Pyro's Yard v2.0

Just had a fantastic weekend of racing up in the Dales, the Open 12, with Steve Hutton (MEng). Steve's first multisport race, and my first in a while, so a good tester for both of us! Next races are Porage and the Coast-to-Coast for me, London Rat Race for Steve. Thanks: Big thanks to Steve for putting up with me, waiting for me on foot and following me on the bikes. Thanks also to Dave, Portia and Mark for the swim safety and banter. And to Open Adventure for such good organisation and fun. Distances: Day 1 - 7hrs - 18km trek, 1km canyon, 22km bike, pool dive. Day 2 - 5hrs - 60m abseil, 11km trek, 600m swim, 23km bike.   The good: The special stages - Hell Gill canyon, Hardraw Force pool dive and abseil, and the Semer Water swim. Especially the Semer Water swim. The scenery - jogging across stone slab footpaths through fields of clover and buttercups, the view from Wild Boar Fell. All awesome countryside The running - a slow plod, perhaps, but run/jog/tabbing furt...

So, I'm slowly going crazy trying to get all my kit together for the Open 12. As always happens the night before a race, the kit-geek in me runs rampant: "Shall I take this? Will we need that? Ooh, that might be useful. Is that too much gear?" D'you think I'm compensating for something?* Anyway, race strategy is to go out and have fun. Start slow and taper off. Enjoy the sun and have a giggle. We should manage some of that, I reckon. Smoke me a kipper, I'll be back for breakfast... *I meant my lack of fitness. Wash your mind out...

So, a run and bike day, a week before the Open 12. Carrying a full race pack, as practice. 13.5km run, about 1:35. Trails are nice and dry, got the trig pillar in (keeping with my traditional mission!). A little more time on tarmac than I would have liked, but you can't really get in any distance without road running a bit, eh? 25km MTB ride, 2:25, started off as the Meanwood Loop as well, but then became a bit of a "Ooh, I wonder where that trail goes?" womble up to Eccup, Harewood, the Emmerdale set and back trying to find another trig pillar (failed - just above it, I think. Missed by yards!). All in all, a rather pleasant day out in the sun, dry trails, a good giggle, and now sore legs to match the sore arms from Thursday. Yey!

GPS track of the Meanwood run route I've been doing a couple of times a week recently - well, one of the many variations on 'route'. There are so many small trails in that section of woodland that you can create as many variations of the theme of 'route' as I can on the theme of 'running'... Run anticlockwise, the blobby bit at about 3 o'clock is a little quarry where I run short hill reps. To also do some shameless promotion for a friend, my increase in running recently has been helped a lot by a good gait analysis and shoe advice from Stuart Hale and the team at Accelerate  down in Sheffield. I'd been having big issues with blistering in my arches during runs, which is not what you need when you're wanting to up your mileage. Stuart ran the gait analysis for me, talked about my normal running style, terrain and mileage, explained (very patiently, in words of less than 3 syllables) what was causing the problem, what the possible solutions w...

...Part motivation. The last one of the three is usually the hardest to muster. So, Bristol Rat Race marked the start of the summer season, both working- and racing-wise. A fantastic weekend was had by most, the water crew especially, who had a wonderful time kayaking at Redcliffe, pontoon-rafting by the Cottage, and paddling and abseiling at the NADC quarry at Chepstow. Today's sermon kind of follows on from the weekend activities, and it's a tricky one. Motivation to exercise can be hard work, harder than the exercise itself when it comes down to it. There's been lots of great phrases that have come up over the years, lovely snippets and soundbites that we can all quote. We use them to make ourselves feel better, or to justify our own actions, or just to divert attention from the fact that, as smug as we are in quoting them, we haven't had much motivation ourselves. Some can become a mantra, words to get us through the bad patches. Some become a target, words to a...