Winter training

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. 

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.

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.

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'.

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.

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...

Will update on the loss of cake progress soon.