After 3 days of being ill with an upset stomach and hearing that several other friends had also been ill I eventually decided that I had a bug... and in the end I only missed one day of training.
A couple of days away for work saw me trapped in a hotel gym, but when I got talking to the girl on the next bike it turned out she lives in Tickhill... it's a small world (for those of you down sarfff that's a tiny village in South Yorkshire about a mile from where I grew up). The pool was a whole 11 meters, and the guy who ran the sports facilities was deadly serious when he said "If you swim diagonally you get an extra 3 strokes". It was so small that I couldn't push off from the wall or else I reached the other side without actually swimming.
On the Friday I was excited to get out on the bike after work for the first time this year, and wearing shorts too! After a lovely 23 mile tootle on my own I was nicely warmed up for Saturday's fun.
The was a nip in the air when 3 groups of riders left Hilden Golf Club at 8am on Saturday morning but there was a hint of summer in the air. I realised pretty quickly that the route on my Garmin was nothing like what we should be doing and fortunately I've ridden down to Rye several times in recent years so we were riding from memory. Riding past Tonbridge School we turned left and as we approached the traffic lights I looked over my shoulder before pulling out. There was a Royal Mail van behind the last of my girls. As I pulled out so did the van, onto the wrong side of the road, and accelerated towards and through the lights as they changed to amber. Clearly his shift was over he wanted to get back to the sorting office, but there's no excuse for that sort of driving... fortunately Emma knows the Chairman of Royal Mail....and I have the registration. Can't imagine what we might do with that information....
After a quick pit stop at Paula's we cruised down to Rye, over taking Sarah and Hatty's group somewhere near Rolvenden. The sun was out in full force by the time we plonked ourselves outside the cafe in Rye ordering cheese and ham toasties. The motor bikers at the next tables asked if they could have a head start if we wanted to race them.
It was a beautiful day with fantastic company and a lovely ride and for once there were no punctures!
Getting home I did the quickest turn around in history and headed up to the big smoke for Jo's hen night and a great night in Bar Salsa.
On Sunday morning I was tired, but following the training schedule I put my trainers on and headed out into the orchards. My legs felt like lead and my usual 9:40 minute miles had deteriorated to 11 minutes plus. After 2 miles of beating myself up I realised that this was perfect race day training and simply switched off and enjoyed being out.
After doing the washing, cleaning up the house, doing the shopping, I was told to stop procrastinating and get out for the second run... I got 3 minutes from home before bursting into tears. Ringing Tim I broke down and admitted that I was SO tired, I couldn't manage another 5-6 miles. Turning around I went home feeling pretty low and sorry for myself.
However it was probably one of the most sensible things I have done, had I have pushed on at that point I would have undoubtedly injured myself, and I've still got more than 2 months of training to complete.
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