Stood no chance of keeping HR♥️ <120bpm with headwinds. Fasted spin, well no food since 7pm the night before, kept it as light as possible on the pedals, could've gone faster and longer but max HR 145bpm. Be interested to see what difference a better bike would make - lighter, smoother efficient drivetrain, less rolling resistance vs a 20+ yr old mountain bike, heavier, weighty puncture resistant tyres (Swchalbe Marathon Plus), old bearings, bent rotors or wheels that make the pads touch. #exercise #bikestr 🚴

Seems a bit rubbish when everyone on YouTube is averaging 6-7 min miles for half or even full marathon but did a 7:05 min mile today. Shouldn't compare yourself to others because you don't know how old they are or how long they've been training etc and the Kenyans would smoke all those YouTube guys anyway 😂 🏃 Still trying stuff out, today was supposed to be a few miles warm up then 10 mins of 8:20 min/mile pace, 3 mins jog, then another 10 mins of 8:20 pace or at least that was what I was going to attempt but it turned into a 7:05 mile, 3 mins jog, 0.26 miles at 7:07 pace, a 4 mins jog and 0.56 miles at 7:14 pace. Very unstructured threshold/fartlek mix 🤷 I had about 5.6 miles to get home so experimented with this zone 2 stuff, to keep my HR around 130 - 135bpm and cadence 165-170, I had to shuffle along with the lightest, shortest steps I've ever done hardly lifting my feet off the ground and really slow 11-12 min mile, felt ridiculous tbh but that's as close as I've ever been to a recovery run or zone 2, I even walked on the hills or if HR started to creep up. There's a few videos on YouTube about all this zone 2 stuff and it's not as simple as everyone makes it seem with the MHR=220−age, Zone 2=60% to 70% of MHR equations, you'd have to go in a lab and carry out blood lactate threshold testing to get real figures. At the end of the day, why freak out because a Garmin watch says you're in the wrong zone? Some people use the talk test, if you can hold a conversation you're in zone 2, if you can say 12 words without being breathless you're in a comfortable aerobic zone. Once I was almost back I tried another short burst, 40 seconds, 0.14 miles, 4:53 min mile pace. #keeptrying #exercise #running #runstr

What are we supposed to do because we can't vote our way out of this? Go to London and hold up signs at an event while David Icke talks to the crowd about freedom? Then what? Nothing will change? Everytime I go out for a run I end up with a dry nose and sore throat and no one will convince me it's not the crap these bastards are releasing into the atmosphere. #geoengineering #chemtrails #freedom

A bit slow but that was the point, to try and bring my heart rate down and run easy miles without stacking fatigue. Driving myself mad with YouTube videos and "Zone 2" talk, I can't even shuffle round the block without hr going over 140bpm, averaged 146bpm today over half marathon distance but it's the hills that are pushing me into 150-160 territory, total ascent over the run was 678ft which isn't much overall but the last half hour was all a steady climb which was holding me at 154bpm. Maybe a drink or carbs while out may have helped bring it down but I didn't take anything with me. Going to get a chest strap because they're more accurate. #exercise #running #runstr

Not sure Bryan Johnson would approve . Maybe all lagers are crap but Peroni seems better than cheap corn syrup and chemical sweet swill like Carling & Fosters. Shouldn't be glamorising Medieval times as 90% of the population was born into serfdom under the feudal system but Medieval ale appeals to me, brewed frequently by an ale wife because it contained no preservatives, calorie dense and often called liquid bread, unfiltered and packed with vitamins and minerals. Everything nowadays seems full of chemicals and preservatives. #drinkstr 🍻

Old bike and too many rides in the rain without mudguards equals water ingress and a crunchy headset. Knocked the cups out and the bearings aren't even the sealed type as you can see a cage, vernier caliper reads 28.6mm on the folk tube and 43.9mm in the frame so seems a standard size, some places list them as 1-1/8 threadless 44mm zero stack. Banged some grease in for now but should be able to replace them with a kit - cups, sealed bearings etc as long as I can get the crown ring off my folks. Gets to the stage where you'd be better off just getting a new bike. #bikestr #fixstr🚴

