Garmin 310xt at an even lower price!

Garmin have officially discontinued the 310xt, so the remaining ones are being reduced in price to clear the stock. I payed (iirc) £125 (about $190, €167) for mine, including an HRM belt, but they are now on Amazon for just £110, including postage/shipping.
That's cheaper than the Forerunner 25! (Garmin's current entry-level running watch).
OK, the FR25 has Bluetooth, and phone integration, but the 310xt is a previous model pro-triathlon watch!
You want power and features to make you a better athlete, but you are on a modest budget, then the 310xt has to be THE "value" purchase out there!

So this is what you get.
Bike : £500 max
Tools: £100
Garmin 310xt with HRM: £110
Stages 105 power meter or powertap g3  wheel: under £600

Forget the rest. For £1300 quid YOU can be a monster rider.

You could substitute the 310xt for the also discontinued Edge 500 (Wiggle is currently clearing them out for just £120, with premium hr belt and cadence sensor).
However, for the "value" athlete, running will form part of your program, and an Edge 500 isn't that good for running!

What many folks actually do:
Bike (maybe on bike to work scheme)  £1000
Fancy cycle clothes £300.

Which do you think will go faster after 6 months of training?
The £500 bike plus the "training" stuff, or the £1000 bike with the rider looking very sophisticated?

If you have big bucks, buy what you want, but for value and features, nothing matches the 310xt!

Not got £1300?
Then drop the power meter, and that lowers the budget to just £710.
Power meters allow pacing for rides to be worked out. Heart rate is a bit variable, but as long as you eat properly and go to bed nice and early every night, then they make good pacing tools, too.

My budget was, I guess, only about £500, that's why I have a 18kg (40 lb) bike!
But I still have the 310xt - a well- trained rider on a heavy bike will wipe the floor with a novice on a fancy lightweight bike over any distance more than, say, 50km (30 miles).

Remember, this is old stock being shifted, and once they are gone, they are gone.
It could be a good couple of years before the "replacement" ( the 910xt) is offered at anything like so good a price!

No longer overweight - 10 months on the "Exercise" diet, with a new diet twist for the last couple of weeks

10 months of a diet high in exercise, with a diet low in saturated fat , and still high in exercise, for the last couple of weeks

Just a quick summary, as I already trailed the "big news" a few days back - I am now the lightest I have been for the last 15+ years.
There is always "physical" evidence of the sort of weight loss I have achieved this year - I have just moved from a pair of 38" waist trousers (which fitted a little closely) to a pair of 36" trousers (which fit comfortably). The trousers are the same style from the same supplier, so barring minor manufacturing differences, they should be the essentially the same, apart from the size.

Training Plans for the Winter

Time to draw up a winter training plan!

Don't forget to take a break at some point in the year, just to give things a chance to heal up, and for your mind to think about something else for a bit.
For me, the "break" is going to be from the last week of November, right up until Christmas. We will be VERY busy at work during that time, so it makes sense to choose those four or so weeks.
Of course, I'll still be commuting my 20-odd miles (32km) a week to work, and still walking my 25-odd miles (40km) AT work. But not running or cycling apart from that.

For the earlier part of November, I'll be continuing my running with Anna - just 6 to 12 miles (10 to 20km) a week to keep things "ticking over". Maybe get in the odd " interval " session on the bike - nothing too serious.
"Proper" training will resume in January, with a January 1st "no excuses" ride. I'll be continuing the running, too. I find the extra fitness from running really helps with not getting too out of breath on the hills.

Then it is a case of deciding what events and challenges I want to tackle, and working back from there.

