April 2017

Another month has flown by, and therefore it’s time for my monthly review. My explorer score has jumped by another 39 tiles and the total number of segments by another 200. However, I completed 8 more challenges, taking my total up to 294. There is a good chance that I might reach 300 by the end of May.

My monthly map of where I’ve been is interesting, as I’ve done a couple of rides and runs in Salisbury (here), a couple of long walks in London, and a mini-adventure with my wife to Grinton and Penrith (here, here and here).

My blog is coming along nicely, with a few hundred hits each month, although I still only share some of the posts on Facebook, not all of them. I did get quite a few hits on my Veloviewer max explorer entry (here), as Veloviewer blogged about some of the people with huge max scores, and somehow people found a link to my blog, which was nice. I’ve also been blogging at least twice a week, so apologies to the dozen regular readers for filling their inboxes with my ramblings.

And that’s all for this months review 🙂

March 2017

Another month, and another six Strava challenges completed, taking my total up to 286. Hopefully I’ll manage something spectacular for my 300th challenge. The map below (from Veloviewer) shows where I’ve been this month.

The usual rides around Lancaster, my commute between Wigan and Leigh, and then a weekend away in north Wales, around the Llyn Peninsula, blog post here. The new area to explore has taken my explorer tiles up over 6,000, with the number of segments now over 11,000. No movement in my Eddington scores, but my 2017 scores are up to 28 miles and 33 km.

At the end of last year I mentioned that I was going to aim to ride 10,000 miles, run 1,000 miles and swim 100 miles. Three months in and I’m 300 miles behind my target for cycling, and 60 miles behind with my running, although I have been injured. Swimming though I am less than 100 lengths behind, so I can easily make that up.

Finally, my blog had over 600 views in March, and has had over 1,200 views in total, which is nice.

February 2017

Another month gone and soon it will be spring, although there hasn’t been too many days of ice up here in the north. So, what have I been up to this month. I have now completed 280 Strava Challenges, adding another three this month, but missing out on four, all of the running ones. This would be the first month since 2013 where I haven’t finished a single running challenge. On the up though, the injury is starting to feel better.

Cycling wise I managed 1251km, with plenty of up, 12336m to be precise.My longest ride in February was only 122km, but I did complete the monthly Grand Fondo 3 times.  As usual most of my cycling has been around Lancaster, with my commute in Wigan. There extra blue dot near Oxford was from walking into the middle of a field to place some air quality monitoring equipment on site. My total number of different segments now stands at 10941 (84 new segments) with my explorer score up to 5960 (only 7 new tiles). Climbing Eddington score is up to 1700m, but distance scores haven’t changed. Yearly, my Eddington scores are up to 22miles, 28km and 440m for climbing.

I’ve had my Scott Addict for two years and blogged about it, obviously.

Scott Addict – What a Bike

I also entered one event, the Coal Road Challenge, which wasn’t a race, and as expected, blogged about it as well, which has become my most read blog entry.

Coal Road Challenge 2017

I have become more confident with my blog, sharing more links and trying to promote it a little bit more. The result is that I’ve had over 500 views so far this year, and have been given some ‘likes’, as well as gaining a couple of followers, which is nice.

January 2017

Not a huge amount has happened training wise in January, and absolutely nothing has happened racing wise, not even a single park run. I have managed to complete five more Strava challenges, taking my total up to 277. I missed out on the Lululemon running challenge, as well as the half marathon and the running monthly distance challenge. I did finish the run climbing challenge, mostly because of walking up Ingleton with the wife on the 1st. (https://beardsandtriathlons.wordpress.com/2017/01/01/ingleborough/)

The usual Veloviewer “wheel” shows where I got to this month, including South Lakes zoo, which was fun, except for the penguins, who didn’t look too happy. I had a good ride up to Ravenstonedale towards Kirkby Stephen, which is the ride line heading north.

There were quite a few rides around Blackpool and the Fylde coast, as I attempted to increase my Veloviewer maximum explorer square. It is now up to 15 x 15. (https://beardsandtriathlons.wordpress.com/2017/01/24/veloviewer-explorer-max-square/)

This is also the seventh post this month, a new record. This little blog has also had more views this month than it did in the whole of last year. Why is this? I’ve started to share a few of my posts, including a recent post about air quality, which had 31 views on one day. I have a list of blog posts that I intend to write in the future, which is now up to ten. I am going to make an effort to post more, and share some of the more interesting ones.

More ramblings and rubbish from the bearded triathlete soon.

