Monday 28 February 2011

February Round-Up

This month has been a hard slog. The weather, or should I say the wind, has been pretty brutal, making even the easiest ride hard going.

Due to this cold uninspiring weather, the first three weeks of the month all pretty much involved 5rides of 10miles.  However, last week, I let the nasty weather get the better of me and by Saturday morning I had still only been out on my bike once for a 15miler.  (Which was on Wednesday. It was a tough but enjoyable ride that involved meeting a new Donkey and lots of Llamas - or maybe they're Alpacas. ;-)  For those that know me, you'll know that I am a BIG fan of animals and that I have to talk to any I meet.  Also as long as the animal isn't a cat, it will get a tickle - I have nothing against cats, but they make me sneeze uncontrollably. So on Wednesday I was happy to plot a route that would take us past a field of Llamas and I wasn't disappointed. In fact I was more than happy, when said ride also involved finding a donkey and a second field of Llama's!)

Thankfully (as previously posted) I managed to do a 20 mile ride on Saturday and even more amazingly I followed this with another 15miler on Sunday.  It was tough though, after the nice weather on Saturday it had reverted back to cold, grey and with winds over 25mph, so my summer shoes and exposed ankles left me bitterly COLD. *Sigh* I think I will have to re-relegate my summer wardrobe back to the bottom of the drawer again and go back to full length tights and winter boots for a little longer.

Anyway, despite the nasty weather and the short month, I have somehow managed to meet my monthly goal of 200miles. Yay! If I can achieve this type of mileage in this cold weather, surely things can only get better. ;-)

Saturday 26 February 2011

Spring has sprung

Today was a balmy 14°C and although the wind was "blustery" (20+mph) it felt like a nice spring day and a great day to to ride.

For the first time this year I didn't reach for my full length tights, choosing to bare my pastey-white ankles in my 3/4 shorts.  Caught up in the moment (and full of the joys of spring) I also opted for my non-winter shoes. This was just crazy! I even rebelled by leaving my trusty fleece buff behind. Spring was here.

I also wanted to ditch my long sleeve base layer and wear the snazzy little arm warmers that I was given for my birthday, but much to my dismay they were nowhere to be found. After hours of unsuccessful looking I gave up, reverting back to my base layer under the obligatory VC jersey.

The first part of the ride was a jolly jaunt with my Ma. She wanted to do about 7miles or so but I finally brought her back to the village with 9 miles on the clock. After leaving her safely in the village I turned back for a quick spin. It seemed a shame to waste the sunshine. So back up the hill and out the village I went. By 'eck this wind was strong, thankfully it wasn't a cold wind though.

With a final total of 20 miles under my belt I returned home happy (and very dehydrated as I'd forgotten to pick up a bottle and I was gasping). Wish I'd stayed out a little longer though as maybe then I would have missed the hair raising moment when a white van failed to stop at a T junction at the bottom of our hill. I was doing between 25-30mph at the time and he didn't look before pulling out into my path. Not quite sure how he managed to stop, the screech of brakes was nerve shattering. Anyway I got home slightly shell shocked, shattered but in general happy.

Lets hope that Spring is here to stay as on my return, after pulling everything out of the wardrobe and drawers, I finally found my arm warmers, so hopefully now they will get their debut tomorrow.

Sunday 13 February 2011

A quickie.

Again, not really much to blog about. I'm still riding, but not really done any rides of interest so I won't bore you with the mundane details..

Good news is though, that with 50.6 miles last week and 51.4 this week I am on target to meet my goal of 200miles a month.

With this shorter month, I literally have to make sure that I manage 50miles each week to prevent a fail. But I'm not planning on failing so that shouldn't be an issue. ;-) Thankfully the surgery I was supposed to be having on my hand this month was cancelled, which was good as I'd almost forgotten about it and the implications of "recovery" would have scuppered any chance of meeting said target.

Sunday 6 February 2011

Viva la France

Looking forward to riding through the vineyards
Bonjour mon petit fleur.  (Sorry my French is very limited so bear with me).

Nous allon vacance en France et je suis tres, er... excited. (Sorry I couldn't keep up the pigeon French). So basically just thought I'd let you know that we have just booked ourselves a holiday. (Our first holiday in years). My kind Mum is taking us on a self catering cycling holiday in a quaint gite in the Loire Valley.


I hope the boulangerie is within riding distance for fresh goodies.
It will be the first time I have been to France since a school trip many years ago - at least back then I could speak a little more French.... nowadays all I can remember is "Ou'est la piscine?" and "Je'voudrais un pain au chocolat" Not the most useful of phrases... especially as we have a gite with a pool so if I used that phrase people might think me very "special".

Really looking forward to it and knowing we are going is giving me some extra inspiration to ride more. I'd hate to get there an not manage to ride much, after all its gonna be much flatter than here. =D It's also giving me a very slight incentive to lose weight as its been a long time since I've exposed so much flesh in a swimming costume.

Tuesday 1 February 2011

January 2011 (Round Up)

As well as knitting (see previous post) I also rode my cotton socks off in January; fighting through the icy cold and bitter winds.

I had my fastest ride ever as well as my slowest ride. (The fastest when I met Michael from work on a day that John was also commuting home & the slowest when I took my Mum out.) I also experienced some of the coldest rides, where on my return I could no longer feel my feet - practically falling down the steep garden steps. There was also a near miss with disorientated bunny rabbit on a major road.  It all added to the fun though. ;-)

All in all this month has been a good one for riding and despite the cold weather I can happily report that I met my new 200mile monthly target! In fact I managed to do 208.1. =D