My "A" event (the most important!) is a local "charity" sportive - the 100km Tour de Vale. I rode it in 5 hrs 22 mins last year, and this year I will be looking to break the 5 hour mark.
Last year, my first 100km (62 mile) ride was a practice of the course, and my second was the event itself.
This year, I want a few more "centuries" under my belt first!
The event is at the end of June, so I will rest for the two weeks before that, then put in a "super compensation" week, doing as many miles (and hard ones at that) as I can for the week before that. So that's June filled up. I guess I want a century in the middle of May, and another at the end, with a ride of about 60km ( with hill repeats) between them. I did this last year, but in June, and it worked really well for the event after the local one (but no later event this year, so I will move that part of the training forwards to May).
Couple of centuries in April.
That means I need to be riding at least a couple of 60km rides in March, with a couple of 50km rides in February.
And what if it snows?
Well, as I demonstrated last year, I can actually ride a 50km with snow tyres with no real problems.

I was hoping to squeeze in a fairly local 10km running event, too, but it looks like it will be on the same day as the Tour de Vale, so that looks like a non-starter.

After the Tour de Vale, I will have a rest week, the I'll be picking up the distance for another long-distance ride in the Summer.
I'll probably aim to just push up the distance a bit - say, to 250 or 300 km. Nothing definite - I'll see how the training goes before getting too fixated. I will probably have a go at Audax UK's badge for a 50, 100, 150, and 200km ride, all in the same season.
As I said above, the Tour de Vale is my "A" event, and that is what my training will be geared towards. Anything else will be a bonus :-)

So that's me.
What are you planning?

Update, 1st November 2015:
New training exercise for the Winter.
Lots of wet days in the winter, so I thought I'd share an exercise I've started doing recently.
Climbing stairs.
Lots of times.
Just knocked out 25 reps of a set of domestic stairs (about 3 metres/10 feet of climb per rep) in just under 6 minutes.
Got to be good for cycling, and as you are lifting your entire weight, it is rather reminiscent of cycling standing up.
Use the stairs in your house, in your office, anywhere.
Raining outside?
Who cares.
Indoor training that is quick and convenient (and if you can do more than about 25 reps of a flight of stairs without noticing it, then you are pretty fit!)

You gotta want to change

Change.

How many psychologists does it take to change a lightbulb?
One, but the lightbulb really has to want to change.

Hopefully, that's broken the ice.

Change.

Do you want to change your life?

I do.

For me, change was not a sudden thing, but something that grew over a number of years.

I've mentioned before that I was quite ill 6 1/2 years ago, but I was looking for change even before that.
I looked at some of my old medical records today (online, patient-accessible medical records are a fabulous thing), and they showed that in an "official" weigh-in in 2007, and again in 2008, I weighed in at 100kg (220 lbs). The weight had crept on over a number of years, particularly after the Summer of 1998, when I changed from a "physical" job to an office-based role. When I changed jobs in '98, I weighed 85kg (187lbs), but just 9 years later I had put on 15kg (33lbs). That's a lot!
I wasn't happy about it, and tried to cut back on the food, and always lost a bit, then I would just get so hungry after a while that I would just eat.

Yes, a lot of us have been there.

Anyway, then I was ill in the Spring on 2009. Quite a dramatic year, really, since my mother died in January of that same year.
I got to see a couple of specialists - one for my lungs and one for my blood. The blood specialist said I had to "mobilize". It was up to me, she said. Walk 3 miles a day (about 5km), or face a long decline of worsening health.

As I said before, I was already looking for change, so this seemed as good a direction to go in as any.
Lost a bit of weight, and put it back on again.

The next big change happened when the company I worked for had a reorganization. It involved consolidating the work done at four separate sites into a single new operation at a new site. Net headcount reduction, 300.
I turned down a pretty generous redundancy payment, and managed to get a transfer to a much more physical job in the town where I live. I wanted the extra physicality in the work as a form of exercise.
Lost a bit of weight, and put it back on again.

Then, in the Winter of 2013/14, I made a choice that has changed my life. I decided that I was going to get fitter riding a bike.
So I committed to riding on January 1st 2014, and I was going to ride up a local hill (it is just about a Category 4 climb, with the minimum required rise of 80m).
January 1st comes round, and it is a mixture of rain and drizzle - with the forecast being much the same all that day.

