Ridgeway 40 was, well, 40 miles...unless you are Jason Harrison who decided (for the second year running!) to park at the finish and run to the start of the event making his total for the weekend, and without sleep, a grand total of 80 miles.
I was on a voyage of discovery, to see what it would be like to go on past the marathon distance so I wasn't much worried about speed or times so I kept company with the increasingly knackered Jas. Actually running on past 26 miles, then 30, 36, and eventually 40 miles was no problem at all and I know I could have done another 10 miles. (but only at gunpoint)
It was a good event with drinks and cakes etc at regular checkpoints. The checkpoints were mostly an exercise in accounting for the walkers and runners and caused some delay as runners are forced to queue with everyone else (it is principally a walk, not a run) but later in the event the runners become the leaders on the road and the delays at the checkpoints were mostly self imposed as we became less and less hurried, preferring to linger over a piece of swiss roll and a mug of tea.
I was very pleased to be able to run at a (for me) great rate for the last two miles, finishing in a lather of sweat at about the same speed as I might have finished a 10km race.
Good day out - no idea of actual time but it was just under ten hours. An hour could be knocked off that easily without the extended chats at the check points. Glad I did it but it wasn't really a race. Not really an issue when you consider yourself lucky to get in the top half of the field!
Sunday 8 May 2011
Wednesday 27 April 2011
Reaffirmation
I can’t remember a year when spring has sprung so ecstatically and I have enjoyed it so much. Last year was a grim year for personal reasons and it was topped off with a gruelling winter. The spring was always going to be a welcome re-awakening but the unusually warm and dry conditions seem to have made it all the more of a triumph.
As the season has progressed I have got out and about as a runner and have run in six races, already a total of 90 miles racing though and while it hasn’t been fast or even very successful it has been a real source of pride.
Running is a very engrossing sport, so much so that I have started to think of myself as an ‘ex-cyclist’, quite unthinkable even a short while ago. However this Easter break has been unusual in being followed so swiftly by the May Day bank holiday and, in between, a Royal Wedding. This has given me the opportunity to get on with all sorts of things that were getting neglected, including some cycling.
I went out this morning on the ‘Canary’, what a novelty – variable gears, brakes that work, wheels that are true – a genuine miracle since some restorative work on the ageing workhorse. The bike felt good and so did the morning with the illusion of a tailwind for nearly all the ride. (Or am I just as strong as an ox? – Yes; that must be it!)
Wiltshire may not have a Tizi-n-Test or a Stelvio tucked away in its vales and downs but on a beautiful British spring day it still takes some beating. (Yes; I’d rather have been bumping along the Kerry Ridge, but I wasn’t!) I trundled up through the lanes from ‘Chippers’ to Grittleton and Malmesbury and returned via the Somerfords, great weather, felt good, even the motorists were on their best behaviour. In short, no; I am not an ex-cyclist. How could that ever be?
Oh, and I am 54 years old today. Life is good.
As the season has progressed I have got out and about as a runner and have run in six races, already a total of 90 miles racing though and while it hasn’t been fast or even very successful it has been a real source of pride.
Running is a very engrossing sport, so much so that I have started to think of myself as an ‘ex-cyclist’, quite unthinkable even a short while ago. However this Easter break has been unusual in being followed so swiftly by the May Day bank holiday and, in between, a Royal Wedding. This has given me the opportunity to get on with all sorts of things that were getting neglected, including some cycling.
I went out this morning on the ‘Canary’, what a novelty – variable gears, brakes that work, wheels that are true – a genuine miracle since some restorative work on the ageing workhorse. The bike felt good and so did the morning with the illusion of a tailwind for nearly all the ride. (Or am I just as strong as an ox? – Yes; that must be it!)
Wiltshire may not have a Tizi-n-Test or a Stelvio tucked away in its vales and downs but on a beautiful British spring day it still takes some beating. (Yes; I’d rather have been bumping along the Kerry Ridge, but I wasn’t!) I trundled up through the lanes from ‘Chippers’ to Grittleton and Malmesbury and returned via the Somerfords, great weather, felt good, even the motorists were on their best behaviour. In short, no; I am not an ex-cyclist. How could that ever be?
Oh, and I am 54 years old today. Life is good.
Wednesday 23 February 2011
Thursday 6 January 2011
2011 - Some resolutions.
