Enough now... no really

September has not been my month. Whilst some of my friends have been clocking up hundreds of miles, having fantastic holidays and generally enjoying themselves. I haven't. It started well with a committed and determined start to a 30 in 30, and at times there were glimpses of the good life, but it didn't last for long.

My boiler was fixed after 5 visits from the gas man and 6 weeks without hot water. My radiator is leaking.

I sorted out the insulation in the loft. The fuse blew on the lights downstairs. The hallway light blew on the upstairs ring main - either downstairs lights with no lights as I came in and out of the house, or upstairs lights and cooking by the light of the hob.

My week of convalescing in the Lake District was all very pleasant with a good mountain walk or two; in dreary weather. My only ride of the week resulted in the biggest crash I've had in many years. A big, hard, fast crash. Bruised and scraped from my right shoulder down to my right knee, including my ribs. A good chunk out of my right elbow and a lump the size of a tennis ball with a rainbow coloured bruise on my hip. I hit my head and cracked my helmet. Fortunately Hyacinth, my Maverick ML7 only suffered superficial damage to her handlebars and brakelevers and a slightly buckled rear wheel. Fortunately her fall onto the jagged rocks was broken by my stunned and helpless body. Lucky her. I gave the Grizedale Mountain Bike Challenge a miss the following day.

Traffic on the way home on Sunday night was dreadful so I got back in the early hours of the morning to cram in a few hours sleep before an early start to some long days at work. A heavy schedule over the next few days, coupled with a repairing body, the continuing course of antibiotics and the damp from sleeping in a tent all week gave me a wrotten cold. I still have a wrotten cold.

On the way home from work on Friday various pedestrians, cyclists and drivers seemed determined to kill themselves and/or me, by completely ignoring every single line of the Highway Code and their common sense. My journey time home was doubled by roadworks and heavy traffic on the M1.

Ah, my front door by midnight. But no hallway light. Time for a shower. The shower head flew off and hit me on the forehead. I sighed. A deep, shoulder-dropping sigh. I looked around for someone to give me a hug, one of those "don't worry, everything's going to be alright soon petal now dry your eyes and be a big brave girl" hugs. There was nobody there. I sighed and put my head under the pathetic dribble of warm water that was coming from the remnants of my shower head.

One more long day at work and then a day off. I think I'm just going to curl up on the sofa and try not to hurt myself, break anything or burn the house down.

Bring on October, please...

Getting Better...

...in more ways than one. I seem to be on the mend, still another week of antibiotics to complete though but more importantly a variety of things have happened over the last couple of days to really turn my week around. I've changed my plans for next week as well. I've read many a classic novel which tells of Victorian ladies retiring to the countryside to convalesce. I shall be doing the same for most of the week with a camping trip to Beatrix Potter country; just me, some good books and some better wine.

On Friday I found the energy to have a complete spring clean of my bedroom, kitchen and lounge. The bedroom is now immaculate and I plan to keep it that way - a tidy house is a tidy mind as they say and I always feel a lot better when my bedroom is looking clean and tidy.

On Friday evening I found out registration is open for the 2009 Tour of Ireland, hurray! It's not often I get excited about entering an event but the Tour of Ireland is different, it's special - you just have to read my previous TOI blogs to find that out. I'll be entering it as soon as I get back from my holiday and it's really given me a kick to get back on the bike as soon as humanly possible and will be my motivation throughout the long, cold, winter months (I'm actually giggling with excitement about it).

Everything else just seemed to fall into place over the weekend and was topped off in style with a 20 minutes firework display on the way to work to mark the end of the Thames Festival. Now I'm not one to sing the praises of city living and I'm normally bleating on about how I can't wait to go and live in the countryside, but I have to say it's things like this that, just for a second, make me love London.

Bad Timing

Well I finally have to report that I have been beaten by the 30 in 30 challenge. Again! I've been putting it off for a couple of days in the vain hope that I would be able to pick it up again without anyone really noticing, but it wasn't to be. I'd made such a good start, even riding in the rain, even enjoying riding in the rain! I'd been eating well and only drinking moderately and had an excellent set of rides lined up for the following week. 30 in 30 was going to be positively joyful.

On Saturday I was supposed to do a race over near Windsor, but as my alarm went off at 6am I could barely drag myself out of bed and I didn't surface until 1pm - I still managed to squeeze in a ride though. (Who'd have thought early Friday nights out on the orange juice could take it out of you so much?!) By Saturday evening I really wasn't feeling great.

Sunday came and went and I barely moved from the sofa. Fast forward to around 4pm today and I'm doubled over in pain in the front seat of my car, mouth watering, head resting on the steering wheel and unable to focus. I managed to stumble across the car park and into the GP's surgery. A confirmed infection, some painkillers and two weeks worth of antibiotics prescribed. Still too light-headed to drive I was given a cup of tea and some biscuits. Forty-five minutes later I'd finally gained enough strength to make the drive home, and spent the rest of the day on the sofa.

