AI sure is a hot topic right now, and I see a lot of people arguing about it. To a lot of people around here, I’m the “computer person” they know and I get asked a lot about AI. I’m going to suggest a lot of things can be true at once.

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Our solar system’s rocky planets – Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars – may have formed from two rings around the young sun, rather than a single disc

Infections are increasingly being linked to a higher risk of dementia. In the latest research, scientists have found that being treated in hospital for a severe infection seems to raise the risk of developing the condition over the next five to six years

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It's that time of the year again. Spring is in the air, and runners are gearing up for Norway's biggest running event and, according to themselves, the biggest relay event in the world: Holmenkollstafetten. This road running relay race goes through the heart of Oslo and has taken place almost every year since 1923!

75.000 runners representing more than 4.500 teams line up to run the relay, and Oslo is absolutely packed to the brim with people sharing the joys of physical activity. Though some might say that the festivities that typically follow the race is the highlight of the day. I might be inclined to agree.

Teams comprise all sorts of groups of people: Friends, running clubs, businesses, charities and whatever else that bind people together. Many businesses use this as an excuse to get their employees to enjoy physical activity followed by social bonding afterwards. That is true for my employer. They pay the entry fees and book a great location in the heart of Oslo. It is the base before runners venture out to their starting points across the city. And after the race there is a banquet with great food, entertainment and all around good vibes.

Inspired by other businesses, our running group last year took the initiative to establish an "Elite Team" where the aim is to run the relay as quickly as possible.¹ The selection process is simple. A tryout race consisting of a 1000 metre time trial to compete for ten long stage spots and a 400 metre time trial to compete for five short stage spots.

As I ran the tryouts last year as well as this year, I thought it would be fun to analyse and compare the stats from each years time trial.² Given that I'm a slow twitch runner, and a marathoner by heart, even a 1000 metre race is a full on sprint for me. Safe to say that a short stage is off the table for me. My one and only shot of a spot on the team was running the 1000 metre race.

I run with a Stryd footpod/power meter (an old version referred to as "Stryd Wind"). The power and pace charts below are both from the web version of their running tracker log data analysis software thing called Powercenter. The heart rate chart comes from the magnificent Intervals.icu, which is my go-to platform for advanced workout data analysis. I've, of course, also linked to the individual entries in my personal workout log.

2025 race

Last year's race took place on 25 March. It was a cold and crisp day, with the sun peeking out and next to no wind.

Last year I ran the 1000 metres in 3 minutes and 1 second. For the imperialists out there, that is roughly 4:51 per mile pace.

Power average for the race was 542 Watts, while peak power was 622 Watts.

Heart rate average was 181 beats per minute and I maxed out at 191! This is only four beats off my estimated max of 195 bpm.

2026 race

This year's race was delayed due to the conditions and took place on 24 March. Almost to the day a year after last year's tryouts. The weather wasn't nearly as nice, with a grey and overcast sky and a little bit of wind.

This year I ran the 1000 metres in 3 minutes and 2 seconds. It is around 4:53 per mile pace.

Power average for the race was 543 Watts, while I peaked at 650 Watts.

Heart rate average was 177 beats per minute, and I maxed out at 188. Seven beats off my estimated max, and three beats lower than last year.

Reflections on the race

As I'd been ill for almost a week not two weeks back, I doubted my fitness. Because of this, I ran a much more conservative race. Whereas I reached peak power (622W) on the first bend last year, I ran more even this year before steadily increasing the power on the final straight hitting a significantly higher peak (650W) right on the finish line.

Today's time was a second slower. Looking at the data, I should've run faster. The heart rate charts hammer this point home. Last year I spent two full minutes in "the purple zone" (185+ bpm), while this year I only managed just shy of a minute in that same zone.

That tracks with how I felt throughout the race as well. Last year I felt like I was working at my max from the get go. That I couldn't increase the pace/power much the final 200 metres illustrates that I didn't have anything left in the tank. Conversely, today I felt like I was quite in control all the way up until I turned it on towards the end of the final bend, and was able to keep increasing the pace/power right up to the finish line. Even though I felt like I mechanically couldn't increase the pace further, I felt like I could've kept it up for a while yet.

My conclusion is that I'm significantly fitter today than I was last year, despite running slower. I should've run a little faster, and at least broken three minutes. I think I executed this year's race better, but I simply left it too late before turning it on. This is extra annoying because I almost caught a guy right before the finish line, but he held me off to beat me with two tenths of a second in the end!

