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Marathon I hate running, but it's something that has to be done.
Begs the question...why? I can kind of understand why people who actually like running would do it but if not, it looks like hell. You've got to really, REALLY put in months and months of training of doing something you hate and the actual event looks awful - lots of hanging around/shuffling/being penned in at the start and lots of people EVERYWHERE on the route, shouting and hollering? I know the point of the spectators is to gee people on but I would find it really annoying.
And we haven't even started on the fact that you've got to raise a fortune and then there's the chafing....you strike me as the type that would (rightfully) hate Ride100 for many of the reasons I've mentioned above (and the organisers have said they want it to become the cycling version of the marathon) so I'm wondering why you'd want to do the marathon..?
Genuine q - not trolling or owt
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months and months of training of doing something you hate
The time doesn't concern me, I used to do 15+ hours of cycling a week (all year round) and marathon training isn't that time consuming compared to that. As for hating it, I hate running now because I'm fat and running is horrible when carrying extra weight (whilst cycling is easy). It'll get less horrible when I get back down to a more sensible weight, but running (amongst other exercise) is one of the best ways I've found of getting my weight back down. I'm hoping that once I get my weight down enough it'll transition from "hate" to "mild dislike" and I can put up with "mild dislike" for 4 hours. I've "hated" 10+ hour stretches of some Audaxes I've ridden. A lack of bloody-mindedness is not a problem I suffer from.
Chafing, that's just vaseline, the right kit and a certain amount of hardening up due to hours put in already. Same on the bike. Finding the right saddle/shorts for you will help. Even with them in place you need hours in the saddle to get your arse used to it (I get painful sitbones if I have a lengthy absence from distance cycling, but it doesn't take long to recondition my arse). If, after all of that, you still have problems, then that's what chamois cream is there to solve. The first two (equipment, conditioning) are trying to treat the cause of the problem whilst the latter (embrocation) is treating the resulting symptom.
Most of those marathon negatives (fundraising, waiting, etc) are common to the London Marathon. There are plenty of other marathons that don't require fund raising to get a place. Friends rave about Lisbon, Paris and Brighton marathons for these reasons. Smaller and less logistical bollocks (waiting/etc). The noise of spectators can be blocked out with headphones, no idea whether it would annoy me or not.
The only thing that would annoy me about Ride 100 is that it's just far too busy, and too many people demonstrate a lack of group riding skills (I prefer my commute in the winter to the summer!). The novelty of closed roads may get me to do it one year but I don't see the point when there are plenty of nicer rides all year round in the form of Audaxes. I'm more likely to volunteer to be a marshal for the Ride 100 than I am to ride it.
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That's a shame. Hope you're not too disheartened by it.
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There's a couple of goals currently bouncing around in my brain. I'm already lining up PBP 2015 which I've already completed once. I'm going to move up a category to the 84 hour group but I also intend to try and enjoy more of the local fun and entertainment that's on offer. This means working a lot harder on my speed so that I feel a lot more comfortable taking time out for the distractions.
The Transcontinental Race seems really exciting and I reckon I could manage that. If all goes well on PBP, I'll use that as a springboard to train more and try and get an entry in for 2016.
Other notions include heading out to do 1200k audaxes in more challenging regions such as Russia, Inner Mongolia, Uzbekistan and India. Super Brevet Scandinavia was very good but possibly the most sanitary of the European rides. Bigger rides like Sverigetempot are also very attractive.
I wouldn't mind getting back into time trials and certainly they would be good for my TCR ambitions. Off the bike, I've been getting into fell running and would like to work up to a long one. I couldn't do a road marathon and something like the Bob Graham is way beyond me at the moment. Perhaps a 20 miler would be a good target.
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Hmm.. maybe I could ditch the TTing for a while and form a plan for PBP? I'd just treat it like a race anyway though, just without aerobars for a change.
http://24hrworlds.com/ as an excuse to visit the USA and binge eat for a week?
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Liverpool Uni are looking for a pilot for their HPV to take to Battle Mountain for a crack at the World Record. I know a couple of people who are putting themselves up for the challenge but you could easily be a contender for that spot.
Does require quite a bit of lying down though.
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Looks a little bit more phalic than I'd like.. :-)
http://www.gizmag.com/arion1-bicycle-world-speed-record/31772/700W they say but for how long?
http://ulvteam.co.uk/
http://ulvteam.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/ARION1-Rider-Application.pdf -
A little bit.
It's a flying start 200m so you need to be able to have the endurance needed to wind up to close to the speed. Once you get close to the start gate, perhaps 100-150m out, you start the sprint and need to hold it to the finish gate. Then, if I understand these things with speed records, you turn around and do it the other way to get an averaged performance.
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I'm a bit of a dreamer so here goes.
2014:
Main aim is to keep fucking training and stop being so lazy.Race cyclocross, get a result I'm happy with in a race.
Not lose too much fitness
Return to running or at least some balance of running and cycling.
Begin to train for 2015 race season.
Swim more.
Work more.2015:
It looks like I might have a lot of holidays so:
TransAm bike ride- in a month? Likelihood 3/10
Marathon in 2:50- who knows, 3:05 was quite easy.
Cat2 (big ask)
That ventoux thing- I'd also like to do that. Very very much.2016:
Swim the channel. -
Greenbank - have you recently hit a >40 age milestone?