Hopefully I'll be well enough to ride next week, though my motivation to ride, in fact my motivation to do anything at the moment, has completely gone. I'm well and truly fed up.

"30 in 30" Days of Rain

This looks like it could possibly be the wettest 30 in 30 ever, it seems determined to rain every day. But so far it hasn't put me off (which has surprised even me), and I have been riding - despite a few setbacks.

Thursday, Day 2 and the rain was hammering down. Undeterred, I donned my trusty rain jacket and overshoes and set off. The flooding was so bad in the lane that I couldn't see the perfectly sized divot in the middle of the road and seconds later my rear tyre was flat with a pinch puncture. I swapped the tube but my motivation had gone. I stood on the road side trying to decide whether to carry on - my planned route was an out and back that would take me up to 12 miles away from home, and now having no spare tube and a rather soft rear tyre that would be prone to more pinching. I reminded myself why I had embarked on another 30 in 30 and jumped back on my bike to explore some lanes closer to home, just in case. So, 1h22m and 17 road miles completed.

Day 3 - a simple hour on the turbo trainer. Boring, but necessary due to work commitments. I had a rather lovely pint of Bombardier at the Mulberry Bush at a leaving do for some work colleagues. So far so good on the alcohol front then.

Day 4 - more rain! (If this carries on, I'm selling the bikes and building a flamin' ark!) Yet again the weather was testing my resolve with heavy showers throughout the day. Still, I've just put the original forks back on the Surly 1x1 and it's been years since I rode a rigid mountain bike so it gave me the little kick I needed to get out there and explore for a bit - 1hr10m and 10 miles in the rain and mud. It'll do.

Totals so far - 5h17m, 42 road miles, 10 miles off-road.

The New Regime

Things never go as planned do they? Originally I'd planned to kick off another "30 in 30" at the start of September using the momentum from my holiday - adding in a healthy eating plan, some weight loss and cutting back on my alcohol intake.

Obviously, the start to this was delayed due to various DIY set backs with my house again: the boiler still isn't working (that's 5 weeks without hot water); I've changed the upstairs plan and can't find lights so the electrician has been postponed; my hoover has broken and to top it all off now a fuse has blown in the fuse board so I don't have any downstairs lighting (just as the nights are drawing in). Owning a house really sucks sometimes.

So there was no time for riding on Monday and Tuesday but finally yesterday I managed to squeeze in my first ride and start my Autumn "30 in 30". And boy oh boy, is it Autumn! The first 10 minutes of the ride were met with strong winds and a heavy shower. It's very unusual for me to actually start a ride in the rain, I normally wait until it stops. So this shows a new found tenacity and enthusiasm for riding that I haven't had for some time. (It's also a good start to what could be a very wet and miserable winter.)

So, Day 1 - 1hr45m, 25 miles.
I think I might also start keeping a mileage and hours ridden log, just for a bit of motivation...

A Nice Cup of Tea

That's the first thing I have when I get back from holiday. Not very exciting, but a necessary evil when you've been drinking coffee in California for 10 days.

So my holiday to the SingleSpeed World Champs in Napa California was great fun - great friends, great wine, great conversation, great laughs, great beer, great whisky sour, great trails, great weather and the most amazing food I have ever, ever eaten!

I'll write more and put some pictures up on my adventures page when I get some more time. Due to flight delays and time differences it was a full 28 hours between leaving San Jose aeroport and arriving home Friday afternoon. A 4.30am start this morning has plunged my body clock into meltdown.

For now, just to show you how awful the weather was so you're not too jealous, here's a picture of us riding in Wilder Ranch, Santa Cruz on Tuesday.

That's Chris's backside, Jessica, Laura Bontrager, me and Raquel.

You see, the sun was so bright we could barely see the Pacific ocean in the background because of the glare! It was so hot I kept having to stop to reapply factor 30 sunscreen, and the dust was really getting in my throat as well. Damn NorCal trails...

Not in the Saddle, Just Sleepless

And so Endura Sleepless in the Saddle is wrapped up for another year and it also marks the end of my trail crew duties for 2008. Sadly it also marks the end of an era for our regular and most experienced endurance Commissaire, Anton Florek.

Anton has been working with Pat Adams from the very start of 24 hour racing so knows more about the sport than most people. He's been fantastic to work with over the years and everybody has learnt a lot from him, especially me. It's an absolute pleasure to work with somebody who is so passionate and insightful about your sport without the slightest hint of arrogance. He'll be missed by all of us.

Obviously with this being Anton's last event, it was going to be the most eventful. The weekend threw everything at us! The weather was atrocious, again, and there were other totally random hiccups occurring. (I won't go into some of them here, they're those secret little problems that most people at these events don't know about, mainly because the organisers don't want people to know about them, so I'm not going broadcast it here.) But it basically meant the trail crew spent the whole of Saturday running from one problem to the next.

