Holiday - first days

Started well, with a run (got a bit lost) and a swim: Run: 6.59km at 5'28" Swim 1,008m in 22'45" (12 m pool) That was Sunday. Monday: swim only, 1,008m in 22'18" Tuesday morning: 5.01km with Judith, Natasha and Philip at 5'57" moving (with some dawdling)

In London - 2 parks

Staying in Victoria, so up to St James and then Green Park. 6.24km at 5'30" overall (5'24" moving). Felt ok

First day of programmed training for Aberfeldy: brick

2hr19'12" on the bike, covering 63.84km at an average speed of 27.5km/hr Then 25'44" covering 4.36km at 5'54"/km running (down to rickety bridge, back via home farm lane and through the village

Ulsteinvik

A three day, two night visit to Ulsteinvik allowed time for a 5km and a 10km run. Neither was fast. 5.14km at 5'29/km and 10.15 at 6'04"/km (although the average moving pace on the longer run was exactly 6'/km Both with Mike, the second one handicapped by the previous day's exercise and the previous night's drinking

Edinburgh morning run

4.86 km around Edinburgh, at 5'27". Time 26'28"

Rickety bridge

6.34km at 5'21" per km, which I suppose is good, as it felt awful. Perhaps last night's prosecco wasn't completely helpful!

Catching up

7km on treadmills in a Glasgow hotel gym on Wednesday 7th December, (2km warm up at 11km/hr and then a pleasing 5km at just better than 12km/hr).

Then 12 km around Hyde Park, Green Park and St James' Park on Thursday 8th December (at a bit better than 11km/hr),

And then about 7.3 km up and down the glen on Sunday 11th (slow and horrible!)

And additional 26.3 km since I last posted.

7.5km around Hyde Park

At an average speed around 5'17" (moving pace, allowing for traffic lights and that)

Turriff aquathlon

The Turriff sprint triathlon was due to happen today, but the lashing rain meant that the bike leg was binned. So it was a 760m swim, and a 6km run (in cold, wet and windy conditions). My first aquathlon!

The swim time (including the transition to run) was 17'08" (of which at least 2 minutes were getting out of the pool, pulling on clammy running gear and getting to the official start of the run. So the swim looks to have been 15 minutes or better.

The run was timed at 29'11" and officially about 6 km from the timing mats (although the Nike+ thought around 5.34km and 31'. So the pace was somewhere around the 6 minute mark, probably. I'm taking the official race distance as gospel! A bit slow, although the last km was a ripper, as I suddenly felt strong and was breathing well.

HRM around 170 throughout the run.

Bike/run brick

20 km on the bike, at a speed of just under 28km/hr (which is good), and then a 2.01km run in 11 minutes, just to shake out the legs.

Back in business

After a ten day layoff, I gingerly went back out running yesterday (23/1/11). 6.07km in 33'09" - a pace of slightly better than 5'30" per km. The course was the rickety bridge, anti-clockwise with an additional tiny loop by Ken and Lyn's house. No serious after-effects, so I'm back in business. I'll try for 7km tonight.

Reassuringly, I'm still 3km ahead of my aggregate daily requirement to make my 1,000km target in 2011.

Also went out on the bike for 25km on Saturday - first ride with clippy pedals. Not very quick, but I really wasn't trying very hard!

Keeping it up

Up earlier this morning, and decided to seize the moment with a run before breakfast.

5.38km around the Rickety Bridge loop, at an average pace of 5'35" per km - only barely faster than yesterday's longer run. Partly excused by slippery/squishy underfoot conditions for some of it - but not really fast enough to be considered a tempo run, and not long enough to count as long and slow.

At least I got out there - and now only need another 5.2 km this work to maintain the necessary averages.

And we're off!

A lateish night (home at about 2am) at Max's, but stayed sober as a judge.

So up at 11am, and off for the Pitmunie loop plus the rickety bridge.

9.43 km, in 53'06" - a pace of 5'38"/km which is fine for a longer slow run, especially in the conditions.

Cool and breezy, with difficult footing, especially on the hill up to Ardneidly with packed ice all across the road and only patchy grit and by the river, where the choice was ice, hard-packed crunchy snow or mud.

Ahead of the curve already!

A New Year, new target

Right. Here we are at the end of 2010, weighing 77 kg, and with the West Wight Triathlon (2 hours, 9 minutes), and the Methlick Duathlon (1hr 32 minutes) under my belt.

So that's the baseline. I've got "before" photos stored with gut sucked in and gut relaxed from the front and side.

In 2011, the aim is to complete an Olympic distance triathlon (1500m swim, 40 km bike, 10km run - target times: 30 minutes, 90 minutes, 55 minutes plus 5 for transitions - total time 3 hours) as well as do the West Wight triathlon again in a better time, and various other 10k runs (Garioch, maybe Edinburgh) and some other du/triathlons (Westhill, Inverurie, Bennachie, Banchory, Huntly (sprint).

On this blog, I'll try to keep a cumulative total of distances and times, as well as race results so we can all see the changes and hopefully improvements through the year.

Another objective is to run 1,000 km through the year and get my swim time for 1,500m to less than 30 minutes by using Total Immersion techniques more.

And I'll be coming out for sponsorship as specific events emerge!

Back from the Isle of Wight

Covered about 40km in two weeks in the Isle of Wight (running) - including a 14km and a 10km run. Plus my IoW bike arrivedand I tried out the triathlon route - estimating 1 hr 20 for the full 35km.

Some nasty hills, some fun downhill sections. At least the run is flat!

First milestone - Garioch 10k

Well, I passed the first major milestone today - the Garioch 10k (details here - a nice flattish 10k around Inverurie, on a day which reached 14 deg and clear blue sky and no wind. Fab conditions, but a little hot and sweaty.

My time was 56 minutes 39 seconds, making my pace 10.6 km/hr. A little disappointing, as I was hoping to break 55 minutes, but still my personal best since about 1990. In training a couple of weeks ago, I did 11.7km, and at a pace not far off this, so I can only assume the late night and whisky on Friday night (watching Sport Relief, ironically) did some damage.

On balance, I'm pretty pleased with this. I'll need a lot more strength and miles in my legs for the triathlon, though.