Wed 6th April
I’ve just spent an hour setting up my JustGiving, Linked in and footers on my letters and emails. So now I’m ‘coming out’ and everyone will know! Hopefully that £0.00 figure on all my charity pages will change, too.
Fri 8th April
Received my first sponsorship today, from a city contact and friend, so now I must concentrate on the work to do. Got back on yesterday afternoon, at last. Ankle is fine, no reaction at all. Did a route that I know is 16.645 miles, thanks to a programme I found called gmap, it’s brilliant. Will tell the rest of the team. The problem is that I took 1 hr 25 mins, so 11 3/4mph, way too slow. Okay I did have to get off and walk a couple of times in the centre of Hertford – I’m not about to tangle with buses and cars on roundabouts and dual carriageways whilst my feet are clipped to the pedals in a way that takes some seconds to disentangle– as well as stopping for a couple of minutes at a level crossing, but the speed is still lacking. I’ll find out more when I have a run with my keen cyclist friend Andrew tomorrow.
Sat 9th April
Andrew was impressed! He tells me that I look more experienced than I am, which is pleasing. He showed me how to change a tyre tube and adjust the brakes, advised me on the position of the handlebars (twist them up a bit) and we chatted over a cup of tea about cadence (apparently that’s the proper word for pedalling speed), feet positioning, routes, saddles, washing lycra and all sorts of other important and helpful things and finally he gave me a shopping list of other things I need to buy, such as gloves, oil, folding tools and tyre levers. Finally we took some photos for the justgiving page and I went home happy about what I’m doing. The total run was only 12 miles, but flew by – maybe I’m getting used to this.
Mon 11th April
My secretary Leanne saw the photos. Now I’d carefully edited and selected them to choose the one that was taken at the right angle, which of course is the angle that doesn’t show my beer gut in profile. I thought I’d done quite well, I looked a bit geeky but reasonably comfortable, but she immediately fell into fits of giggles so I knew something was up. There are no flies in cycling shorts, so I knew it couldn’t be that, so I had to ask. “It’s the socks” she managed to get out whilst having her fit, “whatever made you wear long socks, like an Englishman wearing socks with sandals?”
Now wearing socks with sandals is the ultimate euphamism for naffness - and suddenly I can see it: those white ones that look the part on the badminton court look absolutely all wrong on a bike. I am horror struck – this picture is now on my JustGiving page and I can imagine it being passed around my friends, colleagues and acquaintances like the famous “Yummy” email of a few years ago. So I’m off straight down to the sports shop again, buying a jumbo pack of trainer socks and I’ll have to quickly retake and load a photo that doesn’t make me look like a throwback to the 1960s.
Now back to the training!
Tue 12th April
Remembered that I need to get all the other things Andrew told me about – another £85 worth. This cycling lark seems to involve a lot of time running down to various shops and not much time actually on the bike. Won’t mention this to Mrs Land, I’ve already had to downgrade the cost of the bike to “about £300” and on the £150 shorts I’ve managed to get away with “cycling shorts are a rip off, lots of them are over £50 a pair”. Still, new shoes always seem to be appearing in her wardrobe and I’ve not heard that she’s being sponsored to buy them for charity.
Wed 13th April
There was an article in last night’s Evening Standard by a journalist who was allowed to cycle the part of our route that goes over French cobbles. It was not encouraging, the headline was ‘Sky falls in on painful bid to survive hell on wheels’. All the team ended up falling off and a couple had wounds needing stitches, including a certain Bradley Wiggins, who I thought knew how to do this cycling lark. Great; perhaps Mrs Land was right, I am mad and I will be cobbled to death.
Sun 17th April
Up at 7am and met my friend Rob, a super fit man who trains twice a day and runs marathons for fun. Now cycling with Rob is designed to make me feel good: as I say he is superfit and therefore could leave me miles behind, but he’s on a mountain bike, which is heavy, slow and not well geared for road cycling. So I zoom ahead, overtake him up hills, freewheel at the speed that he can pedal and generally feel good about myself. Even made Mrs Land happy as I was home by 10.30, fit, happy and not tired, in time for an afternoon of spring cleaning the garden.
Mon 18th April
Sore, tired and unhappy. I hope this is down to the gardening, but in my heart I know it’s not, I am not nearly as fit as I had hoped and have to work hard to get myself up for work. I will have to work even harder to get myself up for this ride in about nine weeks.
Great blog - lots of content but very amusing - looking forward to the next instalment.
ReplyDelete