Fasted recovery ride, the goal was to keep it light - spinning not mashing - keep the heart rate low - flush the legs. #exercise #bikestr

Probably shouldn't have left it until I was over 40 to start running 🫣 First time trying interval training, warmed up with a 2.5 mile slow run at 11 min/mile pace and tried to keep my heart rate low, then the plan was 30 second sprints following by 2 minutes recovery walk/jog x6. Felt a bit goofy manually starting and stopping the watch while aiming for 30 seconds, not being used to sprints I needed the full 2 mins recovery in between. The best lap was actually the last 0:31.3 seconds, 0.1 mile, 5:04 min/mile pace. It was pissing it down, cold and windy, ran the intervals on a side road and then 0.8 mile jog back. Next thing to do is work on threshold tempo maintaining better pace for 20 mins, no benchmark yet but guessing 8:20 min per mile approx. #exercise #running #runstr

#UK #Weather

Is this Silent Hill or the UK? Potholes everywhere, rain everyday, constantly grey, no sun for weeks at a time. It's that bad I've ordered some Vitamin D tablets, never bothered with supplements before and wouldn't trust half the stuff that's sold online (Ebay) vs buying from stores such as Holland & Barrett. Supposedly you can get Vitamin D from oily fish and some from Eggs but nowhere near what you get from direct sunlight on the skin. Absolutely unreal that globalist lunatics say the sun needs dimming to save the planet, more like these pedo's want to kill us off and destroy the food supply.

Disgusted with myself, stopped the watch at a 15 miles and walked back 4 in the drizzle. Did weighted calf raises at the weekend and you don't usually feel them until a few days after (DOMS) Maybe there's some fatigue building up? Back to the drawing board 😏 #exercise #running #runstr

Went down a Mount Everest YouTube rabbit hole this weekend. Some crazy, and also tragic stories. People trying to go up there with little experience, a guy from the UK trying to go up there on the cheap with no assistance from the Sherpas, no oxygen for the "Death Zone". Bodies that have been up there for decades frozen in time laying there in their gear. One of the most shocking things to me was the queueing/bottleneck issue where people stand around waiting for their turn up Hillary Step while the time is ticking for the 2pm turnaround cut off and they're using up their limited oxygen supply.

Everything is more expensive in the UK compared to the US. These Patagonia Storm Racer jackets are £270 from Alpinetrek & direct from Patagonia unless you want the talon color for £202. You can pick up a blue one up for £180, same jacket and spec but Endless Blue is a 2024 color.

Went out with no plan of what I was supposed to be doing or trying, stop starting, messing around with the watch settings, started the run again 3 times, deleted one of them 😂 Managed to decipher some data though, from previous runs I know I can plod on around 10min mile pace and 158spm cadence. Tried some shorter bursts/sprints and the best one was 0.13 miles in 0:41.9 seconds at 5:34 min mile pace, I couldn't hold this pace any longer. Don't know how accurate these watches are but max cadence hit 248spm and 11.9mph. #exercise #running #running

Anyone got any experience or recommendations for a running jacket to go out in the rain? Yeah you'll get a bit sweaty but don't want to get drenched. 2.5 layer 3? 20,000mm? 30,000g? Something fairly tough if used in conjunction with a hydration vest and won't start falling apart. Looked at a Cimalp Storm Pro but would get hit with import duties 🇫🇷 Omm Kamleika seem popular in the UK Salomon Bonatti trail Patagonia Storm Racer Arc'teryx Norvan £££ #runstr #running #gear #askstr #ask #asknostr

