Busy Weekend

Well that turned out to be quite a busy weekend. After continually wincing at my old Giant OCR 3 road bike hanging in the garage in a terrible state of repair, I decided to give it some TLC. I took the chain off and, as it was so rusty, I could virtually hold it outstretched horizontally! In the bin with that! Anyway, the crux is that I ended up stripping the entire bike, degreasing and lubricate everything. I am always having trouble with brakes and I was slightly concerned to see the pile of odd shaped metal bits in front of me! However, they all went back together ok and the bike runs again. I took it for a spin this lunchtime and it was nice and smooth. This will be my winter bike; just got to put the race blade mudguards on when the weather gets worse and it will be ideal.

Saturday afternoon was the Team Sanjan Design 10 Mile Open TT. It looked to be a good day and we were hopeful of some decent times. As it turned out, most people were complaining about the weird conditions that looked good but gave non-too good times! I did 22:10. Paul did 22:41 (another PB) and Hamish did a great PB of 25:16, knocking over a minute off his Sawtry course PB. I would have liked a sub-22 clocking but I have one last chance to do that again this year at the F1b Open 10 Mile TT on 13 Sep. This is the course that I set my PB of 21:25 on; it is mega fast if the conditions are right. Hamish is doing this one too, and I know that he desperately wants to dip under 25 mins this year. The mad fool is also doing a 50 mile TT in Sep!! I ran off the bike after my TT on Sat – just an easy 16 mins - and my Achilles was not too bad.

On Sunday I thought my legs could do with a spin out so I was up early and out on the single speed for 40 miles. It was a lovely morning and I was enjoying it until the wind got up. The ride ended up being a bit of a grind then! In the evening I ventured out for another run. I wanted 4 miles but miscalculated and did 4.9 miles. My Achilles was ok - just a slight ache towards the end. This is the furthest that I have ran since my injury and I am quite pleased! An average pace of 7:33 per mile is also the fastest I have run. Didn’t really try and run faster; it just happened. I am finding that by running ‘taller’, my Achilles seems to be better. Maybe I am not sinking into the running stride so much by doing this? Anyway, I am a bit tired today so it was just 30 mins spinning for the day.

It is really good to see Daz ‘fast man’ Sharpe hitting some form. Check out the results from the Berverly Triathlon last Sunday. He bagged second overall and was very close to the win, finishing just behind the winner of the Inter-Services Triathlon – Mr Chralton-Wheedy (is that name real?)