Category Archives: Training

My soul is painted like the wings of butterflies

I went for a ride today and, once more, forgot to take my camera with me.  To be fair I only did a seaside loop, so I’d probably have been hard pushed to show you something new.  Having said that, the fact the sun was shining and the skies were blue might have added novelty value.  As would the sight of my pasty white legs making their way around Somerset.  Unlike the unexpectedly strong headwind, which was not novel at all but at least was in my face on the way out and on my back on the way home.  It was a ride with two goals – to be a recovery ride and spin my legs out and see how they were, but also to test out my snazzy new cycling shoes and Look pedals.  My legs were fine, the pedals went better than I was worried they might though I still need some practice when I set off again, and my new shoes totally rock!  They just make the bike feel more responsive somehow.  They’re comfortable when you’re riding, lovely when you’re out of the saddle, and when you kick off, they seem to wake my wheels up and off we go… Nice :).

Cycling time: 1:46:56 hrs
Distance: 28.21 miles
Avs: 15.8 mph.
ODO: 13722 miles

So, anyone want to know how the eating is going?  Well generally I think it’s working.  Or helping anyway.  I’m not living on paracetamol, which has to be a good thing.  As for the riding – having made an effort to have a better eating strategy before and during the last event, I think I got through it better.  OK, I still nearly lost it, but that’s the point.  Nearly.  I saw it coming, ate the jelly beans, and dealt with it.  I did eat more during the event – though clearly still not quite enough – and I ate at regular intervals whether I wanted to or not.  I had one of another kind of safe bar – irritatingly I’ve forgotten which one – which wasn’t just fruit and nuts and had oats etc in it too, and I think that helped, in combination with the Nakd bars, bananas, and Nuun.  The plan in the long run is to start making my own bars, but I just haven’t gotten around to it yet.  No excuses – procrastination is a terrible thing…

This Sunday my youngest celebrated her 12th birthday.  The first thing we did when I got back from Pembrokeshire was to make her birthday cake together.  We made a speckled chocolate beetroot cake, from my new cookbook.  All gluten free, wheat free, dairy free…sounds good right?  And it was.  Tasted bl**dy lovely, went down a treat all ’round.  Shame that it turns out beetroot is on the banned list isn’t it?  Doh!  Didn’t even occur to me to check…*sigh*.  And that keeps happening…

So I think it’s safe to say I’m still getting it wrong from time to time but, slowly, I may be getting there…  Live and learn, right? 🙂

 

 

You can’t take the sky from me

I shouldn’t have been riding this morning, but I was.  Partially because when I arranged it earlier this week I’d forgotten that my sportive is on Saturday not Sunday.  And hey, it was dry, and that’s rare, and I’d have had to do something, and it was better than the gym…  So I went for a quick loop with Mim, which was mostly flat, but very windy.  Done.  The hardest part was making sure I didn’t wear anything I might need tomorrow!

Cycling time: 1:16:24 hrs
Distance: 20.13 miles
Avs: 15.8 mph.
ODO: 13589 miles

Then I had to wash the bike, wash me, pack the car, faff a great deal before finally admitting there was no more faffing to be done, and then set off towards Pembrokeshire.  It was a 4 hour drive, if you include a stop at Swansea West services for a Costa break, but it went smoothly.  The sun was shining, the motorway gods were smiling, and the roads were fairly clear even once the motorways had turned into A roads.  It’s like getting to Neverland.  Not so much “Second star to the right and straight on ’til morning”, more keep driving west until you run out of M4 then keep driving some more until you hit the coast :).

It must be a leftover from summer holidays as a child, but there’s that moment when you see a glimpse of shimmering silver on the horizon, when you get to be the first one to see the sea, and you grin like a child 🙂  And then it opens out before you…

 It’s a bit like going on holiday and everything!  A holiday where you get to ride your bike all day.  That can’t be bad, right? 😉

Oriel y Parc

The Tour of Pembrokeshire HQ is at Oriel y Parc this year, and because I was here today not tomorrow, I actually got to sign on in advance, which makes a nice change.  I wasn’t the only one doing the same, and as we did that, the start village was rapidly going up around us.

