Getting Fitter...

L is shattered and so am I, so we must getting fitter then...

I take a day off cycling but not for that reason. I drive in so that I can collect the wetsuit that has been delivered to work.

When I try it on at home, it’s more like a straitjacket than a wetsuit or perhaps that’s just how you wear them. When I show it to L she agrees it’s perhaps a bit on the tight side, so I go straight back to the computer to order a bigger one.

Finally we get restarted on the squash. I did half expect another cancellation from my opponent due to the likely high temperature and humidity on the unventilated courts but no we go ahead and play. We couldn’t have got outdoors for tennis anyway as the Nottingham Open (or whatever it’s called now) is on at the moment.

In the end it’s not even that hot and humid on court, well no worse than in winter when they’ve got the heating on full blast. Perhaps we're just now conditioned for all weathers.

L suggests we skip food and pretend its Friday. She says it feels like we never see each other. Well that’s because we’re too busy trying to get fit so that we can keep up with each other. 

Calling today Friday also presents the problem of what do we then call tomorrow? 

(Thursday 6^th June)

Security Breached

I finally manage to break in to our local Primary School. Oddly today the high security gates are wide open, as is the main entrance and I waltz straight up to the main office unopposed and leave the Active Kids vouchers on the unattended desk. 

It’s not quite the ‘milk tray man’ operation I expected. I haven’t seen a soul and could now go for a free wander around the school but resist. There’s probably an army of storm troopers due any minute.

It’s a bit cooler on the bike today, in fact there seems to be a bit of rain in the air but thankfully it doesn’t come to anything.

Tonight, more dog training and L runs with Sweatshop who do free runs several nights a week. Even the hard sell on their gear doesn’t appear to be that hard because L hasn't come back with anything yet.

(Wednesday 5^th June)

High Security

I always diligently collect Sainsbury’s Active Kids vouchers and then hand them over to our local Primary School. Today I try but couldn't get anywhere near the place. The existing high security fences have now been joined by high security electronic gates controlled by keypad access. So I have to abort, I’ll try again tomorrow. In my day they used to do that sort of thing to keep the kids in, these days it’s to keep undesirables baring vouchers out.

I'm back on the bike today and I risk the freshly stone-chipped road through Borrowash. As long as you ride two foot away from the kerb, where’s there’s a scale model of something akin to the scree slope at the top of Snowdon’s Watkin Path, its ok. Some drivers don’t seem too happy with that but that’s their problem. I pay my ‘road tax’.

L points out a book called ‘Sex, Lies & Triathlon’. What a great title.

 

A couple of quotes

“Basically, a good hard workout is like the exact opposite of casual sex: You always dread it beforehand, but afterwards you’re always really glad you did it.”

“Competing in the Ironman is hardly the kind of windfall one normally associates with winning a lottery. It’s like getting a letter in the mail that says, in giant 24-point type, ‘CONGRATULATIONS! YOU MAY HAVE ALREADY WON 12 HOURS OF EXCRUCIATING MISERY AND PAIN!!’”

Sounds great, it’s on the Christmas list.

Talking of the ‘T’ word, swim training tonight. We again head up to Sheffield’s Olympic pool at Ponds Forge and I do the required 16 lengths e.g. one mile. L has to outdo me of course and does a full hour but then she does have double the distance to do next week.

(Tuesday 4^th June)

Waste Not Want Not

A teenage girl has been rescued after she became stuck up to her waist in quicksand in Morecambe Bay and the RNLI has warned members of the public ‘to always be vigilant on the sands’. These are the sands we're running across next weekend.

Doggo is in post-holiday depression mode again and this morning refused to eat a single scrap of his breakfast. MD, of course, kindly helped himself. Waste not want not, that’s his motto. I shall adjust their respective teas accordingly.

Before then Doggo has to survive dog training without fainting through lack of food. Mind you, if he faints he won’t bark, so all’s good.

(Monday 3rd June)

Project 70.3 Recce

Today 'Project 70.3' continues and I get up at ridiculous o'clock to watch the Nottingham Outlaw Half Ironman. The dogs are happy to accompany me but L is immovable in bed.

It’s an interesting recce as we join in with the big crowds who are watching. Poor old Doggo pretty much quivers with excitement from the moment we arrive, clearly expecting me to put him in the car boot and join in. Next year mate.

