Cycling...

I had good intentions of running... Dave told me that Fridays generally were good for him, so I brought my running stuff in on Friday, but he forgot. Then the girls decided to go out for lunch, so I thought since Dave wasn't going, I could do that. Then it became apparent that shopping was going to be more productive (food shopping, don't get excited. I didn't pass the shoe shop), so I did that instead. I wondered about maybe doing a run on Saturday morning, before business kicked off, but frankly, I needed a moment of calm, and didn't feel that running was really going to cut it.

On Saturday, I had to make my way down to Sussex for a work meeting. In the past, I've taken the bike down, because it is about 8 miles from Horsham station, and is generally a nice little stretch on a bike. I tentatively suggested this to Chris, who was coming with me, and at first we both dismissed it because of the poor weather forecast, but for some reason, she suddenly changed her mind on Friday afternoon. This was mildly inconvenient - she has a fold-up bicycle, but I need a bike reservation on the East Coast, without which they will not let you travel. I tried to get our work ticket system to acquire me a reservation, but they claimed it wasn't possible, despite having done so in the past. This meant a sudden last minute dash to Peterborough train station on Friday night, which was more than a little inconvenient, as I had folk coming to dinner. However.

While I was waiting on the platform on Saturday, I noticed that my back tire was completely flat. Somewhat to my consternation, I realised that the rubber was cracked all the way around as well. It was also bald. There was no two ways about it: I needed a new tire. Hopeful, as ever, though, I thought a pump-up might suffice for the journey at hand. I mentioned it to Chris, who asked if I had any puncture repair kit with me. I didn't. I'm not sure if it was something she'd thought about on the journey, or if itwas just when she clapped eyes on my bike (AKA "Deadly Peddley"), but she suggested that I might take it to a bike shop and get a new tire right away. "It'll delay us quite a bit" I said. "I'm sure it'll be OK". As I tightened the valve, though, I had grave doubts: somehow, I'd managed to bend it, and it no longer tightened properly. I used iPhone magic and ascertained that there was a store nearby actually called "Cycle Surgery". We thought we'd look in, and find out how busy they were. By the time I'd cycled the 300 yards up the road, my tire was flat again. It was the answer I was looking for. They were not only not busy, they were extremely helpful, and changed my tire in considerably shorter time than I could have dreamed of doing it, and had a weekend discount going on.

They did, however, tell me that my rear wheel needed realigning, and pointed out what they meant. The wheel was practically touching the frame, the mudguard, and the break block, on one side. They said it was damaging the frame. I can only point to one occasion when the rear wheel has been removed... Ian may have saved my life by replacing the broken spindle, but it looks like he may be damaging my frame. Tuh. Some good deeds... This did in fact prove to be slightly problematic, as I could hear a light hum all the way, over and above my broken front mudguard, which clatters continually. Possibly it might be a good idea to have a proper "service" on poor old Deadly.

So, a few weeks ago, I joined Chris on a cycle across London, and I blamed her speed on the fact that I was on a Boris Bike, which is very heavy and has three gears, and I couldn't get any speed up. I realised on Saturday that actually it was more like Chris was on the other bike and is considerably fitter than I am. Let's face it, she is on a Brompton, with 6 gears and tiny wheels. Whatever wonders of modern technology that bike has (and the chain design is very complicated with additional cogs and stuff - so I think that must help), I had a Claud Butler, with 21 gears (admittedly, 14 of them don't actually work) and proper wheels. So I should have had a massive advantage. But she just flew off up those hills...

So we whizzed across London - always fun - and missed the train, owing to time lost on the wheel repair. Our later train meant that we arrived in Horsham at about 5pm. It was pretty dark by then. Also, I last did the cycle ride a year ago, and never at night. "You do know the way, right?" Chris wanted to know. "Yes! Probably..." wasn't the answer she wanted to hear. Horsham itself was OK, because despite the traffic, it was well-lit, but as we progressed outwards, it became rather darker. Chris seemed a bit nervous of the unlit roads, as well she might... with wheels that small, you don't want to hit a pothole. Anyway, there was almost a moon, behind the cloud, and you could kind of see the white line down the middle of the road.

So we got there, and Chris was very impressed overall, but really wanted to see the route on the way back, so on Sunday, we set off with good time to catch the 4:42 train. At least, I thought we did. It seemed that actually maybe we didn't. And Chris was encouraging me by cycling into the distance with her little flashing helmet light (newly acquired at the cycle shop) disappearing gradually. We somehow did make the train, and we somehow did get back across London with enough time to catch the train I was booked on.

That's where it all started to unravel. We actually had time enough to get ourselves a sandwich and a cup of tea, but once I dropped my cup of tea, I knew things were doomed. The train didn't get in until 9 minutes to 7 (due out at 7) and I stood by the guards van, waiting for someone to open the doors. No one came. I sortied up the train, but couldn't find any staff who weren't outright rude. Then a lady came down to close the doors, while the train announcement noted that anyone not wishing to travel should get off the train. I asked her to open the guards van, and she told me it was at the front end of the train. She advised me to cycle up to the front end, to put my bike on. "I'm hardly going to make it, though, if you've closed all the other doors?" I queried, but she just said "You can only try". So I did, but I only got halfway when I met the train guard, a short, young Asian guy who looked as if he'd undergone too many training courses, but not enough on customer services. "You can't put that bike on the train" he snapped. "I have a reservation to put this bike on this train" I told him, helpfully waving it. "You can't put that bike on this train" he said, with some lack of imagination. "I can, if you open the guard's van door" I told him. "If you try to put that bike on this train, I will call the transport police, and have them throw it off". My thought process was not fast enough. My gut feeling was if he had time to do that, surely he had time to open the door? What I didn't think was, "he'd have to do it at the first stop... in Peterborough", so I should have just got on the train behind him, and obstructed the carriage, instead of behaving like a good citizen, and taking it. I estimated I had about 30 seconds to get up to carriage C and let Chris know I wouldn't be joining her (it was the older train, that had pull-down windows). Then a lady blocked my way, took my arm, and more or less shrieked at me "You are not allowed to board this train!" My goodness, they are people of one idea! "I KNOW!" I shrieked back, "THAT'S WHY I'M NOT BOARDING IT! NOW KINDLY GET OUT OF MY WAY". I cycled up to the top end of the train, and banged on Chris's window. I think they had just locked the door by the time I got there, because I'm pretty sure Chris would have dragged me onto the train if they hadn't. She's more confrontational than me.

