Fuck Off Cold

So... New Years day.

I went to bed at 12:40, having driven home a tortuous route from my friends house (Anthony and Liz thank you).  Honestly, this year we really need to persuade the council to build that zip wire across the valley... or I could have been well and walked home in a straight line.

I got fed up with towing the heavy line of recovery last night and had some red wine.  Good stuff was on offer so it would have been rude of me to refuse since TSK was recovering from his hangover (thank you Rita for giving my husband a hangover) and playing DD for the night.

We indulged in our regular traditions of Scalextric and watching other peoples fireworks, being the only idiots standing around in the freezing conditions (little happy dance from me because it's cold again and I like to spread the love when standing around in the street with lovely friends and skinny cyclists who are soft - you know who you are).

Despite my best intentions to start persuading my body to get up early, I ignored my 7:30 am alarm and slept through until 10:30 am and read before getting up, eating, knitting, reading more.

Finally I'd had enough (again) of waiting for this cold to go away: waiting for my opportunity to train; the distracted, wandering thoughts flitting through my head; a complete lack of focus.  Am I missing my job?  Dear god - no, but in the absence of anything else really constructive and consuming to occupy body and mind?  I am missing engagement.  Andrew was tidying out the basement of stuff, searching for the truing jig to build wheels for Jes (thank you Jes) and really, I felt no better reason for me to get Phoenix out of Andrew's way and set up the rollers in the kitchen for a blast.

Yesterdays engaging activities included sorting out a playlist for the new laptop with all my favourite training tracks so I was ready to go.  I even got everything ready - bike, speed sensor, laptop, speakers, rollers, Garmin - before getting changed.

Of course, two tracks in and the computer stopped talking to the speakers and by the time I got back to my bike, the speed sensor stopped talking to the Garmin so time, miles and tracks were lost.

I promised myself no big ring riding to keep sensible with my lungs but then Green Day happened and I am unable to control myself in a song about cyclo-cross.

I also discovered a new game - that on my bike, I can play all of the guitar chords to the Plain White T's "Delilah", to "Go", by Delilah and just to prove that it's not just Delilah at work, also Red Hot Chilli Peppers "Breaking the Girl" and Birdy's "Skinny Love", which is a relief since my voice really can't hit the high notes this week.  It's an interesting game, simply ignore the beat of the music and pedal as fast as you need to in order to achieve the right squeal on the tyres.  Perfect for imitating those little surges associated with road racing or riding through mud.

Quite frankly, for a sick person, I beasted myself.  Though to be fair, I also went pretty easy on myself compared to my usual turbo sessions so I am proud of myself too.  Only one 2':20" foray into Zone 5.

And so, I feel tired, my brain feels still(er) for the first time all week and most importantly, I can start to enjoy 2016, not spend any more of it than I have to moping.

*Happy* New Year, everyone.

Getting out of Practice

We feel behind.

I know, it's the middle of winter, there have been illnesses and injuries but suddenly 50miles is a long way. That's what we did yesterday. We cycled to Waltham Abbey along the canal banks to drink tea, eat cake and see where King Harold was buried. I have photos but I have also lost my cable and the little XD card doesn't fit in any of the holes in the computer.

The sun shone, we saw few other people along the canals – a few fishermen, a few other hardy cyclists going about their weekend A-Bs, but no real concentrations of people. In Waltham Abbey, things seemed falsely jolly. Everyone seemed to be being nice to our faces yet deepdown we seethed over one café without facilities and a second that, due to lack of space, insisted we put our scary cyclists' bags in the corner with the scary motorcyclists' helmets as hoards of old ladies came-and-went with arm-fulls of overflowing biddy shopping-bags.

Today we were tired. So very tired. We got up and out in good time and London was strangely dead. We went to Spitalfields market where everything seems to be a step-up from your average market stalls. We ate exotic greek pastries for breakfast then found coffee in a warm place. I didn't want to move. We went to look at the architecture of Smithfield market then after some shopping I was on the train home and I'm tired. 20 miles today.

Along with all this of course was 2 pints of beer whilst watching Morning Bride play in Stoke Newington on Friday night and a large glass of wine with Josephine on Saturday night. Who says I can't party anymore?

More miles is what we will be doing. I have fitted my super-power lights to my bike tonight which I hope will give me incentive to go out early to play in the dark. And... to give me some extra incentive and fuel my love of stats, I am stealing an idea from Jill:

Miles cycled in February: 87