So I rode in the rain for a couple of hours and got wet.
I was ready for change, I had committed to change, and change happened.

So what makes my tale any different than any other new year's resolution - good for a day or two, maybe a week or two, but the forgotten until the next new year?

You gotta want to change, and I wanted to.
I was proud of that ride, and I still am.
When things are tough, I remind myself how I rode up a hill in the rain on New Year's Day.
Anyway, that year (2014) I got my weight down to 94.5kg (208 lbs) in the Summer, although it slipped back up to 96.5kg (212 lbs) by the end of the year, but still down.
Of course, I rode further, much further, later in the year (topping out with a 100 mile (160km) odyssey to the site of my former workplace, which had been replaced by a supermarket.
But that day in the rain still stands out for me.
That was the day I changed.

Of course, I have made further progress since then - from that end of 2014 weight of 96.5 kg, I am down to just 88kg (194 lbs), the lightest I have been in more than 15 years. I cycled that huge 232km in the Summer just ended, too, but even after that, the day in the rain in 2014 still stands out. What made the weight keep coming down was probably the running I added from January 2015 onwards. I worked my way up from a rather mediocre mile-and-a-bit to a more impressive half-marathon (it took me 2 hrs 27 minutes, by the way, but then again, it was the first time I had run that far for 30 years!). Yes there were tough days, especially at the start of the running - blisters, sore legs, sore feet - I even lost a toenail at one point. But I had committed to change, really committed, not just words but actions, so I got through it.

Change isn't cheap, and it isn't provisional.
From 2000 to 2007, I changed, too.
I studied for a degree part-time, while still holding down a full-time job.
Yes, I committed.
Yes, I got high marks (one of my tutors called me the "100 percent guy", because I gave 100%, and on one assignment, I submitted "perfect" answers, and she marked me 100% :-)

So, even before I was ill, I was embracing change.
I graduated aged 43, when most folks are already stagnating.
Then I was ill, then I changed my health and fitness.

A couple of weeks ago, the doctor said I had to change my diet - my blood cholesterol levels are a bit shaky. Not terrible, just shaky.
So I changed my diet as well.
Once you start really committing to change (and I mean REALLY committing, not just saying the words like you do at work), then further changes become easier (even if they do involve tofu!)

That's me.
I wanted to change.
I was open to change.
I was looking for change.
When change came, I took it.
And didn't look back.

And what of you all?
Are you ready for change?
You want things - maybe to lose a little weight, or maybe to go a bit further or a bit faster on your bike.
But will you do it the way I used to?
To give it a go, but it never seems to work out?
To look for reasons why what you want isn't really possible?

Or will you give it an honest go.
Even when it rains?

Newsflash: lightest weight for 15 years

This morning I weighed in, as usual.
What was unusual was the weight - just 87.8kg (193 lbs).
I had a cup of tea, and then sat down and used my tablet for a few hours.
I reweighed, and I was down to 87.5kg!
I've left it as 87.8 kg in my notebook, though.
(Any real weight gains/losses will show up after a while, even with inconsistent measurement, but I normally get up, weigh, eat, go to work, so, for me, the first, higher, weigh-in is the "honest" one.)
That is the first time I have been under 88 kg for at least 15 years!
Indeed, the first time I have dropped under 89kg in that period was just last week!
I started the year on 96.5kg (212 lbs) on January 1st.
So that is 8.7kg (19 lbs) down this year.
I tend to slowly revise down my target weight.
When I started on January 1st, the "target" was about 94.5kg (the weight I had dropped to the previous Summer).
When I passed that, I had an informal number of about 90kg in mind.
Now I seem to be reliably past that 90kg number, I would like to be down to 85kg, the weight I was in the Summer of '98.
But Christmas is coming, and the metaphorical goose is getting fat - let's hope I don't follow suit!
Here goes!