Exciting adventures...

This week I thought I'd let you know about two really exciting developments which I would love you to get involved in...

Firstly, this Saturday is the first official running of the Hyde Park Time Trial (Today's photo was taken at the start of yesterday's 'dress-rehearsal'). A couple of months ago I was invited to a meeting with the Sport & Physical Activity department at work to discuss possibilities for involving our students in volunteering projects, which at the same time could engage the local community in some way. Having already heard about the Bushey Park Time Trial we thought about running a similar project in Leeds and promptly got on the phone to the organisers of the BPTT to see if they could help... fast forward a few weeks and we've got six days left to get everything sorted for the inaugral HPTT. To cut a long story short the UK Time Trial events are free to enter, weekly 5k races, are inclusive in nature and have the target of engaging the local community in regular physical activity. We are the first UK event outside of the M25 but more events will follow shortly and the long term aim is to have events happening all round the country and even the world! If you are ever in Leeds on a Saturday why not pop along? All you have to do is register for free by clicking HERE and once you've done it that's it forever, you can then turn up on the day to any UKTT event in the country and get stuck in :) See you on the start line!

Secondly, I'd like to invite you to join me and the University of Leeds LOGIK Lifestyle Group to travel round the world in 80 days using only human powered transport!! We actually 'left' on the 1st of October but need your help if we're to be back in time for Christmas, at the moment we're in France (check out the latest updates via 80daysfromleeds.blogspot.com). All you need to do to join the team is email us at 80days@Leeds.ac.uk with your full-name and we'll add you to the list. Then, whenever you move from A to B under your own steam i.e. walking to work, going for a bike ride or even playing footy or golf let us know how far you travellled and how you did it and we'll add your miles to the total. We need a couple of hundred miles a day and are a little behind schedule at the moment so please join the team and get moving ;)

Finally in a desperate attempt to start the week with a good night's sleep I'm keeping this short so training and racing wise...

Coming off last week's 1:21 at the Great North my legs were pretty stiff and the week started fairly lazily with swims Monday, Tuesday, Thursday & Friday morning but nothing Monday, Wednesday or Thursday evening and only run-club on Tuesday night. Come Friday I was raring to go though and with Tony B back from his cousin's wedding in Poland we managed to stick in a quick 20 mile run along the canal in 2:22. Saturday saw a ten mile timetrial with BenG where I'd hoped to break my pb of 23:36 (think I could do sub-22 on a good day on a fast course) but with tired legs from the night before and a pretty slow course I rode a painfully long 23:54. Then this morning H and I entered Carsington Duathlon as a team with me doing both the 5k runs and H taking care of the 30k bike in between. I've not seen the results yet but think we were 2nd team out of 6 and about 20th overall out of about 125.

With three weeks to go to Dublin marathon I'd like to get a few more good quality runs in and on Wednesday will be going quite hard over a hilly 22 miles with Tony. It'll then be time to back it off a little before finishing the season (finally) in style on October the 29th in Ireland.

Well done to Liz Y for coming fourth in the Chicago Marathon in ridiculously hot conditions and taking down some serious athletes in the process, also well done to Matt for a great performance in the same race.

Night ;)

T.