Changing the Forerunner 305 Strap.

I've been investigating buying a bike mount for the Forerunner. There are two main reasons for this, one is that I'd like to make more use of the navigation features and upload one of the many online road/offroad cycling routes to it and follow it round (backed up by map). I was particularly looking to do this for road rides intially. The second reason is that I'm fed up with the Polar CS200cad cycle computer that I have. The computer itself is fine and does speed, HR, cadence and it mounts to the stem which I prefer. The problem is that the wireless speed sensor has given up really quickly and the batteries cannot be replaced, I have to buy new ones. They are supposed to have 2000 riding hours life in them, my a*se! They are also really too bulky for the MTBs and are prone to being hit by things and moved too far away from the magnet. I had bought fitting kits for an extra two bikes and on all three the speed sensor has stopped transmitting and they are around £25 a pop to replace! The cadence sensor on the road bike is still working just fine and it was fitted at the same time. If I could find the receipts for them they would be getting sent back to Polar but as it is I can't so I'll have to lump it.

I bought a new speed sensor for the road bike as I'm planning to keep the Polar for that generally but I foud that Garmin do a quick release bike mount for the 305 whihc also comes with a velcro strap to replace the original unit strap, it is very much aimed at triathletes but I have no intention of running off the bike at the minute but I find the current strap gets uncomfortable after a while and the unit starts to dig into my wrist bone, there is no way I would wear it on my wrist on a bike. So I thought it may be worth trying out the strap and mount and duly ordered it from Amazon in the middle of the week, it arrived on Friday morning which meant I could replace the strap for the weekend's trail race. The kit composed a velcro strap with a plastic mount on it, a plastic mount for the bike, a tool to prise out the spring pins on the watch strap, some spare spring pins and some zip ties. The important bits:

The mount is actually quite neat which I was pleased about but due to the shape of the forerunner there was no way it was ever going to mount to a stem, I like it on the stem on the MTB as I feel its more out of the way in the event of a crash, I will also be interesting to see how it sits on the riser bars too but I'll find that out soon, this one is going on the road bike first. The strap is wide and inital impressions are that its comfortable, plastic mount means that the unit itself is held more proud of my wrist than before so it should hopefully solve the wrist bone irritation. It will be getting a full try out at the Garburn race tomorrow. The downside of that is that the unit looks even bigger on my wrist than before but I've gotten over the "beam me up Scotty" looks of the thing, I like using it.

Getting the springpins out to remove the original strap was a bit of a faff and one pinged across the lounge somewhere, the hoover will no doubt find it soon enough, however I just used one of the spares that came wth the mount and the strap was on. The unit now clips onto the plastic mount on the strap and is pretty easy to get off though my one concern is how long the plastic will tolerate this.

I'll see how I get on with the strap at the Garburn race. If I decide to put the mounts on all three bikes and I think its an even better idea for MTB then it seems Garmin don't do the bike mount without the strap, now I think a spare strap is a great idea for me with my propensity for losing things (still can't find my remote car key!), I think two spares is a teensy bit excessive and will just encourage me to be careless with it. I'm currently planning a recovery road ride for my legs on Sunday so will hopefully try the bike mount out then.

May: Longest Mileage Month!

Now that the Garburn race is over (still working on the report) my training log on Fetch shows that I have run 94 running miles for May, the most by a long way - the previous best was a 71 mile month.

I'm not sure what I'm going to do mileage wise for the next two months but I don't think it will be as high as am aiming to do long runs of up to 10 miles max and bring the bike miles back up instead as they are paltry this year.

Tuesday 27th May: Short Road Run

As above really, calves felt surprisingly tight when I set off so had to take it easy, this was the recovery run I should've done yesterday. I decided to do an out and back as its the easiest way to do an exact mileage. I headed towards Leyland for 1.5 miles which turned out to be gradually uphill then I turned and cruised back home. 3 miles at just over 9mm with an average HR of 152, quite low for me.

Forecast not looking great for tomorrow but hopefully will get out on the MTB after work, would pack it all up tonight but car is going into the garage tomorrow so will have to come home first before heading out again. Resting Thursday and Friday.