Registration

This is at the start village.  I’m guessing it’s a sound system, right?m 😉

Signing on took no time at all.  I caught up with Peter and Carlos and some of the other riders I’d met at the Prologue ride last year, but I still had/have hours to kill.  So once I’d checked into the Alandale Guesthouse again, into my very small but perfectly formed single room, I decided to be a tourist.  I didn’t visit the Cathedral last time I was here, and it seemed verging on rude to come here again and not visit it again, so I took myself off down the hill and went and wandered around it.

How about an arty shot for you?

Even then I hadn’t killed enough time, so I decided to go to the seaside.  Here’s my little red car at the seaside  🙂

It’s at a place called Whitesands, which seems quite appropriate.

I love wide open spaces, and wind, and waves, and blue, and space…it’s all very zen like and very good for my head 🙂  I’d forgotten how much I love it, and it was a very good time to be reminded.  The beach was practically empty, and I walked down to the water’s edge and listened to the sound of the waves for a while, before walking over the headland and back to the car.

Have you seen the colour of the sky?  Wouldn’t it be lovely if it stayed that way for tomorrow, and the wind dropped a bit?  Of course I now have NO idea what layers to wear…I don’t know what to do with a 12C sunny not very windy forecast! *grin*.

I have eaten leftover pasta.  And nutella on rice cakes.  Very soon it will time to get a reasonably early night before getting up and getting on with it again.  Night all :).

 

 

One potato, two potato…

It’s Thursday, and I’m riding the Tour of Pembrokeshire on Saturday.  It starts from St Davids, which is a LONG way away, so I’m heading down there tomorrow afternoon, after a quick leg spin with Mim, once my bike is washed and sorted.  With only a couple of days to go, and some lessons learnt from the last event, I’m well into trying to eat properly already.  Last night was sardines and boiled potatoes.  Well, 1 sardine, lots of potatoes.  Which mean I had potatoes and ham for lunch today – there’s a whole heap of leftover eating going on around here – it removes the element of thought/decision from my meal planning!

Which brings us to this evening, and further planning ahead.  I made a massive pasta dish.  Since I’m away tomorrow night and I seriously doubt I’ll easily be able to find safe food to eat down there, and I really can’t risk upsetting my insides before the ride, I needed to make enough for both tonight and tomorrow night.  There has been a tendency for the safe food I’ve cooked to be a bit bland, inevitably I suppose what with onion and garlic being banned, but I nailed it tonight.  Not only did it taste good, nice and rich with a bit of a kick, but the mob happily ate it too! :D.

Fry 1 chopped green chilli in olive oil, add chopped turkey breast and brown.  Add half carton of passata and one can of chopped tomatoes.  Add oregano, mixed herbs, black pepper, and one carton of deli olives with lemon.   Bring to the boil and then let simmer for a while.  Toast one packet of pine nuts.  Cook one pack of gluten free brown rice pasta.  Drain pasta.  Mix with the sauce, and stir in the pine nuts.  Serve. Done.  Nom, nom, as my youngest would put it :).

Carbs duly loaded methinks.  I even managed to knock up a safe dessert – lactofree vanilla icecream topped with lactofree strawberry yoghurt and linseeds.  Gotta get some dairy into the diet somewhere right?

Since I’m off tomorrow afternoon, I need to do all my prepping and faffing tonight.  Which, due to this low FODMAP diet is even more complicated than it used to be, due to the amount of food I need to take with me!

Just look at all that stuff!  There’s breakfast for two days – gluten free muesli and bananas and lactofree milk.  There’s tonight’s pasta for tomorrow night.  There’s rice cakes and nutella, and gluten free pretzels, if all else fails, for Saturday night.  Then there’s numerous various bars, jelly beans, and Nuun, all for the ride itself and possibly after.  That’s not including the fizzy water that’s already in the car, or the flask of coffee that will get me down there, or the bottle of wine I might need on Saturday night.  Blimey!

And I haven’t even started to sort kit, and layers, and clothes, and…*engage panic mode*!  Aaarrrrrrrrrrrgh!

