Once again I am really pleased to say that I have not had another incident of pancreatitis since February and an MRI that I had at the end of June was very reassuring so I have continued to be active in preparation for three different events over the next three weekends.
Cycling
The main achievement was that I completed a century ride (my first since 2017) at the end of June into Birmingham. Admittedly it was mainly on canal towpaths but I managed. I set off at about 5:30 in the morning and arrived in Birmingham mid afternoon with just over nine hours of cycling. I rode Shirley and was very comfortable. I was particularly slow through Telford with a combination of steep cycle paths and poor navigation. I also took a tumble at mile 95 on the diversion from the main canal. Fortunately other than a lot of swearing I did not injure myself. I later discovered however that I had damaged the left STI shifter.I am not sure that I shall do a full post about the ride although I may put together a short video excerpt.
After this ride my next target was the Tour de 4 in Glasgow to support the charities identified by Sir Chris Hoy to support people with Stage 4 cancers.
This was an excellent day with a very well organised event, great support on the roadside (despite the very wet weather), great spirit between the participants and a challenging ride. I am hoping to put together a complete post about the event in the next month or so including video material.
Talking of video, I have actually posted my video of the Velo Retro on YouTube and the video can be found here.
The Tour de 4 took me to just over 1000 miles for the year to date and I am still aiming for a target of 1500. I am hoping to find time between now and the end of the year for a ride to the Welsh coast (another long term ambition).
Golf
I have played quite regularly and have taken advantage of the very dry conditions at local courses to achieve good distances. Over the last four rounds I have broken 100 on three occasions with me playing the best golf of my life the last time I played with Roger at Arscott. Here, I scored 81 (Stableford 41) for 16 holes – sadly the 6th and 7th holes were closed and so it cannot count as a full round. I did have a record (for me) number of pars including the 1st, 12th, 14th and 15th. My complete scorecard can be found here
I am becoming used to my new clubs and achieving more accuracy. I had a very good lesson with John Richards at Shrewsbury which Susan had bought for my birthday. This involved my short game and I learned a lot although putting it into practice has proved more difficult.
I am getting used to the ARCOSS sensors and it is good that they can record the occasional Tour level shot that I play.
As part of the revamp of this site I shall look again at the golf section, archive the old posts and look again at the eclectic Arscott spreadsheet which is becoming unmanageable.
Walking / Running
This weekend, Susan and I are taking on the Shine Walk in London. This is a half-marathon length walk overnight on Saturday. Between June and mid-August we had been walking up to four times a week building up our distances.
We had just done an eight mile walk along the Montgomery canal, including breakfast but then she suffered a knee injury and this prevented her from doing much walking for about three weeks. She is still hoping to complete at least some of the walk at the weekend. I have done a couple of solo walks although the focus has been on other activities / events.
This has included my return to the Park Run, mainly in Shrewsbury but with a couple of runs in Weymouth when we were down in the summer. I am still at the run/walk stage and am now on a 4 run / 2 walk strategy. My times have improved although my first attempt at this pace was hindered by nearly 950 runners the weekend of the Shrewsbury Folk Festival.
As I have been taking part in other events over the last couple of weekends I have also volunteered at the run. It is a very worthwhile way to spend a couple of hours on a Saturday morning and I intend to volunteer at least once a month while building up to a full run before the end of the year. The other benefit is that taking part stops me drinking too much on a Friday evening.
Triathlon (Yes!)
While recovering last year I decided that I would try and complete a triathlon this year. I entered one in Birmingham but this was moved to Alderford lake in July and there was blue-green algae present. Although the organisers indicated that the water was safe for the swim, Susan didn’t think it a good idea for me to participate given the risk of gastric upset.
So I had to wait to wear my tri-suit until last Sunday when I took part in the North west triathlon in Nantwich. I took part in the Super Sprint which included a 200m swim (in a brine pool), 21km bike and 2.5 km run. In the year of one of the hottest driest summers on record It was pouring with rain and blowing a gale.
The swim was OK if using unfamiliar muscles although I was swum over by a woman who went on to average 25 miles an hour on the bike(???). Despite thinking I needed to slow down I started off on the bike very quickly and to my surprise I was able to maintain a very good pace, averaging nearly 15 miles an hour. I was very pleased with this considering the weather and the very poor condition of the roads.
I then lost time looking for my stuff in T2 before the run where I did a 300 step run / 100 walk pace until the finish. It turned out that I was the oldest competitor in both the Sprint and Super Sprint events and was 1st in my age group (out of 2) in the Super Sprint. Sadly the weather deteriorated even more at the end and we left the site before any prize giving.
But I am very pleased with my first triathlon since my operation and have already entered the same event for next year.
So no excuse, I shall just have to keep plodding and swinging!
AJMB