Points to note

Weight

At 69.5 kilograms today versus 68.2 kilograms on race day last year, I am 1.3 kilograms (1.9%) heavier this year. Knowing this going in, together with the recent illness and no race specific sessions to prepare this year, it played a part in making me think I wouldn't be able to defend last year's time. I should've trusted that my base fitness is significantly better this year.

Training load

Your fitness is determined by the work you've done over a longer time period, not just the last couple of weeks. And as my workout log shows, I put in much more work the first couple of months of 2026 than I did in 2025. And my total workload for 2025 was again much higher than what I managed in 2024. Even at 40 and at a higher weight, that translates to better fitness!

Footpod accuracy

It's also interesting to note that now that my weight has gone up a little, the Stryd footpod appears to be more accurate. The estimated distance this year is spot on. Last year, it was 20 metres short. I ran both races in the same pair of shoes (only used once in-between) and on the same track. As the Stryd only utilises the user defined weight value to determine an air resistance coefficient and multiply the natively calculated Watts/kg to present an absolute power value, it makes sense that a weight change potentially estimates the calculations.

My weight setting for both races was 100 kg. It's impressive (and a little bit confounding, given the changes in estimated distance and pace) seeing that the average absolute watt levels are nearly identical (542W last year versus 543W this year) despite the weight change. It means that the pod's native watt/kg calculation picks up the weight change very well.

Caffeine is one hell of a drug

Last year I was a regular coffee drinker at the time of the race. I did my regular race day routine of supplementing my normal dosage (around 80 milligram) with an energy drink containing about 100 milligrams of caffeine 30-45 minutes before the race. If you'll recall, my adventures in quitting caffeine commenced shortly after.

An adventure it has been, and I should write about it some time. The long and the short of it though, is that going into today's race, I've been more or less caffeine free for the past four months. I was excited to discover how this would play out when trying to take advantage of caffeine as a performance enhancer. And make a difference it did!

Although it's clearly impossible to measure the performance effects, I can only say that I've never before in my adult life noticed anything like the effects that I got from ingesting caffeine today. I've used caffeine in similar dosages before every race I've run over the past decade. Today hit different. I was wired and alert and felt almost supercharged. In fact, five hours later, I still do. Which is why I'm just finishing up this post long past my bedtime. I'm convinced, perhaps even more so than the race execution, the caffeine high contributed to the fact that I never really felt tired throughout the race.

Caffeine is clearly a performance enhancing drug. There are studies that confirm this. But I'm now convinced that someone who doesn't consume it regularly will experience greatly increased effects compared to someone who's adapted to its effect through daily consumption. The obvious caveat being that there appears to be a genetically determined difference in how people respond to caffeine, so your mileage may vary.³

I'll continue to stay off caffeine in my daily life, and only turn to it when I'm in dire need of its effects. To ensure that I get max potency when needed, but also because regular consumption is not without downsides to me.

Did I make the team?

Last year, I did!

For this year, the final results aren't in yet. But I'll be sure to update this post when they are.

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Andreas in Can I hear a difference between MP3s and uncompressed audio?:

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Super interesting and well made post from Andreas, complete with samples where you can test for yourself. My hearing's so poor I couldn't even discern the artefact in the sample used to showcase what an artefact sounds like! I really need to enable to transcoding on my music server to save space and bandwidth.

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Have a read of this by Sian Norris, everyone:

borg 1.4.4: if you package for big-endian architectures (most stuff is little-endian nowadays), you will need this patch:

https://github.com/borgbackup/borg/issues/9521

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borgbackup 1.4.4 was just released!

Some important fixes, a few small new features, check the change log please!

https://github.com/borgbackup/borg/releases/tag/1.4.4

#borgbackup #backup #linux #macos #freebsd #openbsd #netbsd

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A weather-forecasting AI was used to recommend routes for American Airlines flights between the US and Europe to reduce the formation of contrails, which contribute to global warming

A weather-forecasting AI was used to recommend routes for American Airlines flights between the US and Europe to reduce the formation of contrails, which contribute to global warming

A weather-forecasting AI was used to recommend routes for American Airlines flights between the US and Europe to reduce the formation of contrails, which contribute to global warming

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Congrats to rolandrc on github - he just discovered and fixed an ancient memory leak in borgbackup's C code.

https://github.com/borgbackup/borg/issues/9497

Hi! If you like this piece and want to support my work, please subscribe to my premium newsletter. It’s $70 a year, or $7 a month, and in return you get a weekly newsletter that’s usually anywhere from 5000 to 185,000 words, including vast, extremely

Two lawsuits are being brought against giant tech firms for the dangers their apps pose to young people. Columnist Annalee Newitz says the outcome of those cases could dramatically change social media for the better

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