When I called this blog 'Life's little challenges...' I was trying to be ironic. Another meaning, however, can be the 'little' challenges I will encounter during my day-to-day training.
Today's 'little challenge' occurred whilst I was on my long bike ride. 40 min from my house, just out of the city, I got a puncture. Annoyed, but not worried, I changed my tire. I swear it was only a mile or 2 later when I hit a hit hole. Boy do you feel sick when you feel the immediate deflation of your tire. Again, after a bit of swearing, I changed my tire. This was the first time I had carried to tubes so I was really lucky. Or was I?
For some reason the tube wouldn't inflate. A passing cyclist also tried his pump and it wasn't happening. I don't know what exactly what happened but I must have caught the tube when putting it and created a pinch, or it was a faulty tube or I hadn't found the original cause of the puncture, it didn't matter. It was by now 8am and I was 8 miles from home and I had an hour to get to work. There was only one thing to do. I started to walk.
Sights on route to work included Musselburgh race course; the lighthouse on an island on the forth; the firth of forth (always a sight to be seen), Portobello swimming pool (and the grateful use for their facilities with the tremendous luck that no one nicked my bike while I was there) and the promenade.
I started changing the lyrics to songs. It started with 'Brights Eyes' being changed to 'Bright Side', Monty Pythons 'Always look on the bright side of life' and other songs that I can't remember now. It gets a bit monotonous as I can only ever remember a few lines of songs so they kept on being repeated round and round and round.
After 2 hours of walking I was beginning to get a bit jaded.
I arrived at the office after 2 hours and 45 minutes walking and getting close to a sense of humour failure.
Sod the diet, I headed to the corner shop and downed a snickers duo.
I have decided to call the walk to work a 'training session' specialising in 'mental strength'. I hope I don't have too many of them!
Tuesday, 27 January 2009
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2 comments:
Sorry if this is a duplicate having issues...well, your tube changing skills should be perfected by now:) While it sucks at the time, there's NO better skill to have. Make sure you also have a patch kit and a boot - it's a little mylar adhesive piece that is great for tire repair if you can find where the tire is split before putting a new tube in. Sounds like you're on track with your training, though!
There is only one thing to say really, isn't there? - 'Oh Sarah!'
But hang on to Tuesday 13th January next time you have a bad day - it made wonderful reading - I was almost there with you!
If your training went too smoothly it wouldn't be complete, so hang on in there - but don't burn yourself out. That would be a tragic waste of all your hard work.
Luv M
xx
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