When L regains consciousness she texts to ask if I’m enthused by the swim. Of course not but I have certainly learnt many swim to bike transition tips. For a start it appears you can’t put lycra on when wet, so many of the athletes swam with it on under their wetsuits. Which will make it damp and therefore not warm, which surely would be the point of putting on arm warmers. Interesting. I definitely think I would need arm warmers for a bike section that start at 7.30am in the morning.

I did feel a bit sorry for the leader after the swim, who had a bike problem and needed a new wheel. This must have cost him 20 minutes but the he arrives back in 4^th place after the 56 mile bike. Wow.

4:23 for the first one across the line isn’t too sluggish but he doesn’t win because someone from the second wave is quicker. I think they need to sort the starting order out a bit better for next year.

In the evening we head over to visit Son, now that we are allowed to, post-exams. Daughter is there waiting for us, having been dropped off by her father on route home from France.

It’s an entertaining evening. Son and his girlfriend are quite a double act and entertain us in the White Horse pub again, then on the journey home Daughter takes over with her one woman show. Turning her supposed holiday nightmare into a highly amusing stand up piece.

She says that her holiday has ruined her sleep pattern but she’s not normally this animated. What she means is that the holiday has corrected her sleep pattern and she’s now in the same time zone as the rest of us, temporarily at least.

(Sunday 2^nd June)

A Sting In The Tail

It always take around about a year for the pain of a Lakeland Trails race to dull enough in order for me to feel ready to enter another one. Today we are at the Staveley 17k race, which is where the Lakeland Trails Empire started out 10 years ago. So happy birthday.

They direct us to the car park from where we walk to the start on Staveley Recreation Ground, which takes us past the conveniently placed Hawkshead Brewery. Which is conveniently, at least for today, no longer in Hawkshead. I smile at it in a ‘see you later’ sort of way.

As we arrive, the 10k-ers are arriving back from their little bit of torture and the children’s fun trail was just setting off. Which looked temptingly simple and gentle because I’m not sure how fit I am for this. 

There’s the dodgy knee of course and to make things worse, I hurt my back pulling some tents pegs out the other day. No idea how, and they say sport is how you get injured. Not true! That has taken a couple of days to recover but seems ok now...

As we register they hand us our souvenir technical t-shirts. They have a nice range of these for all their events. The only drawback being is that we have picked the only event with an orange one, again. They did this to us with Ullswater in 2011.

Then its 1pm, the Kookaburra All Stars Samba Drumming Band are in full drumming mode and L is about to start. She’s in the ‘Challenge’; I start at 2pm in the ‘Race’. Gulp. Before which the Kookaburras oddly go AWOL and then reappear short handed. Presumably the rest were still getting acquainted with the Hawkshead Brewery.

I sort of enjoy the race at first. It’s all uphill but the first few miles are on some blissfully un-Lakeland type tarmac. I bet L hated that bit. Even after then, it's the least rocky, least muddy race of theirs that I've done so far. It's also the hilliest.

When a marshal announces the 10k point I think phew, we’re over half way but no, he means it's 10k to go, not gone. Oh dear and my feet hurt. I probably have the wrong shoes on, I’m wearing very un-cushioned trail shoes but as the ground is so dry and hard normal running shoes would have been fine.

Near the end, they have promised us a ‘Sting in the Tail’. At first I think this is the sequence of unwelcome stiles across the last few fields but no. What they mean is the ascent of something called Reston Scar, which has a grinning photographer at its summit. I don’t grin back.

The plummet down from there to the finish is almost as painful as the climb up was. All that for a secret pudding from the Cartmel Sticky Toffee Pudding Company. Although this proves to be not so secret and is actually the chocolate one L got at their Christmas race. Still I would have given that up for more water and some sports drinks out on the course. It was very hot and I was parched because they only had two water stations out on the course.

I also couldn't find the water at the end and wandered around in ever decreasing dazed circles until L grabbed me and trust a cup in my hand. She was not a happy bunny either, mainly because she'd only just finished, having had an hour’s head start on me. Oops.

Apparently Jonathan Brownlee's training partner won the race. Enough said.

With the race complete, it’s a choice between the proffered complimentary dip in the River Kent or perhaps a dip in the brewery instead. No prizes for guessing what we chose. Let me introduce you to Brodie's Prime, almost makes it all worthwhile.

We even had chips and then curry when we got home. Naughty folk are us.

(Saturday 1^st June)