tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31600401024601793402024-02-20T17:38:50.517-08:00frankiethebikerider Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18114625318659769077noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3160040102460179340.post-73580830356016551082015-10-24T06:45:00.001-07:002015-10-24T06:53:15.631-07:00<br />
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Chasing the
sun.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"><o:p><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> </span></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">At the end
of August I decided to finish racing for the season and took some time for a
good old rest. I’ve had a lot of fun racing this year and am happy to have
stepped it up a level, but I was oh so ready to make dog walking the peak of
physical activity for a short while.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">After 3
weeks with no bike riding whatsoever it was time to get back on the bike
refreshed and ready to train. Or so I thought. A further 4 weeks of lugging my
off-season lard arse around the lanes of the Holme Valley each weekend and
making the short but somehow arduous commute to work during the week, I was
only just beginning to feel in tune with my body and bicycle again. But now I
am finally ready. I am hungry to train again. I want to ride more than is in
the training plan. This is a good sign. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">There is a
renewed focus for next season. The team – Team 22 – is a fantastic group of
self-starting, ambitious, and talented young women. I am humbled to have been
given a ride and am very happy about the calendar and support. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Next week my
partner Russ, our child (ok puppy Goldendoodle) Baloo and myself are driving
the long journey to the Spanish Costa Blanca where we will be spending the
winter. There are a few reasons/ moments of enlightenment/excuses behind this:<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 36pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">1.</span><span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt/normal "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">We are not designed for the British
winter.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 36pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">2.</span><span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt/normal "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">There is a very real possibility that
either/both of us will develop S.A.D. Seriously.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 36pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">3.</span><span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt/normal "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">9-5 with no windows could well be the
end of me.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 36pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">4.</span><span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt/normal "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">I do not <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">have </i>to spend lunch breaks walking in the bleak rain.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 36pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">5.</span><span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt/normal "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">We do not <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">have </i>to ride in sideways sleet for months on end.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 36pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">6.</span><span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt/normal "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">There is another way.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 36pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">7.</span><span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt/normal "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">In the near or maybe far future we
would like to make a permanent move to </span><span lang="EN" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">España.</span><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 36pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">8.</span><span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt/normal "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Maybe we will never again spend a
winter in the Grim North.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 36pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">9.</span><span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt/normal "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">I say it again. The British winter is
soul destroying. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"><o:p><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> </span></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">So we made the decision to take a
temporary break from work and live in Spain this winter and maybe for future
years of our life together. We do not know yet and will take opportunities as
they come.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">So MEGA EXCITED is an understatement.
<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Our days will be spent playing with
Baloo on the beach, riding bikes, riding other bikes with knobbly tyres and
riding yet more bikes with strange low positions and wooooooshy wheels. There
will be training in the gym, surfing, yoga, meditation. There will be long
breakfasts, bakeries, time, drinks on the seafront. There will be a lot of hard
work and an equal amount of horizontal behaviour. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<br />
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"><o:p><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> </span></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">There are future plans. These will be
explored, researched, investigated, and thought through. We hope we can one day
live our dream and live and work in this beautiful region. We will see. For now
we just really really don’t want to be in the Grim North until the sun
reappears next spring :)</span></span><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> Happy winter training to all.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18114625318659769077noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3160040102460179340.post-81240977276679009512013-12-12T05:12:00.000-08:002013-12-12T05:12:02.320-08:00When the lurgy strikes..I have a cold! It's awful, my throat
feels like someone's shoved a razor down there, I can't hear properly
and it was pretty difficult to taste my crunchy nut cornflakes this
morning. Yoga even hurts with these achy muscles. The End is Nigh...!<br />
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<br />
</div>
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Well almost. It frickin' feels like it.
It's actually the end of training for all of a week. </div>
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<br /></div>
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This is what I
get for leaving the house for work, volunteering, family funtimes
with my illness ridden nieces, sharing a house with sniffly Rob (whose
cold last week was of course 500 times worse than mine :0). It's
grizzly out there and he's just gone out for a 6 hour ride with only
some homemade rice bars for company – I hope he doesn't get this
cold too. I'd be in real trouble then.
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<br />
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This has got me a-thinking. Being bound
to the limits of the bed, sofa and bathtub have their benefits. I can
have some time to relax, just sit down, lie down. Snooze even. What a
novelty I'm sure many can appreciate. Could even pass myself my
laptop with my feet (too ill to muster the energy to reach for it
obviously) and try to finish writing the training plan I'm supposed
to be doing right now. Then the panic sets in – I'm supposed to be
riding RIGHT NOW with Ruth Taylor. She's riding, I'm not. Everybody's
riding, I'm not. It's my only day off. I'll be so behind. Might as
well give up, might as well eat everything in the house and wallow in
the bath with a mutlipack of Mars bars.
