Tapering for Madrid!

I think the chaos of the last week has finally caught up with me! Tonight I felt absolutely exhausted so I have decided to rest until Sunday when I do Madrid Half Marathon!

I wore my new Garmin 920XT last night in bed to track my sleep pattern and today at work to track my activity level!  

It has been truly enlightening!  

There was only 2 occasions in the 8 hours I was in bed when I was completely still - the rest of the time I was on the move!  

Today, just being at work I walked 4.5 miles!  

No wonder I am tired!  People never believe me when I say "I never get to sit down at work" - I think this little gizmo proves my point!

Just one more "get-up" and I get 2 weeks off for Easter!

Out with the tonsils, in with the Garmin!

What a day! 

I have had a day full of mixed emotions!

My daughter has spent the day in Lancaster Hospital having a Tonsillectomy! Despite being 19 and at Uni I felt like she became my little girl again today and needed looked after!

However, whilst this drama was going on Garmin kindly delivered my new Garmin 920XT!  I was ridiculously excited when I opened the package to see my new toy staring back at me! 




When I first started running I got the Garmin Forerunner 110 which introduced me to the world of stats! I loved the simplicity of this watch and it gave me all the information I needed and more!

Then I was introduced to the Triathlon world and I soon realised I needed to upgrade to a watch that would track my swims as well as my runs and rides.

After much comparison and speculation I invested in a Garmin Forerunner 910XT! Despite this being much more complex to operate I soon got the hang of it and it became my new best friend enabling me to log multi sport activities and open water swims!

When I  got the opportunity to try the next model up, the Garmin Forerunner 920XT I wasn't expecting it to be much different! 

After "playing" with it today I can already see many new features and I am sure I will discover many more in the days ahead!

I was taken totally unawares when I got a text message on my I-phone and it popped up on the Gamin's screen too!  

I had no idea it did this!  I can see this being very useful as I often get texts whilst I am out running or cycling and although I usually ignore them until I get home I always feel anxious in case I am ignoring an emergency situation! At least now I will be able to ignore them with peace of mind!

As a female with very slight wrists I always felt the 910XT was too bulky on my wrist although I believed it was the necessary evil in order to have a sports watch that did it all! 

However, the 920XT model feels much lighter and is considerably more slimline and female friendly! It feels comfortable on my wrist despite it needing to be on the tightest it will go to fit my puny wrists!!  

The charger appears to be much more robust and secure when attached! The buttons are also so much smoother and easier to operate and so far the instructions have been easy to follow for a non-techie person!

I had a burning desire to go for a run to put my new Garmin through its paces, so leaving my daughter in my husbands capable hands I went for a run to run off the stresses of the day and to play with my new toy!  

One feature I have discovered is the tracking device! 

My husband and daughter enjoyed being able to track my progress on the PC!  I'm not sure I'm going to like them knowing my every move in future though!! It also gave my daughter the heads up that I was on my way back so she could claim the shower just before I did!  This feature seems to be a positive one for my family ... not sure I'm going to embrace it though!

I really enjoyed my run with my new Garmin despite it having a pace alert set on it which started to get on my nerves after a while! I will have to have a tinker to try and switch this off so it doesn't continuously yell at me to run faster!  

I had a problem at the end of my run stopping and saving the activity so I have ended up with 3 splits in my stats when I am at home and not moving!  I am not sure what I was doing wrong but hopefully I will suss it out for next time!

I love the fact it automatically uploads to Garmin Connect without any hassle whatsoever!  For this maiden run I did 4.07 miles at an average 8.47 minute mile pace!  You can view my run here on Garmin Connect.

I wore the Heart Rate Monitor for my run, but wasn't very impressed when the Garmin told me after the run that I needed 72 hours to recover before exercising again! I don't do resting!

I can't wait to go to bed tonight to test out the sleep function!

There are so many more features for me to explore and I can't wait to investigate further!

It's early days but my initial thoughts are I LOVE IT!

Watch this space for more updates as I discover more!  

Warning! 

I am going to turn into a gadget bore!

Last Week of Jantastic!

I can't believe I have finally entered the last week of Jantastic with 100% success to date (with the help of Jokers!).

I fully intend to keep that going during this last week!

Yesterday I went swimming despite feeling tired from cycling on Sunday!  My body suprisingly felt OK with none of the expected DOMS (delayed onset muscle soreness) so I decided to do an easy swim session as a recovery session.

It was a good job I didn't want to do a serious session as it was fairly busy with a lot of breaststroke swimmers taking over the lane!

However, I did 4 sets of 400m totalling 1600m (0.99 mile) in 38 minutes and felt no ill effects afterwards.

Tonight I decided to go for a short spin on my bike.  It was a lovely bright evening when I set off, but 3 miles in it decided to rain giant Hail Stones down on me!  They actually hurt as they hit me in the face! I wasn't impressed and was slightly worried about the road surface which was soon white and slippy looking!

