After the heat of yesterday, it was nice to wake up to a more civilised temperature this morning. Civilised, that is, if you have to go to work or do anything remotely strenuous… if you can just laze about and do nothing, give me the hot sun and high temperatures of yesterday, instead. But today did call for both a spot of exercise and a spot of work so I’ll settle for cooler.
And once again another bike ride was planned owing to the still nagging, achey sensation in the right foot. Today’s weapon of choice was to be the fixie again, which I prefer for short sharp blasts in and around town or basically anywhere that is a) not too far and b) does not involve steep descents. So a workmanlike 22kms out and back route along roads that were neither scenic or inspiring. I was able to just put my head down and go though and that in itself can be a rare pleasure sometimes. The route was along a main “A” road so no real junctions or turnings to watch out for so just switch to autopilot, be aware of the traffic and keep the legs turning. Which is not to say it wasn’t enjoyable as it is nice to disengage the brain for a while… And nice to get the days ride out of the way before the heavens opened and the lightning started an hour or so after I arrived back home
2 more days of Juneathon left and normally by this point I am dying for it to be over. Not so this year as I think my inability to run for the last bit of Juneathon has made me crave the idea of getting out for a run. I have the Cranleigh 10km on the 10th of July and hope to get in a couple of short training runs before then so long as the foot feels better. Oh and a 120 – 140km training bike ride planned for Sunday 3rd July. There really is no rest for the wicked.
Posts Tagged ‘Fixed Gear Bike
juneathon day 28: i hear thunder
juneathon day 27: be prepared
Just as the under-endowed man overcompensates with a big car, my inability to run has caused me to overcompensate by performing 2 seperate Juneathon relevant activities in one day.
As it was forecast to be hot today, descending into heavy rain and storms from mid-afternoon, I thought I’d get some exercise out of the way early so packed myself off into the garage where the weights and bench live and spent an hour repeatedly picking up and putting down heavy objects. One hour later, sweaty and a little shaky, I returned to the house, showered and started work. I was glad to be working from home today, it was really muggy out and the thought of having to travel into London on the motorbike, or worse still the tube, was something I fortunately did not have to worry about.
This evening, SonNumberOne was to do his cycling badge at cubs so I volunteered to cycle with him and his friend to the feild where the Cubs were due to meet. I dropped them at just before 7pm, leaving me an hour and a half to kill before having to pick them up. As the predicted storms had not arrived, I could not think of a better way to kill 90 minutes than just riding around on the fixie with no particular destination. So I set off on a meandering and random route which ended up being 32.77km by the time I’d collected the 2 cub scouts, now both proud recipients of their Cycling badges
juneathon day 24: going postal
Another busy day and with it another quandry about how to fit in todays bout of cycling. I was mulling it over as I was falling asleep last night… can’t do anything after work as I’m out in the evening, can’t do anything at lunchtime as I am supposed to be meeting up with someone. Could do something before work though…
Then this morning I awoke to find it bright and sunny outside and that was all the encouragement I needed. A little fuel in the tank (for “fuel” read “cappuccino”) and I was off. And what’s more, like divine intervention, I now had a mission too as Mrs eatingtrees wanted a letter posting. So, I jumped on the fixie and set off to the furthest-but-still-doable-before-work postbox. A round trip of 12.51kms.
Like Mick Jagger said… “You can’t always get what you want, but if you try sometimes, you just might find, you get what you need”
Another day, another bicycle ride. This time a 26.41km jaunt to do some more spying. And a massive downpour on the way back meant that I arrived home soaked and had to shower and change before heading back out for yet more spying this afternoon. The Juneathonitis of the Second Metatarsal appears to be slowly getting better but I have a dilemma…
I am beginning to hanker for a run. But I am concerned that running with Juneathonitis will cause it to worsen. And I don’t want it to worsen. And I made a solemn vow on this very blog that I would execute this year’s Juneathon using only Vibram Five Fingers and the bikes.
But… I have been sent a very beautiful pair of Kinvara 2 running shoes from those nice people at Saucony. And they are currently just sitting in the bottom of my wardrobe. But if I listen very carefully, I can hear their barely perceptible voice asking, no pleading, for me to run in them. So the question is… Do I break my Juneathon vow and risk aggravating my right foot and go for a run in the Saucony’s? Or do I abstain, cycle until the foot is better and then try them out? Decisions, decisions.
The problem is made a little worse as I had to plead (just a little bit) with the Sauconians for them to send me a pair. So I feel a bit cheeky having received them but not used them yet.
But they are, as I said, very beautiful. And incredibly light. So light that when the parcel arrived, I thought they might have sent me an empty box by mistake. At this point, let me mention that I have a problem with white running shoes. I don’t like them. Aesthetically, they look to me like someone running with pillows on their feet. Or socks. So imagine my delight when I opened the box to see these.
Beautiful Saucony Kinvara 2 Running Shoes
And I thought that even if they don’t make me run any faster, I’ll actually look like I’m running faster because they look so very fast. And, I also realised that they would go beautifully with my smug t-shirt that I like to wear to annoy people.
Beautiful Smug T-Shirt Used To Annoy People
Unfortunately, t-shirts are not made for running in. And running shoes are not made for wearing whilst sporting annoying t-shirts. Shame though, because I think matching t-shirt and shoes is possibly the way forward for the fashionable man about town.
Paranoia – A second to learn, a lifetime to master.
And if I didn’t know better, I’d think the universe was conspiring against me to make the final 10 days of Juneathon as difficult to complete as possible.
Firstly with the Juneathonitis of the Second Metatarsal making it difficult to run. Secondly, my trusty laptop seemed to have caught a bit of Virtual Influenza that caused it to stop me from accessing the internet. In addition to not being able to connect, it would not allow me to open any program and insisted instead on producing little pop-up windows telling me that my computer was infected and that I needed to download an anti-virus program. Clicking on the anti-virus activation button would have, apparently, either signed me up for some rogue anti-virus program or installed a keylogger on my system allowing my credit card details to be copied. Beware…
Although I have Anti-Virus on my machine, this particular litle fella still got through. It took all last night to clean up the laptop as I couldn’t download the virus removal tool myself so had to rely on a friend of mine who knows about these things to download a virus removal tool and burn it to disc for me to install on my machine. So yesterdays blog post was partially written and posted on a combination of SonNumberOne’s laptop and my iPod Touch.
Today, I was fortunate enough to be sent on another spying mission for work. This time, the stores I had to visit were realtively close to home so I was able to combine a spot of work and a spot of Juneathoning by cycling to my intended targets… a total of 19.7kms on the fixie. It’s another day of spying tomorrow so intend to cycle to those as well.