Monday 26th May: 4 Mile Trail Run

I had planned to do a 4 mile recovery run today on the local roads/tramway area but I ended up changing plan. It was stupidly windy again, even more so than Sunday but the expected rain didn't materialise instead it was glorious sunshine. If it hadn't been for the wind one of the bikes would have been going on an outing but as it was decided to catch up in the garden. I spent most of the day pottering until the cloud came in and it got cold.

I had been dithering all day about where to run as quite frankly I'd had enough of tarmac with the road race yesterday but I didn't want to run any real hills and all the trails I run on are hilly. I had decided to myself that once Garburn was out the way and I no longer had to do very long runs I would do some more exploratory runs and find new trails so in that spirit I got the map out. There are some footpaths out of White Coppice that stay low level, I also wanted to run round Healey Nab as I'm sure there are lots of little trails in there that we don't ride on. I have found that trail running is a really god way of spotting and investigating potential bike trails, on the bike I'm usually moving too fast or concentrating on the trail itself to notice peripheral detail.

So I parked up at White Coppice, opened the car door and nearly stepped into a bunch of nettles, that would not have been pleasant. Got my kit on, including bike arm warmers as the temperature had really dropped and dug my trail shoes out. I had obviously just chucked them in the plastic bag at the end of my last run and not let them dry out, I need to run some clean water through them and let them dry properly me thinks as they were rather ripe. I had a quick scan of the map for the key paths in the general direction I was heading, I didn't bother taking it with me as even if all else failed I knew how to get back on road.

So I set of along a footpath that followed the base of Stronstrey Bank, the surface was hard packed as it had been dry so much but it would be good going even in the wet. This is one of those footpaths that as far as I'm concerned should be a bridleway, it is wide enough and strong enough to handle bikes and horses but for some reason its no go, doesn't stop people riding it and I can see why, there are a few paths like that round this area. I pop out at the road near the Waterman's Cottage at the north end of Anglezarke Reservoir, have a quick look at the steep road hill just to confirm it is in fact steep (yep, still steep) and have a quick look down a footpath that follows the east back of the reservoir. It is a woodland type path and is bone dry but looks like it could get very boggy when wet, I'm not going that way but will investigate it soon, would be a good fairly flat trail run to run all the way round Anglezarke. I head along the road for a bit to the very start of the West bank of the reservoir, I've got a choice of two paths, I can either go up the steep steps which I've noticed before whizzing past on a bike or go along the track that hugs the reservoir (which I've never noticed when whizzing past on a bike). I opt for the latter. It is a fantastic running trail, undulating, rooty and runnable. In its present bone dry condition it is probably pretty bikeable as well, may try it one dry evening. The track pops out at Heapey Fold Lane which is the bridleway they "restored" (i.e annihiliated) so I follow that for a bit and run on the normal biking route into the Nab area. I drop down the drops and as I turn to head down the wide track I notice two steep paths dropping down from the main one, so I stopped the Garmin and headed down one for a look. It is steep and rooty but will make an interesting bike descent as long as there is a sensible way back up. It drops to another wide track and I look around for a rideable way up, I pick another steep track which is not rideable up but would make a good down and get back to the top of the drops. I restart the Garmin and continue on my way. I follow the main bridleway to the the sharp right hander before the gate, at this point I notice that the wide track the steep descents dropped to joins the main bridleway here (result!), I have never really appreciated this when on a bike. I also noticed two other short sections of track that are worth looking at....I continued on the normal route back to Heapey Fold Lane, there were a couple of other likely looking tacks but my stomach was really rumbling by this point. I followed a footpath sign that brought me out by the steep steps on the west bank of the reservoir then I retraced my steps back to the car.

4 miles in about 40 minutes and lots of exploring though not the easy recovery run it was supposed to be. After finding those new trails I spent a lot of time looking at the 25,000 scale map tonight to start identifying some new tracks to run and ride, got some plans...

This Weeks Planned Training

This is due to be a quiet week as a wind down towards the Garburn race, I suffered a bit on the Hawkshead event by doing too much riding and running in the week before. Mindful of that I am planning.

Monday: Short recovery run, 4 miles max

Tuesday: Short run: 3 miles max

Wednesday: MTB - will suggest short route this week

Thursday: nada - stretching

Friday : nada - stretching


The weather forecast for tomorrow is rubbish so that should stop the temptation to go out for a ride or do anything long.

My legs felt very good on the 10 miler this morning with two days rest in them so that is the plan for next week too.