TICKING OVER

These last few weeks have seen some consistently miserable weather in Hong Kong. Its been quite a challenge to keep getting out in 30 degree temperatures and 95% humidity and more often than not in torrential rain. As a result of this it has been good to be able keep things going with a couple of 10hr weeks without loosing the will to live. I have only slipped on my arse once too, though naturally it was in the worse place to do it- on the steps coming down of Lantau peak in a thunder storm. I did sneak a couple of days off which weren't part of the plan when I just couldn't face it any longer but all in all it could have been worse.

The plan is to try and up the base volume a little bit but its not easy given the conditions and my well documented issues getting out of bed in the morning. The aim is to mix it up a bit during the week doing whatever I feel like including maybe one flatter fastish run then on weekends try and get a minimum of 6 hours and 2-3000m+ of climbing in. This means at least one trip further a field than my usual backdoor trails and will most likely mean I will be spending a lot of time on Lantau over the next few months. While HK Island is hilly it lacks the kind of sustained climbs I'm looking to improve on (unless want to do repeats over High West and Victoria Peak that is). So far I'm averaging 6 days running a week, with one 2hr 15min run during the week and then 2ish hours on Saturday and 4ish hours on Sunday forming the main longer outings. The 3 other runs are generally whatever I can fit in, probably a couple of Peak-High West combinations and one flatter easy run. I'll probably start doing 7 days this week going forward and if I can get myself organised might add a easy double on the flat run day.

During these outings I'm starting to think about the summer and the CCC race. I'm hoping to spend the end of July and all of August in Europe, going to Sweden first then likely splitting my time between Scotland and Italy as usual and head to Chamonix for the race before I return to Hong Kong. Could be worse. I might even try and fit in another race or two depending on my schedule, or possibly an attempt at the Tranter round in the Scottish Highlands. Thinking of the race specifically, I have been asking around and its seem that course wise there isn't too much to be concerned about. 100k isn't ever easy and there is a lot of sustained climbing but generally the terrain might even be less technical than what I'm used to racing on. I'll need to start looking into it properly as I really want to give it my best effort and avoid any repeat of the Lavaredo debacle from last year. Being a bit of a geek about these things I'm also starting to think about the huge list of required equipment and how to keep the overall weight down while not spending a fortune on kit I hopefully wont need to use. I will probably write a separate post on this some time soon.