Run(r) - Botanic Gardens and Dawsholm Park. Goals

I know what you're thinking - day 2, and I'm already on a recovery run. Well, I do have an excuse, which is that I didn't strictly start training just yesterday - today's been my first slower day since Saturday. So there. And I'm taking tomorrow off, and you can't stop me. Besides, I'll make it up on Good Friday with something suitably epic.

Today was a rather slow run from the botanic gardens up to Dawsholm Park, where I did a few loops, up and down the hill, before heading home. Dawsholm is a shady park in the nicest sense of the world, and a good place to run on a day when the outside temperature was considerably above that inside. The large number of dirt steps might give you pause for thought if you're weak-kneed, though, and I certainly had a few twinges by the time I jogged home.

One of the nicer byproducts of spending a lot of time on the trail is a considerable amount of time to think about pointless and arbitrary things, and with that it mind, I've come up with a list of goals to hit - because if something's worth doing, it's worth doing with Science! (or at least measurement).

Zeroth Goals -

These are the goals that I pretty much can't avoid hitting, but are worth stating anyway.

1. Finish the stage (duh)
2. Ride faster than I can now (i.e. don't stop riding between now and then)

Primary Goal -

1. Finish the stage at an average speed of 35kph

Secondary Goals -

These are goals which might take over if the Primary starts looking too certain (don't laugh!)

1. Finish faster than anyone else on a sub-£750 bike
2. Finish faster than anyone else on an Allez
3. Finish faster than anyone else on an alloy bike

Tertiary Goals -

Because, although I don't believe in miracles, strange things can happen...

1. Finish faster than anyone else
2. Solve world hunger

The solve world hunger thing is interesting, actually, because it makes me think whether having everyone using an extra 1000 calories per day cycling would improve or worsen things. Probably depends on how it effects the fuel price. Anyway, that's a topic for another time.

So, to hit any of these goals, I need some targets to get me there.

By T-100 days:

Complete a ride of longer than 1 hour at an average speed greater than 20mph (32kph). (This one seems achievable on any day with decent enough weather, but I've thought that for the past three weeks and never actually gone for it).

By T-50 days:

Complete a solo ride of 100 miles (or longer) at an average riding speed of greater than 20mph.

By T-30 days:

Complete a solo ride of 35 km (or longer) at an average riding speed of 35kph or greater.

So, there's my targets. I realise that I'm leaving getting my speed up until quite late, but I'm honestly expecting drafting to help a lot on the day. With regard to speed/endurance, the balance probably needs to be towards the latter after a winter characterized by sub-40k rides.

Good trails!

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