SportsShoes Blog

Happy New Year to you all - I hope you all had a great Christmas. Let me start by wishing you all the very best of luck for 2009.

Over the holidays I found out about a few more secret blog readers so a big hello to Helen, Adi, Simon and Denise.

I’ve had a great time over the past couple of weeks and managed to mix plenty of running and biking into the hectic schedule of present opening, eating, drinking and family visiting.

I did a road ride on the 29th with Martin my Calderdale Way relay partner and all round athlete and found the going really tough. I’ve not done a long ride for a while and after 48 miles I was completely done in (coasting back downhill to home I was hallucinating about food) - I’ve a long way to go to get ready for the Fred Whitton and the Marmotte.

On the 31st I finished the year off with the classic Auld Lang Syne fell race in Haworth. The popularity of this race is amazing - this year a record 590 runners descended on Penistone hill in FREEZING temperatures to run the 6.5 mile fell race up to the Top Withins ruin and back. The temperature was seriously cold (-6 degrees) - I reckon the coldest I’ve ever done a race in - and when we got back we looked more like arctic explorers than runners.

Although I never really felt great on the run my time wasn’t too bad and I finished 50th overall - results, pics and other stuff here   http://www.woodentops.org.uk/index.php?topic=als    

So after bonking on my bike a few days ago, I thought I’d get out and give it another try today - I did 20+ miles with plenty of hills and felt much better all the way around until……not 100 yards from home……I crashed in fine style on a downhill right hander. It was a very quick front wheel wash out and smash down with no warning and not even enough time to get the ‘I’ve crashed’ feeling that all bikers will be familiar with. The result, a battered bike, torn leggings and top, a pulled right calf muscle, gravel rash to right knee, hip, forearm, elbow and shoulder and a badly scuffed helmet where I tried to bury my head in the tarmac - OUCH. Lessons of the day - always wear a helmet and get some winter tyres!!!!!

Anyway, that’s snookered my chances of running in the Ovenden Fell Race tomorrow - think I’ll try and get a mountain bike ride in on Sunday and make a special effort to stay sunny side up…..

This entry was posted on Friday, January 2nd, 2009 at 7:47 pm and is filed under Andy Nicoll, Diaries & training blogs. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.