It's been a while...

Ages since I posted anything, but not from want of trying.  The bloggy thing on my iPad has chosen to conk out, losing several posts, so I gave up.  Which I suppose IS "from want of trying"...

Anyway - since the Jennings I've been doing a bit, interspersed with doing not much.  The cycling's been fairly consistent with a commute most weeks and out with the club pretty much every weekend.  The running's been pretty pants though, with just a couple of runs average, and some weeks just the one.

We had a brilliant, brilliant day out at the Cumbrian Cracker, which goes from Grasmere, over Red Bank and down Coniston to Cartmel, then comes back through Grizedale.  Did it with Herb, Rick, Rich and Dave, and even the newbies managed to stay with us to half way.  There's quite a climb over Field Broughton to the A590, and we split into two groups there.  There's also a proper pull up from the visitor centre at Grizedale before dropping back into Hawkshead and back to Grasmere to finish.  Great day out on an utterly perfect day.

Coniston on the way up - Perfect...

Since then, which was 6 November, I've had a couple of ropey weeks, mainly driven by work and last week the cold from Hell, which just knocked me out for three days.  I recovered enough to get out with the club on Sunday, when we did a nice steady ride (good job it was steady, as I was pretty snotty and I the summer bike's gone away for the winter now).

The most significant event has been having my now-annual medical, which showed me that I haven't imagined the fact I've been getting fatter.  I was a bit overweight a year ago, but I've put on a stone since then, my cholesterol is up (although not massively so) and my body fat % is unbelievably high.  Something Must Be Done.

I think this might be the jolt I need to get fit (which is good, as I've got the Brass Monkey in about ten weeks and I don't want to be humiliated).  I've set myself the target of losing 10lbs by the New Year and another 10lbs by the time I take the kids skiing in February.  That would have me back at my proper "fit weight" over a sensible timescale, and hopefully in good shape for the Three Peaks in April.  We'll see - progress in the first five days has been good anyway!

I'm only going to weigh myself once a week, so this Monday's weigh-inis the baseline.

Wish me luck...

Better week with a soggy finish

This feel I finally felt like a combination of travel, idleness and other stuff hadn't conspired to make it impossible to get out and do stuff.  I managed to run Monday and Tuesday, then cycle in on Thursday, run again Friday and finished the week with a decent 53 mile ride with the club.

I ran on my own on Monday, with a cheeky little 6:40 mile in the middle, which surprisingly didn't feel completely eyeballs out.  Then on Tuesday I ran at work with Herb, with a steady 5m on the canal feeling nice and steady.

Thursday was time for my first ride in on my Boardman winter bike, and all seems lovely, although the nobbly tyres will have to go.  I wasn't quite as much of a drag on Herb this time, but I was still struggling to hold his wheel a lot of the way.

Friday's run was a change from up and down the canal, with a trip down to the Fisherman's and a hillier return through the streets of Bingle.

Saturday saw me at Xscape in Castleford watching M & L reacquaint themselves with skis and snow and stuff - which thankfully went very well, so the next couple of lessons are booked in.  They both enjoyed it, and M was clearly getting some of the "muscle memory" back as she was snowploughing pretty confidently by the end:

Today's club run was planned to be a A+B ride up to Arncliffe then over to Malham, but with a big group and slippy roads Herb and I decided we'd probably cut off and come home a different way.  It was good to be out with a larger group, but the leader(s) didn't do much of a job as there were people being spat off the back all the way up Wharfedale.  We sort of regrouped at Threshfield, but then we were off again at a fair old lick.  Herb and I came back down the Hawkswick side of Littondale, which is a beautiful little road, then headed home through Hebden, App'trick and a cuppa at CAv Pav.  53 rather damp miles, but we were saying if we can keep up a decent mileage through the winter we should hit the spring in better shape than this year.  Which will help as we've booked a September trip to Pollensa for a long weekend's cycling, and I really want to get up the Puig Major without struggling this time!

Long time no post

Seems ages since I last posted anything, and it would be nice to say it's because I've been eyeballs out training - but sadly not.  However I've not been idle, and it was good to get my bike mileage over 300 in September.  I reckon 300 miles a month in the summer has to be about par, with really 100 mile a week being nearer what I should aim for.  My running mileage has been shocking - I suspect I'll be lucky to be averaging 10 miles a week over the summer.

