Johnny Hall's Travels and Travails

I had a big training weekend planned but it didn't work out quite how I wanted but I got it done, eventually. Saturday was my 20 mile run. I wasn't planning on pushing it since Ihad a big ride planned for Sunday. Anyway, the weather was terrible,windy, cold, sleet and snow. So, I just ran 2.5 miles from my house (ona quiet single lane, country road) and back, 4 times. Without pushinghard, I managed a hair over 8 minute miles, despite only really aimingfor 8:30s. HR avg was 148, which is nice and low. I felt great afterwards as well, no aches or pains and not overly tired. Sunday was a big ride but the gods conspired and when I got my bikeout, I had a flat tyre. Fixed it and got out but, despite trying toclean the inside of the rubber, 11 miles later I had another puncture.Fixed that and then got another 4 miles before it was dead again.Something in the tyre but I couldn't find it. Anyway, I was out oftubes and my patches had rotted in my bag and I was out of co2canisters anyway. Called home and Becky came and took me home and I went to thepool for half an hour to relax a bit. Then we all went into town to the cafe for a hot chocolate and some cake. Anyway, I'm not easily defeated. So, I took the morning off workand got up at 6 and went out for my ride (with new tyres fitted) in the dark and the rain. Lovely. Despite not really having myhead in the game for the first couple of hours, I managed 85 miles in alittle under 5 hours. My legs lasted the course and I didn't have any of the fuelling issues which sometimes bother me. My neck and back are a little tired now but apart from that, I'm in good shape. Hopefully, these long sessions will pay off later in the season.

I've finally got my time trialling and triathlon bike together, thanks to the good people at The Bicycle Works in Edinburgh. It's a Cervelo P2C, sized 58cm. I've got the seat angle at 80 degrees, which is quite steep but suits me fine. The full specification is:

• Nimble Crosswinds tri-spoke wheels
• Tufo S3 Lite tubulars (19mm front and 21mm back)
• Dura Ace cranks 53-39, shifters, mechs and brakes
• Ultegra 12-25 cassette and BB
• SRAM 1070 chain
• Speedplay X1 titanium pedals
• Profile Design Cobra Wing base base and T2+ Cobra aerobars
• Thomson X2 Road stem
• Cane Creek 200TT carbon brake levers
• Fizik Arione Tri saddle

It's incredibly light and my position on it is textbook perfect (though I need to road test it). The wheels are beautiful and weigh nothing. They make a lovely helicopter noise when you are riding, even at low speeds, which is very satisfying. I've still got to glue the tubs and put bottle cages on, and I'm undecided about whether to tape the bars but apart from that, it's done. Now I just need to get some decent races under my belt. I have some solid time trial times from 10 years ago on a bike which wasn't particularly great for testing - slack seat angle, spoked wheels, clip-on aerobars, down tube shifters. If I can't get close to those times with a bike like this, then I'll be a bit upset!

This'll be interesting to see how many people are reading this. Becky and I are expecting another baby. We are due towards the end of August, though this won't be confirmed until the first scan.

We are very happy that it's happened so quickly after Emily was born. Becky particularly was keen to have them close together, rather than waiting the statuatory 2 years. Becky loves being pregnant as well but she'd better make the most of it because I don't think we'll be having a third.

An unintended consequence of this (for me) is that I won't be doing Ironman UK this year, since it's on the 19th of August. It'd be too risky for me to travel all that way if the baby hadn't appeared yet, and a bit selfish if it had. I'm going to do Aberfeldy Middle Distance on the 18th, all being well. This means that I'll be able to pick any Ironman I want for 2008 - I'm currently thinking about going to Zurich to do IM Switzerland. It also takes a bit of pressure away from me on the swimming front as well, since the longest I'll have to swim this year will be 1.9 kilometres rather than 3.8.