First blog update for nearly 4 years!  Taking part in the ninelakes challenge tomorrow, so hopefully trying to set up a method for people to track me...just for fun.

Events: 2010

Entered:

• Bracknell 1/2 mara: May
  
• Windsor Tri: June
• Vitruvian: Sept

Will do, but not entered:

• Milton Keynes big cow: July
• Mendip Muddle fell race: October
• XTT offroad traithlon: Sept
• Berks Tri Squad Club champs: dunno
• Some other team relay with the work guys: dunno
• A couple of 10ks.

Outside chance:

• Late year marathon, poss Brussels: depends how my year goes
  

Vitruvian 1/2 Iron

Eek, despite feeling rubbish with a nasty cold, I stepped up to the mark and entered the Vitruvian 1/2 Iron distance race in september. A few guys from work have entered too, and I've got a score to settle with one of them. He beat me by a few mins at Windsor in 09. I have plenty of excuses why but you don't want to hear those.

Chucking it down!

The dry weather has finished and the rain has come. This means the mtb bike trails will be nasty, but the flip side is the running trails will be slippery and muddy and great fun. I much prefer running offroad in the mud. I thought today might be really muddy but instead all the high winds have created a carpet of leaves that's covering the worst stuff. It's at this time of year that having the right kit really makes things easier. Helly Hansen Merino crew LS top, Adidas supernova shorts, 661 socks and Inov-8 roclite trail shoes.

24Hr Thunder Run

This looks like a fun event. http://www.tr24.co.uk/index.html I'm vaguely tempted to have a go at a pair. Even if I got in a 5 person team that would be 4.8hrs of running. At 10ks per hour (it's not a maths test) that'd be 48km....offroad! Having run an offroad 10k at the end of a tri in 49mins, I expect it'll be closer to that time. Catton Park could be hilly as it's used as a National Points Series mountain bike venue. This event is some way off, but might be good to get in the calendar (1/2 of August 2010). It does clash with Camp Bestival though. Decisions.....

New shoes!

You can't really beat the new shoe feeling....esp if you didn't pay for them. Yes, I got a nice new pair of Vivo Barefoot Aqua shoes through from the terraplana people. My plan is to try them for running in the hope that they might help my "normal" running and perhaps triathlon racing. It seems that more and more people are using barefoot running to complement their other training. I love their shoes for home/office but didn't fancy messing up my current shoes by running in them.

The black looks a bit formal for a running shoe, in fact they look way more "frumpy" than most of the other stuff in the range. I guess the leather finish is more weather proof than the grey suede that I was expecting. Since we're heading into winter I expect I'll find out. :-(

Irritatingly, I can't really run at the moment since I've got a stinking cold. Hopefully this will pass and I'll get a chance to try them out. I might need to get Ben Cope along to take some pics. He's the same size shoe as me, so perhaps he might try them out and I can get his views? I don't know of a way that I can actually measure any improvement by running in them. I suppose I could get some video of my running gait as it is now, and see if I end up running more on my fore/mid foot as I use them more often?

That was FUN

I took part in the Mendip Muddle Fell race this weekend. It's run by WestonAC . They did a great job of organising the 12.5mile race over the mendip hills near Cheddar (20mins south of Bristol). It was pretty hard work, but lots of fun. I'll probably write up a little report for the Berkshire Tri Squad pages, so more detail then.