My Liverpool Half Marathon

So this is my first non-egyptology post on the blog. However, running a half marathon for the first time, I think is worth shouting about.

I have been training for a while now but was very anxious before the race as my last training run showed up a some tightness and pain in my right knee. As such, I had not been running for a week. Onto the raceday then! I met up with some colleagues from university and headed down to the dockside in Liverpool. It was busier than I had expected. We lined up at the start line and then after about ten minutes of waiting the front of the group were off. As I crossed the line I managed to high-five the celebrity starter: the runner and “Record Breakers” presenter Kriss Akabusi. What a start!!

The route went from the dockside up towards princes road via parliament street. It then went around Princes park- bigger than I thought and then onto Sefton Park. Before the run I had the idea that this section would be the hardest and dullest part of the whole run, as during training I have always found that Sefton Park is a boring circuit. However, this was not so! a quarter of the way around I also managed to chat to another person running for Macmillan, called Jim. This gave me a small boost (I bumped into him later in the run also). The route then left sefton park and went towards Otterspool park and onto the promenade. Now it was time for the final long stretch…

Along the final long, long straight I could see the Wheel near the Echo Arena and could feel myself getting closer. It was at this time that my legs (specifically my knees) began to hurt a lot. I looked down at my watch excessively during the 11th mile, trying to work out how quick I needed to be going to get to the finish line in 2hrs.  As I passed the 12 mile marker I knew that under 2hrs was possible so tried to dig in and push myself.  Towards the finish, I took out my headphones so I could hear the crowd, I had my name printed on my shirt and everyone was cheering me on. This helped no end and made me feel fantastic. I took one more look at my watch 1:58.30……… and RAN! Crossing the line in 1:59.37

The day was topped off by some nice sunshine, a meal at the Clove Hitch and a great match at Anfield with Alex! Even though the distance was a push and did hurt! it was also brilliant and feels amazing to have completed.

In the long run I will be doing much more running, so PLEASE have a look at:  https://www.justgiving.com/dan-potter

My Research Diary

So, this week I have been very busy. I think I have realised that the laws thermodynamics apply to my desk and the shelves around it, as I seem to be collecting more and more bits of paper and folders! Desk entropy is obviously a real phenomenon (http://www.phdcomics.com/comics/archive.php?comicid=575).

That said, everything is going fairly well. I am now well under way with the translation of a lot of the original sources I will be using for my thesis, these include the Late Egyptian Miscellanies, Late Egyptian Stories, Penitential Stelae, Late Ramesside Letters, The Qadesh poem, and much more to come. As I am coming to the end of my 1st academic year then I am also beginning to look towards completing my first piece of writing proper. I must say this is both exciting and also rather scary, no-one wants to read a boring article and I definitely don’t want to read my own writing and think that either.

In the very near future I will be presenting a paper at CRE xiii entitled “Coping with Uncertainty: the Use of Faith in New Kingdom Egypt” I am also in the midst of writing another abstract for the International Conference of Young Egyptologists, I am also attempting to create a personal database of the texts I have translated so that they may be searched lexically.

Anyway, that gives you a little snapshot into what I’ve been up to in my PhD studies. I will keep you all updated and maybe try and write a longer, more focussed post in a week or so.

Dan