The Great Big All Encompassing Catchup Entry

I'm crap at this blogging business.

It doesn't seem like a big thing at first; I don't blog a ride or something when it happens. Then the next ride is over and I still haven't done the first one, and before I know where I am I'm so far behind that even if I have time to blog something, I don't have the time to do the catchup posts, so it doesn't get done and it just gets worse and worse.

I was going to try and write individual entries to emulate at least what I should have done, but that was getting too complicated, so here I'm going to do a summary of the last couple of months or so - from end of Jan through to early April, then try harder to be better at this.

Training
Has been going quite well, generally can be sumarised as mid week hotel gyms, weekend long rides.

Much of Feb and March was spent in hotels up to 4 nights per week, so I tried to get a couple of sessions a week on a machine, concentrating on things like sprints and high cadence sessions and using my heart rate monitor. I think I did later see the benefit of these and they were easier to do than long grinds in hotel gyms.

Long weekend rides grew gradually to be 50km, mainly or all on tarmac, taking up to 4 hours if especially hilly and windy. Then, last few weeks I have started to do much more off-road on these rides while keeping the distances fairly high. This has to be forest roads and tracks rather than anything especially technical, but goodness knows there's a big difference between that and tarmac.

Places
Two recent trips to Glentress with Neal but only the first one I'll record here - sometime mid March I think. Did the Red run, from the bottom car park, agreeing to ride separately. Neal got back in 2 hrs 12min, and I was very pleased to be only 10 minutes behind him in 2hrs 22 min. Still felt a lot like hard work in the first half especially. See later blogging for the second trip :)

Also around the same time took my bike with me on a trip and managed to get an early morning look at Hamsterley Forest. With a business meeting looming and by myself I only followed a blue route, repeating a section of it as I got back fairly quickly. It was good to be out - and somewhere new, but I don't think I experienced the real appeal of this forest judging by what I've read.


Events
We're both booked up now to do the 50km Merida Marathon at Penrith on 13th May, and I'm booked to do the 65km which is part of the Outsider festival in Aviemore in June. Mixture of trepidation and excitement at both, with the added concern that the Outsider is being promoted much more as a music festival rather than an outdoors event so not especially looking forward to the night before that.

Gear
Neal has been loving his new Viper frame. Ended up with an even better "carbon lite" frame that has carbon fibre seatstays for weight saving and a bit of "give". Don't think he's fallen off it since he got it :)

I have bitten the bullet and am working hard at living with SPDs again - trying Crank Brothers egg-beater style this time round. Chose the Smarty version as they have a small but useful platform. So far, so mediocre ... I have fallen a few times through not disengaging quickly enough, but this is getting better and I think I do see a difference when riding. That's certainly true on the flat, and I am staying clipped in more on downhills and technical bits.

Weight
Have been down as far as 12st 6lb, 12st 7lb seems to be the real sticking point. Would like to be closer to 12st for Penrith, watch this space ...