Saturday, February 26, 2011

Big Sigh of Relief

My dad was one of those British oil workers stuck deep in the Libyan desert...he's now at Gatwick, thank god for that. He saw no real trouble, though being totally miles from anywhere would have helped and actually had no problems getting a flight out (though not from Tripoli airport) but things definitely escalated earlier this week and talk of SAS on standby did nothing to calm me down that's for sure.

Thursday, February 10, 2011

##!@%&*$ Muppet

Perfect conditions for a good hours lunchtime run, forgot to pack sports bra, might as well have forgotten shoes. So bloody annoyed at myself. Friday run it is, grrrr.

Wednesday, February 9, 2011

More shinyness

For some reason I really liked this white frame when I saw it hanging in Ribble's showroom. It's not going to be built up properly until my birthday at the earliest but that's probably not a bad thing given the state of the roads and the weather. Gives me time to make sure I have everything...need pedals but I'm sure there is something else I will have forgotten.

IMG_0259

Monday, February 7, 2011

Washout Weekend

Didn't get out on a bike at all this weekend. Saturday was awful, heavy rain and gales and I was actually feeling a little tired so wasn't too fussed about heading out. Thursday's swimming lesson was a bit of a fitness session rather than out and out teaching and I think it nearly killed me (certainly felt like I was going to inhale the pool at some points).

I have not built up any swimming endurance yet, not surprisingly only being at it a few weeks and the session started with 24 lengths as a warmup, the first 12 front crawl, 8 back stroke then 4 breast stroke. Up until that point I hadn't done 12 solid lengths of crawl. It then progressed onto sets with attempts at sprint swimming which finished me off totally. Fortunately we were mixing strokes as I got to the point I just couldn't get another length of crawl out of my arms. The swim down at the end consisted of head above water breast stroke..I wasn't the only one knackered. 52 lengths and dead arms, it took quite a bit out of me.

Sunday was supposed to be less windy but that turned out not to be the case. Spent a productive morning on bike maintenance. I gave my Ribble a good clean and we did a bit of wheel swapping, my old wheels are now back on the Ribble the RS80's are to be put on the new bike, they are too good to be banging into potholes and grinding the rims away with winter crap. The Ribble is as winterised as I can make it at the minute.

The long term plan is to move the bits from the current Ribble onto a winter frame (once I find one) that will take proper mudguards and a rack to make a proper winter bike. The Specialized is just too slow for commuting duties, especially as the back brake often binds and its crap in any more than a slight breeze, not good heading out to the coast where there is almost always a breeze. Its a great bike for fubbing about on though so will be staying.

As the rain came in in the afternoon I eventually ended up on the turbo. Then got off again after twenty minutes as the tyre kept slipping. The tyre was a littel soft so got the track pump on it and tried to pump it up. Our pump has been playing up a bit and decided to suck all the air out instead. Then spent an hour with Jez taking it to bits to find out what was wrong with it. Sorted in the end but I'd given it up as a bad job buy then.

Normally I swim on a Monday but Jez has my car so I was planning a lunchtime run, however the wind is beyond stupid here at the minute, think heading to the beach would just entail being blown off my feet and having my face sand blasted so I'm thinking of running to Warton this evening to meet Jez, six miles with a whopping tail wind, could be fun!

Wednesday, February 2, 2011

Mmm shiny

Shiny Things

January in numbers

January was not too bad a month really, was a bit meh at the start due to the cold. I seem to be struggling with riding in the very cold, last Saturday Jez and I went out for a ride in the beautiful sunshine but I wheezed my way round and we had to cut it short.

So

307 miles /23 hours of riding only 45 turbo miles but need to pick this up more

35 miles / 5:15 hours of running

5 miles / 9 hours of swimming (ratio of actual swimming to faffing/drowing/blowing water out of nose in the middle of the pool improving lots now though)

2:30 hours of dangling on the climbing wall

2 kilos of lard lost (yay, a good few more to go, boo)

0 units of alcohol drunk, continuing this to my birthday on 5th March.


So roll on February...lost more actual swimming hopefully, more hilly rides though won;t be doing much longer than 3 or 4 hours at the minute and keep running ticking over. Oh and some more lard blasted would be nice.