I've been rubbish, actually. At keeping up my training and this blog. When Brian Washingmachinepost kindly enquired how things were going, I realised that my e-mail reply wasn't much more than a list of excuses and moans.
I've moved house. Which has brought with it untold chaos, deep in cardboard boxes and paint-tins. Just finding the basics of life (clean cycling kit for instance) can take hours. Through a mixture of advanced planning and straightforward awkwardness -- my bike tools were kept out of the hands of the removals men and travelled with me in the car. However, our Hungarian decorator has taken to prising open paint-tins with my Campag cone-spanners.
Another bizarre result of moving is that -- for the first time in 20 years -- I've stopped reading The Comic. It used to be delivered every Thursday along with the paper, but no newsagents in our new part of South London actually deliver to your door. Too dangerous, probably. So far, I'm not missing it.
I'm trying to launch not one, but two new businesses:
...which is proving to be fascinating and exciting but massively time-consuming.
I've just been on holiday. The annual family ski-trip to one of my favourite parts of the world -- Northern Sweden. I'm not sure it's possible to become bored with powder snow, stunning mountain scenery and beautiful blonde women --- but if it could happen anywhere, Sweden would be the place. While Boonen was sprinting for victory at the Roubaix velodrome, I was dodging moose on the E6 back to the airport.
And I've picked up an injury -- an inflamed shoulder. According to my osteopath, a classic cyclist's problem -- decades of hunching over dropped bars have left my upper body so tight that a minor ski-ing knock has refused to heal -- there's almost no room in the joint for the muscles to recover. Nothing that a few sessions of expensive and painful bone-crunching won't fix.
And finally -- I forgot just how much I relied on commuting to keep my fitness up -- fifteen miles most days on fixed at least kept things ticking over. Now I'm working from home, it seems a real drag to have to get my kit on and get out on the road.
But that's enough whingeing. This afternoon, I put my To Do list to one side, stepped over the cardboard boxes and went for a ride.
And it felt very good. Watch out, Tom -- I'm back.
3 comments:
You think you're being lazy - I only blogged once, read it and decided I was pathetic......
Incidentally, I'm a big fan of your blog after landing here from the fantastic washingmachinepost (thanks Brian!) and yes, I bought the base builder book.
Keep it up, and the cycling. Some of us check in regularly. And good luck with the new biz.
Tim
Thank you. Nice to know people are actually reading this stuff. As of next week, I'm planning to be back on the road a bit more.
Flandrian,
I'm another washingmachinepost redirect. Understand completely about missing the commuting miles; they've become so important to me I actually wouldn't take a job that wasn't in the 11-20 mile 'commutable' zone.
Keep at it. Enjoy the progress reports.
::Michael
velodramatic.com
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