Whilst Sunday sees the Portsmouth coastal marathon with Moose and Pini in the field alongside me - well at the start anyway as they will soon be disappearing off in to the distance ahead of me, I've decided to go for a bit of extra activity to bust any belly growth over a week or so of seasonal excess.
Strava in association with Rapha have set a challenge open to all of riding 500k in 8 days over Christmas starting on the 24th December… So naturally I've gone for that!
I figured I will be cycling 40 miles on the 29th for the journey to and from the Brutal 16k race and at least 15 miles for the Gut Buster on the 30th, so there already was a chunk of distance planned to be cycled before the challenge came along. With having to cover an average of 35 miles a day I'm sure I'll be able to get a couple of decent loops sorted for some good riding, probably doing 2 rides on most days of 25 and 15 miles or thereabouts and I hope a second riding of the Winchester and back ride from the summer. I'm not planning on doing any other running between Sunday's Portsmouth coastal marathon and the end of the challenge, so hopefully this will keep me in good stead for CV work… I'm also intrigued as to how busy the roads will or won't be on Christmas day!
I've also entered my first ultra: In June I'll be running the 40 or so miles from Cornwall's Lizard Point to Land's End in the Endurancelife Classic Quarter in my first attempt at pitting myself against a serious distance. So far the furthest I've gone is 29 miles, but with how good I've felt at the end of the Dorset and Gower runs I reckon I could be able to get through it within the cut-off times! I'm intrigued to see how I fare and if this will open the door to other longer distances as I need to step-up a level if I'm ever to conquer the South Downs 100mile and start to think of the UTMB!
For next year I've also had an idea for a nutty challenge that I've laid-down in front of Pini to see if he is up for it - which he reckons he will be. It all depends on our timings but when things are definite then I'll be posting the details up here. Suffice to say its a bit different!
Finally. I opened up this month's Outdoor Fitness and saw a picture at the bottom of p23 of my belly crossing the finishing line at Reykjavik which brought a smile to my face and the response from my eldest when I showed her of "Awesome"… Followed by "Daddy why are you in that magazine?"… What is given with one hand is swiftly taken away with the other… Kid's, you've gotta love them! (no not in a Michael Jackson/ Jimmy Saville kind of way).
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