However, I do seem to have got back into the habit of doing something three or four times a week, and I'm pleased to report I've forced myself to cycle into work once a week three out of the last four weeks.  My new Boardman has now arrived, so the bike shed's looking a bit crammed til my summer bike goes on its hibernation trip to The Herb's cellar - but I'll probably keep that out for the Cumbrian Cracker at the start of November.

New bike - discs and nobbly tyres...

I'm enjoying my single speed, although it's amazingly hard work on knobbly tyres compared with slicks - I rode in on Friday with a very understanding Herb who patiently span along as I gave it full beans at about 1,000 rpm to just hit 20mph!  On Sunday we forced ourselves down to Ilkley and did a very soggy 30 miles up to Linton and back down the main road.  One of the lads did a "Wiggo-esque" stint on the front so we averaged nearly 25mph on the 3 miles from Cracoe to Embsay.

I've also been buying stuff to make the winter commute more bearable (as well as bikes!) - new Hope lights front and rear, slick tyres for the single speed and the CX and other assorted bits and bobs.  Just need to drag my arese out and do it now - we've decided to run tomorrow and bike Thursday as there looks to be a slight improvement in the weather, but I think I might aim for 2 commutes a week plus a couple of runs, then try and get a longer run in at the weekend plus club run Sunday.

All depending on passouts, of course...

Daft muddy stuff and a single speed adventure

Now I have a tendency to want to try new things - I have a hankering to do an accelerated free fall course.  I want to ski down the Pas de Chèvre in Chamonix.  I want to learn French.  But on Sunday I watched a sporting event I have no intention of ever doing - the Three Peaks Cyclo Cross.  Herb and I were a bit short of time so rather than join the Ilkley crew for an 8am start we drove to Gargrave (well why spend three hundred quid on a posh bike rack if you're not going to use it to avoid cycling on the A65?).

We then took the back roads through Bank Newton, Rathmell and Lawkland to Cold Cotes where we met Rick and Bob, plus the Ilkley CC group who'd ridden over a few minutes ahead.  This is where the racers come off Ingleborough, their first "peak" and hit the road before heading off round to Whernside.

We saw plenty of thrills and spills, with some seriously muddy boys and girls riding down the slippery grass bank to the road.

We hung around for about an hour, and watched the majority of the field come through.  Towards the end we saw the bizarre spectacle of Steve Brock and his mobile mechanic set up - which looked more like the two wheeled equivalent of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.  Still - it keeps him happy...

Steve and his Heath Robinson bike...

We headed off home, via Bell Busk this time for a fairly easy 48 miles.

Then today it was time to try out my new single speed Genesis bike.  Fortunately Herb wasn't with me as I was late setting off, and also whilst it's great fun, and the simplicity of the thing is very satisfying, it pretty much has a maximum speed of 20mph on the flat, as the 42-18 gearing is just about low enough to get me up the hills on the "valley" way to work and back, it's a bit high for powering along the flat bits.

Still - I shall persevere, as once I've cracked the single-speed bit I'll flip that back wheel and give fixed a go.

Gulp...

Bonus!

Risk Committee (of which there now appear to be about eight a month) finished a full 90 minutes early today, so my "after work" run (which was instead of cycling to work on my new single speed - too wet to take it out!) became a lunch run.

Up past Tesco, left then as the first mile beeped I speeded up to a comfortably brisk pace, which turned out to be about 7:25.  I kept this up for three miles then slowed to about 7:50 for the last mile to give me a steady five miler at an average of 7:30 or so.

Pleasant.

Golf tomorrow, then London Thursday but I'll hopefully bike and maybe run as well on Friday.

Jennings River Ride

Had a good week last week for exercise, riding and running 4 days out of 7, with over 100 bike miles done.  75 of which were yesterday on the rather splendid Jennings River Ride, which was a tour of a load of Cumbrian bridges that were washed out in the floods a few years back.

I was with The Herb and Rick, plus Dave A who'd opted for the shorter, 38 mile route as he wasn't sure how his climbing legs would be.  We started out from Keswick after the usual Herb-journey, consisting of food, gaffing and poo stops, with a nice flat ride up Bassenthwaite, where we turned off at the Castle Inn Hotel (scene of a crap weekend with Kazza a couple of years back) and crossed our first rebuilt bridge.

