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Tuesday 31 January 2012

First training

Well day four of no smoking and no real issues. Thought it best to try out the running gear I had bought after work. It was a chilly 4 degrees according to the car thermometer in Waltham Abbey.

So I set off on a run/walk and within about half a mile my legs were killing me. In total I ran/walked 2.32 miles and got a congratulations off Paula Radcliffe when I finished courtesy of my Nike+ app on my iPhone. Bit cheesy but hey ho what floats some people's boats. The 2.32 miles was done in about 30 minutes. I say about because I had a few teething issues with the Nike+ app in so much as I didn't start it until I'd done 0.81 miles. This is by no means a good pace but I was impressed as I hadn't done any exercise in 3.5 years unless you count lifting pints.

The next morning and my legs were really aching. What have I signed up for??? Thank god today is a rest day as its 0 degrees in Waltham Abbey tonight.

Now for the big task of getting someone to supply me with a bike and all the necessary gubbins so I can do the triathlon in September.

Michael

My mission that I stupidly set myself and now have gone public so I have no option but to see it through to completion otherwise I may self destruct.

I decided to give up smoking on Thursday 26th January. Thanks to Allen Carr (not of Spexy beast fame @AlanCarr but of Easyway fame @Allencarr) easy to mistake the two if you ask me.

So giving up smoking. I'm not finding it that hard to be honest. A lot of it is fear and the book I read by Allen Carr distills a lot of this (Easy Way to Stop Smoking by Allen Carr). I'm not saying it's plain sailing but it really isn't as hard as I thought it would be. The book strips away the brainwashing and makes you look at things positively.

Anyway I digress, back to my mission I had one of my brain waves on Sunday 29th January at about 10 pm when I should have been in bed to get up at 4:30 for work but was running a bath instead. I thought how hard could it be to run a triathlon?

I mean it's only swimming (used to swim for my town swimming club), riding a bike (used to ride 20 odd miles when I was a teenager in the 90's) and running. Now I've never been any good at running and the thought of it fills me with dread but what the heck, in for a penny in for a pound.

So I did some research and have now set myself the challenge of completing the London Triathlon at Olympic Standard (thats a 1.5km swim, a 40km bike ride and a 10km run) a mere 240 days after I stopped smoking.

I should at this point express the gravity of my challenge. I'm 16 stone 3 lbs (as of Sunday evening) and I have done no formative exercise since completing the London 2 Brighton bike ride in 2008 (with no training but thats a another story - one born out of laziness and stubbornness rather than me thinking it would be a good idea ).

I will be doing this (hopefully - waiting on e-mail confirmation) in aid of Cancer Research, which seems quite fitting given I have just kicked smoking which is the largest cause of cancer in society today. I plan on raising more than the necessary money over the next 235 days and will be shamelessly plugging the sponsorship again and again.

I plan on using this blog to publicise my efforts of going from a smoker to a triathlete within 240 days. I will also be publicising my efforts on Twitter and hope to gain some corporate sponsorship of equipment through advertising on my blog, twitter or wherever.

Thanks for reading

Michael