Friday night run

It started off as a normal run that was going to be slightly longer than my normal 5-mile runs. However, within about 300 yards, I realised my legs were still "empty" after Macc Forest Five (Wednesday night). I think it's fair to say that a hard slog for 25 minutes on the bike last night wasn't the ideal recovery.

As you can see from the Garmin data, my heartbeat (red squiggle) is largely below 140 - not trying very hard.

It's funny how my sense of remoteness is directly linked to how tired I am. On today's run I felt like I was really "out there" in the wilds, even though I was only about 2 miles from the house. It's not a feeling I'm very pleased with. Ah well, it's a rest day tomorrow before a spot of cross-training on Sunday. All will be revealed...

Latest gear news

I've joined the ranks of proper cyclists and bought some clip-in pedals and road biking shoes. I'm told they make a huge difference. Having tested them, I would agree. They (a) allow me to wear shoes that would embarrass John Travolta, and (b) allow the world to laugh as I fall off my bike while testing them.

Here's a picture of what it looks like as I cycle across the gritstone flags and ...erm a rug.

This is in anticipation of a 145km bike ride (90 miles) I'm planning in a about 5 weeks time.

Swimming

It wasn't a very focused session today. I'm currently aiming to do 8 lengths of a 25-metre pool in 3 1/2 minutes. I'm at 4 minutes now.

To put that into perspective, that's about half as fast as Michael Phelps doing butterfly. Although my lack of a £10,000 superhero-swimming suit may be hindering my progress.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/other_sports/swimming/8174816.stm

Apparently it's all about stroke length and stroke rate. Currently I get about 19 strokes in per 25 metres, but when I try to up my stroke rate, my strokes become rubbish (so I'm doing more in a length) and I get really tired.