Road Riding.....Weeeee!

On the flip side to the swimming rant, road riding is coming along nicely. I'm starting to feel the benefits of a few long rides in the legs and I've got my climbing mojo back. That's not to say I'm flying up the climbs, I'll never do that but I'm seeing them as a good challenge again which I like.

The ride length has been building up...60 miles, 67 and then 83 miles in the glorious sunshine on Saturday taking in Waddington Fell, The Trough and a loop out to Quernmore to take in the grind up to Jubilee Tower before the long boring flat ride back south of Preston. I even managed not to need lights on that one as I got out riding before lunchtime. Having to cross the river to get home is a bit of a pest as there are only a few places that it's possible, either in Preston or out at Ribchester.

Not sure I'll up the distance much but will probably up the brutality of the climbing a little bit. I may even think about taking the car to somewhere like Garstang and ride from there as I have real hankering to ride over Lamb and Tatham Fells and its a bit of an epic from home with the the trog back to Preston. The new bike is fab, the gamble on the saddle has hopefully paid off (ordered another for the commuting roadie), the carbon frame stopped me from feeling shaken to bits at the end of the ride and the RS80 wheels are as fab as they ever were. Here it is (I've already changed the seat post to one that can actually have the saddle level):

Swimming...Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!

After almost three months of thrashing around the pool attempting to do front crawl I am now officially 10 seconds a length (a whole 40 seconds per 25 metres, didn't think it was possible to be that slow) slower than those first few times in January FFS. Nearly threw my pull bouy in disgust at the silver haired, head above water breastroking old dear that overtook me twice today.

It was a frustrating swim today in many respects but I have gone back to basics with my stroke after a friend pointed out I was overreaching above the water then slapping in which is not good and creates loads of drag (and requires lots of oxygen to continue. I'm concentrating on hand entry and I have realised over the last few weeks that my pea brain can only really cope with thinking about one thing at a time whilst swimming (maybe two if they are simple) or else I forget important things...like breathing.

At least things were slow enough today that I was never in danger of running out of air and that I have a whole weird timing thing going on when breathing to the right (my bad side) that seems to involve me separating each movement out before quietly sinking and inhaling water. It would be funny if it wasn't so frustrating. I can't even fall back to breastroke as that is even worse.

Back in the pool tomorrow then...

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.

##!@%&*$ 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.

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.