Outrunning the Black Dog

No time for moping around feeling sorry for myself - I’ve got that 10k in 40 minutes goal to knock off this year. With time pretty short this morning, I opted for a short run - just into Tynemouth and back, along the sea front. There was a southerly breeze & some light drizzle on...
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Swimming with the Black Dog

Actually, I don’t suffer from depression. Not real depression - just the regular kind where sometimes things get on top of me, and I end up a little down. But Thursday’s swim with the NE31 Tri club wasn’t much fun at all. I’d almost ducked out of it on the way there - my shoulder...
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Swim-Bike: Part III - RUN

OK, so this is now starting to look like I’m not taking it easy anymore. But the run was only as a cool down . . . though I did go off for the first 800m or so at kinda race pace (oops). But  then I got a stitch, which reminded me that perhaps I...
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Swim-BIKE - Part II

. . . . that run home from the beach left me pretty puffed. I’m not sure if I was pushing too hard at it, if the swim was tougher than it seemed (especially the last 40 yard, being chased by a jelly fish!), or if running in a wetsuit is just harder than...
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Taking It Easy

Actually, the title of this post is just to throw Von SmallHaussen off the scent . . . The real title should be “Race Practice”. I was working from home today, systemising a firm’s quotation process - currently it’s about 4-8 hours of black art, which I’m turning into 4-8 minutes of filling in the...
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I Need A [New] Shoulder to Cry On

Our friends from over the road are back from their holidays, so Shana’s back on the programme. That meant an 05:45 start for me to get up & fed before she arrived at 06:30 for our run/walk session. After yesterday’s cycling on Wilf, my shoulder was really quite sore. Not the “I can hardly see...
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Keeping it Clean

The Sunday Times ran yet another article about doping in cycling this week. But rather than the usual “they’re all cheats, the sport’s going to hell in a handcart” line that the media seem to just love to write at every opportunity, this article seemed to offer some hope. They’re talking about Jonathan Vaughters’ Team...
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A Catalogue of Errors

So on Saturday morning, I went to see the folks at Swiss Physio about my shoulder & neck. On the whole, this wasn’t the chiropractic pain-fest I was half expecting, but actually quite a gentle & civilised experience. What did come out of it as I discussed my history of upper body injuries & likely...
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Whacked Out Conspiracy Theory

On Sunday my neck was feeling quite a lot better in the afternoon, so I headed out on Christine to see how it felt riding. I’d just fitted new aerobars (Profile T2+) to this bike, and wanted to give the setup a try . . . but not too much with my dodgy neck!...
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Such a Beautiful Day

. . . . and I’m relegated to driving instead of cycling. It took me a whole half hour today to decide that my neck & shoulder really isn’t better, and I should take Lisa’s excellent advice and rest it until I’ve been checked over by someone who Knows what they’re talking about Hasn’t got a...
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Am I Injured or Just Ill?

Am I Injured or Just Ill?

After Monday night’s tough pool session, I woke up on Tuesday with a bit of a stiff neck, and a little pain on its left side. By the end of the day, I was getting pain across my left shoulder, which got worse, and spread to the back of my left arm, and a...
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Wilf Rides Again

I had to go and visit three separate companies yesterday, including a new one, where the people don’t really know me. So I needed to take a full change of clothes, as well as the laptop, cables, camera, etc, etc. For most of the last few months, I’ve been riding Trixie the Fixie or Gina...
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Childhood

My mum & dad sent me this today. You may have already seen it, or come to the same conclusion, but it’s still worth reading & thinking about: CONGRATULATIONS TO ALL THE KIDS WHO WERE BORN IN THE 1940′S, 50′S, 60′S AND 70′S !! First, we survived being born to mothers who smoked and/or drank while...
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Short Run

Short Run

I was going to go out on the bike this morning, but after Sunday’s race & last night’s swim, I just couldn’t muster it. And the wind howling around the house at 06:00 more or less put the seal on the deal. But running when it’s windy isn’t such a problem - especially when the...
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I’ve Been Promoted

On the back of Sunday’s shocking swim pace, I’ve been promoted out of the Learner’s Lane at the NE31 Triathlon club, and into the slowest of the Big Boys’ & Girls’ lanes. So now I’m the slowest in a whole new lane And it doesn’t get any easier - last night was a...
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Hebburn Triathlon: Official Race Report

You can read the official race report on the NE31 Tri Club’s pages. Their web site’s a got lots of flash in it, so I can’t provide a direct link to the page. So click through the navigation to “Results” under “Hebburn Triathlon”. There were some astonishing times posted in the battle for overall race...
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Treadmills - a cautionary tail

I found this on 1 Step Closer 2 Ironman, via Bill Ander’s Photos & Tri-rambles. THIS is the reason I don’t like running indoors: Or maybe the moral of the story is that polar bears belong outside . . .
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Hebburn Triathlon - Swim Time

If it weren’t for the water, I’d be positively smokin’ with this time! Workout: Type: Swim Date: 08/05/2007 Time: 17:31:30 Total Time: 00:08:07.00 Distance: 400 m Average Pace: 2:01.57/100m
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Hebburn Triathlon - Run Time

It just can’t have possibly been this fast! Workout: Type: Run Date: 08/05/2007 Total Time: 00:20:00.00 Distance: 3.11 miles Average Pace: 6:26.27/mile
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Race Report: My Bike’s Possessed!

Race Report: My Bike’s Possessed!

We’ll get to exactly why my bike’s possessed later . . . Today was the Hebburn / Tyne & Wear Fire Service Triathlon. It’s my local club’s race, and in the spirit of giving as well as taking from club membership, I kinda had to turn up early to help with getting the event set...
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Thank Goodness For Friday Swims with Daughter

So yesterday, although Swimtime’s finished for the summer, Daughter and I headed off to the pool to play for an hour. Wife came along too, to see just how much progress Daughter’s making (lots). And a good job it was that we went swimming yesterday - as I was putting my goggles on, the strap...
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