Evening road ride

After a day and a half driving back home, and a day in the office sat at a desk we were both desperate to stretch our legs, last night. We missed the small window of day light immediately after work as we had no food in the house and had to get to a shop or two, but at about 8:30 that night, we strapped the lights on our bikes and had a short but very sweet blast up the valley to Hardknott and back. It was dry, clear and cool and a wonderful leg awakener!!

La Foret de Fontainebleau

Following the wedding we've had a week away in la foret on honeymoon number one. Once again we had near perfect weather – surely it never rains in this magical place?! Even the French fuel shortages and strikes didn’t dampen our sprits. We visited l’Elephant, Bas Cuvier, Cuvier Rampart, Gorges aux Chats, Rocher Canon. P had a great week, ticking a fair number of 6c’s and 7a’s, including Orca, La Coeur, and Duroxmanie. I enjoyed myself but didn’t repeat my 6a feats from our last proper visit. Some fairly serious attempts were made on Le Trou Simon and Greve des Mains, among others. We had one day of light showers, which coincided with a national strike, so we walked down to the local town and had lunch and walked back. We treated ourselves to staying in campsites, using both the Gres-sur-Loing campsite and Les Musardieres. Many croissants and pain au chocolat were consumed and I think I put some weight on! 

A Wedding

Well, I’m now a married woman! This hopefully will explain the lack of blogging in a long while. A small perfectly formed wedding ceremony and reception. The important people were there and that’s what mattered to us the most. I even wore a dress (made by my mum), and P wore a suit, proving we can scrub up one in a while. 

Kirkfell Fell Race

Saturday was the Wasdale Head show, and the BOFRA Kirkfell race. I've won this the last two years its been run out of three, and this year it was a dry day! It was also a sunny day with great conditions.  Having arrived in plenty of time to absorb the atmosphere of the show, watch the collie judging, wonder round the sheep pens and enjoy a cumberland sausage roll, it was time to get warmed up. I try and warm up more nowadays for races, especially short sharp ones like this.

I had a good run, being pushed hard on the ascent by a lass from Wharfdale, but when we got to the scree going up I managed to pull away. This gave me hope as I reckoned that if I could pull away on the rough stuff going up then I'd be faster on the descent too. This proved the case. I was faster again this year can came in 1st Lady and 30th overall in 51:26. I have to beat the 50 minute barrier one day!

A view of the show field from high on Kirkfell

Trundling along

To be honest my mind is not fully on the outdoors and training at the moment. I'm trying to get in some riding, running, climbing and ...and....and. But there's a rather momentous occurance in my life next week, as we are getting married. So I'm just a little frazzled by the whole thing. I'm trundling along doing what I can and getting very excited about a week in Font = Honeymoon number 1!

First (semi-) night ride of the autumn

Tuesday evening, after a horrible realisation that both sets of brakes needed new pads and I had one spare set, we set about transferring the entire front break and wheel off P's bike to mine for the evening! Then I dashed off to meet up with friends for an evening ride out and about around Dent. Some trails and tracks in the light, some tracks and trails in the dark. I'd forgotten who much fun night riding is and even rode more of the rooty descent in the dark than I did in the light! All this was followed by some gorgeous home-made ginger snaps courtesy of Fran and a great big cuppa - perfect!

L'al blue Rourkie

My commuting road bike has been in bits since last December. Well it needed some TLC, actually a lot of TLC. I dismantled it in the run up to Christmas, hoping to rebuild it early in the new year. But we had so much ice and snow in January and February that I was riding my old Specialised mountain bike with ice tyres for much of that time. As the year warmed up I leapt on my decent road bike and forgot about ordering new shiny bits. I then ordered new shiny bits, only to find even more new shiny bits were needed like a new bottom bracket! Once those shiny bits had arrived, I then set about doing my BG, so the bike sat there again. P then built it up as a well done pressie, but it still needed one more shiny bit. That's now on and this morning l'al blue rourkie was back on the road! Yippeeeee!

12 days of nowt

Last Tuesday after our long weekend, woke up with the alarm at 6am, got the bike kit on and set off to work on the bike. Felt pretty sluggish but assumed that it was just the excesses of the weekend catching up with me in the early morning, but by mid-morning it was evident there was a bunch of viral cells working their way around my body. I hooked up with P to ride home so I could follow his wheel, got home and crawled into bed.

A sore-throat and fever plagued me for the next 4 days, but by Friday I was feeling a little better. But a pootle around the Eskdale Show on saturday wiped me out again and the next two days were spent in bed! Then a slow recovery as the virus seemed to have taken all my energy. I started feeling better on Friday evening - again, but just in time for P to come down with it!

Managed a slow valley 7 miles on Saturday afternoon, and another 7 miler on Sunday when the rain stopped over Muncaster Fell. Both runs felt like hard work, as i didn't have the most energy, but its started to come back to me.

So it was 12 days of nowt!