My God, it's full of stars!

So a few months back one of the lads suggested a group of us do an event, a 24 hour cycling event on Mondello race track. Four people, 24 hours. The guys trained for the event and put lots of effort in training. I, for shame, did not.

Anyways the event was at the weekend. Eight 45 minute slots on the track. Half in the dark - when it was also windy and wet, have in the light and bright.

I have to say it was a well organised event, and we had a good team, and a nice garage to get set up in. Sharing with a lovely group of French/Irish people who were either doing or supporting a four man team, a four woman team, and a one man team. They had lots of cakes and their young (17) helpers also helped us - on handovers, drying our gear, and giving us cakes! A tough but fantastic weekend that brought my cornering on no end.

Just under 6 hours of riding, maybe by 5-10 minutes as a result of hand over changes, and over 182km of riding. The non steady state riding was tough. When I managed to get in a group (and there were no groups at night, seemed to be less on the track(which was not illuminated at all)) the watts varied from 40 sitting in, to sprints of 780 watts in places.

My last session on the track was the final one and I did 8 laps. Final 5 of those 8 was working with a lad from Naas tri club. Final straight coming into the finish line was about 400m, I sat in and let him drag me to about 20m from line when I went around him and apologised as I passed him - every place could count, and sprinting is fun too!

Getting no sleep over the period of the event, and riding in driving wind and rain at 0200 in the morning was, I have to say, great fun and definitely character forming.

Finished 10th overall.

No crashes for us, no mechanicals for us, no argument - just a damn good time!

When I got home and unpacked I decided to go for a run to see how it felt.

In short, horrific.

The last few years I have fallen out of my good habits and fallen into some bad ones.

My weight has ballooned to 14 stone and I have not swam in years, cycled only a few times in the last year (once was the Mondello 24hour event), and I am not running that often. I am resolute that I shall ditch the, or at least most of the, bad habits and foster some good ones in 2022.

I have entered three events for 2022.

Belfast Marathon - myself and Tango are going to do this one. 1st May. No grand ambitions other than turn up on the starting line prepared as best that I can be.

Mondello 24 hour event - the 2021 edition of this event was in the middle of winter in the pissings of rain and wind, when the hours of sunlight were at a minimum. It was great craic and the same four man team is going to do it again. Ambitions for this one are to not be the massively weakest link and not to look like a certain character from a small village in Little Britain by being absolutely poured into my lycra cycling gear

Dubling Marathon - hopefully this will happen this year and the ambitions for this event are that my finishing time starts with a 3.

Along the way I walk to get back in the pool and do at least one triathlon this year. Getting back in the pool will be easier said than done. Life changes along the way and my mornings are now busy with walking dogs, letting the other half get to work early in the mornings, and dropping the kids to school. This does make getting to a pool more problematic. Coupled with the fact that the pool that I used to swim in has been filled in, literally.

I am working from home for the foreseeable and I am not sure if that helps or hinders things. No commute is good. However, no commute is also bad. I miss the miles that I racked up on the bike but I am glad that I do not have to do it every day now, it is a 42km round trip to the office my company is now at. That would quickly get to be a bit much for me I think.

In getting back into better habits I am returning to keeping a paper journal of my training, and also an online one. That helped me stay on the straight and narrow before and I am hoping it will again too.