Spring is in the air...

What a fantastic day to begin my week's training.

After feeling very old last week, with achy joints and slight malaise, I decided to skip my long run today and go for a long mountain bike (MTB) ride instead. My thinking was that I could still give my muscular endurance a good workout whilst also giving my joints a much needed break from the pounding of a 20+ mile run.

I arose at 5:10am and was out of the door by 5:30am. And once on my normal run route along the towpath, there was just enough light to see the terrain and enable me to push-on rather than just dawdle along. I tried to keep a pace that would keep my heart rate up at about my normal run HR -10 beats.

As the Sun came up, it turned out to be a beautiful day, with Spring very much in the air. With Daffodils, lambs and wild garlic all showing an end to Winter!

By the time I got home 4 hours later at 09:30am, I really felt like my legs had had a good workout, but my joints felt fine. And, given the success of today, I will probably look to change my training plan so that I have a long run every other week with a long MTB in between.

I wore my heart rate monitor to give me some idea of the intensity of the workout. My average was 135bpm, which was about what I expected. Here's the chart of my heart rate:


The long gap at about 3hrs 20mins was for a stop to get something to eat. By then my breakfast of two oatcakes with peanut butter had definitely burnt-off.

All-in-all, a very good workout.

On my return, I found that the children had gotten Suzi up very early, so the household atmosphere wasn't its best. However, Suzi had managed to get another hour's sleep while the children played.

Now, given how wonderful that the weather was, we took all the children's bikes up to the Downs - which is a big open space not very far from our house.

Helena had her first try riding a bike without stabilisers, and just took off without me having to hold her at all! Top marks. In fact, this has very much been her weekend. Firstly, she got promoted to the top group at her swimming class despite being much smaller than the other children in the top group. She also went to two parties, one Saturday and one Sunday, and learnt to ride a bike. Surprise, surprise, she was very tired tonight!

Tomorrow evening I shall be off to help with the BAD Kids training night, and will try to get in a good long run as well (10-15miles).

Back on track? Just maybe...