Daves Random Ramblings

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 late...

 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...

So two weekends ago I went and tried something new. I stepped up a group on the WCC main club ride and went from intermediates to intermediate / fast.  Yes they are similar in the names with "/ fast" added onto the end of the title of the new group but this group were really not messing about when it came to the speed.  A really nice, friendly bunch of guys that made this look far too easy but I suppose if that's what they normally go at then it is par for the course for them. Being the newbie in the group I was happy enough riding at the back and drafting behind them.  Moving up the pack sometimes and only once at the front which I found a tad hard because I was trying to replicate the same effort / speed as well as having to deal with the wind resistance that you dont get as much when drafting / slip streaming / hiding behind another cyclist. I did feel a little bit unsociable as they were chatting away to one another and there was the "getting to know the ...