This led to a more undulating, but not testing, section to Cockermouth where we said goodbye to Dave, as the medium route had a feedstop there.  We continued to Workington for our, rather paltry, feed by another bridge.  There was then a veritable collection of bridges as we headed down to Ennerdale Bridge then back up through Loweswater to Lorton, where we rejoined the medium riders to climb over Whinlatter Pass.

I'd done this on the C2C a year or two ago, and then simply sat on Rob's wheel all the way - however this time there was a large complement of folk on mountain bikes walking and weaving their way up.  I was chasing an irritating fat bloke who'd been overtaking us then dropping back for about ten miles, so I went a bit into the red zone up here, but whilst it's fairly long it's not massively steep and I was soon out on the main road and climbing the last bit to the Forestry Commission place at the top.

The descent was a bit hairy, but we were quickly at the next, even weedier feed stop - "A shortbread biscuit and a banana! What more could a man want?" asked the nice lady.  "Erm...a sausage roll and a cheese butty?" I suggested.

Herb on Newlands with the steep ramp straight ahead

Next it was off up Newlands, a new climb on me which Rick told us is "not steep".  My arse - there's a lot of it that's not steep but there's a brutal straight ramp at the top which I only saw one other bloke ride up apart from us.  You can just about see it in the picture above, and the relief on my face in the photo below taken at the top is palpable!

Phew! Note the walkers behind...

The descent from Newlands was magnificent, and as we turned left past Buttermere YHA (ah, memories...used to go once a month when I was 6!) I was thinking to myself it was pretty much done - 60 miles on the clock, only 15 to go and 12 of them are downhill or flat.  Rick had also assured us that Honister from this side is "easy".  Yeah, right...

The descent from Newlands into Buttermere, with Rick's yellow jersey just visible near the front of the cars

It's perhaps not Hardknott-steep or Wrynose-sustained, but the upper section is tough - steep bit followed by a non-rest section, then more steep and finally a lung-bursting finale past the quarry workings to the top.  Again I saw nobody else ride all of it apart from us, and I was weaving like mad to keep some momentum going.  Looking at the GPS track there was a full half mile where I averaged only 4mph.

The calm before the storm - the flat approach to Honister

And there it is - the steep part visible just left of centre

Finally it was over, and we saw Borrowdale spread out below us - well we would have had there not been a massive cloud heading up the hill towards us - so it was on with the jackets and a careful descent into the cloudburst, before Herb turned into his "Meat" alter-ego and put the hammer down past the Bowderstone, Shepherds and the Lodore - Rick and I worked together and just caught him before the roundabout in Keswick.

We finished with a total time of 5:40, but a moving time for me of 5:12, so an average speed of just over 14.5mph.  Satisfying and a superb set of climbs to finish, but that's the last time I ever believe my big brother when he tells me something's "not steep"!

What a blast!

Ran yesterday lunch - along due to a lack of Herbs and Newmanators - 5 miles (with a Garmin that stopped after 3.8m) at something around 7:30 pace overall but the canal bit was probably nearer 7:20 - which felt ok generally.

Then today I had promised myself faithfully that I'd bike to work and back, so I was a touch concerned when paul the squeaky weatherman warned of high winds and squally showers - sounded more like the shipping forecast than north yorkshire.  The second stage of the Tour of Britain had been cancelled due to the winds.  However the promise, even if only to myself, had been made, so 7am saw me up with Maisie, "getting my shit together" and I was out of the door in an outfit I really wasn't sure about by 7:30.

The ride along Shires Lane felt tough, and by the time we were climbing up Cross Bank my legs were already feeling how they used to feel back in early 2009 when I started this cycling and running nonsense - when I always seemed to train tired.

Herb kindly dragged me down to Cross Hills where the wind started to come from a friendlier direction, and we arrived at work after a 47min ride in - a long way slower than the old days when we did it in under 40 quite often, but this was a proper windy day and an average of 18mph isn't bad given the conditions.

We were expecting it to have eased off by sometime, but it was still a stiff breeze and it had now decided to rain as well.  Again Herb played the strong man and I was happy to take very short turns on the front and increasingly long ones sat in his slipstream.  Home was about 48 minutes, so respectable at 17mph for a windier, wetter and more uphill ride.