This week marks the first week of treadmill running and the first week of real speed. On Sunday, I ran four miles in 25 minutes. On Tuesday, four miles in 24 minutes.
I’ve heard people complain about how boring treadmill running is, but it certainly makes me faster. Watching the distance slowly tick by is a real incentive, and being forced to keep a steady pace prevents too much gasping for breath.
The treadmill does nothing to limit how much I sweat, which means that gym-running is restricted to weekends or the late afternoon (it’s not nice to go to your lectures drenched and stinky). And despite several minutes of “cool-down” after my run, I still hop off the treadmill and feel the floor swimming under my feet.
Anyway, it’s back to the gym today to see if I can keep it up.
The police called me at work again this week to give me an update on my stolen bike: they’ve learned nothing. The officer I spoke to was extremely kind, calling me three or four times in a row because we couldn’t manage to get a clear connection. They had captured a few bike thieves, he said, but none of them were connected to my bike.
I guess that’s case closed. I don’t mind too much. My new bike has been excellent (another thanks to Teresa and Raymond for my new wheels!), and the training keeps advancing. We’re now running more than 15 km/week, and my training log says I’ve clocked nearly 200 cycling miles in the past two months. continue reading »
So far, so good. At the end of week one, we’re still on task for the quadrathlon. I’m feeling fitter already.
There are a couple of hurdles to overcome. I need to learn how to swim. That’s probably the largest one. Beyond that, we have to become less afraid of the weather. Earlier this week we were caught out on our bicycles during a 15-minute torrential downpour, complete with thunder, lightning and hailstones. I had standing water in my shoes as we cycled home. It’s all part of the conditioning.
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This weekend, I volunteered at a quadrathlon at Loch Tay. I signed up more than a month ago because volunteering sounded like a cool thing to do. It also looked like an easy way to get out of town for the weekend.
The volunteer work ranged from hugely exciting to draining drudgery. It included baking in the sun for eight hours and frantically pitching tents in dark under ominous rain clouds. We arrived at Loch Tay on Friday night and had a series of briefings—the latest at 11:30—before pitching our tent on the north side of the Loch, miles from any port-o-loos. continue reading »
