I don't believe in Peter Pan, Frankenstein or Superman

Time for a quick triathlon update, I think:

As most of you will know, I am competing in the London Triathlon this August as part of Team Ultimate Olympian -- which consists of me and John -- with the aim of raising money for the Sobell House Hospice.

Training is coming on, and with more than 3 months to go, my current schedule looks something like this:

Monday: rest
Tuesday: 25km cycle, 6km run
Wednesday: 58 minute swim
Thursday: 90 minutes of 5-a-side football (in lieu of a short run)
Friday: rest
Saturday: 58 minute run
Sunday: 30km cycle & a quick 500m run to stretch the legs

And this basically ramps up by 10% a week until the big day.

It's very tiring you know, and I haven't yet quite worked out what I'm going to do when I go to South Korea for a couple of weeks in 10 days time (a holiday! hurray!). I'll take my running shoes, I think.

Anyway.

There's been an [cough cough] exciting development too.... I'm buying a new bike!

I currently own a pretty heavy, cheap mountain bike. Despite only costing me £100, and clearly not being designed for road racing, this bike has seen me through three sprint triathlons. Admittedly, in all three of those races, I have gone past about two people during the cycle stage (and the chain had come off one of those), but it did the job.

Having resigned myself to the fact that nobody I know is likely to have a racing bike big enough for me to borrow, and being too tight to buy a new bike, I was sort of hoping that I would be able to use this bike in August... the London Triathlon has a 40km cycle stage....

Sadly it looks like I was being a bit optimistic. The front wheel is buckled, the brakes are cheap and nasty and, judging from the terrible grinding noise they make, the gears are about to die too.

New bike it is then.

I'm going for this one. It's what they call an "entry level" road bike, which means that it is as cheap as chips (well, at £249, it's a big step up for me on the bike buying front), but apparently it's quite good, inasmuch as I know anything about this sort of thing.

And that's all I plan to say about it, because it's pretty dull really (although I'm strangely excited about it).

I'm not doing this purely for my own gratification though, and as soon as we have set up a proper online sponsorship page, I'll be coming to you lot with my cap in hand and badgering you for money....

Just so you know.....

It's a very good cause though. Go and look at their website if you don't believe me.

Normal service will be resumed tomorrow........