New Garmin & London-Cardiff 24hrs

Just a quick note to express my thanks to my colleague Ric Piper for introducing me to David Parker and Claude Oluoch-Olunya at Garmin, who helped me get hold of the new Garmin Edge 810 - a fantastic bit of kit which will help with training (provides all the stats - speed, cadence, heart rate) but most importantly has European satellite navigation. I'm going to begin plotting my route over the next couple of weeks, and the Garmin will hopefully prevent me from cycling any extra miles in the wrong direction.

Another great feature is the ability to share my location, speed and heart rate on the move - so my support crew (and you guys!) will be able to check how I'm getting on.

I'll be using it tomorrow at Box Hill and then next weekend when competing in the London-Cardiff 24hr relay race  (http://www.wolfpackrunning.com/#!london-cardiff-24/c1n5q).

This is a great race, which I ran in last year with a team of school friends. Teams of 12 cover the 160 miles on foot over a 24 hour period, running on and off road and all through the night. We start with a lap inside Twickenham stadium and finish up running into and around the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff - with each team member covering about 18miles each.

Perhaps ambitiously, I intend to both run my designated legs (first one being 8 miles through a forest at 1am!) as well as taking my bike along to try to cover a fair distance of the route at speed (grabbing a few hours sleep on the bus after my first leg). 18 miles on foot and 60 miles on the bike is my target.

The route is unmarked and you vary rarely come across other competitors - so the Garmin will be invaluable - especially when compared to last years navigation attempts as shown below:

5* accommodation en-route

Physio

Back from a good couple of weeks of travelling - both work and pleasure - in Italy, Atlanta and New York - and desperate to get back into a regular training schedule. A couple of runs in the last week and a return to the saddle yesterday - with my friend James Gilbert (who may join me for the first two days of the challenge) pushing me to hit Swains Lane (London's best hill) again this week. Two months to go and lots of work to get done! 

Another big kicker last week was my return to Mayfair Physio - where I'm working on both injury recovery and building my cycle specific muscle groups. Most of you will know, but my left femur (thigh bone) is actually held together with a titanium rod following a skiing accident a few years back. Despite being the hardest bone to break, I managed to smash it into a number of pieces! Without getting too graphic - its fair to say that my left leg suffered and that it'll take a good few more years to get it back to 100% - but cycling 700 miles to Chamonix should speed things up!