Chilean Red Wine

It's been a bit of a quiet week on the training front. The cold weather has restricted me to just going to the gym at lunchtimes; I'm not even sufficiently motivated to go out to the garage and sort my bikes out. Never mind.

Last night I felt the need for a glass of wine so popped out to the village off-licence and picked up a couple of bottles of Andes Peak Chilean red, one Merlot and one Carmenere. I duly gave both bottles a good testing and can thoroughly recommend them. Felt a bit shabby this morning though!

No training planned for the weekend; Christmas shopping on Saturday and then sorting the bikes on Sunday.

Rest well folks.

House Purchase is 'Go!'

Mrs Turbo Man always says that things happen for the best, and so it seems with our house purchase. Our previous choice fell through as the survey revealed far too many issues for me, or indeed the mortgage company, to be bothered with. However, last weekend we made another trip north to view another 10 properties but knowing that if we didn't find anything suitable we would stop looking until the New Year. We saw some real dogs of properties, some that needed a great deal of work, and one or two really, really nice ones. After discussing what we had seen, this morning we made an offer that was accepted this afternoon. So we are now back into the house purchase spiral of watching money disappear from our account faster than donuts at a fat kids birthday party! But the house is lovely, it is located at the end of a no-through road right on the green belt so we will go out of the garden straight into the fields; ideal for the dog. It is very tastefully decorated (although one bedroom has been decorated for their young daughter that will need a lick of paint) and the kitchen has, at some point in the past, been extended and updated and includes one of those very nice range style ovens (with 8 hobs!) that they are leaving for us. It also has a large conservatory that almost doubles the size of the lounge and has a good sized garden overlooking the fields. It is only 2 bedrooms but with our boys now aged 17 and 15 we won't need more for very much longer and so we will make do; other than the bedrooms it ticked every one of our 'want/need' boxes.

Changing the subject completely, I spoke to my colleague who was knocked off his bike last week. He is absolutely fine; it seems the frame took the full force of the impact and he described his contact with the ground as 'like sitting down on the sofa'. And as Andy said in his reply to my previous post, the individual has been identified and is being dealt with by the police. My colleague is going to get a new bike out of it so it seems like it's a happy ending, if getting knocked off your bike could ever be described as a 'happy' occasion.

I'm still enjoying too much cake and not enough training, although my jog/walk training is now up to 5 mins jog/2 mins walk that equates to a 4:25 marathon if I could sustain it.

Stay safe folks.

Be careful out there

We sometimes forget how vulnerable we are as cyclists, until something happens that makes you realise that we, cyclists, are at the mercy of drivers and whether they are paying attention to the road or their phone etc etc.

Yesterday, a colleague from work was out for his regular lunchtime ride. At a nearby set of traffic lights a car went through a red light and hit him. The impact was severe enough to break the frame completely in half! The car then hit another car before driving off. That's right, the piece of **** driving didn't even stop. I've not spoken to my colleague yet but by all accounts he is OK. No doubt a little shaken but probably just grateul to be alive.

So during these dark mornings and evenings, be sensible. Be safe and be seen. Or ride the turbo!

Take care folks.

A very enjoyable week

This week has been a bit of a mixed bag, which seems to be a common theme for me over the past few weeks. I've managed some excellent training sessions with a good mix of swimming, gym bike, core, strength and treadmill work, but missed 2 sessions. The first was missed for a work related reason and the second was the fault of the Royal Navy. Or, more specifically, the Fleet Air Arm. Yes, I went to HMS Sultan's Taranto Night dinner in the Mess, sorry, Wardroom and Friday was spent facing up to the consequences of a very late night and too much excellent food and gin, white wine, red wine, port and more gin. It was a very enjoyable evening.

This weekend I hope to get my bikes sorted so I will be ready to start riding out on the road next weekend, although if the weather continues like it has been this past week I doub I will be getting muc riding outside at all; it has been truly horrible down here.

House purchase falls through, but training is going well!

Unfortunately the house we were planning to buy (17th century cottage, stone walls, oak beams etc) has fallen through, there were simply too many 'issues' that made it a too risky proposition and the mortgage company decided they would not lend us the money for that property. The good news is that there are plenty of other very appealing properties in the area that would suit us, so hopefully we can find another before too long.

I'm really enjoying training at the moment. My programme is a pleasant mix of swimming, cycling (gym bike, weather is too grim to be outside at the moment and the turbo bike hasn't been set up properly yet), running (or at least my sort of 'running'), weights and core work. I'm not keeping a training diary at the moment so am not chasing hours or mileage,and it's all very pleasant. My diet has improved but I'm still having the occasional drink and cake so there is still room for improvement on that front. But not just yet!

I hope you folks are all taking it easy. It will soon be Christmas!

I can't believe that swimming made me happy!

But I swam 1km today in 19:01. This made me very happy.

1 Nov 10. Another Fresh Start

The end of season gluttony is over and today I started my journey to becoming an Outlaw; 24 July 2011 is a long time away so it will be lots of small steps. As regular blog readers will know I have already started swimming and running (my version of running) and I won't start keeping a training diary until the New Year; for now it is all about getting back into the training routine and eating healthily.

Swim Progress. After a couple of weeks checking I could still swim I decided I needed to try a couple of longer reps and see what sort of times I was doing. So today I started with a 400m rep and after a few shorter reps concluded my session with another 400m rep. The good news was that I completed the first rep in 7:25 and the second in 7:35; I also swam over 1500m without too much drama (admittedly with some long rests between reps!). I am delighted with how the swimming is going.

I'm feeling very positive about things at the moment. Long may it continue.