Can’t say I’m interested

With the wind blowing quite strongly and an afternoon of rain, I can’t say I’m terribly interested in turning up for tomorrow’s Tri.

I’m not sure about the weather report for tomorrow.  They say 27deg with strong NW in the afternoon.  The Tri of course is first thing.

Looking at the Metvuw website there’s rain, and a reasonable amount until Monday 7am.

I’m also not that keen to get up at 5am to get to registration for 6:30, and that’s 30 minutes after it opens. 

Am very pleased Mark is coming along, but he takes more time to get ready than I do.  If I was going on my own I’d be there for 6am and would have breakfast after arriving and setting all my stuff out.

Mark needs his cup of tea and honeypuffs with warmed milk.  Not something easily achieved in transition.

I haven’t even bothered cleaning my bike.  I can’t see the point in making sure it’s all pretty and clean when it’s more than likely going to see some dirty roads.

It’s actually the ride I’m least looking forward to.  Slippery roads with a bit of pace doesn’t really make for the safest conditions.

Of course if it’s dry tomorrow I’ll flip back to saying the swim is what concerns me the most.

I guess we’ll see in the morning.

I failed today’s goal

I wish I would just stick to a goal and be done with it.  But no. I’ve got to go changing my mind about what’s most important part way through, and then I blow part of my goal.

Today was a very short (but hard) ride followed by an extremely short run.

I decided I’d drink a full bottle of water and a GU during the ride.  Just to prove that I had it in me.

But I guess I don’t have it in me.

I wanted to be home by 9:30 and I left home just after 8:15 so I knew I’d really have to go for gold with the ride, not what was on the agenda.  I should have left home a little bit sooner.

I did the intervals I was meant to do by 12 minutes into the ride.  I knew then the rest of the ride was just to get the time in, but I generally take just over an hour to do this ride so I knew I couldn’t really slacken off.

When I got to Brooklands diary it had been my plan to stop, take my GU and then put the wrapper in the rubbish bin.

Um, where’s the rubbish bin?

The dairy was closed but surely all dairy’s have a rubbish bin fixed to a post outside.  Clearly I’m living in the dark ages.

So I stuffed it up my shorts.  Job done.

The wind was a bit windier than I would have liked and I knew it meant travelling the last 3+ k’s was going to be tough work.

Sort of belatedly I realised I should have been in a harder gear during the slightly easier parts to try and make up for the loss in speed I anticipated was coming.

Coming back up Prestons Road was as I expected somewhat harder and more difficult to maintain the speed I needed.

There was this thought about 30 minutes into my ride about the wisdom of going hard for the entire ride.  I was already doing twice the time Richard initially set for me with a Tri the following day.

Oh well.

Not long after turning from Marshland Rd into Prestons a man on a bike turned.  I think he’d just put aero bars on and was practicing on straight bits of road.  Wise move.

Anyway, I kept the same pace but would have been about 10m behind him.  I needed to go a bit faster to get home in an hour.

So I had to push it to gain and then overtake him.  It felt good   I’m sad.

I must have had a look of determination or some fighting spirit showing as when I turned into Rothesay a man walking his dogs was encouraging me. Ah, thanks.

There’s two 90deg bends before getting into our street and neither can be taken at great speed (remembering this is speed according to me).  I kept gunning it, well more like just hanging in there.

And I arrived home to see my cycle computer go 59:59 to 1:00:00.  But hey, I made it!

The run was fine, I mean what can go wrong in 6 minutes?  Oh actually, something can.  During the ride I had a twinge in my R knee.  It’s not something I’m used to and it came and went a few times.  It was enough for me to register it wasn’t right, and wasn’t normal but nothing that big.  However when I set of running my knee was quite sore.  I haven’t noticed that in my more recent runs, but it has happened before.

And we ate pancakes for breakfast

Something I find embarrassing

Truth be told there’s plenty of things I find embarrassing but here’s one.

I have really hairy arms.  Not just full on hairy arms, oh nooooo.  I have freaky hairy arms.  I have mutant hairy arms.

I’d show you but I’m not sure I want to go that far.

I don’t have a thick carpet of hair on my arms, or anything like new born babies often have.  I just have a sprinkling of really dark hairs that stand out.  Not all the hairs on my arm are as dark or as thick.

And to make matters worse, these ones seems to be on steroids or something.  I actually cut them.   Yes, with scissors.  I cut them because they just grow and grow.  There’s no stopping them.

You wont find me wearing short sleeves without having first checked the length of my hair is within acceptable limits.

And of course I always think people are looking at them thinking what a freak I am.

A woman at work (who was a little psychotic) told me it was a hormone imbalance.  I wondered if I had too much testosterone.  I don’t think there’s anything in my diet that would cause it, or that I was born meant to be a man.  Certainly all other things indicate I’m squarely in the female camp.

So there we go.  Something out of the weird and whacky file for a Friday evening.

There will be pancakes

Tomorrow is another pretty easy training day.  Initially it was jsut a 30 minute ride with some intervals (at level 7) and 6 minutes of running, 2min recreational, 2min A1 and 2 min recreational.

I spoke with Richard and said it was too easy.  Meaning it was too short.  So I’ve upped the duration of cycling to an hour – which Richard agreed to.

Even with the extra 30 minutes training I’ll still be home before Mark gets out of bed.  So we can have breakfast together.

I really enjoy having breakfast together.

And, breakfast will be pancakes.

It’s funny how Richard will ask Mark every now and then when they speak on the phone (before Richard and I talk) whether he’s had pancakes lately.

And before anyone gets up and arms about it, pancakes has actually been written into my programme

Monday just gone there was a pancake conversation with Richard.  I’ve assured him there will be pancakes this Saturday.

So apart from the ultra short training day followed by pancakes, I would rather like to get some gardening done, and if I can’t do that, I guess it will be cleaning the ceiling in the bathroom.  Doesn’t sound like much fun now does it.

And the good part of the pantry

Ok, this is up for debate because I know those deprived of treats will spot every single last one of them on display and be baffled that this is the GOOD part of the pantry.

Anyway, I had the doors open to do a little stock take ready for grocery shopping tonight and laughed that we had 3 jars of sun-dried tomatos.  Which I love, and just as well.

You’ll also think we might drink bottles of olive oil, but we don’t.  There’s several types.  One is different for my muesli, and hey, when it’s on special I’ll stock up, cos it’s expensive at full price.

So go on, take a peek inside the pantry.

Other things to note.  The Pringles are still there.  These are the ones that make me feel sick.  I haven’t touched them since.  Yes, that’s a packet of Bluebird chips.  They’ve been around a good week still not finished – see I’m rationing

Ange, that’s Ginger Kisses you can spot on the bottom shelf.  They’ve been there about two or so months.  Better check the "best by" date.

The first photo has my own little plastic box.  It started out with stuff for training, gels, jelly lollies, muesli bars but of late other things have crept in, baking stuff I can’t find a spare spot for, that type of thing.