M-C: Have a look for Audiofuel online, they do a bunch of mp3 training tracks that run you through different speed/interval/training sessions.

Oh, and one other tip: Some people don’t get on with training plans, stopwatches, interval sessions etc. I’m one of those people. Sometimes it’s good just to run what you feel…

Started running again in January after a good few years layoff, entered the Janathon (google it) and got on alright, 155 miles over the month. Stuck with it steadily through the year and into the Juneathon (warmer brother of Janathon) and clocked 200 over that. And now I’m just on my way back from a beautiful but brutal 23 hrs on the Grand Raid des Pyrenees ultramarathon! (50 miles, 5000m total ascent)

Biggest changer for me was getting a decent gait analysis when I bought shoes – the Salomon XAs I’d run in in the past were ripping my feet apart, blistered really badly in my arch. Accelerate in Sheffield were really thorough with me and helped me sort out what was going wrong where (hypermobile gait, pronation beyond the limit of the motion control in the Salomons) and have sorted me out with a couple of pairs of shoes, Saucony trail shoes to start with, then Mizuno Wave Harriers to deal with the Ultra better.

Biggest tips I’d offer are to get a decent analysis, try and clock mileage off-road (easier on the knees , less boring, and helps build stability and propriaception into the legs), and just enjoy it!

Stopped by the memorial on the Woodhead a couple of months back. Felt amazingly choked up standing at a memorial to someone I never met, in the dark, in the middle of nowhere.

The guy was an inspiration, and while i’d never come close to his racing prowess, vids like Dirt got me out of the house of a weekend and into the fells to go do stupid stuff on my bike, which was more the point, I reckon.

Ride free, JMC

Yup, kites are carrion eaters. Much like most of the chav twunts around Harehills…

Grand Raid des Pyrenees.

Picking those up out there, Dave, and the feed stations are stocked with sausage, cheese and tea.

Not taking that many gels so they should all fit in the little bag if needs be, just didn’t want to end up with the insufferably minging gels I ended up with last time I did a race on The Continent.

Good luck! Used to train at Chojinkai karate, many years ago, and now do work for a company as a First Aider at GKR’s tournaments. From a demographic point-of-view, we get the most work from your group – lower-belt but slightly higher age. Seems to be a combination of having the power but not necessarily the control, though if you’re trained before that’ll be easier to re-learn. That said, I do watch the kumite and kind of wish I was training and sparring myself, but have too many other activities that rely on me not wrecking myself (again…)

I dunno. Apparently I don’t have permission to access that image. :)

What pic would that be, then?

None harmed, but a couple may have become mildly perturbed at people trying to ride them.

There, marshalling. Will wave at you all from behind my midge net.

Bit south of you, but there’s some nice trails over the Sidlaws.

An old housemate (was one of the mechanics from Stif in Headingley) built one up, can’t remember the frame name but it was lovely. Fast, comfortable, stable. He’d built it up with a Fox shock, Rohloff and Hope discs so it was fairly blinged out, did a fair amount of touring on it and said the only issue he’d found was it got a touch “interesting” if you braked hard coming down steep hills, especially in the wet. I had a quick play in the yard a couple of times and my only reservation would have been the height/visibility thing – you’re pretty same close to the tarmac!

Look up Dan the Automator’s “Bombay the Hard Way: Guns, Cars and Sitars”. Remixes of Bollywood tracks, nice and chilled and perhaps a bit more accessible than some Indian music.

How can you spot an outgoing mathematician?

He stares at *your* shoes while talking to you.

Two cats on a sloping roof, which one falls off first?

The one with the lower mew.

Eyes
Sense of humour
Intelligence
Voice/accent
Body.

Pretty much in that order, to be honest. Non-smoker has to be on the list somewhere as well, there’s no bigger turn-off for me.

Erm. I find it annoying (work on excel day in day out) but not that much of a hassle since there’s a menu bar button to do it. I work on Excel ’07 which is a bit easier than ’03 for presentation and formatting.

You could think about pre-setting a small area with your chosen format, then using copy- paste special- paste formats as keyboard shortcuts.

Can’t remember the name, but the Chinese restaurant we went to a month or so ago was pretty good…

(Google Maps says it was the Lotus. Now I know)

No, there isn’t.

Resurrecting this, anyone got a GPX file of last year’s route? I’m marshalling and thinking about bivvying out on the Friday night to be wherever I need to be early, fancied armchair scouting some possible locations on Memory Map if anyone’s got the file.

Cheers!

Randall. Waiting list for new ones, but you get them crop up on flea bay occasionally.

It was never really designed to – gmail used to say that linking through outlook wasn’t really what they wanted people to do. They may have just turned that option off/down even further.

Last year, climbing out in the Alps, a stom came in while we were descending to a disused lift station to kip for the night. Watching blue sparks crackle off your protection, off the odd old piton, off water pools on the rock face, is pretty disconcerting. We scrambled into the old station as it rolled over and watched a couple of strikes on the building and the metal trail we’d just climbed over. Needless to say, sleep was a bit scarce that night.

Amy LaVere. Another double bass player, very awesome.

Yup. My parents did with me (short-lived kleptomaniacal phase in my teenage years, given a very stern interview and a slapped wrist but no record) and were I in the same position as a parent, my (currently hypothetical) kids would get the same treatment.

TTIUWP.

Gesundheit.

Yep! Took a mate of mine over to Dalby yesterday for a bash around the red route. I’ve never completed the Dalby red before, due to always having broken either my bike or my riding partner, so we set off conservatively. He ended up pretty battered (he’s more a runner than a biker) but made it round and I had a great time leading and enjoying the swoopy jumpy bits. And we made it back before the cafe closed so it all ended on a tea-and-cake note. Brilliant!

Some of the Band of Skulls stuff is pretty good.
For old-school punk, look up The Grit.

“Washed out” is a specific term, though. Means the front wheel slipping sideways in a turn and parking you on your ar#e, same as a “low side” in Moto. So it might either have been proper usage or, as you say, horrendous misuse.

‘Huck’ is one that always gets me, in both biking and kayaking. Same with ‘nailing/pinning it’ – so you got through a bit of trail without crashing. Good for you…

Ooh. Just… Ooh. Hmmm…

Tempted. Just for sh*ts and giggles, really.

Not good with southern geography, but Sea Kayak Cornwall are a good bet as well. Jeff and Simon are good blokes.

With a bit of luck, might make it as well. Question is, racy full-suss or rigid singlespeed? And the obligatory ‘what tyres?’ !

One of my riding buddies was giving me stick last night for riding a rigid SS. He stopped when after two hours of riding I was still kicking his derriere both up and down every hill.

A certain Frank Turner song illustrates some of it quite nicely.

Probably NSFW unless you’ve got headphones/an understanding boss. Contains a small amount of swearyness.

all the marshalls are politicians in their day job

No we’re not. I’m a data analyst ;)

I’ve been using one of the Tacx saddle rail bottle cage mounts and a couple of bootlaces to give a bit of space between the back of my legs and a 10l SealLine bag. Rocks about a bit but not too bad and didn’t cost owt ’cause I had the mount already.

Fuzzbox – International Rescue

Awful video, but the lead singer had nice legs. It was the 80s, I was starting to become dimly aware of these things called ‘girls’ and the pics of the lass dressed as Barbarella that came with the vinyl single sold me on it…

I love my Speccy BG Ridge gloves – full finger but lightweight and cool even in summer.