I knew something was off

I’m not referring to some living organism in my fridge.  I’m talking about my bike computer.

I’ve had suspicions that my bike computer hadn’t been reading right.  I was right and wrong.  My original bike had a Sigma 1606L computer.  It would record my ride to work as 14:06km.  My beautiful Pinarello has a Cateye V2c wireless computer.  It records my ride to work as 13:89km.

Initially I was horrified and naturally assumed that the Cateye wasn’t recording correctly.  Until I checked the manual and then checked the settings and they were spot on.

Hmmm.  So all this time I’ve been thinking I was putting in more distance than I really was.  Yet I’d also checked the Sigma when I was using it.

At this point I throw my hands up and struggle for an answer.

While I’ve been without my computer this week I took my GPS (just the once) to work and it recorded my distance as 13.86km.  Ok, now I’m more accepting that the Cateye is indeed on the mark.

Now I have my new (replaced) bike computer.  The original Cateye was bung.  Actually, I have really bad luck with bike computers.  My Sigma had to be replaced too.

Anyway this morning I had a 90 minute ride to complete so I thought I’d take my GPS and see how it compared to the computer

As suspected, the boys at the shop (and Darryn wasn’t there and Dave is now on holiday) hadn’t set the wheel size correctly.

At the usual 10km (by the Sigma) my GPS had me at 9.91km and the bike computer 10.8km.

I’ve just checked the settings on the Cateye and they had "A" wheel set correct – presumably the front wheel, but "B" wheel was wrong, and it’s the rear wheel that my magnet and cadence is set.  Silly boys. And what really irks me is they opened the battery cover with a screw driver because you can see the gouges along the side where a coin should be slotted.  See how anally retentive I am.  You can’t even see this but it annoys the heck out of me.

Ride

So I set off at 8am this morning for my ride. It was windy.  Ok it wasn’t really that windy, but 22km/hr is a lot of wind when I’ve not been on a bike in 10 or so weeks.  I guess last Sunday I was blessed that it was still, but very cold.

Today wasn’t much warmer, just 1 deg warmer than last Sunday, but the roads were dry and that was a nice surprise.

The wind was SW which I think I can count on one hand ever getting to ride to Sumner and back with a SW wind.  Heading up Bridge Street toward Dyers Road was really awful.  About as awful as it usually is travelling in the opposite direction.

This made the tiny little rise in the road a mission for my legs.

Travelling across the causeway toward Sumner was really nice, but not the 40k+ speeds that you might think.  Possibly others could have achieved that.  I think I got 32km/hr.  My average for the ride was almost 26km/hr.  Nothing special there!

Anyway the closer I got to Sumner the worse the weather got.  It never rained, but it was that hazy sort of drizzle.  I didn’t get wet in the slightest.

On my way home, just at Humphries corner I dropped my chain.  Yay me.  That’ll teach me for going to my big chain ring without having a decent cadence up.  A quick stop to put things right and carefully placed hands on my white handlebar tape to put me back into the big chain ring and we were good to go again.

My butt was ever so thankful I had to stop momentarily to fix the chain.  It was rather uncomfortable on the saddle.  And I didn’t use the aero bars much at all.

The sun was actually shining as I was heading back up Dyers Road.  Nice.  I’ll have some more thanks.

Swim

My preference is to get all my training done in a block.  But it wasn’t to be today.  The 50m pool at QEII was shut until 12:30 due to a School meet.  So after getting home from the run I set about getting bread baking, muesli made, laundry on and other household chores.

At 12:30 I was on my way to the pool.

It was wonderful.  Hardly anyone there.  Just enough people to take a lane each.  Well, until I got there.  I went in a lane that wasn’t marked for any particular speed.  I thought the bloke in the lane was going fast enough for me.

Turns out he was going about twice my speed.  If anyone was in the way it was me.  Though with just the two of us, it was only twice I think he passed me.

I decided to try my BlueSeventy goggles again.  I’ve only worn them about twice before and each time they’ve leaked just a bit.

Same happened today.  Right from the beginning I knew they weren’t water tight.  I could feel just a small gap by my nose that was letting air in.  I know it seems daft to know that, but as I moved my head I could feel it.

Sure enough, as soon as I pushed off the end of the lane I got water. Nothing could be done but to persevere until I got to the other end.  I emptied the one side and set off again.  Same thing.  But what I noticed was it wasn’t continually taking on water, it was just that little bit as I set off.  I decided to let it be and it never got any worse.

I swam 1000m in a set and then realised that the medium lane was empty.  I moved over there and did 500m with the pull buoy.  At this stage I was getting quite the headache.  I had hoped with the BlueSeventy goggles my face wouldn’t get so sore (the View goggles I’ve been using for months are eye socket jobbies).  It wasn’t my face, but my head.

I continued doing a drill and then 100m freestyle and told myself if I’d done 50m I’d call it quits.  Good timing.  I got to the end having just done 50m.  That was me done and dusted.  Time to get the goggles off!

I spent the remainder of my 10 minutes in the spa pool.

Despite the BlueSeventy goggles being over my eye socket, Rachel will confirm, I still had the big rings around my eyes.

Oh, need to share this.  As I was walking through the changing rooms to leave.  I noticed a rather pretty Asian girl primping at the far end mirror.  She was wearing a white bikini.  I’m not sure what her plans were but she was fiddling around with her long hair, getting just the right amount of hair out of her pony tail to have it trailing down the side of her face.  I guess for some, coming to the swimming pool is not about getting your hair wet.  Good luck with that.

What’s in a name?

Changes are a-foot.

Not long ago Yvonne my very dear friend let me know during her hospital stay that she’d applied to have her name change.

That took the wind out of my sails.  I’ve only ever known her as Yvonne.  There’s been no nickname, or shortening of her name that I’d ever heard.

Her family has always called her Derani.

Oh, ok.  I’ll try to remember.

Funny thing is Yvonne Derani phoned the other day and Mark called out "Yvonne for you" and I’m not sure if I called her Yvonne or not.  I know I didn’t call her Derani because I couldn’t remember what her new name was!

I remembered the Rani bit (thanks to Rachel’s not-yet-squashed cat) but knew it wasn’t quite right. Thank goodness I’d not yet thrown out the Thank you card Yvonne Derani sent me.

Now all I have to do is remember it starts like Den’s name (Derani’s husband) and ends with Rachel’s (not-yet-squashed) cats name.

Phew, I might just about get it right next time I speak to Derani.

What feels more strange though is hearing myself say it.  It feels out of place, it doesn’t slip off the tongue.  It’s foreign and I feel a little embarrassed.  Unsure why.

Anyway, Bernadine has made the same step and had her name legally changed to Bee.  That’s not quite so difficult to remember of course.  After all I’ve heard lots of people refer to Bernadine Bee as Bee.  And it’s a shortened form of her birth name.

All I ask is that anyone else close to me contemplating changing their name, do so now while I’m having to change gears in my brain and learn not to call people by their birth names.