The main problem was the rain. It started raining Saturday morning, it rained for most of the morning. The course turned to wet slop and riders were coming back a consistent shade of brown but still riding their mud spattered bike. Then it stopped raining and the course started to dry out. This turned it into a 7 mile death march slog that many were comparing to conditions of the Somme. I don't blame them. I saw the bikes as they crossed the timing mats: I saw the now 4 inch wide muddy tyres that weren't turning; I saw the dangling rear mechs and a lack of chains; I saw blocks of mud where chainrings should be; I saw the tears of riders who had just slipped, trudged and battled their way around the treacle filled course dragging their broken, heavy, mud covered bikes. It didn't look fun. In fact, it was bloody miserable.

Just as the course started to dry out enough to be rideable, it rained again. More hassles and problems to sort. Some 'course grooming' as we call it to try and re-route some of the more problematic areas. It had been a tough day for all of us, it was getting dark and we weren't even a third of the way through. It was going to be a long weekend. The rain stopped, the mud got stickier. It rained again, the ruts got deeper. (Repeat this pattern throughout the night.)

Still, no matter how bad things got, some people seemed to be enjoying themselves. Some people actually found it all really good fun and very amusing, a real test of endurance. Each to their own I suppose...

I managed to get a couple of hours interupted sleep around 2am but was still answering the calls of the Marshalls from my tent. Sunday was a lot quieter and just involved the usual finish duties and tear down at the end. It had been a very hard weekend - Friday had been very hard work doing the course preparation, Saturday was out to prove Murphy's Law and by Sunday I'd really had enough. The things you do for the love of mountain biking...

Urban Cycling Stories

I caught an episode of The Montel Williams Show this morning, (an American chat show on ITV3 for the majority who have probably never heard of it - and it's my job to watch it ok!) and as a picture of two women on mountain bikes was shown, I turned the sound up. We went into the commercial break and I noticed the theme of the show was "When Animals Attack", hmmm, this could be interesting.

When I first went out to ride in California I heard a horrific story about a mountain lion that had attacked some cyclists on the trail - this couldn't be the same story could it?

Back to the show and Montel was talking to Anne. She'd been out riding with her friend Debbie one day on their local trails somewhere in America. Anne had ridden ahead slightly and came across a man who had stopped in an inconvenient place on the trail and was holding a second bike. He asked Anne if she knew whose bike it was because he'd just found it lying by the side of the trail. Anne thought he was joking and that his mate must be somewhere in the bushes answering a call of nature, and rode on.

A hundred yards on, just around the next corner, a 120lb mountain lion pounced on the back of Anne and bit down on her head and cycling helmet, dragging her to the floor. The cat was constantly readjusting its grip and grabbed onto Anne's cheek, tearing it partially off. At this point Debbie came around the corner and heard her friend's screams. A 'tug-of-war' ensued, as they described it, with the lion trying to drag Anne down into the gorge by her face, and Debbie desperately clinging onto her legs! Some more people came to help and threw whatever they could find at the cat to get it to let go. Finally it did, and ran off.

Anne was air lifted to hospital, and as the helicopter took off the pilot spotted another body, the owner of the abandoned bike. The mountain lion was hunted down that night and shot, only to find that it had attacked and killed the other rider, Mark Reynolds, earlier on that morning before the attack on Anne.

It's easy to forget just how easy we have it riding bikes in the UK sometimes; apart from our own stupidity and maybe the odd nutter, there's nothing we really have to worry about. I often pop out for a ride, especially in the summer, in shorts and t-shirt with just a water bottle and a basic tool kit safe in the knowledge that my life isn't in danger.

I'm sure this complacency will bite me in the arse one day. It's come close a few times (especially the Downieville incident a few years ago!) and for a while I will make sure I take food, a long sleeve top, first aid kit, space blanket and other sundry essentials with me on every ride. A dozen rides later and I'm back to the minimum.

I'm heading out to California again in a few weeks so this was a poignant reminder to retrieve a few survival essentials from my winter walking rucksack and throw them in my Camelbak. You never know what might happen...

Bontrager Twentyfour12

So I popped down to Newnham Park near Plymouth this weekend for the third Bontrager Twentyfour 12. I've had a good run of success with this event; 1st place 24 hour solo woman in 2006; 1st place mixed team in 2007. For 2008 I would be going solo again but only 12 hours this time. ("Only" 12 hours...)

I quite like Newnham Park and raced there for the first time last year at the NPS. I'd never been before but had heard a lot about it as the World Cups were held there in the 90's. The course was absolutely blinding and the weather was excellent. All in all it was a really good weekend and seeing as I finished racing at midnight it gave me chance to catch up with a few people over a mandatory glass of vino (or two).

My full race report is on the Races page here. (You see, I've purposefully not told you where I finished so you have to go and look!)

Satisfaction

I like DIY because there's always a real sense of satisfaction, a sense of pride in your work, a feeling of instant gratification and noticeable results; the feeling that all the hard work you've just put in has all been worthwhile and time well spent.

Today was a DIY day and in honour of Joolze Dymond's birthday, I have named my pantry after her. Dymond's Pantry: Before and After. (After hours of filling, sanding and painting.)



You see! A job well done and a day well spent!