One-quarter down.

So today I went public... sharing the link with my colleagues at work. I hope that it inspires me to keep it going!

Also today, I hit 505km, which marks the quarter way point of the challenge and finds me on the outskirts of Arras, the capital of the pas-de-calais department of Northern France, home to not one, but two world heritage sights.

The quarter way mark has been reached in just over 4 weeks, suggesting that, even with a couple of holidays planned, I should still be able to hit the 20.12 week target.

Image is unrelated: Katsura imperial villa gardens, just outside Kyoto.

Something for the weekend?

Hello, and welcome to the weekend.

As a result of my interest in Japan, I follow quite a few Japan-related blogs. Today, kirainet has posted a couple of lovely pictures which I wanted to share.

They were taken in the North of Tokyo. The first image is matcha - green tea (you're probably not going to see a much better example (IMO) of complementary colours!?), the second, a parasol. Both images reflect my photographic preference to zoom in on objects to the point where the background disappears and the objects get cropped..

The full post is here. The whole flckr set is worth a browse tbh.

And one of our own...

Bon soir!

So this evening, at the end of a 6.1k row, I raised my arms in triumph - I'd made it.

According to my route from google maps, I have tonight successfully arrived in France and pulled together enough 'water based'* km to get me across the English Channel, from Dover to Boulogne Sur Mer.

My sense of achievement is marred only slightly by a niggling tenderness in my hamstring. I think it deserves a bit of a rest.

The last few days has given me an awful lot more respect for these guys...

* rowing and swimming.

updated route

You may notice I've amended the route recently - this is to stop me becoming too obsessive about doing everything just right... and avoiding having to swim / row 450k from France to Italy. The route also gets me 20k closer to the centre of Rome.

:-)

test post..

One of the things I wanted to get out of this exercise was a chance to play with and look at how technologies can be used, linked, and played with to achieve different things on the interwebs.

So, after a bruising 20k on the bike this evening, I settled down to try & put my route on 'my maps' in Google. It was surprisingly made a little difficult by Google's removal of the 'export KML' button which apparently used to exist. Thanks though to Frank Taylor's Google Earth Blog I was able to find a work round.

And, fingers crossed... I should now be able to plot my virtual location on a virtual map. Starting steadily, I'll try a link.

So the route appears... but not the placemarker... will sleep on it. (Canterbury if you're wondering)

Quite pleased with this

Bike, Level 13...

Compare and contrast.

Location update

This morning sees me on the outskirts of Strood, near Chatham. I seem to be hurtling towards the channel only slightly concerned as to the crossing ahead of me.

I think a little more time on the rowing machine and in the pool are in order. (gulps as he looks onwards towards the jump from France to Italy).

And a picture of a wild goat.

location update

So having covered 245km to date, I thought I would refresh my route to Rome. Looking at it, I had initially selected to travel largely by motorway, which as a swimmer/cyclist/runner/rower is probably not that practical... So I asked google to let me have a route which kept off them. The amended route looks a bit more wiggly, but much more interesting.

According to the notes, I should be around near Forest Hill in South London by now.

And google street view tells me it's a slightly cloudy day there today.

In unrelated news....

Occupy Bristol have recently 'agreed to leave' College Green. The BBC coverage of the recent episode in the courts can be seen here. There is an onward link on that site to the occupy Bristol site which gives their side of things.

I will be glad to get the Green back.

(today also marked the first bike / treadmill full distance event followed by a very cold shower!)

Not 22k after all.

So I realised after completing 22k today (8.3 walking / 8.3 cross training / 5.4 bike) that actually only one of the days fell out of the reckoning.

This means that I only had 13k to make up.

Mission accomplished. Spreadsheet updated!

A Bristol sunrise for visual delight.

Strictly speaking....

I considered the challenge to start once I had decided to do it: on the 30th of December.

However, having had it brought to my attention, it does seem a little odd that it didn't coincide with the new year. So I'll be updating the spreadsheet to start from 2012 on the 1 Jan.

I'll just have to do a monster session on the weekend to make it up.


Thanks tony!

Going the distance.

Today was all about distance.

I now know I can do 20k on a bike, followed by 5k on my feet (albeit cross trainer). The rest is about time.

The importance of this, if you weren't already aware, is that these are the distances for a sprint triathlon - which is 750m / 20k / 5k.

I've updated the spreadsheet and it looks like 20(.12) weeks is doable for the challenge. I'll make that weeks in the country as we'll be hitting the slopes at some point.

Once an accountant.

So I decided that once a day was probably going to be a bit much. And I needed a way to track progress. So I now have a spreadsheet.

And stretching my use of technology that little bit further I have it in google docs - and it should be visible by clicking on this link >>> >>>click

There may need to be something to do with permissions, but I'll fix that as we go.

In the meantime, my 2012 challenge would, if carried out on the open road, get me from Bristol to the outskirts of Rome. Which is nice.

And for visual interest: a rarely seen view of the second Severn crossing.

Multi sports !

After an arduous day being good little consumers I managed to squeeze an hour in at the gym.

I Managed to clock up 17km (5k x-trainer, 10k bike and 2k rowing) and get home in time to explore the wonders of HDTV.

My 5k x-trainer time is coming down quite dramatically. Soon I'll be brave enough to try it on the treadmill.

A damp start to 2012

Today's 8.8km walk started in the dry, around 200m in the rain began to fall.

(1990.2 to go)

It didn't seem to deter the many walkers in Ashton Court out exercising their legs, children or pets. Quite muddy though.

Luckily the Clifton Sausage was open to provide sustenance for the final leg of the journey - on which we saw a graffito which made us chuckle and think of John.

My views on graffiti will be expanded upon in due course.