We've gone cycling by mistake...

(extra points if you can tell me where I've nicked that from).  It wasn't ace.  Bits of it was abject hell.  We spent the first four miles running up and down cobbled streets cos we got lost.  Then, just as the arm burn was beginning to wear off, we hit a 3 mile road which was at least 6 inches thick with churned mud.  Now, you know I hate cycling in mud.  The Gidds knows I hate cycling in mud.  Even the bike knows I hate cycling in mud. And it agrees with me.  It's horrible stuff, sticks to your tires, splats it's way up the bike and then sucks all the energy from your thighs.  And you have to actually  look at it in order to get through it; it changes, hides sh!t that could brain you, and you spend your time watching it get stickier and uglier than you ever thought possible.  Now I'm not a girly girl.  I don't mind getting dirty.  But ffs I hate that sh!t.  Now I had a long time to think about this, because that 3 miles took us another 50 minutes.  After that there was another couple of miles of fire track road - not really a road at all, just a dirt track covered by a thick layer of really loose tiny little stones.  It was here there was a casualty...

We couldn't remember how to put the route in Garry Garmin so the Giddy Blonde had decided to use  his three-day-old-brand-spanking-all-shiny-and-everything-new phone, thinking that since we were really in his neck of the woods we'd be able easily find our way back should the battery die.  It was on the little pebble sh!t he fell, riding one handed fingering this thing (I'm not jealous) trying to see when the next turn was happening (not soon enough I can tell you!).  He's taken a nasty chunk of skin off his hand (having took his glove off to use the phone) dunted his elbow and grit rashed a 4 inch section on his thigh where he landed, and finally put a hole in his snowboarding jacket (he was wearing a pair of corduroys, snow gloves, and his bright green snowboarding jacket, for an intended 40 mile cycle; sometimes there are no words).

We had a short spit of road and then it was along the Dyce railway line in 20mph head wind, that blew my sunny disposition home, leaving me on that sodding railway line.

When we got back on the road, got to the first major hill, his front gear pranged and that was all she wrote really. On actual proper road it wasn't that bad going, just oh-my-god not our day at all.


The flat gap in the middle is where we went and hid in the Giddy Blonde's mum's house.  The flat bit at the end is where I needed a sit down and a shower before me and the bike could look at each other.

So lessons learned:
Remember how to use big G - I think I've written a post actually...
Don't let the Gids pick the route - he's terrified of the big bad roads and had chosen the smaller ones specifically.  Never let him choose the route at all - the google car hadn't even been down the one we went down.  It even looks dark and forboding - though it didn't have all those trees yesterday but that's how they get you!

Anyhoo.  I'm consoling myself that there's a certain steeliness in plugging away at something - next weekend!

Mx

I have company when I'm spinning...

...whether I like it or not.  It's the other blonde in my life, only she has remarkably more sense, and a perchant for my sweaty bits.  She's sitting there waiting for the hill climb section,  when I get soo puffed out I can't tell she's sooking on my ankle like a baby on a bottle.

I have been hitting the turbo trainer very hard recently.  We (me and the Gids, not me and the dog) did commute this morning but I don't really feel like I'm working hard enough on those 4 miles.  I did think about jumping on the turbo as near as enough as soon as we came in tonight but that feels a bit sad.  I can't tell if  I'm being precious or snobby or mibbies just my usual lazy.

Never the less there is a pressing need to get out for a proper ride. My last one was several weeks ago  and only 30 miles.  So we need a 40 miler and I was thinking this Sunday might be a go.  It will have to be, I'm very much in danger of doing my entire training regime on the turbo and that wouldn't be smart.

Mx

Ode to Used Training Trousers...

My closest friends,

My modesty depends,

I've taken the lycra,

And dissolved it with something mightier

It was a shame,

I'm completely to blame,

Abused and debased,

The hole in you made,

From my sweaty friction

How I wish this was fiction

This is the end,

'Cos you've got the bends

And a patch near the crotch

Whilst it isn't much,

My sweat's broke you up,

It's just our luck,

And now my saddle

On that thing I straddle,

Has bit me back,

And my thigh needs a blister pack.

Mx