maintenance

A glance at my last post indicates that it is a while since I last blogged. So to bring us up to date I wish you all a Very Merry Christmas. And a Happy New Year. If I’d have left it any longer, I’d be about to wish you a great Easter too but fortunately here I am.
Christmas was good and very busy socially and I felt I should take time to wind down a little so subsequently eased off of the blogging. I’ve still been running though, just nothing exceptional. 10 to 12kms every 3 or so days just to keep me in practice and to ward off the advent of the “Cheese Baby” that I could potentially have looked like I was about to give birth to.
I knew I had eaten a lot (although not perhaps as much as previous years) so did something that I very rarely do… weighed myself. I was prepared for the worst so was very happy to find that all of Xmas’s excesses had only culminated in an additional 2kgs on top of my average normal weight. To be honest, I would have been surprised at anything under 5kgs so 2 kilos seemed like a pittance.
Over the Xmas break, I signed up for the Marlow Duathlon in March. I’ve decided this year will not be a year of many races and instead I shall attempt things that are a little out of the ordinary of things that I haven’t done before so a Duathlon seemed as good a place as any to start. I also plan to do the running bits in the Vibrams and the cycling bit on the single speed… I’ve a feeling I may incur the wrath of the “serious” duathletes but I just want to enjoy it as much as possible and I’m not too hung up on how long it takes me to finish. With that in mind, I was laying in bed last night just before falling asleep and decided that today would be a good day to do my first bit of Duathlon specific training. I would get up and take the bike out for a spin and then return, change shoes and go straight back out and run.
It took a little will power this morning when I awoke to a chilly and overcast Sunday morning, but 1 capuccino later I was ready to take on the world. I prepared everything (bottle of juice for my “transition”, change of shoes, cycling helmet) and grabbed the bike from the garage. I’d decided on a 20km ride followed by a 10k run (the actual race is 7k run / 25k bike / 7k run) so jumped on the bike, hit start on the Garmin and set off on a vague idea of a route that I thought would cover about 20km. It was mostly winding country roads and once the initial chill of the January morning was overcome, it was a very pleasant ride. I pushed where I felt I wanted to but just concentrated on maintaining and steady but quickish pace. I arrived back at my garage after 21.25km, eased the bike back into position past the other bikes and my motorbike, changed into the Vibrams, swigged at the juice in my bottle, locked the garage and was on my way again. The shift from bike to run was the hardest bit of the whole exercise and felt a bit like Bambi as my wobbly legs struggled to go from a circular motion to a stride. Once the legs remembered what they were supposed to be doing, the running felt slow but steady and I soon got into a comfortable pace. I knew the route I was going to run (my usual out and back 10-12k) so turned off the brain and daydreamed my way through the next 11kms.
At the end, I felt better than I had expected. No worse in fact than if I had just done the run on it’s own. The overall distance was 7kms short of the real thing (4kms bike and 3kms run shy) but the 25km ride is topped and tailed with 7kms of running at either end and that is what I must tackle next. It’s all very well to attempt a run after a cycle but imagine that will feel an auful lot different if I have already run 7kms before the cycle and then have to go and do it again. Still, time will tell and today’s little excursion has boosted my confidence and given me an insight into what I still need to work on next time.

Soundtrack to this post: Louis Prima – Jump, Jive An’ Wail