I decided to wimp out and cut my ride short - I wasn't prepared to be a hero and risk my life!

I did 8.26 miles in 39 minutes, and got home very wet and cold! 

Looking on the positive side I never cycle in bad weather so it was good to get some practice in - you never know what the weather will do on my triathlon days!

My daughter is going into hospital tomorrow to get her tonsils out so not sure what exercise I will manage - if any!

Maybe it will have to be a rest day!

I survived!

On Sunday I rode in The Eden Valley Epic 60 mile Cycle Sportive!  You can read how I got on here!

FINALLY ... a better week for week 11!

YEAH!!! I have finally managed to meet my goal of 2 runs, 2 swims and 2 rides for the week and the distance I set for my cycle goal of 55 miles!

I did 2 runs which were 3.89 miles and 7.71 miles.
I did 2 swims which were 1.05 miles and 1.27 miles.
I did 2 rides which were 8.85 miles and 59.05miles.

Altogether a total of 81.82 miles for the week, 125.97 miles for March and 490.31 miles for Jantastic!


Week 1 miles = 45.08
Week 2 miles = 45.19
Week 3 miles = 54.60
Week 4 miles = 46.41

January Miles = 192.34

Week 5 miles = 39.21
Week 6 miles = 41.83
Week 7 miles = 51.84
Week 8 miles = 23.15

February Miles = 156.03

Week 9 miles =    15.97
Week 10 miles = 28.18
Week 11 miles = 81.82

March Miles =  125.97

My highest mileage during Jantastic so I am more than happy with that!!!

Final Jantastic week next week!

Bring it on!

A quick spin!

Tomorrow I am doing the Eden Valley Epic 60 miles Cycle Sportive which I am feeling ever so slightly stressed about as I haven't really done much cycling recently!

I feel like one of those silly sods who run a marathon when 13 miles is the furthest they have ever run!  

I'm cycling 60 miles when the furthest I have cycled in recent months is 32 miles! Not sure where my legs (or undercarriage!) will find the extra 30 miles from!

On a positive note the weather looks good, so even if it takes me a long time I shouldn't suffer too badly!

Ideally I would like to do it in less than 5 hours but I think this will be a huge ask so if I come in under 6 hours I will be happy!

This morning just to remind my legs what cycling is all about and to try and instill some confidence in myself I went for a short blast on the bike.

It was a fabulous morning with the sun shining down although it was still fairly chilly!

Going up a hill on the way back home I past a male cyclist who was going at crawling pace!  Being "chicked" obviously did his ego no good at all as about 10 minutes later he came flying past me at a mighty speed as if to say "I'm crap at hills but I can still go faster than you!".  This gave me a little chuckle!

I did 8.85 miles at an average pace of 13.7 MPH.

I really enjoyed it today - Here's hoping I can maintain the pace tomorrow and enjoy it too!

My spares and tools are packed (not that I know what to do with them!) and I am all carbed up and ready to go!

Feeling nervous EXCITED!

Running Hard!

After a sleepless night and a stressful day at work I really had to push myself to go for a run this evening.

From getting in at 4.30pm I thought about it and thought some more ... before finally forcing myself out the door at ten past 6!

It had been a lovely sunny day and it was still clear and warm out!  

I set off hoping to run about 7 miles with no set pace in mind.

The light nights had lulled me into thinking I didn't need a torch but for the last mile it got fairly dark with very little street lighting so I had to slow my pace due to the fear of disappearing down a hole or tripping over something!

Moral of the story is ... go for a run earlier and this won't be an issue!

I ran 7.71 miles at an average 9.16 minute mile pace.

Slower than I thought but then again I wasn't really pushing it!

After how weary I felt beforehand I was just pleased to have done the miles!

Only 9 days until Madrid Half Marathon and I really don't feel like these legs are prepared!

Rest Day tomorrow - Thankfully!

T30 and on it!

Tonight I went to The Tri Club Swimming session.

After a warm-up and some technique drills we did a T30 endurance session.  This is a session where you swim continuously for 30 minutes at the maximum speed you can maintain.

I always groin at the thought of these endurace sessions but once I get going I quite enjoy the mindless gliding through the water with no worries!

The great thing about swimming with the tri club is we are all grouped and in lanes according to our ability and times, so there is no dilly day-dreamer holding you up!

Tonight in the 30 minutes I managed to swim 1450m or 58 lengths which is an average 33.20 minute mile pace or 2.04 minutes per 100m. Looking at my Garmin data I even managed to maintain a fairly even pace throughout! I didn't set off too fast and then die!

When I took my first T30 Test on the 21st January I swam 1400m, so I have managed to add 50m in 2 months!

I am chuffed with this tonight as it proves despite not feeling it I am actually getting faster!

Altogether with the warm-up, drills and cool down I did 2050 metres or 1.27 miles.

Feeling good!