 

We’ll climb mountains, climb mountains together

Time to get back on the bike.  Having had a good gym session yesterday, I knew my legs were still working, but I didn’t know if my bike and I were still talking to each other.  So I went for what probably counts as a recovery ride with George, in the grey and mild.  It was also dry until I made the mistake of noticing it was dry and commenting on that fact, at which point it stopped being dry and started being drizzly and wet instead.

George had errands to run in Burnham, so that’s where we went.  I forgot my camera, but I didn’t regret that, as there was nothing out there of great note to share with you.  We looped there, we looped back.  George peeled off home before I went down Weare Hill – wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee……. – and I added an extra loop to take in Winscombe Hill and make sure I was out for two hours.  Got to do at least one hill, right?  So my route went something like this.

Cycling time: 2:03:27 hrs
Distance: 32.57 miles
Avs: 15.8 mph.
ODO: 13568 miles

My legs were feeling ok, the bike could use a clean and some oil here and there but was indeed still talking to me, and it was a fairly enjoyable uneventful ride.  We’re ready to do a lot more miles and a lot more hills together :).  Just as well considering the Tour of Pembrokeshire is on Saturday – 100 miles and 2400 metres of climbing!  *gulp*.

So let’s talk about other things instead.  Like how I’d quite like to marry the man who invented the zip.  His name is Gideon Sundback, and the day after I was last having such thoughts, the google doodle of the day honoured him too, in oddly coincidental fashion.

The zip is amazing.  The zip is what makes layers even better and even more flexible.  Unzip up the hills, zip up to descend.  Or up and down as weather conditions and temperatures dictate.  However, considering that Mr Sundback is no longer around for me to marry, I’d quite like to marry whoever it was at Rapha who decided to include two zipped vents in their winter jerseys to allow ventilation when you need it, and shut it off when you don’t.  It’s also a zip that makes my saddle bag expandable when I need to stuff my unwanted layers into it halfway through a ride.  Lets face it – zips rock!

Moving on…  Cyclists get strange tan marks.  There are apparently rules as to how razor sharp and where tan lines should be.   I break rule 7 all the time, but then I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I’m a girl, and I think we feel differently about tan lines than the male of the species.  And, as part of my mental meanderings, I am contemplating a new method of spray tan delivery.  Not that I’ve ever had a spray tan in my life, nor am I likely to, but I gather that essentially you stand in a booth somewhere, and the tan is sprayed all over you.  A bit like this:

or like this.  It’s important to cater for everyone’s tastes, right?

Now this seems pretty daft to me.  The back roads around Winscombe have however inspired me to invent a cyclist friendly method of bronzer delivery.  Well two actually.  However the most easy to implement, and therefore my patented method of choice is as follows.  May I suggest a large long shallow puddle of the stuff?  All the unhappily pallid cyclist has to do is cycle gently back and forwards through the puddle, at a constant speed, as many times as necessary to achieve the depth of shade required.  Obviously this probably works best for the legs, and upper body coverage may well be more variable and less satisfactory, but hey, this is a work in progress, and early days etc.  What do you think?  Off to the patent office with me?

Now if you could get the stuff atmospheric (stratospheric?) somehow, like today’s drizzle, then I think we’d have the all over tan issue sorted, since as we’re all familiar with that particular type of fine drizzle that effortlessly coats everything that cycles through it.  However that one’s a bit beyond my less than scientific brain…but if you manage to work that one out for yourself I’d like you to know that I thought of it first and want 50% of any profits made, as well as your first born child.  Actually no, scratch that, my two are quite enough! 😉

I learned to depend on me

Do you think the world is trying to tell me something?  I mean, the lengths people will go to to avoid riding with me! 😉  George went and acquired herself a destination limiting stomach bug from one of her mob, and GB has clearly decided I’m a pain in the neck, which has manifested itself as an actual pain in the neck that requires co-codamol and an osteopath! 🙁  That means that today’s ride turned into a solitary one, and that this Sunday’s ride is likely to do likewise.  B*gger.  I’m sorry, whatever it was, I won’t do it again, promise!  In the meantime I hope you both feel better, and are back on the road soon :).

