March 13th 2009 The story continues

I have been very lax about training recently, result of stress of the job and a bit of virus. I have not done an ergo on the rowing machine for about a month. My only exercise has been the odd cycle.

I have now managed to get an entry for the Etap through Ron at Etap.org. The introduction was through a friend in Australia. I had tried Ron late last year but got no luck but this time he had someone who had pulled out and I had 48 hours to get my medical form signed by my doctor and in to Ron with my money. Have you ever tried to get a doctors appointment in a hurry? In the end I camped out at the surgery in the morning and was fortunate enough to get a slot within the hour and now I am just waiting to find out my start number.

I did the SWRC 100 Km race on Sunday March 8th. The weather forecast was for poor weather and I wasn’t feeling great. I felt so bad that on the morning I couldn’t be bothered to cycle to the start so I got the train to Leatherhead and cycled the two miles from there to the start. The weather turned out to be really good. Last year I managed 3:59 and this year I managed 3:56 although the course was about a mile shorter this year and with about 70 metres less climb. S from Milton Keynes was two minutes behind me last year but this year beat me by two minutes. At least that shows my fitness is on par with this time last year. After the race I used the return portion of my ticket and got the train home. It started to pour with rain just as I got in the door.

There was one weekend a few weeks ago when my wife and son were in Ireland for the weekend seeing Nana and I took the opportunity to get a 93 mile ride in. I rode down to Bury Hill just north of Arundel and back. It was that glorious Sunday when we all thought winter had finally come to an end (wrong!) and at 58 miles I was sitting outside a café in the sunshine eating beans on toast and drinking tea: Yes, that is one of the good bits in the life of a cyclist.

My son has been playing football. Mixed results with a loss, a draw and finally an 8-0 win. This means that whereas they won the pre Christmas league undefeated, in the post Christmas league (the season operates in two halves) the team will end up middle of the table. They are however in the League Champions Final (Pre Christmas League Winner versus Post Christmas League Winner) in a fortnight’s time. In addition they were knocked out of The Cup competition at the semi-final stage.

Playing the football in this team this season has vastly helped his confidence and that has been reflected in his sports at school. Also, whereas he wanted to be in goal all the time at the start of the season he now wants to be out on the field. The problem here is that he has proved to be capable in goal so the teams all want him there.

Have you ever had to organise a Bank Holiday trip for a club? I have had to take the bull by the horns and organise the Etap Reccie trip for the Guilford Peloton. First we all booked our flights (Gatwick Marseille with BA) and this went without a hitch. Then we moved on to thinking about the accommodation. It seems that the weekend we want to go, May 21st to 25th, is Ascension and in France this is a national holiday meaning most hotels are already fully booked. After establishing that there would be initially between 10 and 13 riders and one driver I had to find accommodation for us all. Craig at Veloventoux.com was unable to accommodate us but kindly helped us find a cyclist friendly hotel in Nyons. This is about 40 Km into the 2009 Etap course and looks an ideal spot. I have initially reserved 6 rooms and when the number of riders coming stabilises (one has already dropped out because of work) I can finalise numbers and menus with the hotel.

My daughter seems to have a new boyfriend. This news she published on Facebook. She has allowed me to be a Facebook friend so I was able to see the announcement. I Googled him and came up with a picture of him on his football teams website. I copied the picture and sent it to her by email with the question “Is this him” to which I got the reply “I don’t believe you Googled him!” What is a father supposed to do? I just wanted to know he didn’t have two heads.