I'm not going to beat myself up about it, or savage anyone else, but I'm part of the problem, and maybe part of the solution.
This thing they have started to tell us about how many Planet Earths we need to keep going as we are, even if the developing nations don't join in the race to own, possess, consume, this 'how many Planet Earths' thing has me rattled.
Yet we continue to expand, both numerically and materially, while shrinking in so many ways spiritually and intellectually.
We all want more, but do we need more; is more better for us? I took stock of the footwear situation this morning as I performed the daily contortion into the shoe cupboard. Imelda Marcos would be proud of such a kindred spirit! Do I really need so many shoes? (and most of those shoes were mine, not Lynne's or Lisa's) Do I really need FIVE pairs of running shoes? (oddly I now only have one pair of cycling shoes - how things can change!)
Shoes are just the tip of the iceberg. Clothing generally I have in 'an adequate sufficiency' and I could (and will!) go on. Why have I got two guitars? I can't play two guitars at once. In fact my detractors (Yes; I have detractors.) would say that I can't even play ONE guitar at once...
In short our cupboards, shelves, the garage, the shed, the loft, the boot of the car (Yes; we have two cars, plus Henry Honda) are all groaning with stuff we don't really need. I have books I could have borrowed from the library, records I've only listened to once (records I've not listened to all the way through even) tools and bike bits that were Dad's and I can't bear to throw away, enough bikes to hold a major stage race, maybe not the TdF but Ras De Cymru at least, gardening stuff too plentiful to shoe-horn into the garden shed, we have guinea pigs, a cat and fleas consuming for all they're worth too. The garden itself was once productive farmland, an orchard in fact. Now it produces little that is edible, consumes peat, fuel, resources and time. It is our buffer to keep the human race at arm's length. I expect that the human race out there feels just the same about me.
I'm not going to beat myself up about it but I resolve to try in my own small way to consume less of this world and leave a bit for the others, those alive now and those to follow. I plan to use up what I have before buying more, I plan to give away or sell (Selling is good, ; it release funds for... er... more buying!) that which I know I have no further use for; I plan to buy in the future only that which is really the best for the purpose and not clutter my life with pointless ownership, a vexation on the spirit. Most of all I plan to never again treat shopping as a form of entertainment - Get a life, Ian!
This thing they have started to tell us about how many Planet Earths we need to keep going as we are, even if the developing nations don't join in the race to own, possess, consume, this 'how many Planet Earths' thing has me rattled.
Yet we continue to expand, both numerically and materially, while shrinking in so many ways spiritually and intellectually.
We all want more, but do we need more; is more better for us? I took stock of the footwear situation this morning as I performed the daily contortion into the shoe cupboard. Imelda Marcos would be proud of such a kindred spirit! Do I really need so many shoes? (and most of those shoes were mine, not Lynne's or Lisa's) Do I really need FIVE pairs of running shoes? (oddly I now only have one pair of cycling shoes - how things can change!)
Shoes are just the tip of the iceberg. Clothing generally I have in 'an adequate sufficiency' and I could (and will!) go on. Why have I got two guitars? I can't play two guitars at once. In fact my detractors (Yes; I have detractors.) would say that I can't even play ONE guitar at once...
In short our cupboards, shelves, the garage, the shed, the loft, the boot of the car (Yes; we have two cars, plus Henry Honda) are all groaning with stuff we don't really need. I have books I could have borrowed from the library, records I've only listened to once (records I've not listened to all the way through even) tools and bike bits that were Dad's and I can't bear to throw away, enough bikes to hold a major stage race, maybe not the TdF but Ras De Cymru at least, gardening stuff too plentiful to shoe-horn into the garden shed, we have guinea pigs, a cat and fleas consuming for all they're worth too. The garden itself was once productive farmland, an orchard in fact. Now it produces little that is edible, consumes peat, fuel, resources and time. It is our buffer to keep the human race at arm's length. I expect that the human race out there feels just the same about me.
I'm not going to beat myself up about it but I resolve to try in my own small way to consume less of this world and leave a bit for the others, those alive now and those to follow. I plan to use up what I have before buying more, I plan to give away or sell (Selling is good, ; it release funds for... er... more buying!) that which I know I have no further use for; I plan to buy in the future only that which is really the best for the purpose and not clutter my life with pointless ownership, a vexation on the spirit. Most of all I plan to never again treat shopping as a form of entertainment - Get a life, Ian!
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