The upside to being left to ride on my own was being able to leave when I wanted to, so the 9:00am start slipped by an hour.  Having ridden so much around here lately I was hard pushed to summon any enthusiasm for route planning, but I decided to go to the seaside, and to throw the odd hill in just for the hell of it.  Shipham Hill, that Bleadon Hill, and the Alpe de Winscombe as it turns out.  Or Winscombe d’Huez, which sounds better but makes less linguistic sense.

It wasn’t a very exciting ride.  It was just grey, in many senses of the word.  I got my layering strategy wrong.  Right number of layers I think, just the wrong layers.  Maybe even the wrong trousers.  I got cold, and lost my feet, and had to take less photos than usual.  Stopping was ok, standing still didn’t feel too cold, but getting going again with the NE air moving over your now slightly cooler self?  Not pleasant.  Still, this is a blog not a photo essay right?  And don’t worry, I still managed to take the odd picture, for those that prefer their books with lots of pictures in ;).

Just so as you know, this is the route that Bella says I did.  I hadn’t planned a route precisely, since I do kinda know my way around here by now…

…but just in case I didn’t, my route was full of signs…

Yes, that old (horse) chestnut 😉  Lack of originality never stopped me, right? *grin*.

Being as I was going that way, and as I’m still rather smitten with it, I’m going to take you over the new bridge with me again.

The seaside was much the same as ever, but more eau de bacon than eau de candyfloss today, which either means that candyfloss is only a sunny day thing, or that when the weather is like this, the grockles in Weston don’t get out of bed and down to breakfast until later than usual.  Come to think of it, as long as it’s decent quality, I’m probably allowed to eat bacon.  Now there’s a thought…

I did get a little bored pootling around from time to time, so I wrote you a haiku.  I’m sure it breaks many haiku rules, in various heinous ways, but if you feel the need to express your concerns on the matter, go tell someone who cares ;).

“People in your tin boxes,
where are the flies on your teeth?”

However it is interesting that you can ride around here a lot, and still not notice when things change.  I don’t know when it happened, but this cottage on the corner before the ascent of Winscombe Hill used to be clad in smooth white render.  I kinda liked the way the corner was rounded and shaped.  Stripping it back can’t have been an easy job, nor the work of but a few hours, so why haven’t I noticed it before?  Interestingly the curvy nature of the corner is much harder to make out now.

And just for your delectation, here’s another sign…

Time to go running up that hill, at what turns out to actually have been a fairly pitiful speed, but at least I got to fly down the bypass home.  I did better on the other climbs though, and I was feeling alright throughout.  I think I was slower than usual overall because I was cold, and it took me ages to warm up when I got home.  I was also, let’s be honest, not feeling all that motivated.

Cycling time: 2:03:53 hrs
Distance: 32.19 miles
Avs: 15.6 mph.
ODO: 13426 miles

I got home to more post, though not for me this time.  To use a few clichés, there was a distinct lack of blue sky (thinking) today, but you’ll be pleased to see that my cat can still think outside the box *grin*.

NB – she usually has a thing for hiding inside boxes, should you be after some context to put that comment in ;).

 

This is my church, this is where I heal my hurts

Finally!  It feels like forever since I rode my bike.  I know it was actually only last Friday, but even that was just a ride squeezed into a gap in the lousy weather.  Since then it has rained.  SO much.  Non-stop.  Constantly.  Heavily.  Unavoidably.  As I’m sure I’ve said before, I don’t mind (much) getting rained on when I’m out, but I do mind actually setting out in it.  But before you call me a fair weather cyclist, it’s not like this was just rain, it was wind too, and plenty of it.  So we didn’t ride on Sunday.  The weather was still awful Monday so I didn’t ride even though I was able to and I wanted to.  It didn’t clear until too late on Tuesday so I had to go to the gym.  By this morning I was climbing the walls…!

