Training Targets for 2015

As some may know, I've had some injury problems recently :
A suspected broken finger, a painful right knee and a VERY painful right shoulder.


After today's gentle 32 miles in the muddy lanes.

These injuries eventually stopped me training (except for a few road bike rides) and no weight-training, no Karate, no running and no mountain biking made me rather frustrated. I substituted training with beer and junkfood and set about being a happy slob for the last month. I even ended up getting amazingly drunk one Friday night and making an idiot of myself on social media...(Note to self: I must make sure I don't get left alone in the house on a Friday night ever again.)
I'm now happy to report that, although the finger and knee are still a little sore at times, the shoulder seems to have righted itself!

With this in mind, I did an MOT on myself to assess the damage done:

Start of September:

10st 2 lbs

Blood pressure: 125/76

Resting heart rate: 51

 

Today:

10st 1 lbs 

Blood pressure: 127/75

Resting heart rate: 40 [checked twice on both arms!]

Erm, so what does this mean? That cake and beer and no exercise lower your heart rate? Isn't a low heart rate an indication of fitness? Why have I lost weight? Could I have lost muscle mass through lack of exercise?
Confusing stuff. I suppose that 6 weeks of inactivity isn't long enough to have an adverse effect on the body.

Anyhoo, the serious training starts tomorrow and I've got a simple plan:
Cut out the sugary foods, dramatically cut out alcohol (aiming for 2 or 3 ales per week), and exercise every day. I'll be emphasising the running and cycling and cutting back on the weight-training in an effort to keep the shoulder happy. At least until Christmas.

So what am I training for? I have 5 definite targets with 2 others that I'd like to do:

• The Cannock Chase Winter Classic - a mountain bike race that hasn't got a date yet. This year it was in February but I didn't ride it.

• The Mad March Hare - 65-75 miles of road riding on 1st March. It will be cold and probably wet. With a massive hill somewhere along the route it has been a challenging but enjoyable ride for the last 2 years!

• The Dynamic 100 - I enjoyed riding this road cycling event with mates this summer and raising over £200 for Macmillan. As the name suggests, it's just over 100 miles long!

• Race the Train, Tywyn - My biggest challenge this year will be running 5.5 miles off road in Wales, chasing a steam train!

• 3rd Kyu - A brown belt in karate. I'm sure that Martha will be able to achieve this with me next year.

My 2 other targets are both mountain bike races:

• The Cannock Chase Summer Classic - a great race with a great atmosphere. I really enjoyed it this year even though I was badly (and painfully) hampered by injury.

• Forest of Dean Enduro - I've entered this race twice and enjoyed it both times. Quite possibly my favourite thing to do on two wheels.

If anyone would like to do any of these challenges with me, get in touch! The more the merrier. I'd love to train together with you too.

So that's the plan. I'm aiming to complete at least 5 of these 7 next year, but to do that, the serious work needs to start now. I'm in my forties and living on beer and cake. Things have got to change!

The Majors Series - 5k in the mud

We were lucky with the weather. The cold grey start gave way to a brighter, less chilly morning without much wind. Sally [wife of Uncle Jonnie] was kind enough to drive four of us out there. The other competitors from South and City College Birmingham were at the 10K distance and had already set off. We had entered ourselves for the much saner 5K event.

The warm-up consisted of being shouted at by a soldier who looked a bit like Jessie from Obese: A Year to Save My Life. The ladies and Steve were suitably impressed. Private Jessie had us spinning round arm in arm, lying on our backs in the mud and jumping up and down doing high-fives before I could say 'WTF is this sh!t?'

The actual start was a hesitant few steps into wet grass and mud before realizing that the whole course was ankle deep in grey filth. Then I just started running in it and hoping that the ankles held up to the punishment...

The plan had been to run with Steve but he was being much more sensible and taking it easy on the slippery stuff. Then came the first real obstacle - imagine coming across a watery bog surrounded by broken, barren trees. Obviously, you'd turn back or try to find a way round. But apparently not when you're running one of these assault courses, that would be considered bad form. So it was that I found myself in a long line of other horrified Karrimor-clad people, nipples deep in freezing brown water and ankles deep in thick, sucking mud. After wading, dragging and stumbling out of the bog, I was then expected to run up a hill or two and then wade across a lake. Yes, a lake. Up to my chest in freezing cold lake. Then to wade across another bit of the lake. And then another bit. After that, a spot of mud running/stumbling, then a hill... you get the picture.

Actually the pictures are here. You just need to type in my number: 0396.

The big disappointment for me came after about 3K, just before the hill slide: a queue. Not a queue of about 10 or 12 people, but a queue of about 50, maybe more, A queue that lasted minutes. A queue where people behind me could push past to catch up with their friends at the front of the queue. And that was okay, apparently. It really did beg the question: why was I wearing a timing chip? Would it time how long I spent queuing? Would it count how many red-faced chubby girls elbowed me out of the way so that they could stand next to the rest of the girls from the local ASDA? The hill slide itself was great fun, especially the bit where I did a 180 half way down and found myself hurtling head first instead of feet first.

Disappointingly, there was another huge queue for the barbed wire obstacle, a queue which I obediently stood in to the point where I started shivering. 15 minutes ago I had been sweating. The obstacle itself was crap - a crawl through the mud under barbed wire. Unfortunately, the mud was laced with rocks. Lucy and I had a lovely collection of cuts and bruises on our knee-caps to compare later on.

The ending of the event was great. I made a mad sprint for the line although who I was competing against at the time I have no idea. Perhaps I considered myself a young, muddy Seb Coe being chased down by the horribly working class and equally muddy Steve Ovett? Whatever I was thinking, head back and panting, I crossed the line a happy, filthy 39 year old in a muddy field near Tamworth.

I managed to raise about £120 for MacMillan nurses over my 2 event challenge [I did the Mad March Hare cycle ride 6 days earlier] as well as testing my ability to complete a messy, demanding event like this. The big surprise [besides queuing] was the fact that I ran the whole thing. I suppose I'm actually fitter than I thought I was. A few more weekend beers and slices of bread pudding should sort that out, though.

Big love and thanks to: Lucy, Sally, Naomi, Steve, Natasha, Raye, Clare, Craig the Bear, Laurie, Jo and all of my sponsors.