</div>
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<br />
</div>
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Right. Get a grip. Calm the frig down. It's only a week says everyone and
anyone with an ounce of plausible thinking on the matter. </div>
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<br /></div>
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Who'd have
thought it, it's only a week I'm having off. A week! Pah! I can
handle that off the bike... I can. Realistic thoughts begin to
dominate once more.
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<br />
</div>
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So from in between sniffles, moans and
coughs I'm going to enjoy this week. And I suggest anyone wanting to
train with the lurgy take heed!!! Might even bake some bread and
watch 2013 Paris-Roubaix. </div>
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<br /></div>
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Thanks for reading (if you got this far)</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18114625318659769077noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3160040102460179340.post-81770979783212978552013-10-17T11:01:00.001-07:002013-10-17T11:12:10.627-07:00Winter training<br />
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If you have found yourself on this page
I doubt this blog is what you were expecting, but hey ho, you might
well learn something. Proper cycling blogs are on my team page (maxgearettes.blogspot.co.uk) although it has indeed been a while since one of those! The title 'winter training' was a sly tactic adopted to get you on here. And now I have you I wouldn't want to bore you with ramblings on
what training I have mustered up for the winter anyway...that's a
secret (sort of) and you'll know in any case when I unleash some
(ahem) skills in the spring. Tea is the current topic. As it should be. </div>
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<br /></div>
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Sometimes I go to work and forget to
take any Earl Grey tea bags. This is a serious problem. I'm faced
with an industrial- sized bag of two-cup builders teabags.
Jeeeez...no wonder the proportion of grump behaviour has been
steadily increasing in this shop. Can I, can I start the day with a
peppermint? Or a lemon and ginger? Gosh no, and I give my inner self
a small slap for the thought of such an atrocity. The thing is I used
to go all day every day fuelled only on builder's tea and it makes me eat so much naughtiness its beyond rediculous. But something
changed and Earl Grey is now surely the way. It might have been the bike. But I don't think Brian makes
those kinds of decisions out right.
</div>
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<br /></div>
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Anyway, on these builder's tea days if you have been
a customer of Edinburgh Bicycle Cooperative and encountered my wrath
I'm really sorry. I do actually care if you find the right bike and I
honestly didn't mean to glare or gnash my teeth or eat Minstrels from
my fleece pocket whilst you were trying out some bikes.
</div>
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<br /></div>
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To the point of this. Earl Grey is so
tasty that it might be possible to consume, dare I say it, without
the accompanying cake that always seems to appear. I swear builders
tea makes me eat more sugar. The correlation may well not be true.
But I think, in my case, it bloody well must be. I'll be more than
satisfied with a nice cup of Earl Grey but normal tea leaves me
thinking well where is the cake?? And if I have 5 brews a day, well
you do the maths... So maybe just maybe if I take some INCREDIBLE tea
bags to work I might be able to go a day without sweet treats. And it
has come to dawn on me that it might be a good idea to reduce such
consumption from 'almost all of diet' to 'small extra on days when
riding is the main focus'.
</div>
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<br /></div>
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Not sure why this has to happen. I
guess there is not much point training so hard, buying a stages power crank
(cheapest power available but SO MUCH MONEY IT HURTS), getting a
coach and sweating away in a Bikram yoga class if I'm going to spend
the rest of my time fitting as much cake as possible into my mouth.
And before you say it. No, I cannot do moderation and yes, I have no
self control if I even sniff some
cake/chocolate/haribo/tiffin/christmas biscuits from Lidl – the
one's that Murray hides from me in the workshop.</div>
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<br /></div>
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If you're still reading, and god knows
why, then it must be reinstated that the days that start well start
with an Earl Grey. FACT. But it has to be a leisurely tea moment. My
boss gets annoyed when we (shop floor staff and mechanics) get the
grump on if we don't all have time to individually shower (well you'd
hope so) and have a leisurely breakfast. I guess coming in 45 minutes
early just to encounter odorous cyclists in the brisk morning air isn't
everyone's idea of fun. Fair dos. But from now on I will be there even
earlier, starting the day the proper way. So I am relaxed, focused, a
'teaist' almost. Only things that are good for this body will be
allowed anywhere near me with the aid of tea. I hope...</div>
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<br /></div>
<br />
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Will update on the loss of cake
progress soon.</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18114625318659769077noreply@blogger.com0