I won’t pretend today dawned sunny and bright, but it did dawn grey, dry, mild, and by the looks of it, not too windy.  That’ll do me!  Monsieur le Météo had kindly put together a weather report for those considering riding today.   Our man on the ground, aka BW, who has ended up on the ground yet again of late, had issued a warning on the state of Cheddar Gorge post deluge.  My weather station told me that it was 11C outside, and the BBC reckoned it was going to hit 15C later.  I was a well-informed woman, no?  Plenty of information at my fingertips.  Not that this stopped me faffing.  Especially since my new Cyclosport kit turned up yesterday (just to remind me I couldn’t ride presumably) so my options have increased and it being that bit warmer opened up a whole new world of possibly permutations *grin*.

Here’s what I went with, working from the bottom up.  Shoes, summer socks, blue legwarmers, summer shorts, Cyclosport s/s jersey, arms, Cyclosport gilet.  Want to see my shiny new jersey?  Here you go then.  I took it in the mirror, so the text was in reverse, but that’s what you get for taking photos in the mirror!  It has however been pointed out to me that this can be flipped, and that removes the issue…so here, have the real thing.

It’s a lovely jersey, fits really well, etc.  Which is quite impressing, considering that it’s men’s kit.  The rear view is quite different, which was rather hard to photograph on, as you might imagine, so…

As you can probably tell, if you look closely, it’s a little on the see-through side.  Which can be a little difficult for various reasons that will become apparent (transparent?) if you have to ride behind me for any length of time.  But let’s face it, I’m usually the one wheel sucking, not vice versa, so it’s not really a problem ;).  Besides which, with the gilet over the top, layering becomes once more the choice of champions.

Right.  Sartorial decisions made, time to actually ride the bike.  Apparently the wind was from the NE, so it made sense to head out into it, and get any slogging into it over and done with early.  Having been warned that Cheddar Gorge is awful, but knowing that I have to ride up there on Sunday, I thought I’d go check it out for myself.  I’m happy to report that at least for going up, it’s no worse than usual.  That gravel that has collected seems to be mostly on the downside, so be warned.  I found the Gorge pretty good going overall, which is good for the PMA.  The Somerset Hills Gran Fondo is long (111 miles) and quite hilly, and a tad daunting, so I need all the mental help I can get!

Considering the state of the road going down, I opted to head for a nice big main road descent, rather than Burrington Combe or Old Bristol Hill.  I went through Priddy, and all the way across the top of the Mendips, to where the aerial was disappearing into the clouds, that were still lurking around, amidst patches of some oddly coloured sky…

It’s a lovely tree lined road at the end up there.  If we were in France it would probably be called a Boulevard.  Boulevard Gambetta.  LeClerc. Haussman.  Etc.  One of those frequently reused road names that they seem to have in every french city.  Boulevard Priddy?

I nailed the big descent into Bristol.  Oh yes.  Much better than usual.  Even with a lorry lurking behind me.  Once he’d realised that he wasn’t getting past me, he backed off and let me get on with it.  Many thanks Monsieur le Camion, I had a whole heap of fun :).  I swear being in team kit makes me better at such things – I feel all professional and capable *grin*.

You get some interesting views of the Cathedral coming into town from that way which I keep meaning to photograph and this time I actually did.  Or should that be into city?  Size doesn’t matter remember…because if it did Axbridge would be a village ;).  It’s all history.  Axbridge has been a Town for 455 years, since King Philip and Queen Mary chose to make it so.  Wells has been City since 1205.  So there.  And if you want to argue about precise dates and so on, go do it on wikipedia.  Or down the local pub.

The sun was breaking through intermittently here, warming the colours of the stone, and me.  It was also market day, so the random wandering pedestrian factor was high, but it did make the place feel busy and alive.  I kinda like Wells, I just don’t get there much other than on the bike anymore.

I hadn’t really made a plan before I set off, but by now I’d decided to come home via Mark and the Webbington, just because I’ve not done that for a while.  It was going to take a bit longer than the usual two hours, which did make me consider changing my route, but then I realised I could be out for as long as I wanted, that I was enjoying myself, and that I could do as I pleased.  So I did.  Having said that, after a while, even with what wind there was behind me, just hurtling along on the flat did get a bit boring…

The rhynes around the Levels were pretty full, but there was only once place where they’d overflowed and the road was totally under water.  I guess they’re kind of managed flood plain, and lots of water is nothing new to them.  It’s one way to wash mud off the bike right?

