Mr. Cleetus: Training & Travelling

[Alistar]

Hope your flu's all better Mr C. Told this women I was working for today that I felt like I'd been fighting off the flu for the last few days when she asked, and she then told me this story about one of the caregivers looking after her elderly mother had just died from it

[bob_summers]

holy shit, look after yourselves

[bob_summers]

Mr C.. so I've been thinking about (only thinking, nothing may come of it!) starting with a bit of fell/mtn running, whatever it's called here. I have zero running fitness, and a slightly dicky ankle. Can I just go straight into the offroad stuff or would you recommend building a bit of a base on tarmac first?

[Mr. Cleetus]

Mr C.. so I've been thinking about (only thinking, nothing may come of it!) starting with a bit of fell/mtn running, whatever it's called here. I have zero running fitness, and a slightly dicky ankle. Can I just go straight into the offroad stuff or would you recommend building a bit of a base on tarmac first?

Awesome! No reason to mess with the road - go straight to the trails. Take your time building up though, including any hills. It is probably best to start out on the flat with some short and easy runs, e.g., 10-15 minutes. Then if you are coming off of those without any soreness or damage, start increasing things and adding in some small hills. Expect to get a bit beaten up on your first hill runs. Your cardio from your riding will tempt you to do more, but your body will probably not thank you for that. Be prepared that it will likely take the top-edge off of your riding....

[Mr. Cleetus]

The flu was/is certainly a nasty one. It has been more than 2 weeks now and I am still not completely right. I did finally get out again over the weekend though.

Saturday am 2hr road ride 630m climbing: ROAD RIDE!! This may very well have been my longest break off of the bike since the 80s. Weather was perfect and I really enjoyed it. I decided I couldn't bear to grovel on the flat, at least with some hills I could pretend I had an excuse to be so slow about 30s up the first climb my hamstrings nearly exploded (imploded?) but things got better after that. My road bike is so sadly neglected. I think all of my road riding earlier this year was done on my TT bike.

Sunday had planned to run, but the weather was shocking and I am full of excuses. Gotta get my motivation back.

@VL I am overseas more than I am in NZ for the rest of 2012, so probably unlikely I will get any fitness that will make me want to race. I still need to think about summer. There is no Kiwi Brevet this year, but there are some shorter things I may do and there is always the tri season/mtb season/road race season. Sadly it all comes down to my workload.

[Mr. Cleetus]

Monday lunch, 5.1km run steady: errrrr..... The flu really knocked me back. More interestingly, I have had just over 2 weeks off running, my last run was 2(?)hrs with major climbing, and now I am sore the day after a 25 min easy run on the flat!

[bob_summers]

I pretty much lose my top end over winter anyway! Still not 100% convinced but as there are a couple of mtns about 10 minutes either side of my front door it seems ideal, I don't have to follow all the jolly joggers plodding around the bay every sunday morning

Which road bike is this, the Master Olympic?

[Mr. Cleetus]

Running up and down hills can be a lot of fun, so if you give yourself a bit of time to adapt to it, you just might find you enjoy it. If you have a headlamp, doing it in the dark in the winter adds a new element of fun. Give it a go!

The Master Olympic is fixed and with moustache bars, so it is more my commuting and fun bike. My main road bike a Litespeed Ghisallo (I've also got an old Basso Columbus SL). It is really sloppy on the front end, but I don't think it was always that way. I've got a silly lightweight Syntace stem on it that I am thinking of replacing to see if that firms it up some. What I really want to do is to turn my now ancient Look KG486 back into a road bike; I really love that bike even though I have had it for so long. The means I need a TT bike and I have had my eye on an English for quite a while now... It probably will not happen in a hurry though.

Tuesday lunch 5.1km easy/steady: Same run as the day before and it felt a whole lot better even with the soreness. Now, a day later again, the soreness seems to be pretty much gone.

[Alistar]

Good to hear that you're over the flu, and feeling a lot better on the runs already. Those virus's can really knock one about!

[Mr. Cleetus]

Thanks Al, slowly getting there! Almost over it.

Wednesday lunch 6km run: woooo getting the big miles now Felt pretty good in the first 1/2 but then really tightened up. Pace was too high. Hopefully next week I will be back to normal.

[Mr. Cleetus]

Thursday... no time.... but probably my legs needed a day off anyway.

Friday lunch 5.2km flat: some faster (4min) kms that felt reasonably good. Pretty tight at the end though. hopefully next week I will start to feel a bit more normal and get back to some longer runs and some hills.

I've started my pushups again. woooo, tough. gotta get consistent with these again! I am really missing swimming. Hopefully in December I can start again.

[bob_summers]

I love English's frames for the sheer audacity he makes them with, although he takes the compact geo so far it makes me cringe. I'm too much of a horizontal TT nerd

I can start running in normal shoes right? I don't need anything special? (only have Dunlop green flash atm, assuming they'll be somewhat lacking!)

[Alistar]

I've started my pushups again. woooo, tough. gotta get consistent with these again!

Same! started them a few weeks ago as haven't been doing much else. Tough alright. I had to start with womans ones so I wouldn't strain my non-existant chest muscles!

[Mr. Cleetus]

hah! at least I started off better than you Al with 30 normal ones. errr, difficult to pretend it didn't make me sore though.

Saturday am 1hr30 mtb single track: muddy, but good fun. Felt better on the climbs than I expected. Need to get some new Mtn Kings. The Akas just don't cut it when it gets so muddy. (it is obviously not my skills that are the problem )

Sunday 3hr30 mtb, farm track, single track, some road, ~1000m climbing: wooo, I did a bit of grovelling on the last climb... very nice ride and fun despite being rained on for most of it. Still have the Kurve saddle on my Gryphon; it still doesn't work. We stopped and watched the CX race for a bit. Gaaaaa I should have done it. I would have been completely out the bum, but who cares in CX and it was the last one of the season. Saw many ripped-off derailleurs due to the crazy mud, so maybe it's a good thing I didn't I used my phone for strava, but it died (even tho fully charged at the start) before the end. I am sure there was at least 3000m more metres of climbing

http://app.strava.com/rides/18977725

[Mr. Cleetus]

I love English's frames for the sheer audacity he makes them with, although he takes the compact geo so far it makes me cringe. I'm too much of a horizontal TT nerd

I can start running in normal shoes right? I don't need anything special? (only have Dunlop green flash atm, assuming they'll be somewhat lacking!)

I tried to post a pic of it here, but he makes it difficult

hmmm, I would be careful with shoes. Obviously you don't want to go out and buy a pair of running shoes if you are only going to run three times, but those aren't going to give you any support or cushioning. If you are going to run in those I would do your build up very slowly and if you think it might be something you are going to continue, then invest in some basic running shoes. You can get some pretty cheaply from wiggle.
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When is your first run?