Search results for:

Ive had a Conti 4000GP II inflate and hold pressure absolutely fine at 90psi. Meanwhile its counterpart bought at the same time leaked like a sieve all round the sidewall.

Didn't ride, removed and fitted Pro One instead.

My normal goto breakfast isn't a bad start to the day. Plenty of fibre, fats and slow carbs so I'm not starving 10 minutes later.

Plain Skyr has less sugars but tastes 😝

Just out of curiosity and the fact I'm building up a bike for some adventuring, I've just done some testing with a thermocouple and wasted (invested) some time while watching rubbish on tv. Whilst not scientifically controlled and my meter only reads whole degrees, not 10ths. Hopefully 20 minutes for each test to allow temperatures to settle out, with the thermocouple resting in the same position ontop of my ankles, it should be fair in real world usage.

Room temp 21°C
109g SOl Survival bag 28°C
217g Gelert survival bag (basic orange plastic bag) 25°C
843g Military Goretex bivvy bag 27°C
1240g North Face hollow fiber sleeping bag with 2deg comfort rating 29°C
Goretex bivvy bag with SOL bag ontop 30°C

Obviously the thin plastic of the SOL bag will have very poor durability but performance per gram is quite good.

That's some speed 😀

So is that you 2nd V45 or was the other chap also Vet? Fantastic either way

I haven't used it overnight, or required it for an emergency but the SOL emergency bag may be worth a look. 100g and sub tennis ball pack size.
https://www.ultralightoutdoorgear.co.uk/equipment-c3/first-aid-emergency-c5/emergency-rescue-c6/heatsheets-emergency-bivy-sleeping-bag-p61

Awesome. That's an epic distance for a first ultra 😎

I hope you fare well and enjoy most of it.

Some going @HatBeard putting in two ultras. Especially when you get bonus miles included 😕

Don't stop unless you really have to be stationary. It's surprising how much time can slip by when you're messing about at CPs or with kit. That time being a distance which is hard to make up again.
Only stop for:-
Road junctions where your going to get mowed down.
Retying laces or sorting out your feet.
Refilling water bottles.

Practice getting your pack off and finding/stash stuff whilst maintaining a decent pace. Jacket on and off without slowing down much.

Approaching a CP, get your bottles or bladder ready to fill. Grab your grab bag if you have one. Say thanks to the CP staff and get walking.

I can get a Muller Pot rice out of my pack, eat it and then stow the spoon and empty whilst maintaining 6:00/km. A few practice goes were messy 😂

Ive just had a rewire of our phone and router setup and the connection download speed has increased from 2.9Mbps to 5.8Mbps 😀 Our exchange isnt likely to get fibre any time soon.

The BT master socket is in the loft and was probably installed in 1989. The removable lower panel didn't have a socket for connecting a phone (or router) into and the wiring that extended from that to the usable hallway socket had been heavily stapled in place.

Ive now got the latest NTE5C filtered faceplate master in the loft and replaced the phone cable with a length of cat5e down to the hallway telephone socket.

A second run of cat5 cable is run from the router and hardwired into Data home wiring A/B connections on the back of the master socket faceplate. It could have been plugged into the front of the master socket, but being as the wires are clipped inplace to the rafters, the hardwire option seemed neater.

Definitely worth while

Are you finishing at the valve? That lets you maximise getting most of the tyre bead in the valley of the rim.

If it's fresh tape, fitting a tyre (that you can get on) and tube for a few hours may compress the tape onto the rim a little bit more.

hadn't got further than about 400yds before the heavens had fully opened and I was already soaked through completely.

I continued to the park and proceeded to have some of the most fun I've had running zooming straight through the 4 inch deep puddles

I'm usually not a fan of a mid run/ride soaking. However going out when it's belting down and being transported back to age 4 is just brilliant ☺

Its probably not very good for the washing machine, but needs must when your mojo escapes

Got back from todays ride and noticed some sealant splattered on the rear of the frame and caliper. 700x23 Pro One with Orange endurance sealant which must have worked fairly quickly for what I'm presuming was a thorn or something similar as there's no obvious cuts to the tyre.

Everyone and every run is different for recovery.