I came home past the Webbington as planned, without really feeling the hill, and enjoyed the fact that the views were actually visible!  The descent at the other end was slightly ruined by the presence of a horse rider on the bend, but at least I saw her in advance and didn’t just discover her there whilst hurtling past.  Having seen her also meant I got to warn her I was coming through, which generally horse riders seem to appreciate, and she was no exception.  All good then 🙂

That just left the last little stretch up to the Town, and the swoop home.  Back home, dry, happy, and even happier to discover that the postman had been and left me lots more lovely cycling goodies.  The road surfaces had been way better than I’d expected, the bike was feeling good, and apart from the odd twinge in my knee, so was I really.  Actually the knee is a little worrying since I’ve been told not to take ibuprofen as part of the low FODMAP lactose free diet that I’ve been put on, so treating that is going to be difficult.  Paracetamol is all very well, but it’s often just not enough…especially if I’m taking paracetamol to treat the tummy pain!  Hm.  Could be interesting.

Cycling time: 2:29:11 hrs
Distance: 39.99 miles
Avs: 16.1 mph.
ODO: 13394 miles

Anyway, I felt much better for having had a couple of hours of that head space that I only get on the bike.  I missed my bike!  I guess the addict got her fix *grin*.  Here’s what Bella has to say on the matter.  Now, on to the shopping:

I now have these awesome new arms that I bought from Minx to replace my existing black now rather baggy ones, and I bought new summer socks whilst I was there, as you do.  Whilst buying a new white sports bra at Sheactive to cut back on the see through issue – which is not here yet – I also picked up a new sleeveless jersey on sale, and finally I have one that fits properly!  ‘Rah!

Finally, want to see something funny?  I mean, it’s not like we’ve even had that much sunshine around here!  That’s me for the season then – marked as a cyclist for all to see.  I wonder if there are mitt aficionados out there who can identify what brand of mitts you have by the shape of the sun tan mark?  Or is that a step too far even for cycling geeks? 😉 *Grin*.

Rock you like a hurricane

There are the times when, faced with a wavering will and failing motivation, the rules are there, to kick your ar*e, and get you on your bike.  Then there are days like today, when you can take them and stick ’em where the sun don’t shine.  Riding today would have been at the very least unpleasant, but at worst possibly also actively dangerous.  Judging by the amount of debris on the roads, the puncture fairy was going to be having a field day playing with those foolish enough to venture forth.  That would be the unpleasant.   But the wind and the rain?  I think riding today might also having been asking for an invitation to check out the nearest A&E department.  I’ve got so much coming up, so much I want to be doing and that I’m looking forward to that I’m sorry, that’s not a risk I was prepared to take.  So I didn’t.  I bailed on today’s planned ride with GB, and I went to the dry, warm, boring gym for a bit instead, and lived to ride another day :).

I take my time, I’m in no hurry

Do you want to know the most amazing thing about today’s ride?  Do you?  Shall I string out the suspense?…. No…?  Ok, I’ll tell.  Well…it didn’t rain on me.  Not once!  Not at all!  Practically unprecedented of late, and much appreciated :).

Deciding what to wear was tricky.  My longs are too big, and therefore baggy, and have, as a result, chafing issues, which are even worse when they’re wet.  Which the forecast suggested might be an issue, and I’m not sure the sore bits already acquired have healed up yet.  So I decided to go with the shorts/leg warmer combo, which is a new one to me.  I only have the legwarmers because it was recommended to have them for the Etape – for descending big hills when it gets chilly…and I didn’t use them even then, though I did use the over gloves that were recommended for the same reason.  At the time the blue option was cheaper than the others, and blue goes with my bike so…  Oh, and my summer cycling socks are blue too.  Snap.

