The anatomy of a walk in the mountains

Yesterday the wife and I took a walk in the western Brecon Beacons, and courtesy of the "Runtastic" app, I am able to supply the exact 411 on how it went:
Total distance: 7.6 km
Time: 1 hr 48 minutes (not counting a 2 minute break half way up (only needed by me resulting from my COPD affected lungs) and a five minute break at the summit)
vertical ascent: 405 metres.
A mountaineering guide issued by the British Alpine club in the 1930s suggested that it was reasonable to add an extra half-hour to the journey for every 1000 feet of ascent, which makes our transit time quite good, I think. The pitch was steady and unrelenting, going into a series of steep steps at one point, setting my poor lungs on fire, if only briefly. But it gave us a good cardio workout, and in a much pleasanter atmosphere than your average, sweaty, testosterone rich gym.

PARALYMPIC DISPATCH

We are thoroughly enjoying the games, despite an interminable opening ceremony in which it took far too long to bring in all the athletes, making a potentially exciting showcase almost tedious. But perhaps our expectations were too high following Danny Boyle's triumph (though not the closing ceremony, which was an awful mish-mash of inclusiins had no real direction or thrust).

But once the games proper started, we could enjoy, with the rest of the nation, the wonderful feast of athletics, demonstrating what we should already know: that the competitors, regardless of their disabilities, are elite performers at the peak of their abilities and producing competition of the highest standard.
I note also it is now politically acceptable to regard the men and women as sexy (which some of them definitely are) and that other formerly forbidden areas are now up for discussion, as we have seen in Adam Hill's excellent "Last Leg" programme on channel 4, with its highly entertaining section "IsitOKto?..." spot, where people send in questions like: "IsitOK to ask how an athlete with no arms wipes their arse?"
The answer: it is OK to ask, though no one was quite sure what the answer was!