06.02 RICHMOND RELAYS

Love a good relay race. The Thames Hare & Hounds running club hosted the annual Richmond Park Relays this afternoon. Proved a nice change of pace to the usual Wednesday workout at Battersea.

Men's teams of four and women's teams of three (under the principle that we run slower, and thus will take longer to finish. Harumph) circuit a 3.1 mile undulating loop (that nemesis of a hill that still haunts me from the xc season included in the course!)around the park.

My team included Sarah and Cass as second and third runners and I took off first with the pack. We set off at an alarming quick speed, probably in the 'its merely 3 miles' spirit of a group of runners mostly training half-mar and longer distances. Proved rather excruciating, but the pain was over (relatively) quick, considering the miles I've been putting in of late.

All in a hard day's work.

05.16 GADGETS

Motivated. Motivated? My eyes opened from a night's deep sleep to clear skies. Sticking with my resolution to cycle weekly, I dragged my body out of bed, out of flannel and into spandex, rehydrated and set off for a loop around Richmond Park.

I didn't quite clip into the pedals before realising something was amis. It all began a few days ago when I thought I had to replace a flat. Took the wheel of, only to realise there was no puncture - the tire just needed some air. So Dan helped me realign the wheel perfectly before securing it. Piece of cake.

But I had barely left the front door today when I realised the odometer wasn't clocking my motion. It happens time-to-time when the sensor is not aligned perfectly. Drives me bananas. I leant over the handrail to fiddle with the gadget, only to find we had replaced the wheel with the sensor on the opposite side.

Sigh. Removed the wheel, fliped it round, aligned it perfectly and secured it. Off I went - at 0.0 km/h according to the measure. Sod it. I don't need all the data. I whiled the miles instead focusing on my cadence, taking in the scene and trying to forget that my fingers were freezing.

The last straw came as a cloud, rolling in tow of a gust of wind and a spatter of rain. It was at this point the odometer, in its last breath, wheezed a reading of 99.99 km/h, before going blank again. I enjoyed the momentary time-motion warp, imagining I could actually move that fast (wondering why the odometer - my odometer - even climbed to such a high speed), before trollying home, hungry, wet and in for a day of motionlessness DVD viewing.

04.18 60K

The Chasers organized a training day for cyclists. We met early at Richmond Park for what I anticipated would be an hour or so of drills and hills.

Four hours later I am home. I've logged 60 km on my tires and its only the second time I've ridden in since I hauled the bike here from Canada. We practiced signals and safety, cadence and shifting. Rolled into the last hour with a session of hill repeats. Ouch. Legs are jello.