Tuesday 16^th June

Into June now. How did that happen?

Again it’s been over two weeks since I last wrote anything. Not very good. I think that I did a pretty good job last year in keeping the blog up to date. But this year? Useless! I guess the blog updating has been about as frequent as the training. Oh well, there has been a lot going on this year! The theory is, that having to write something every day or two means that I have to train every day or two...

The thing is this, it is five weeks today until I make my way down to Croydon for the start of the ride to Paris. That means that I have five weeks to lose three stone and do about 1000 miles.  In reality, of course, I won’t come close to achieving either of those things, but again I have to try and at least get a few more miles in. Although, of course, I’ve not managed it yet this year, so why the next five weeks should be any different, I have no idea! There is a lot going on at home, and work is busy, but we’ll see. I had to spend last weekend shifting furniture in readiness for the builders starting on Monday.

So then, the dreaded Tour of Pembrokeshire...

Well, we finished it, at least!

It was horrible.

The weather was bad enough when we went to register the day before. And when it continued to ran throughout the rest of that day all through the night, we thought “OK, the road will be a bit wet, but at least all of the rain will have fallen by the time we start on Sunday morning” How wrong we were.

To be honest, it was not a great day. Certainly not a pleasurable experience. The distance itself, was fair enough. It was 115 miles, but we knew we could manage that. Then there were the hills. Any course that takes you up and over things that are actually called “Mountains” on the map has to be a little hilly. We knew that as well. I wasn’t expecting quite so many long and steep hills the other side of the mountains, but there were some beauties in there, but we coped. (The ones coming out of Fishguard and Solva were really not very nice. There were some steeper, 25% ers as well. Some of them were so steep and slippy, that you actually went backwards. They were so steep and greasy that you could get no traction at all. A challenge, to say the least.)

But the weather was something else. Just one factor too many. Heavy rain. REALLY heavy rain. Couple that with a driving wind. Oh, and how about some hail and fog as you’re climbing the Presellis. Wind so strong that it stopped you when you were going DOWN the hills, and fog so thick that you couldn’t see. And bloody cold as well.

I was pleased to make it to the first drink station at Fishguard. I was cold, but felt OK. John was suffering a bit though. I think that the first 30 miles had not been a nice experience for him, and by the time we reached halfway at Newgale, I was really worried about him. He had a distinctly deathly colour to him, and he looked shattered. If I’m honest, I didn’t think I’d have any company for the rest of the ride. But he decided to keep going. I knew that it was about 20 minutes of non-stop climbing after lunch, but we stuck at it, and somehow, John kept going. Fair play to him, by the time we reached the next stop he was looking and feeling better, and I think we realised at that point that we’d finish.

And sure enough we did. A great feeling of satisfaction. We may have been the slowest out there, but we did finish it, and that is something that the 180+ people who dropped out can never say. By all accounts, the weather couldn’t really have been any worse than that. But we still stuck it to the end. And I will wear my Tour of Pembrokeshire t-shirt with pride.

And now we’re talking about doing it again next year!!! Knowing what’s involved now, weather and training permitting, I would like to try and get a decent time for myself next time. We’ll see what Junior has to say about that first, i guess.

 

Wednesday 17^th June

Finally made it back onto the bike again last night. That was the first time since June 7^th and that marathon slog around Pembrokeshire. And I enjoyed it. It was just frustrating that after about 5 miles I realised that I’d forgotten to put the tool kit and spare tubes back on the bike that I’d taken off earlier in the week when I washed that Welsh mud off. And the thing is, the bike just feels so good at the minute, running smoothly etc (loving these new wheels!), that I just knew I’d be tempting fate if I went on further and completed the route that I had planned.

So, I had to turn around and make my way home. Just 13 miles in all in 45 minutes, but better than nothing, I guess.

And I was home in time to see Sarah Beeny.

When I do manage to get home at a decent time and make the effort to get out on the bike, I do really enjoy it. I have to make sure that I do manage it a bit more in the next few weeks. It would have been easy to stay in last night. The builders had been in for their second day, so after a bit of an inspection (what on earth has happened to the spare room ceiling???) I could have called it a night, but I slipped into the lycra (shouldn’t this be getting looser by now??) and hit the road. Good stuff, although again I swallowed a ton of flies. Extra protein??

The plan is to return to the gym tonight. The trouble is, I have a conference to attend first, and the venue is Vinopolis. Hmmm.

Sunday 21st June

Well, I DID get to the gym, the other night, and I did resist the temptations posed by Vinopolis. It’s been a quiet weekend at work. Plenty of jobs to do. I was up and out quite early on Saturday morning. Another good couple of hours done and another 40 miles. I really should be building up the mileage, but I just can’t afford to spend 6 or 7 hours out on the bike. There is too much to do at home!

Wednesday 24^th June

An absolutely beautiful morning today, and I was out on the bike at 5.30 and up on the Downs by 6. Still quite cold to start with, but once you were out of the wind and in the sunshine it was stunning. It’s usually an effort to get going at that time of the morning, but rides like that make it worthwhile. You could see for miles from up there today. Quite inspirational, and you can’t help but feeling grateful to be alive on a day like that. Despite the chaos at home, I am still fortunate to live in a nice house in the countryside, and fit enough to be able to cycle like that for an hour before going to work, thanks to (not despite) the hip replacements that I have had. It is all pretty good really.

I took some photos on my phone this morning, and if I can manage to get them off the thing I will stick them up here.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Monday 29^th June

Another weekend gone without a decent ride. This is becoming a habit!

I was off on Friday, and had a great day with Nick. He drove down from Cheshire in the morning, and in the afternoon we made our way into town to see AC/DC at Wembley Stadium. Not much more needs to be said really. ‘DC were ‘DC. They rocked, we rolled. Rosie looked fine (“You could see she’d got it all!”), and Angus looked surprisingly sprightly for a man who really should know better by now.

All in all, a great evening.

Here's me and Nick at Wembley.