Srsly though, that's an impressive list. If you manage a third of it, you'll have achieved muchly. :)
Also, @Sparky started a Bucket List thread a while back but that wasn't solely for cycling goals: https://www.lfgss.com/conversations/197349/
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OMG - 4 months til Xmas!!! That's actually brought me out in a sweat :/
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Greenbank - have you recently hit a >40 age milestone?
Nope, 40 is a few years away. It's nothing age related; more an evolution of stuff I'm interested in (swimming and endurance cycling).
@eyebrows > Swim the channel.
Ah yes. Some interest but low likelihood for me as the stories of swimming through shoals of jellyfish just freak me out.
There are a couple of rocks in the sea (the Quies) off Trevose Head in North Cornwall. It's probably a 3 mile swim out there and back to a safe bit of beach but (at a minimum) i'd need a local with knowledge of the rocks/tides/currents and a boat/jet-ski to act as a backup.
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some inspiring goals here. really enjoyed reading what targets everyone is setting themselves.
there's a long waiting list to swim the channel. think it's somewhere along 3 years to wait and to arrange a pilot will set you back around 3k at least last time i checked. plus the conditions have to be just right and there may only be short windows where its possible to attempt it. i couldn't imagine the devotion needed to get to the standard where you could swim it. to me it seems more of a mental endurance than physical. just seems major badass territory. also cyclists aren't really built for endurance swimming without wetsuits though!
2014 goals
run inside 20min 5km
get inside 22.30 for 10m TT at Olympic Park track
get inside 3.45 for marathon
maintain 600m a month on the bike
be a good husbandmy 2015 goals
get into road racing (thanks for pointers eyebrows)
possibly get clearance from HQ for PBP and do all the qualifiers for that
run sub 3.30 marathon
get inside 22.10 for 10m TT at olympic park track
possibly do another ironman, but doubt it based on doing one last 2 years + cost2016 goals
ultra trail du mont blanc
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Everythings pretty short-term at the moment, due to work and stuff, so-
Get round a couple of (already entered) marathons in the autumn.
Enter ironman.
Actually keep fit through the winter.
Enter at least one bike race next year.
Get round ironman.Try not to have a mental breakdown in the interim.
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About
Goals/aspirations
Posted by
@Greenbank
Elsewhere there used to be a thread about long term goals/aspirations (from the likely to sheer fantasy). It helped give other people ideas about things that they may not know about. Here are mine.
I'll also mark my aspirations on both "interest" and "likelihood". For example, I'd love to do a US Coast to Coast but it's incredibly unlikely I'd ever choose to use 3 weeks of my time to do it over other ideas (or family life). I simply don't have the speed to make RAAM a possibility, and I don't have the time to train to get anywhere near the required speed. For similar time reasons (with knobs on) I'd never even consider putting a round-the-world bike ride on the list. Also the idea of cycling that far out of my comfort zone does not really interest me.
Starting with some I have achieved that used to be on my list...
Do some stupidly long/hilly Audax rides. I got into Audax in 2006 after doing London to Cambridge (100km) and read some ride reports from people who mentioned riding to the start from Cambridge to make it into a 200km DIY Audax. Ooh, what's "Audax" and it continued from there. Did a 200 in October 2006, then another in November, and it snowballed into doing 600km across Wales twice, on fixed. Wanted to do some of the blue riband events and was lucky enough to do them.
LEJOG in 5 days I've done that distance in that time on London-Edinburgh-London but LEJOG is something that still holds some interest for me. Interest: 6/10. Likelihood: 4/10 (more likely to do something on foreign soil with that time).
There's plenty of places on my cycling heatmap: http://www.greenbank.org/misc/cycling_heatmap_20140708.png that I need filling in.
Transcontinental Race The 2014 edition piqued my interest again. I'd look to target something under 14 days so no danger of troubling the leaders, but 2 weeks off on my own is incredibly selfish (IMO). Interest: 8/10 Likelihood: 3/10.
Marathon I hate running, but it's something that has to be done. Usurped by...
Ironman Triathlon Latest stupid idea. At least it's all done within 18 hours or so (hopefully sub 15h). Have enough time for some good base training from September and so I'll target 2016. May morph into an Ironman 70.3 (half Ironman) if I just don't get on with marathon running. Would like my first Triathlon (and marathon) to be an Ironman though but I might do some sprint Tris just to try it out. Interest: 9/10 Likelihood: 9/10
Club cinglés du Mont-Ventoux All 3 main climbs of Ventoux back to back in a day. Been on list for a while (ever since doing the climb from Malaucene). Good news is that it's just a day (if I happen to be in that area of France) or a few days with travel either side. Interest: 8/10 Likelihood: 8/10. Just need to get fit and lose weight (see Ironman bit above).
Other stuff that's sitting in my head wondering whether it could be done:-
Cycle the entire Tour de France route one year. Not quite as fast as those that did Le Tour Ultime / Le Tour Direct. ~4000km so 3 weeks. Interest: 4/10 (lots of France is dull) Likelihood: 2/10 (too much time away)
Cycle to the Alps to go skiing. I love skiing and I like the idea of getting there by bike. It's "only" 1100km from London so that's 4 days at Audax pace. Not going to be popular with MrsGB and carrying luggage required for skiing (boots/jacket/etc) would be interesting. Plus cycling time effectively eats into skiing time. Interest: 4/10, Likelihood: 1/10. If I ever win the lottery (If I ever bought a ticket)...