Nothing is ever straight forward. You're supposed to be able to isolate the CH system from the boiler and just drain down the boiler to work on it but the quarter turn valves weren't playing ball, had my whole bodyweight leaning on a big flatblade screwdriver trying to get them to budge, the return shut off but the flow wasn't having it and got seized halfway so had to fart around with a hosepipe out the front door and drain some CH water from one of the rads, enough to work on the boiler which is thankfully the highest part of the system. Fitted the new expansion vessel, prv, siphon assembly and also fitted a new dhw heat exchange because sometimes when running hot water full bore from the kitchen mixer tap the boiler would bang (kettling) given the age of the boiler it was most likely scale build up in the heat exchange from the mains water. Took the boiler CH union valve off and put it in the vice and it appears it's the head that's stuck but was able to open/move the ball valve with a flatblade screwdriver from inside. Although the expansion vessel was new I still checked the pressure and it was 12psi so topped the system back up via the filling loop and everything works okay. There's 10 rads on the system and I set the pressure to just over 1 bar and ran the CH, pressure maxed out around 1.8bar. 👇Old parts inc the temporary repair syphon assembly that did the job while I waited for new parts to arrive. #fixstr 🔧

Stacked some sats today. Felt like a drop in the ocean but they're real sats native $BTC to a clean wallet that I'm never going to use just send to. Tried that BTC defi garbage once and got burnt, tried to earn yield on btc.b (BTC on Avalanche) and lost 50% of the holding because the vault went bad, never a-fucking-gain 🤬 It ain't much but it's stacking sats and staying humble.

Tried to run based on effort rather than worrying about time, mins per mile averaged out just over 10. Mile 3 was the slowest at 10:57 because there's a fairly big hill, felt I had some left in the tank near the end so picked up the pace for the last few miles and mile 20 was the fastest at 8:20. Took a hydration vest with me and 2 500ml soft flasks on the chest, 1 had 300ml water, a pinch of salt and a tablespoon of Maple syrup, the other flask just had 300ml water but tasted rank and plastic even though the flasks had been washed out (still new) Did some small sipping every 15-20mins after mile 10 and seemed to make a difference, maybe heart rate is still a bit high overall but brought it down to153bpm average whereas it's been 160bpm on previous runs - probably too high for training/longer runs. Finding a route can be a bit of a pain, running on undulating pavements, trying to cross roads, uphills, downhills, could do with one of those beachfront promenade runs that's all flat and settle in slightly faster. "If you want to get faster ~ run slower" seems to be the consensus on YouTube. Going to try some faster but shorter running later in the week. #exercise #running #runstr

Depressing, what happened to those cool crisp days where you at least get some light? The UK is like Silent Hill, people will be buying UVB lamps at this rate.

More boiler woes but a separate issue from the condensing pipe. Topped the pressure up yesterday as it seemed rather low, heating came on this morning and once it had turned off I rechecked the pressure and it was right down again to 0.5bar (any lower than 0.5bar and the heating won't come on) No signs of any leaks from the boiler or the CH system and given how quickly the pressure had dropped, signs of a leak would be pretty evident so suspicions quickly turned to the expansion vessel and or the prv (pressure relief valve) On old school open vented systems with a hot water cylinder and f&e (feed and expansion) tank, expansion in the system when heated is taken up in the f&e tank, on a combi boiler sealed system there's an expansion vessel with an inflated rubber bladder inside, when the bladder is flat or pierced there's no room in the system to take up the expansion so when the heating comes on and the system pressure rises and goes over 2.5bar the prv opens and dumps CH water out the discharge pipe, then with the combination of the system cooling and the loss of pressure/water via the discharge pipe, the system pressure will be low, often too low for the boiler to operate (sub 0.5bar on this boiler) Went to check the expansion vessel pressure which should be about 11psi and water came out the schrader valve not air 😏 Problem found. On Ebay there are listings for the expansion vessel and a new prv, there might not be a problem with my prv but under normal circumstances they never open, when they do (pressure goes over 2.5bar) they open up as CH water is discharged and then close again but CH water often contains bits of crud and debris even when the system has been ran with inhibitor, so when the valve snaps shut again it doesn't always make a pressure tight seal which is no good for a sealed system. Parts ordered.