Back in the UK

Found it quite hard to push myself and start exercising again after my honeymoon in China. Bad weather, poor motivation, jet lag and paralysis of will were amongst my chief excuses. However, Tuesday saw me complete a lap of the TTT 20 route on Florence, my single speed bike. This is by far my most cycled route now and even though I've completed it many times, it can still hurt. My lungs felt the pain most this time, followed by my stomach muscles which usually don't experience anything too heavy. On the good side, the bad weather held off, I completed the route and have now cycled 300 miles on Florence! (My wife says a mile per £ spent on buying her, she actually cost me £350).


Midweek turned out to be a hot sunny day, despite weather men informing otherwise. I think the sun had help lift my mood and spirits and I though I would resume running after such a long pause. I took Cody, my rather reluctant running buddy dog, out with me on this occasion. We ran the Handlebar route. Both of us were quite whacked after this short run, but I certainly felt better for completing it. Later that day, I hooked up with Ron and we went out for a swift cycle. We cycled my TTT 20 route - Ron used his Specialized Roubaix and I used Florence my single speed. This was the first time I have ridden Florence in the company of another. It was a nice evening and was good to pedal with Ron as he had a good pace. We completed the route 1 minute slower than yesterday, but we added an additional mile as we started and finished at Ron's address as opposed to mine!


Thursday was another 'duathlon day'. I started the day with a jog around the Handlebar route with Cody. Cody was a bit menace today and showed more interest in other dogs than running the route. After lunch, I completed another lap of the TTT 20 route. This time I took out Scotty, my mountain bike. I rode the route the reverse way around and added a good 13 minutes onto yesterdays time. Scotty is a Scale 20 model (2010) and I mention this because my cousin (Adrian) has just gotten himself a Scott Scale 29er Expert!


Did no further exercise for remainder of week. Felt good that I had started exercising again though, and pleased that I had both ran and cycled. Also, I received my Bear Bones shirt in the post which helped increase the excitement about my planned Bear Bones 200 adventure in October.

Weekly totals: Cycled 62 miles; Ran 6.2 miles.