I felt like a very bizarre sort of bumble bee.  And it was doubly weird since my Rapha shorts feel like you’re not wearing them, and the legwarmers, all bar the elastic hold up bit, were barely registering, whereas I was wearing two layers on my top half.  So, as I cycled away from Axbridge, I felt oddly naked from the waist down, which was a tad surreal!

Today’s route was the usual kind of loop, with the odd hill, because Mim wanted to do hills, and I should probably do some hills, what with the fact that all my events from here on in get longer and hillier…  We did Shipham Hill, which I followed Mim up, as usual…but apparently I still managed my 2nd best Strava time.  It was feeling pretty good but I wasn’t pushing, so that’s a pleasant surprise.

We went around via Banwell too, another hill to follow Hope up…

We also went over Brent Knoll, which also seemed less of a challenge than it sometimes does.  So that’s cool.  Or something.  The rest of the route involved the usual pootling around the usual roads, in sociable chatty fashion.  I dropped Mim off at George’s place for coffee and headed for home as I had places to be.  On the way home I took the scenic route to descend Weare Hill, just because I could, and because I rarely go that way.  That’s one of the nice things about being on a bike, you can decide to do what you want when you want to.  I decided to turn right instead of going straight on 🙂  Which is why you get to practice your elocution, in Eliza Doolittle style.  An impressive beast, no?

How now brown cow...

And there was a very pretty cherry tree corner too, which clearly I thought I should share with you.

And that was that really.  A nice two hour loop with a bit of everything and not too much of anything.  Job done :).  It occurs to me that I hadn’t strapped my knee up, but that it didn’t hurt either, which is a turn up for the books, but not something I would want to risk for a longer ride.  I saw my sports physio this week and have some more stretching and strengthening exercises for both knees.  Apparently there’s nothing serious wrong with them per se…I just use them a lot!

Cycling time: 2:08:41 hrs
Distance: 32.11 miles
Avs: 15.0 mph.
ODO: 13354 miles

In other news, today I appear to have entered the Black Rat Bristol Sportive, and also the medio corto route for the Wiggle Dragon Ride.  Well, I wasn’t doing anything else on those weekends, and resting isn’t really my thing, in case you hadn’t noticed.  I now have a sportive every weekend between now and the Maratona.  And I know that might be wrong, but I’m (not so secretly) quite excited about it all 🙂  I like a challenge, and besides, I’m determined to get good at this sportive lark! *grin*.

Here I am, this is me

Well today we managed an hour before it rained.  Which is possibly a miracle, or at least feels so of late.  As I’ve been a bit under the weather this week, and have a sportive on Sunday, George and I just did an easy couple of hours on the Levels this morning, taking advantage of the fact that they’re not called that for nothing.  I felt surprisingly good, which hopefully bodes well for Sunday’s event, and even with the crappy weather it was still good to be out there.  The forecast for Sunday is almost identical to what we got today, so I’m even pretty much sure what I’m going to be wearing.  Exactly the same as today!

There’s not much to tell you about the ride really.  It looks like this.  Even though I was visiting, having only decided to do so at very short notice, the builders of Wells had not had enough warning, and had only managed to scaffold a very small part of the Cathedral.

Look, on the LHS, just there…I’m sure it’ll spread, scaffolding always seems to.  Just in case you think I actually cycle on my own and make up my cycling friends to make myself feel better, here’s George, resplendent in Tor 2000 kit, and no doubt thrilled to be the victim of my photographic zeal again.

Actually that’s one of the reasons the new ipod shuffle has no name.  I nearly christened it, in the same way as the Garmin became Bella, although that wasn’t entirely my fault 😉 .  But then I realised that naming everything was possibly a little tragic and that I am lucky enough to actually have real friends with real names so I probably didn’t need to go there *grin*.

On the way back we even happened across a sign to point us in the right direction.  Or the wrong direction.  Depends on how you look on it.  It was the right direction for going home.  But the wrong direction if headwinds aren’t really your thing.  And please don’t tell me they’re good training – I’ve heard it all before.  To be fair, though it was annoying, George was finding it a little more so than me, as I’ve had quite a lot of practice at head down slogging into the wind of late!

