Monday, still in North Wales for another day or so, we decided to have a trip to Bala Lake, and take a ride on the Bala Lake Railway, a narrow gauge line that runs along one side of the lake from Llanuwchllyn to Bala.
The engine in use on the day was the ‘Winifred’, a former slate mine engine.
The journey to Bala took about 20 minutes. we had chosen to simply wait the 10 minutes at Bala, ride back to Llanuwchllyn and then drive to Bala for a wander around and some lunch.
Monday evening we started packing for our return home the following day.
Tuesday we packed up the car and headed home with another 4 hour drive, broken up with a stop at Hilton Park service station just north of Birmingham for a comfort break.
Wednesday, I started playing catchup with the latest Dark Horse challenge – a virtual row from Pisac to Machu Pichu in Peru which is a distance of 107,524m along the Urumbamba River.
I have chosen to do this in five sessions which makes for a half marathon plus ‘change’ each day (107,524/5 = 21508.4, or 21097m + ‘change’), logging my cool down meters for the extra distance.
I took the Erg outside to row this one as it was a bit ‘airless’ inside this morning, I am glad I did as there was a gentle cooling breeze that kept me from overheating, which would have been a much bigger issue indoors.
I am not quite sure how this picture ended up with the strange letter boxing, but it sort of gives it more of a voyeuristic look.
I watched the first part of the Dune mini-series to avoid the boredom factor.
My bum is feeling a little numb after not having done any rowing for over 2 weeks and then hitting it with a 1/2 marathon, but I am sure it will recover in time for the next one.
Thursday calisthenics, a variation on last the rings push workout from before I went to Wales.
- Knee Push Ups – 3 x 10 (low parallettes)
- Lying Knee Tuck – 3 x 40
- Rings Support Hold – 3 x 0:10
- Leg Raises 9cm – 90 degrees 3 x 30
- Rings Bent Knee L Sit – 3 x 10
- Numerous Rings Isometric holds
- Rings Push Ups – 3 x 10 (45 degree)
Friday Skiing, I decided to cover off another one of the July SkiErg Performance Series benchmarks by doing the 2000m distance. I did this in 9:12.9, an improvement of 3 seconds on my previous time, although I was hoping for sub 9 minutes, I set off a bit too fast and then started to tire around 1000m by which time the 9 minute goal was slowly slipping away.
I followed this up with a 30 minute ski that covered 5541m and then a 1100m cool down just to try and build up some time and distance on the SkiErg – I will probably be feeling the effects of this for a few days, just like I did 2 weeks ago.
Saturday, still sore from the skiing, largely a rest day, although I did a couple of fairly long walks.
Sunday second half marathon for the trip to Machu Pichu, similar time to the first one, I took the RowErg outside again and was again kept cool by a light breeze, despite the temperature rising to 26C, although I was sat in the shade of the house.
I watched some more of the Dune mini-series to help pass the time.