If your muscles are comfortable running 30k without aches pains to recover from then it comes down to how much the occasion took out of you...
Were you pushing a pace/effort/heart rate for longer than your used to.
Did you keep well hydrated and fed and felt like the next 10k would have been fine, or finished well spent.

Pretty proud of myself as I've not been running too long. I was a heavy drinker, smoker, prolific drug user and on a path of self destruction. Cliche as it is, but running has changed my life.

Theres a few top level ultra runners who would probably be in a box, had they not found running and changed their lifestyle. Your not alone 😀

As this is going to be your first marathon distance. If your not in a rush to get it over with, I'd recommend trying a few weekends of back to back runs to build endurance. And get your head round running tired and nutrition that works for you.
25k one day, then 10 the next day.
25k, 15k
30k, 10k
42

Most of all, smile and enjoy yourself when you go for it 😀

It turns out the distinctly average Suntour Raidon fork on the Bizango can be easily transformed ☺

From new, the legs are lubed with grease and the forks are noticeably sticky for small bump sensitivity. I read about people cleaning out the grease, adding foam rings below the wiper seals and 15ml of oil in each leg, which sounded like it was a big improvement... without horror stories about long term issues. Being as I've got a packet of Tungsten disulphide powder (WS2), I thought this would be a worthy place for a sprinkle at the same time.

With the lower legs removed, the difference in quality between the Raidon moco /spring units and RS Reba is obvious, but thats hardly surprising considering the price difference.

The lower legs already had foam rings installed, so I just cleaned out the grease and gave the wiper seals, stanchions and as far as possible, the bushes a good rub with the WS2 powder. Plus I mixed a bit of WS2 into 30ml of 5W40 fully synthetic engine oil. With the lowers partially fitted and the fork angled upwards like assembling a Rockshox , 15ml of oil injected into each leg before refitting the retaining bolts (theres not enough thread for a crush washer, so a smear of RTV silicone under the bolt head) and finally working the fork through a few compression cycles.

The difference is huge 😀 infact there's probably less stiction compared the Rebas which are oil lubed and also have TF tuned ultra low friction wiper seals.

A few weeks ago, I built up a new Bizango 29er for a friend. That got me thinking about a change from my 26 Inbred rather than just giving it an overhaul.

I wasn't a fan of the front shifting of the Bizango, and the forks aren't anything special, but with the sale price and BC discount it seemed like reasonable value.

My Mrs has inherited bits from the Inbred, including XT shifters, derailleur and cassette, plus the Reba WC forks 😢. The new double chainset from the Bizango makes for a good overhaul for her bike.

Straight away the Bizango went 1x10 with 32t SLX cranks. Handily the rear mech is shadow+ so chain slap should be minimal. I've also swapped the tyres for Specialized Purgatory 2.3 F and Ground Conrtol 2.1 R. Converted to tubeless which went up easily with three layers of Gorilla tape, two scoops of Stans and some glitter.

Two shakers and dry shake the powder and ball in one first, before adding it to water in the second.
Not perfect but better.

So that 2000 average is going to be correct, with some days likely to be over 3000 deficit! An admirable effort, but that's bound to be affecting your metabolism and your probably not getting all the nutrients that your body needs after that expenditure.

1500-1600 daily calories, plus eating back my exercise, is the range I use for getting down to race weight.

With the results from 7 races processed, I'm somehow still top of the Scottish Ultra Marathon Series 😀 Target for the year was a top three in the senior men category, which looks realistic so far, but its going to get tight as other lads run their 3rd and 4th races.

The Lochalsh Dirty 30 was a slight disappointment points wise. I ran it last year and came 7th in 5h 36m. As it was, a few whippets and decent hill runners turned up and I just managed 10th place despite knocking 36 minutes off last year 😢
Hopefully get close to 120 miles at the G24 race in September, which could bring the average up a few points.

https://www.sumseries.com/male-2016
Rob Sinclair has the overall title firmly grasped, with 3 wins out of 3 races run.

If you purely consider the energy usage until you've stopped walking (or anything else thats fully aerobically powered, like sitting down or sleeping) then yes, you probably have burned fat 🤔

Say your not on a diet. You've just finished your dinner (which brings you up to your daily calorie allowance) and go for a leisurely walk, burning 500 calories. Your glycogen and glucose stores have been kept full by the food you've eaten. If you get home and eat 500 calories of cake (as a reward for your 500 calorie walk) it will just get stored as fat... did you burn fat or briefly use some stored energy?

