Slow starter

My season hasn't yet started, which I keep telling myself is deliberate given that in the prior two years I've been sick as a dog in May and have been recovering any semblance of form come September.  i'm hoping that by doing less intensity and have a later start I'll avoid that completely and not just delay it until July.  Ha, time will tell.

I am excited that tomorrow I set off riding from Ripon to Morecambe to the start of a charity coast to coast ride.  I'm leaving work and have got my shonky fixed wheel all set up with panniers, exposure maxx-d (worth more than the bike) and multiple sets of rear lights and reflectors.  Should take about 5hrs going over the backroads.  Come Friday I'm riding back over the way of the roses with 10 other colleagues from work to raise money for two local charities; Scuba diving for all and St Michaels Hospice.  If you'd like to sponsor the link is http://www.charitygiving.co.uk/wukc2c

Following my emergence as a long distance touring supremo I'm going to turn my hand at visiting the Bealach na ba and riding up and down in an attempt to learn the road before driving over it.  Have a look at the picture and you'll see what I mean..  

All this should provide some preparation (it's better than none) for the upcoming first round of the National XC Series at it's traditional opening venue, Sherwood Pines.  I'm excited about seeing everyone in the racing fraternity again - I plan on getting my money's worth from the race course by being on it longer than the average rider....

So I say I haven't been training, that's not exactly true.  I have been riding, but it's been of the fun sort; with friends, racing uphill, racing to village signs and generally goofing about.  There is a great little online presence called Strava which is perfect for this sort of tomfoolery and you can get carried away with trying to beat your friends up the local hills.  All you need is a GPS phone or GPS computer (Garmin, Bryton etc).  The link is here and you can follow my progress on the hills around yorkshire here.  I do plan on getting down to some more serious training soon and with the upcoming Marathon Champs announced as being in Selkirk that has to be a serious aim this year.  

I've also been continuing the rather alarming trend of running around yonder hills with my white legs in unflattering running shorts.  Four times 3 minutes of sub 4 minute kilometre pace off road and repeat is enough pain at that game for the time being.

It's all exercise at the end of the day, just not sure it'll do much for my cycling (I certainly don't expect it to).  Time will tell.

See you all at Sherwood!

Niall

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