Run bike....

Didn't manage to get out for that run yesterday - but I made my penance today and in any case I needed to get a bit of bike work in ready for my mountain bike duathlon on the 18th Feb. Haven't been on the real bike for a few months and so thought I better get some training done! It's only three weeks away and I'm racing both weeks in between so I'm not going to have much more chance.

I've entered the long event which is a 2 mile run followed by 10 miles off road on the bike followed by another 2 mile run. It says on the entry details that first timers should not enter the long one and do the 1m/5m/1m instead because it's a tough race - but it ain't worth getting out of bed for that!

Anyway, I put in an hour run around Ashton Court and Leigh Woods and then back to the car for the transition (getting the hang of these fancy terms already!) to bike. I hope I make a quicker transition in the real thing but then I guess I won't have to get it out of the car and put it back together first!

I chose a fairly rugged route to try and simulate the type of terrain I may meet in the real race and made sure it took in quite a few good hills. I was out there for an hour and a half and covered about 30km. Converting that to 10 miles would put me around 50 minutes - providing the real bike section isn't massively much harder than my route today. So, providing I can hold my own with the runs - I mean on the run sections - I recon I should be able to claim a top 50 spot. Don't know if this is realistic or overly cocky but who cares? Better to have aimed high and flopped than never tried at all.

I shall put in the same training session tomorrow. A run with Rick and who ever else turns up followed by an hour to an hour and a half on the bike.