Daves Random Ramblings

Months of training and following a marathon training plan I got from the McMillan running training plan led me to this past weekend in Brighton.   My training had really slipped in the last couple of weeks before the event so with a target time of 3 hours and 10 minutes, which is the "Good For Age" qualifying time for the London Marathon (being a 47 year old male). Alarm went off at 6am, straight downstairs for a bowl of porridge and some proper "leaded" coffee which I'd not had for the previous week (I switch to decaf everything the week before an event). Showered, contacts in, the bag was packed and we were on our way to Brighton. I'm glad my mum is as chatty as she is in the back of the car as it distracted me from the build up of nerves I was already experiencing.  Its like you've been studying for months for an exam and now you're on your way there.  In the intermittent lulls in conversation I was just zoning out and offering myself encouragemen

 Its been an interesting start to 2022.  But let me roll the clock back a little bit to the latter end of 2021 after the Brighton Marathon (which I'm sure you've read about in my previous blog entry).  Two weeks after that I did the London revolution Ultra.  2 days after that I finally moved into my new home. So much more space than I was used to which just means there are now more places to lose things, but given I'd been working from home since 2020, it was nice to be able to leave my bedroom and have an office.  The garage in the background is now a home gym set up for my zwifting which now also includes running as well as cycling. Xmas day I cooked for more people than usual in a smaller than usual kitchen.  Ironic that in a place which is a few hundred square feet bigger, I have a smaller kitchen.   But work progressed on the house.  Had some walls painted, new electric points installed. Brand new (not Argos) furniture is now in place, the most recent is a very nice L-

Cant believe the event has now been done. The number of miles I've ran in preparation, the ridiculous 3:45am alarms so I could get my long base run done before starting work at 7:30am.  The number of times I've been caught short on a training run which was equally embarassing as well as frustrating at how my body just would not behave itself and decide it needed to get to a toilet ASAP.  The build up to the event day itself, September 12th 2021 in Brighton started the week before. I had completely adjusted my diet in terms of what times I would eat at, my main meal being at lunch time and dinner being something light at 5pm. No snacking after that. Making sure my water consumption was definitely up to scratch. The shift to mostly carbs in the last few days. The tapering week of my TrainerRoad program that I'd been working through for about 23 weeks.  The next thing I knew it was September 11th. Aside from the obvious poignant reasons about that date, 20 years later

 To those that know me, they're probably thinking "Noooo! Remember what happened to your knee!?".  To those people I say, "I'll never forget that day".  But I find that my regular route around Sheerwater has gotten stale and boring.  So I'm now branching out to other parts of Woking.  My new favourite route takes in the lake at the Goldsworth Park recreational ground. I've been running with a friend.  Well I think she's still a friend, I've been sworn at a few times as I'm being a bit of a task master.  But we're taking in the lake and its absolutely gorgeous to run around.  From my place this pond is just over 5km away so its a nice halfway point on a semi-lengthy run for me.   This entry has been edited a couple of times already as I you'll notice in one paragraph I call it a lake, then I called it a pond.  Then I renamed them both to lake, then both to pond, then I googled "difference between a pond and a lake" and am

Its been absolutely ages since I've felt the urge to write on here and the world has changed so much since the last time. In 2020 I had an amazing two week snowboarding holiday with friends to Whistler, Canada.  Then the world fell foul to COVID-19.   In a matter of weeks, life for me became unrecognisable.  I was fortunate enough to be able to work from home.  Until now the longest I'd ever spent doing that was 5 days, now its approaching 1 year! The sedentary lifestyle started to take its toll and the weight was heading northwards again.  So I started to increase my cycling (indoor) and running (outdoor).  I remember how weird it felt going outside and giving a wide berth to people.  Settling into a very strange but what had to become the "new normal". Found I was losing my mind within a few weeks and so in a humourous (well I thought it was) I vented through Sasha.  Even posting it onto youtube: and then a short while later on, a second video.  No I wasn't tryi

As my friends well know, whenever I have a challenge that I need to prepare for, then the blinkers go on and its all about that.  Not to the detriment of work mind you. Obviously I'm STILL talking about my Guildford triathlon challenge.  Out of the three disciplines, in order of my strengths from worst to best its Swimming, Running, Cycling.  So the rationale I'm applying then is to concentrate on the weakest event. Step 1 was joining the Racestrong triathlon club which I wrote about in my previous blog primarily for some swimming coaching as it makes good sense to be taught by someone that knows what they're talking about instead of thrashing about in a pool, consuming boat loads of energy and potentially not even managing the challenge.  OK I know I can manage a 500 metre swim, I just want to do it as efficiently as possible which in my head means as fast as possible, or as I now like to say "Same results for half the effort" (thank you Rob Needham for that

Given I've signed up for the Guildford Triathlon this summer (what was I thinking) just for good measure I also signed up for my 2nd London event, the Swim the Serpentine 2 mile (SERIOUSLY DAVE! WHAT ARE YOU THINKING!?), it was suggested to me to join the Racestrong Triathlon Club. They're Woking based and have been around for a few years now.  On the park runs I've done before, I had noticed a few people wearing t-shirts with the club name on them but never realised at that point it was a club. Now I'm not overly concerned about my cycling and running disciplines.  In both of those I'm faster than some and slower than others but the cycling fitness has slipped over the last year so I do want to get that back (and be a regular fast-inters rider at WCC) and it would be awesome to do a sub-20 minute 5k (current PB is 22:23).  What really needs a lot of work is my swimming. The last week has been a real eye opener for me with regards to me and "swimmin