Category Archives: Walking

Weekly Catchup

More terrible weather, mainly horrible winds have put a bit of a crimp on riding over the week, though I did get to do a pretty serious ride on Sunday 2nd. Actually, the sun shone for the entire ride, and if it hadn’t been blowing a 20mph wind it’d actually been a really nice day. As it was, the last 25km was into the teeth of the wind, I met the man with the hammer with 10k to go, and by the time I got into the house I’d barely enough energy to hold my head in both hands.

I also did a bit of an experiment with the ride, filming most of it with an action-camera. Just for fun, I’ve uploaded ’em to Kinomap as well. See what you think…

Part 1 – Part 2 – Part 3 – Part 4

As per usual, there’s also the ride details on Strava here

Monday was pretty much a recovery ride, Tuesday was a solid 30km Base ride, Wednesday I took a rest day (it was pissing down – well, I say down, more horizontally really.   Thursday I managed to step things up a little 43km of base riding.

Which brings us to Friday.   Friday was finally brighter again, though the ridiculous winds were still much in evidence.   Couldn’t face the roadbike, but didn’t want to waste a dry day, so jumped on the MTB instead.   Once again, I decided to give the ActionCamera a go.

(watch for the mudsplash round about 5:25 into the vid…  the water was a LITTLE deeper than expected – as in over the wheelhubs.   Soggy toes for the rest of the ride, as the only way to get through the lake was to carry on pedalling.)

And, so to today.   The winds were even worse today – a good 30mph with gusts of double that.  But, it was bright and dry, so walkies were the order of the day.

Also this week, we’ve had some Schwagg come in – 2 pairs of Planet-X Flanders Softshell Gloves (lovely stuff – brilliant spring and autumn gloves, which are also perfect for local walks in winter.) and, a pair of wierdies…  Planet-X 365 Winter Gloves.   Or as I affectionately call ’em  “the Spock Gloves”.
lobsterclaws

they may look a bit iffy, but they’re bloody warm…

Walkies

I’ve taken to going for quite a long walk on a Saturday afternoon – a good 3 hours or so as a minimum, provided the rain stays away.   To be honest, it’s just been that the weather has been brighter than the rest of the week, but the winds have been unpleasantly high for actually riding the bike – so it’s been nice to just get out on foot, walk around in the fresh air and get some sunlight on my face – I swear it’s as good as a dose of Prozac as far as mood improvement.

Today’s was another 9 miles or so (strange that I ride the bike in km’s but tend to walk locally in Miles, isn’t it…)   Blowing a complete hoolie all the way round, and far colder than the Garmin Recorded (probably because it was stuffed deep in my jacket pocket out of the wind!)

 

January Summary by the Numbers

Roadbike

Distance: 507.09 km
Elevation Gain: 4,262 m
Time: 24:50:15 h:m:s
Count: 13 Activities
Avg Power: 199 W

 

Mountainbike

Distance: 48.06 km
Elevation Gain: 341 m
Time: 3:28:07 h:m:s
Count: 2 Activities
Avg Power: 124 W

 

Indoor Riding

Distance: 425.52 km
Elevation Gain: 6,051 m
Time: 14:00:33 h:m:s
Count: 8 Activities
Avg Power: 159 W

Walking

Distance: 55.75 km
Elevation Gain: 808 m
Time: 13:48:11 h:m:s
Count: 6 Activities

Final Damage Limitation pre-New Year Celebration

In a vain attempt to at least manage 1/4 distance in the Rapha Festive 500 I went out on New Years Eve for a short Ride.   Frankly, I was a little distracted, and couldn’t concentrate properly – it was a bad case of thinking too much about the events of the year and not enough about keeping myself safe on the road.   I quickly realised that this was silly, and if I was going to be doing anything exercise related, it’d be better if it was a walk – at least I can let my mind wander a little more without worrying about going under a truck when I’m walking.

So, there’s a ride log and a walk log, just to complete the set for 2013.

 

 

More Walkies…

Even better weather, even a little blue sky and sunshine tempted us to give Blencathra a go.   Unfortunately, one of our party had “twanged something” in his leg and wasn’t sure he’d be able to complete the walk – so, we set off on the basis of splitting into 2 groups of two if he had a problem, with me returning with him, and Chris, the more experienced of the other two keeping an eye on things while they continued and finished the walk.

Amazingly, his leg held up fine all the way to the first subsidiary peak on Blencathra, but as we hit the snowline, and began to descent he instantly realised that the downhills on snow were causing real pain.   So, with around 1km to go, I turned back, helping Kel back down the hill – fortunately, when set up with a pair of walking poles properly adjusted, and allowed to go at a nice steady pace, he managed to get back down to the car under his own steam.    Just before we reached the final flat bit we were joined by the other two, who after asking if everything was ok, proceeded to complain that the cloud had sacked in when they began to climb and had rendered any views from the top completely invisible.    Then to add insult to injury, 10 minutes down from the summit, they looked back and it was as clear as a bell.   Sodding Typical!

Anyhoo – there’s the Strava from this walk as well – though the figures are a little “strange” –  especially the “moving time” against the “Actual” – reflecting the fact that I was pretty much walking down 10 yards to show the best route, then standing waiting for my mate to pick his way through…

Walkies…

Despite the frankly awful weather we had yesterday driving up to the lakes, today was actually half decent.   Not “on the tops” decent.  Not even “stayed dry all day” decent, but definitely “good enough to get out walking” good enough.

Chris had the great idea of jumping into the car and driving down to Rosthwaite, then doing a nice walk up one side of Langstrath and down the other.  It came out at around 12km, and being the sad data obsessive I am, I wore the HRM and took the Garmin along to get some idea of how much beer it’d helped offset.   So, I do have the Strava for it…

 

Smiles not Miles – Week 3 Day 1

No miles, Precious few Smiles either…   took a day off as I didn’t fancy riding in piddling rain when I’m already borderline on a head-cold.

And, as per usual when I’m not exercising, I’m bored, and hungry – not good with the lack of bonus-calories from exercise.

Still – the sun came out in the afternoon, and I managed a little walk at least – which helped my mood and kept me away from the ‘fridge…

 

2012 Starts with a Drip, not a Bang

Pissed it down all day, more or less.   Couldn’t get out for a ride on the bike, couldn’t be arsed to go to the Village Soapbox Derby and take pictures in the rain, so wandered down to see the last run-offs of the race, then had a stroll around, generally getting soaking wet and trying to build up an appetite for my evening meal.