Today I’ve mostly been at the Wigan Youth Zone. Have I mentioned before that it’s the biggest youth club in the country? Well, apparently it is. Some say that it’s the largest in Europe, but I couldn’t say.

I’ve been working on some of the IT at the centre, and we’re currently getting some fingerprint biometrics in.

It’s an interesting project, partly because of the perceived issues around privacy, databases and what we might be doing with the data. At least I know exactly what we’re doing with the data. We’re not using something off the shelf, but instead our own code, so I’m happy that we’re not slipping fingerprint images off to the police, the NSA or GCHQ.

So we had some fingerprint readers put on to the main turnstile into the centre. Not live yet, but it should be ready to go some time next week. I think that they look alright, and the system should be brilliant once it’s all working.

I was at the Youth Zone through most of the day, getting back home some time after 4pm. The training schedule says I should take a 4 mile run today. Through the afternoon it had been raining persistently. It rained all the way home and I was seriously considering running on the treadmill. However, anything over three miles is a real pain on the treadmill – it gets too hot, it’s monotonous and my feet and calves generally hurt after it. I probably run differently on the treadmill than when I’m outside.

The rain got heavier when I got home, and it was cold and windy. It was a hard decision, but I opted for running outside, despite never having gone out when it was raining. To be fair, I’ve been caught in the rain many times but never willingly gone out.

So I took the route down Narrow Moss Lane and back along Pippin Street, the same one that I took on day 13. It’s a good route, gently downhill and mostly gently uphill (apart from a bit close to the Beaufort when it rises quite quickly). The problem today was that as I was running further away from the house, I could feel the wind and the rain hitting my back. Which meant that the return was uphill with the wind and rain hitting my front and face. The return is mainly open fields, so the wind was whipping across the fields. It was reminiscent of running in the snow last year. That time I ended up taking a short cut and getting home quickly. This time I took the full route to get to the four miles.

When I did the run the other day it took 46:51, this time it was 44:55. Which made it the fastest that I’ve run 3-4 miles, smaller distances don’t count (for the purposes of this). So I ran in rain that was like the end of the world, and I ran the fastest. These two things may well be linked, but regardless, I’m very happy about this.

Next weekend I’m off to see T’Alarm in Llandudno. Some hungover conversations led to me going out running which led to this craziness. Quite a big anniversary.