Back from Spain and training, spending the evening recovering from the weekend and dealing with a few things on my to to do list, including a blog post.
For a change I took a camera with me on my first day’s ride, a 90 minute warm up with a nice climb to the village of Lentegi in it. The pics are from Lentegi before I started the descent back down. Having managed to remember everything this time I could see all this too.
Weekend was good, I essentially did the same rides as the previous Spanish weekend. This time I was putting out a bit more power on each ride, especially on the climbs. Which is all good in the scheme of things. Whilst getting round to sorting out computer set-ups (bothering to install Parallels and Windows XP on my MacBook basically)I’m having to rely on PowerAgent that comes with my Powertap. Its not as good as WKO+ for analysis, but the latest version has some and looking at the trends from my workouts, it’s generally up.
On route I stayed overnight at a hotel next to Gatwick. It very nearly passed all my basic hotel quality tests, until the Channel 5 signal disappeared right as House was about to start. I should also add that 2 other important items on the hotel assessment is the quality of the shower and the comfort of the bed…
The most notable event of the weekend came on the second day’s ride. Things are going well, it’s nice and warm and sunny, I’m riding well and I’m just on a nice sweeping descent. It’s not too technical so I easily pick up speed and soon I’m doing about 70kph. At this point something small and hard bounces off my chest and then hits my knee. It’s not unusual to hit insects of course they don’t usual manage to get a lucky pot-shot and sting you on the second impact. At that point I feel the pain from the venom just above my knee, slow myself enough to have control on the corners whilst I flick out the stinger and then wonder how allergic I am to the sting. I know some members of my family are allergic to bees or wasps, not sure which, but then I’m not sure what stung me. I figure best course of action is to keep going to the next village, if I’m going to have a horrible reaction probably better with people about. Long story short, no reaction, bit painful for a while, lump on leg for next few days. I said it was most notable, not most interesting…
Holiday reading was Sir Ranulph Fiennes autobiography “Mad, Bad and Dangerous to Know” which I highly recommend. Sure he’s probably not the greatest writer ever (I’d point you more to the likes of Jane Austen or Virginia Woolf for that), but his life is interesting. Eventful, out of the ordinary and with themes of endurance and commitment that appeal to me. That’s as far as I’m going for a book review, I picked up a couple of other books at the airport, one on risk and one on decision making. Generally I spend my time buying books or eating when at airports, there doesn’t seem to be much else to do.
Finally, filed under gratuitous toplessness – my friend, Martin, from Masters swimming spends his time racing dressed as a camel. Not out of a weird fetish, but rather to raise money for charity. They’ve a website for Humphrey and also a flickr account… Having brought the suit along to a Masters session a couple of weeks back I’ve ended up in a few shots. I’d like to emphasises I only do this sort of thing when I think the pictures are tastefully done.