So we rode.  We talked.  We got rained on.  And we followed the two hour rule, and even made up the difference lacking from Wednesday’s ride.  As rides go it could have been a lot worse 🙂

Time to throw the cycling kit in the machine – again.  The bike can be washed tomorrow – time to “reward” a child into doing it methinks.  I was trying to pack all my stuff away neatly, as you do (well, sometimes), but I was slightly hindered by a new and unique Giro helmet taking up space in my helmet bag…

To be fair, it was a perfect fit.  Maybe she’s a MagnifiCat? 😉  *grin*.

Cycling time: 2:11:35 hrs
Distance: 34.84 miles
Avs: 15.9 mph.
ODO: 13250 miles

Bullet The Blue Sky

If Carlsberg did rest days…they’d no doubt do them a darn sight better than I do.  I don’t like to have two rest days in a week.  My week runs Monday – Sunday.  On Monday I rested.  So, even with having ridden an event yesterday, I didn’t want to rest today.  Even with Sunday being a day of rest ‘n all.  That’s all a question of who your Gods are, and mine wear lycra so…

Pre-event I’d been considering my options for today.  Country walk?  Short ride with MiniMe?  The latter seemed most likely until GB posted on a certain social media site, and a plan for an unofficial ACG ride came together.  Not only was the idea of a ride in company good (and novel!), but it was also an 11:30am ride, which would give me time to sleep in and recover from not only the sportive but also the party I was due at afterwards.  Well…how could a girl not?

Which would explain why (considerably) less than 24 hours since I got off the bike I was back on it again.  More impressively; wearing the same lycra – washed and dried and everything!  There were four of us, myself, GB, Gary the hardy Northerner who was duly wearing shorts and a top and little else, and Ian, back from a brief hiatus to pay attention to the new arrival, such things being considered diplomatic.  GB sort of had a route in mind, or at least a particular coffee shop goal, and I was happy just to follow where I was led providing there weren’t too many massive hills involved.

Just as well really.  Call me lead for legs.  Well ok, that’s not strictly true, I was fine on the flat, but hit an incline and watch me drop like a stone…  I could feel what I can only presume is lactic acid in my legs – or whatever explanation scientists are currently using for that feeling you get when your legs are a bit tired because you used them to cycle a long way not so long ago and they’re wishing you hadn’t asked them to do it again quite so soon.  This was not helped by the fact that the other three dance up hills past me like they’re not even there, and that’s when I’m having a good day!  I did my best, and I was enjoying being out there though.  It was like yesterday – in the layers worn sense – but with sunshine!  Not warmth – don’t be daft – but that sun makes a big difference to how you feel about being out there :).

The route took us, in slightly circuitous and lumpy fashion, to the café at Kingston Seymour which turned out to be closed for a christening.  Debate ensued, and it was decided to head to the Walled Garden via Brockley Combe.  However as we set off I took to pondering.  I was quite likely to be a burden to those with me, who would probably choose to go up far bigger hills and do more miles if they weren’t having to take me into account.  I really shouldn’t be overdoing it, as I have a lot more events coming up, and I was clearly a bit tired.  And I really needed to be home to get to Morrisons this afternoon before they closed – because their gluten-free?/free from range is pretty good and I need to be eating things I can eat if I’m going to be doing so much riding.  Fuelling is becoming a real issue.  So I bailed and headed straight for home, back the way we came without the wiggles, and even resisted the temptation to go up Winscombe Hill just to round things off.  (It was a close call…).  My route therefore looks like this.

Turns out the rest of them did Brockley Combe, and Burrington Combe, and over 40 miles all in!  Now thanks to the observer effect, it’s impossible to know what would have happened if I hadn’t bailed.  Would we all have done that?  Probably not.  But I’m glad they did and that I didn’t! *grin*.  I am also glad I went, and I did ok all things considered.  I enjoyed having company too, which is just as well since the next sportive is due to be a solitary one too.  Unless Mario wants to ride with me of course 😉 *grin*.

Cycling time: 1:50:54 hrs
Distance: 29.31 miles
Avs: 15.9 mph.
ODO: 13185 miles