Days of wine and roses

We had a bank holiday weekend here, in this united kingdom, the weekend just gone.  It was super.  The weather, which was predicted to be terrible, was nothing of the sort.  It was largely sunny, warm and spring-like.  Just watch the doctor ordered.

Friday night we launched festivities with a couple of jolly old ales at one of our locals.  Every pub in the vicinity was packed, but everyone was in gerr-ate spirits.  There was real feeling of optimism and comradeship broad; it was lovely, like being at war, but with rationing and carpet bombing.

On Saturday morning I continued my preparations for the up-coming time trial season by going on a 2-hour training ride out in the sticks.  Post this, I had that euphoric feeling one gets, a mix of endorphins and hubris at having done some exercise.

This feeling was bolstered by a 2-hour walk in the Essex countryside with the missus, followed by a slap-up binge dinner for two with fine wines and ice cream.  Marvellous.  I slept like cadaver on Saturday night as a result.

On Sunday we trundled up to Cambridge, which is pleasant enough for a couple of hours.  A vegetarian scone and a browse around England's sole surviving independent bookshop then home.  We met friends for noisy, drunk bourgeois drinks that evening to see the sabbath out.

Yesterday (Monday) was spent at a dog obedience show and then in the West End browsing around expensive shops, which is the quintessential British bank holiday Monday in a nutshell.  It's liberating to be cliched from time to time.

Huzzah!

When the go and get stuffed.

It's time trial season again!  That's cycling time trialling, I should make clear.  I knew it was looming, but had managed to wipe it from a my mind.  I was in cycling denial.

As soon as I found out my first one is two weeks away, I leapt into action.  I cut out food for the most part, well the foodstuffs that afford pleasure.  Food for an endurance athlete, even one as modest in his abilities as this one, is fuel.  It's not to be enjoyed; it's to be endured.  The only upside to food when one is training is that it stops you shaking when you've overdone it on the bike.

As well as not eating fun stuff, I've cut the portion size of the rest of it by at least a third.  I do feel lighter, which is good.  It's all about power to weight ratios, this game.  Which brings us to the second part of the preparations: training.

I went out after work last evening and did my first interval session.  Intervals involve going hell-for-leather for a short period and then having a rest.  You do this eight times.  It's quick.  Unfortunately it also makes you look like a loon.  You ride along as if all is well with the world, and suddenly, apparently for no reason, go crackers.  You ride with the intensity of a man fleeing a hippo.  Ten seconds later you stop and calm descends once more.  Other cyclists can and do take offence at this type of training.  Understandably so.  You fly past someone like he's going backwards, only to sit up and let him catch you shortly thereafter.  It looks like you're taking the piss, frankly.

I'm feeling it today.  I can scarcely keep me eyes open.  Luckily today is the portal to a bank holiday weekend, so I couldn't give a shite.  A couple of real ales this evening, a homemade curry will restore the tissues.

Right, home time.