Johnny Hall's Travels and Travails

After Ironman Austria, I've not been training too much and I didn't manage to make it to the start line of any races either, for one reason or another. A chance meeting with someone at Glentress a couple of weeks ago reminded me that the offroad winter duathlon series was starting again, so, to give myself a reason to train, I entered all three. Since then, I've done a fair amount of running, mostly to and from work and the park and ride at Straiton (6 miles, every work day - it adds up), and I've been mountain biking a few times, usually on my singlespeed. The first, medium length, race was today. It was very, very cold, although the sun was out and the sky was blue, everything was shrouded in a layer of frost and the ground was rock hard. I cycled up to the start at the Buzzard's Nest directly from the house. As usual, there were quite a few faces that were known to me, so I got some chatting in before the start. My tactic was simply to bumble round at my own, relatively slow, speed. However, that more or less went out the window as I tried quite hard, not enough to blow a gasket but I was blowing out my ears on several occasions. Every part of the course seems to be going either up or down, no flat. The bike was relatively uneventful but it did seem to involve climbing a lot. It took my legs about 10 minutes before they got used to the effort, after that, I was pretty comfortable. A nice quick transition and I was onto the run. I was using my Inov8 fell shoes, which have decent grip but no cushion. My calf muscles and achilles were super tight after about 5 minutes and my lower back went after 10. I need to do a lot more steep hill running. The run course essentially went up for 15 minutes, then up and down a bit for another 10 and then back the same way. Because of this, I was waiting for the leading runner, so that I'd have a reasonable idea how far I still had to go. As we passed, we exchanged pleasantries (I know him) but I took the eye off the ground and tripped clumsily on a rock and hit the (hard) ground, hard. I managed to rip a hole in my knee (so, now I need new running tights) and bang my arm. Everything was still working though, so I picked myself up, after losing a handful of places (I'd have lost them anyway, I think). The run back down the main track was harder work that it should be, since the ground was frozen solid, I had to work hard to avoid getting winded. I finished reasonably strongly, though I'm goosed now. I've no idea of my final placing. There were more people behind than in front of me, which is all I usually ask of myself. My run plus transition time was around 40 minutes and my ride time was about 47. Update: 48th out of 133 finishers. 35th rider.

After the last couple of years of being distracted by running, triathlon and babies, I'm rebooting my interest in the outdoors. Living in Cardrona, I'm more or less surrounded by greenery but I don't really take advantage of it, beyond riding at Glentress (deeply cosseted though it is) and running in the forest. So, I'm now planning some outdoor adventures over the winter. Last time I did any winter walking in Scotland, was a couple of years ago. I reckon I still know what I'm doing though. So, on December the 14th (I've booked time off with Becky and with work), I'm going up to Dalwhinnie, where I'll mountain bike in, with a relatively light pack, to Culra, then climb the munros to the north and west of there (Carn Dearg, Geal Charn, Aonach Beag and Beinn Eibhinn), stay the night in the bothy, before climbing Ben Alder and Beinn Bheoil and then cycling back out again. I'm sorting out my gear now - I think I'm more or less covered, though since it's winter, I'll need the backup of crampons and axe, but I don't want to carry in my winter boots and crampons - they weigh far too much, so I'm investing in some Kahtoola steel crampons which will fit on lighter weight footwear. Hopefully, the weather will be reasonable but I won't be counting on it. I'm excited to be going out into the hills with my current level of fitness. I've relied on my underlying fitness in the hills over the years but the last couple of years of marathons and Ironman have moved my fitness onto a new level, so it'll be interesting to see how that shows up when I'm confronted with knee-deep snow and a driving headwind. After that, I'll have to come up with something to do in January. Maybe get hold of a super-light tent and camp on a summit somewhere?