On the way back down the platform, I took the name of the officious lady who **assaulted me**. I learned this later: it's illegal to put your hands on a member of the public. I will mention that I won't be pressing charges in my complaints letter. Frankly, I'm more affronted that I was threatened with the police, but I guess that the guard knew he couldn't actually stop me getting on the train, unlike her. He didn't realise he was addressing someone who is such a rule-keeper that there is no way I would have taken my cycle into the carriage of the train, because it is against the rules. **Sigh** it's hard being me. Anyway, I was able to persuade the guards on the Newcastle train to let me on, which I did largely by dissolving into tears when they asked if I had missed the train I was booked onto.

Overall, I suppose there was no real harm done, apart from distressing several of my friends by posting on facebook that I was in tears at Kings Cross station. And the cycle ride certainly counted as an adventure, even if not a full exercise programme....

Keeping it up

Hello again people. I know, I know, there was all that stuff about whether I should carry on the blog or not, and I was overwhelmed with the number of people who thought that I should keep blogging. In all honesty, the blogging does take a lot longer than the training ever took, but now that I'm no longer training per se, I may limit the blogging as well, and try to find some happy balance. So, you've basically all been thinking that I've been a quitter, haven't you? It's a fair point. I haven't been running since the half marathon on 9th October. Until yesterday.

There were reasons why it took so long, however, which were beyond sheer laziness. Remember the whole "being ill" thing I had going on around the race? Amazingly, the running with a virus neither killed me, nor made me feel any worse than I expected to feel at that point of an illness. In all honesty, if anything, I felt better. Notwithstanding this, however, I did progress on, as one does so often, into a chesty cough. And frankly, I felt that an athlete deserves a break after a race, so the two things coincided nicely.
Yes, folks, yesterday I got the trainers on again. I primed Running Dave the day before, knowing that I'm a good runner but pretty useless in terms of going by myself. Interestingly, I gave the garmin back, so I was technology-free. This was disconcerting, so I had to get updates from Dave on our speed. We ran around the rowing lake, which is 5.5 miles, and ran a good speed of 9:30 minute-miles. This is actually faster than I ran my 10k race, and almost the same distance. No wonder my lungs were hurting. Dave is back in training (although in fairness, he wasn't really "in" training for the half marathon) for the Hereward Relay Race, which goes from Peterborough to Ely. He's got to run a leg of 7 miles, so he's keen to keep up a good speed. They also have Tim who is a very fast runner, Sal, and moustachioed Chris.

My running gear caused something of a frisson among the running community in the office. "Oh, are you keeping it up?" people generally wanted to know. The non-runners (well, Richard) asked if I usually wore those clothes in the office, an equally rhetorical question, I presumed. I explained that I was waiting for the shower to be free. Sal wanted to know if I was going in for the London Marathon, so I filled her in on the thinking around this to date. Oh go on then, as long as you're here.

I emailed Arthritis Research UK to ask if they had a charity place, so I could run for my mum, who has Polymyalgia Rheumatica, and who gave me such a fearsome glare when I told her I was running the half for someone else's mother. They ask you to raise £1800 to take part. Then I found out while on a Finance for Charities course that technically speaking, if a charity says you can't compete unless you raise the money they have asked for, that it ceases to be a donation and you can only claim gift-aid on donations. They were pretty blase about it, and said that the Inland Revenue are aware of this, and frankly have better things to do, but I'm kind of anal in a law-abiding way, and don't want the IR to have anything to stick on me. This put me off the whole idea of running in a charity place. If you get a place yourself, you can obviously still donate to charity, and then you don't have an additional stress of trying to raise a set target. There are other marathons... Brighton, Edinburgh...

I also had the ridiculous notion placed before me to run the Norway Half Marathon, which excited me because it is so insane, and also because you might get to see the Northern Lights, which would be magic. I'd think of it less as a race and more as a survival exercise to brag to other runners about. I certainly wouldn't be overly concerned about my time, for example. It was Summer who suggested this lunacy, but then backed out and said that unfortunately she had reckoned without her family's travel plans. She is still hopeful for another year though. Incidentally, if you don't know where Tromso is, it is here.

Paul overheard my discussions with Sal, and and immediately suggested three races (only one of which Sal had already got in) which were a 15km, a 20km and a possible 20 miles, depending on which marathon I plumbed for. There seems to be a general acceptance of the fact that as I like racing, clearly entering races is the way to keep me motivated. Dave suggested that I talk Sal out of her place in the relay. I hadn't intended on doign this, as it seems to me that fair's fair - she got in first. However, it came up in conversation anyway. "Why aren't you doing the Hereward Relay?" Sal demanded. "Um. Well, there's four places..." I said. "Have mine! You should run it. Go on. Just do it" She said. I panicked a bit: "But that's only three weeks away". We've kind of left it hanging...