence requires onward sharing of my modified file, which is a great idea if it saves someone else the time of creating something similar! Go do good things with the time you saved, and here’s the image.

    The image is a PNG with a transparent background and i used it

    Piper Super Cub flying for video banner

    The image is a PNG with a transparent background and I used in a video as a moving title like this:

  • Alternatives to ordering from Amazon

    Amazon has it’s place as a supplier, but for many things I’d like to avoid their marketplace and buy directly. So, I’m making a public list for myself so I know where else I can look for suitable alternatives.

    Please comment if you know good sources for other products, it will help me and maybe help others. Thanks

    NameURLProducts
    Kenablehttps://www.kenable.co.uk/en/Cables and IT related (computer, audio, network) and accessories. Example, HDMI 2.0 cable, £3 each inc VAT & post £1.07

    Reasons I am trying to avoid Amazon:

    Their product listing and search is awful.

    My experience is the product search results are often for different items than the search term implies. Sponsored listings appear to be prioritised over more correct results.

    I don’t believe they pay their morally fair share of tax

    Tax is complicated. I have no idea how to solve that. Multi nationals will always move money to the lowest possible tax environment before paying dividends to shareholders. That is the nature of our imperfect global tax system and not an Amazon issue alone. Therefore I feel using smaller UK based businesses or wholesalers for a similar spend is likely better in relation to funds reaching our government that can then be spent within our society. Example: https://www.taxwatchuk.org/amazon_tax_cut/ “Amazon UK Services Ltd 2019” Profit: £101m, Tax: £6.3m. 6% doesn’t feel like a fair tax rate to me.

    They have issues with counterfeit products

    They have a system of collocating stock from different sellers in their warehouse if the item is the same. If a seller sends in 100 fake memory cards their fake stock may be sold in place of a seller that sent in 100 genuine memory cards. Even without the colocation, Amazon has a poor reputation for ensuring the products they offer via their market place from third party sellers are safe or legal to sell.

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