Say you were short on time and you've already eaten your full calorie allowance, but wanted to create a 500 calorie deficit as you're on a diet. Blast out a run that has you gasping for breath all the way. Burn 500 calories and virtually all of it would be from your glycogen and blood glucose stores and barely any fat used... Without any additional food, some of your bodies fat stores will be drawn into the liver and be processed into glucose. Did you 'burn fat' whilst doing flat out cardio, or is your body just doing its everyday balancing act of using reserves?

Theres an ongoing balance between food consumption and how much it's been processed, stored body fat, liver and muscle glycogen, blood glucose and energy expended from being alive or exercise. It's futile to consider one moment in time.

14.3kg is loads in that time frame 😀

0.5 to 1kg per week is recommended and you've been pushing 1.5kg... has that been a daily 2000 calories deficit 😲

If you really want to properly get your head round how many calories your eating, download the MyFitnessPal app. Get the kitchen scales out and weigh everything... You'll probably find your portion of pasta is 100g, where as the portion size on the packet is 75g (483calories instead of 363calories). Spreads and condiments are usually small amounts but they can quickly add up if you have them often. Its just a smear of spread on your morning toast, but for me thats a scrape of butter (7g) which is 48cal, whereas a good lashing of butter is going to be at least 100cal.

MFP and weighing stuff is honestly a pain at first. But it quickly gets easier.
Once you've added food to your diary once, its easy to find it in the future and you will get options for "frequently paired" foods. For my breakfast, I only need to type "fr" and i get options that include fruit loaf. Select the number of slices. Tick if I'm adding butter and also milk for a latte coffee. 273 calories for three slices of fruit toast and black coffee, or 416cal with a scrape of butter and a latte.

500-600 calories defecit per day is 3500-4200 per week. Being as fat is 9cal per gram, thats 0.39kg to 0.46kg per week ☺

Check out Richie Howey on FB. Some of his comments and vids are quite blunt but there's no bullshit. Eat what you want, so long as it fits your calories and macros... if it doesnt fit, go for a run until it does 😀

So to loose weight, you don't need to run/walk at all! Just eat less than your TDEE.
*don't go silly as much more than 500-600 your body starts to adapt it's metabolism to try and stop you wasting away. You'll probably also succumb to cravings and scoff all of the deficit and then some, undoing all the work.

However it's easier to eat a balanced and varied diet, whilst also including all unhealthy foods you want to, if you have an extra few hundred calories from exercise to play with.

Fancy a pepperoni pizza (900cal) instead of yet another grilled chicken breast salad (175cal) go and run/walk off 725 calories.

To loose body fat at at a decent rate, you need to consume about 500 calories less per day than your bodies Total Daily Energy Expenditure.

There's not much difference in calories burnt wether you do a mile at walk, jog, run or sprint. Obviously the faster you go, the more calories you can burn per hour, so running as fast as possible is the quickest way to burn calories and help to create a calorie deficit.

However being at or close to your anaerobic zone, the energy burnt would be mostly from your glycogen stores. If your in a calorie deficit your body will still replenish the glycogen by processing body fat over the next few hours/day.

Sprinting is very time efficient but you've only got 1500-1800 calories of glycogen then you "hit the wall". Going fast will leave you feeling knackered, it's painful and can lead to injury if your not used to it. However efforts and sprints are great for improving your aerobic function (heart, lungs, blood supply)

If your walking and nowhere near out of breath, your body has enough spare oxygen to process body fat into glycogen at the same rate your muscles are using it. It's still not burning fat, because muscles aren't powered by lard.

Between walk and sprint there's a whole range of variation of where the energy comes from. Depending on how efficiently your aerobic system is, you may have enough extra oxygen to be able to convert more fat at higher work loads... so you can go further, faster before hitting the wall.

Ultimately, calories in < calories burnt, is all that matters 😀

I like my Hilly calf sleeves.

Tried on Skins versions but the hem isn't very stretchy. Ones thay fit over my heel didn't offer much support. I couldn't get the next size down beyond my heel.

Fair observations really. I think you need a lot of self belief and determination to nail your colours to statements like he made before this years race... last years minor nav error turning into a major problem showed a lack of both.