Sunday Muddy Sunday

Today I had planned to do 2 things: Go to the Triathlon, Cycling & Running show over at Sandown Park and while I was there do the Ride It! sportive for which I had a free entry. Last night I realised that I couldn't do both as it would mean my family hanging around for me while I did the ride and then spending who knows how many hours looking around the show. Not fair on the them so I opted to forego the sportive.

This morning I got up and had guilt because I wouldn't be able to do any training. So I convinced my wife that we could go out for a quick run and still have time to drive over to the TCR show. The weather was absolutely dreadful: raining heavily and quite cold and to make things worse I got us a bit lost resulting in running along a boggy muddy trail, slowing us down and adding distance we didn't want to do. So by the time we got back I wasn't Mr Popular and time had run out.

Despite all this I changed into my cycling gear, downed a protein shake and a banana and within 10 minutes I was on the bike. The rain had more or less stopped but conditions were filthy and by the time I got back I (and bike) looked like I'd been doing cyclo-cross. All in all though a good days training but I am disappointed about missing the show:

• Run: 7 miles (11.4 km to be exact)
• Cycle: 51 km (HR avg 151bpm max 170bpm; elevation 538m with one section between 8% and 20% gradient)

Had a problem with the gears. The chain was slipping in 2 cogs making them unusable which was a real pain. I'm not sure how easy that is to fix but I would like to avoid being without the bike right now.