November 2016

These months keep on ticking by. I’m now on my third post this month, and in all seriousness I am trying to post once a week. What have I managed in November? Well, my cycling has been well down as I took a week off in Whitby, as can be seen in the monthly training map below.

You can see the usual blob of rides around Lancaster, along with my commute. There was also plenty of runs around Whitby and a new parkrun in Dalby Forest, which was great. In the month I completed three parkruns and an open water swim, the Firework 500, which was damn cold. If you’re in the area I would recommend My Tri Events, as they put on great races.

I completed another seven Strava challenges, even though I missed out on two running challenges and the cycling distance one. This takes my total up to 263. I also added another 41 explorer tiles and another 77 segments. Eddington wise, nothing much changed, so I’ll leave that to next month.

Last weekend the City of Lancaster Tri (COLT) Club had their Christmas do, and I was made the Mens club champion, all because of my continuous triple Ironman distance race earlier in the year. The trophy has pride of place on my ‘trophy’ shelf, along with my medals, which are now proudly on display, as you can see below.

And, that’s it for this month 🙂

October 2016

Another month of training completed, another 5 Strava challenges ticked off, although I did miss out on 3 running challenges as I’m still struggling with a heel injury. It’s not stopped me altogether, as I did run parkrun 4 times, 3 in Lancaster and once in Princes Park, Liverpool. (I was in Liverpool for the British Berad and Mustache Championships, post to follow soon).

Using Veloviewer you can see where I was during the month. Up to Staverley in the Lakes, Liverpool and my usual commuting near Wigan. I did get to some new places as my explorer score has added another 52 tiles, and my total number of segments is up another 200 to 10504. My Eddington scores are mostly unchanged, although for km it is now up to 140. As for the yearly Eddington score, they are, 55 miles, 70 km and 980m for climbing. As I said earlier, I completed 5 more Strava challenges, which brought my total up to 256, which I would love to know if it is a record.

September 2016

So September was another month where I missed out on four Strava challenges, although I did manage to complete four. I missed a cycling challenge, which might have been the first cycling challenge that I have failed to complete since I joined Strava over four years ago. I left myself too much to do towards the end of the month, although losing 90km from a partially corrupted Garmin file didn’t help.

You can see where the epic ride ended. Also, the small group of rides near Wigan is due to my new job (post to follow soon).

I have got around a bit more as my explorer score has reached 5777 tiles and my total number of segments is now over 10000. My overall Eddington scores haven’t changed, but my yearly ones have increased to 52miles, 66km and 940m of climbing. I also managed to run parkrun Lancaster twice, finishing 5th in one of them, life in the old dog yet.

August 2016

August has been a funny month, with a heel injury I haven’t been able to run much and therefore missed out on four Strava challenges (half marathon, distance and two climbing ones). I did manage five challenges to take my total up to 247, which has to be near to a Strava record.

Once again the graphic is from Veloviewer, which shows my epic canalathon from Wolverhampton to Manchester, along with my foray up Tan Hill in very windy conditions.

My monthly cycling total was 1253km with 13306m of climbing. I also ventured to new places increasing my explorer score up to 5703 tiles and total segments up to 9800. My Eddington scores haven’t gone up much, 100 miles, 139km and 1680m. My Eddington scores for 2016 are now up to 50 miles, 65km and 920m. Hopefully September will be injury free.

July 2016

Despite some half hearted assurances last month that I would blog a bit more often, it hasn’t happened. So here is a quick recap of what I’ve been up to in July.

The visual is again from the excellent Veloviewer. Most of my running and cycling has been around Lancaster, but The Beards of Bowland Strava cycling group had a foray into the lakes, and I completed the Stratford Tempest 100 mile sportive, along with my fiancee and her brother.

In total I cycled 1251.2 km with 12622m of elevation, and ran 201.2 km with 3978m of elevation. I have now completed 242 Strava challenges, although I have picked up a heel injury so it looks like I will be doing far less running in August.

June 2016

What have I been up to this month, not blogging for one thing, although I have found time to complete one triathlon, a continuous triple ironman. At some point in the near future I will finish writing my blog entry about it.

During June I have found time to run 206km with over 4000m of elevation, and cycle 1281km with 11,555m of elevation. Below is an image of where I cycled and ran, taken from Veloviewer.

Most of my activities are centered around Lancaster, but there was a parkrun in Skipton and my triple was in the New Forrest, near the south coast. I’m aiming to make this a regular monthly feature, mainly because it only takes a few minutes to write, lazy or what.