Big G and I were planning to get a Surrey Hills ride in on Saturday morning. Big G usually rides in the afternoons at the weekends to allow him to catch up on his sleep as he rises early during the week to go to his important investment bank job where he works long hours. On this occasion he had kindly agreed to go out early to fit in with my family duties.
Saturday morning was looking OK when I got up. I was dressed in my baggy cycling lycra and had the bike and cycling related paraphernalia in the middle of the kitchen being prepared for the ride whilst as a family we were trying to breakfast in the same room, my son was watching CBBC on the television whilst playing on the Nintendo, homework books on the side awaiting attention, family love and harmony blossoming (not).
The weather outside was getting worse and I was considering how wet I was going to get when I received a text from Big G to say that it was pouring where he was and he had gone back to bed. I telephone him just to make sure he didn't go back to sleep.
I decided that he was probably right so I took the bike back into the garage and hung it up. I then psyched myself up for a session on the turbo. As the turbo is somewhat noisy and the kitchen was being used for homework I was banished to the garage for the session. At least this meant that I didn't get bits of rubber over the kitchen floor while The Wife was present to notice.
I proceeded to do an hour and twenty minutes on the turbo, garage door open, facing out the up-and-over door into the Close and the pouring rain watching the comings and goings of the neighbours.
This time there were no punctures. The new tyre (or old recycled tyre, see previous entry) was much smoother and seem to change the whole gearing meaning the data was not comparable to previous sessions so a new comparative profile will need to be built up before I can see how not training enough means no improvement.
I burnt my boats a little (negative brownie points!) in that my turbo session did not finish until after the time my son was supposed to leave the house for his football match. The Wife had to take him and stand in the rain on the wet touchline for the warm-up and first 15 minutes of the match in rain heavier than she was prepared for. When I turned up having had to catch the bus up to the park she just was a little sopping wet. I was left with detailed (and unworkable) instructions as to how he should be wrapped up warm and dry after the match until she arrived to pick us up. As you can imagine this requires his agreement and co-operation which was not going to be forthcoming as kids of 8 do not feel the cold until it is too late. He won his match (he hasn't lost this season either at school or in the Saturday league) and I had to take the tongue lashing when she turned up to pick us up and all he was wearing was a soaking football shirt and shorts (with me holding a bag with the dry kit). Why me not him, he was the one who had refused the dry kit!
In the afternoon I had to chauffer him up to north London to go to a go-kart party in a leisure centre in Northwood which he enjoyed but it was after 6:00 PM before we got home.
Sunday morning training was missed as it was Remembrance Sunday and the Cubs and other uniformed groups had church parade which meant I had to accompany him. More importantly Sunday afternoon was the Mighty Bees (Brentford FC) playing last years giant killers Havant and Waterlooville in the FA Cup on ITV so we spent the afternoon watching Brentford go through to the next round with a 1-3 win.
Big G has told me whilst he didn't get out Saturday, he did get out on Sunday on his Bianchi (only Mont Box and back), however, whilst he stayed dry the wind meant it was not a pleasant experience.
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