I should be packing and faffing and cleaning the bike, and generally panicking.  Well, I’m off to my training camp in Andalucia with Wheels in Wheels on Saturday, which seems to have come around awful fast, and I’m so not ready!  However I am instead procrastinating wildly whilst at the same time seeing how much stuff I can do without actually getting properly out of bed.  Like writing this blog for example 😉

However I have done some preparation.  Kinda.  Well, there’s all those hills I’ve been riding up.  That counts, right?  Training for a training camp 😉  And when I went riding yesterday, I tested out my new helmet and sunglasses, to make sure they were all ready for the trip.  See?  Ain’t they perty?

Yes, I went riding yesterday.  In the sun.  And almost warmth.  I even had to change my layering strategy accordingly, which was novel.  As is the concept of wearing short sleeves and shorts next week…how cool is that?!  But I digress as usual.  It’s about the riding, not the kit, right? 😉  Yes, Chris and I went riding.  I left the route up to him and, since I had been bizarrely miffed to have not completed Blagdon Hill (aka Two Trees) last week, he took us on a loop around to do that.  Very cool 🙂

And I made it up – properly this time.  Unfinished business – finished 🙂  As slowly as ever, of course, and Chris swears that having not ridden for a while, his pace was actually my pace, and he wasn’t just trackstanding his way up behind me, but I’m not sure I’m convinced 😉  Having said that, I was feeling pretty good, so I may just have been doing ok out there.   Legs, lungs, head; all pretty much in the right place at the right time.  Aren’t shiny pills great?  I may even have left him behind once or twice which, like, never happens so maybe he was telling the truth.  I’m pretty sure it’ll never happen again though! *grin*.  Sadly our well-earnt descent of Cheddar Gorge was blighted by grockles, cars, and the killer wind, which meant pedalling downhill, and which also pushed my wheels sideways a few times , leaving me very pleased not to be on my deeper-rimmed summer wheels!  Ah well, I can try for the QOM next time 😉

It was sunny, it was beautiful, it may even have been Spring, and it went well.  For no obvious reason.  It just turned out to be a really good ride and now my PMA is feeling all perky and happy.  Maybe I’ll make it up all those Spanish mountains after all? 🙂

Cycling time: 2:06
Distance: 29.3 miles
Avg: 12.8 mph
ODO: 8014 miles

I didn’t have much time to bask in the warm after-ride glow though.  It was down to earth with a (not literal) bump as duty called, and the mob and I had the Civic Service to get to.  How’s this for a transformation?  There’s still plenty of lycra involved though 😉