Two new challenges

We're almost a quarter through 2010 - how has your running been going? I hope that you've managed to stay injury free and get out on the roads and trails as much as you wanted.

I'm doing not-too-badly on my running new years resolution. By today, I should have run 120 miles of my 500 annual total. I've managed 98 miles. So a little behind, but still a lot better than I did last year. In fact, last year it was the end of August by the time I got to 98 miles... I'm hoping that as the summer comes I'll be able to put in a few more miles per week to catch up with my target.

The cycling target has had to take a bit of a back seat for now, with me having cycled only 88 miles out of a 1000 mile annual target. I should be up to around 240 miles by now. Cycling, however, is much more possible in the summer so hopefully this will pick up too...

So - what are my two new challenges to follow on from my successful half marathon?

Firstly, I have entered myself in the Timex Eton SuperSprint Triathlon on May 15th.

It's a 400m open water swim, 20km bike and a 5k run. I'm not too worried about the bike and run, but I think I will be one of the slowest on the swim... I'm going to stick my neck out with a race time prediction - 12 mins for swim, 40 mins for bike and 30 mins for run. Add in a few minutes for transitions gives me a total time of 1 hour 25 mins. That compares to a fastest time last year of 56 mins. My predicted time would have placed me 550th out of 868 finishers which sounds like an achievable target.

Secondly, I want to (still) be quite a bit lighter by the time I do the triathlon (now in a little less than 7 weeks' time).

For those who have read this blog for a while, you'll know that I was successful in losing quite a bit of weight last year, going down from 102kg to 90kg at my very lightest. In reality, I think that my more 'natural' weight at the time as aroun 92kg (food in the system, fully hydrated etc.). Over Christmas, I went up to around 95kg and now I'm at 94kg. My target is to get down well below 90kg by the time I do the triathlon - so around 1kg per week to get me down to around 87kg. That will be the lightest I have been (and hopefully the fittest I have been) since I was at university almost 20 years ago...

So from tomorrow I'm going to reinstate my box in the right hand column which tracks my daily weight - check in regularly (or subscribe through a reader) to keep up to date with how I get on!

I still owe you a post about my home made energy drinks and gels which I'll give you next time. I'll also show you how I got a cadence meter for my bike for less than £2 - a lot cheaper than Garmin wanted!