The 24 hr challenge

Given my newfound interest in other sports besides running and cross country skiing, I've decided that having running goals alone is not enough. So after much thought and consideration, I have devised a Twenty-Four hour challenge tough enough to send grown men crying to their mothers, to cause dogs to howl in the absence of a full moon, church bells to pell eerily in the early hours of the morning and bananas to ripen violently and explosively.

The inspiration for this challenge came from the daily exercise regime of one of the characters in my favourite book: Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts. After spending six months in a heroin den, so emaciated and weakened that he could barely walk down the steps to the waiting car, guided by his one true friend, this chap gets himself back into shape by doing a 10km run, 600 pushups (20x30) and 500 situps (one set) every day. I was mighty impressed by the concept when I read the book, and lately, I've been thinking that I would not only like to try it, but actually better it!

Frankly, I think it's all a bit too easy. Five hundred situps - pish, that's half an hour. Six hundred pushups - a stretch, but I think I could do that over a day. And a 10k run - hah! So here's my Twenty-Four challenge: (arranged in the order that I would do it)
- 200km ride at 35kph
- 600 pushups (20x30)
- 500 bicycle crunches (situps don't do anything for me and they're bad for your back anyway)
- 60 pullups
- 10km run in less than 35:00

Now that is going to be tough! I think I could possibly do the core work part of it (pushups, crunches and pullups), but there's no way I could do either the ride nor the run even if I were fully rested. When you throw in the cumulative fatigue, that's going to be very tough to achieve. And that's what makes it fun:D

When I can do that, I reckon I will be in rather good shape:P And all-round good shape, not just good at running and crap at everything else like at the moment.

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I had a bit of a mechanical issue last night - an incredibly stupid one at that. Basically I was rushing to catch up with a friend after work and didn't have time to change into cycling gear. Forgetting to roll up my work pants, I'd ridden about a km when *wrench* *squeal* *crash* my pants got caught in the chain. I got them out without too much of an issue, but my bike now made horrible scraping noises with each pedal stroke. Limped to where I was meant to be meeting my friend and turned it upside down to have a look and was swiftly aided by this nice girl who seemed to know a bit more about it than I did. She concluded that my gear shifter was bent and after about 10 minutes (seriously nice of her to stop and get her hands all greasy!) left me with the bike operating passably.

I wasn't content with that though. I found some bright lights and had a good look at it myself and worked out what was actually wrong with it. I don't think anything is bent, just out of position. After fiddling with an allan key for about 90 minutes I got the chain out of harm's way on second gear, but it's not much fun to ride at the moment:( I'll switch up a gear and it'll switch up then go back down two! And it won't even go to the third cog. Taking it to the bike shop tomorrow for my free service. Hopefully my efforts to repair it haven't damaged it further:P