Yesterday was supposed to be a cycling day. It was not a cycling day. I was too tired and achy from the previous several days of exertions to even contemplate fluorescent Lycra, so I decided not to do it. However, I can't just stop training, so instead of having my rest day today, I cycled into work. This week is going to require a little jiggery-pokery in any event as we're off to a wedding on Thursday, which requires an early start (so no time for training) and won't be back until Friday afternoon - I haven't quite worked out how to fix it just yet, but I may need to double up on one or two days to make sure I do all my sessions.
This morning, I planned to leave the house at 8.30 a.m. I have no idea what time I did actually leave the house, but it must have been closer to nine o'clock because I spent a considerable amount of time pumping up my tyres and looking for one of my cycling gloves, which appears to have gone missing during the trip my helmet took from the hall to the lounge a couple of weeks ago. I never did find the glove, so I had to borrow James's old ones which are both decrepit and too big but, on balance, marginally better than having no gloves at all.
I set off as usual, completely chickened out of the mini-roundabout right turn at the bottom of the road, walked to the park and figured I'd lost my nerve and had to get it back pretty quickly - no time to turn back, no bag to fold and stow my bike into, so cycling (and not walking) all the way was the only option. Once I was through the park and back onto the road, I started to feel my mojo slowly returning. By the time I got to Newington Green (the enormous roundabout disguised as a park), I was on the "b*gger it, let's give it a go" side of the "I'm really not sure about this" line.
I carried on towards town and was only mildly distracted when someone shouted "nice a*se" on the side of the road. Then I realised that they were talking to me. Then I realised that my lower back was cold. Then I realised that they were talking to me because I was, basically, mooning the people of De Beauvoir Town due to a minor wardrobe malfunction. I stopped to fix this just before going into Shoreditch Park and carried on my merry way.
(I should add as an aside here that, while the previous paragraph may seem like too much information, I have a terrible affliction whereby if I do something embarrassing, stupid and/or hilarious, then whereas other people would keep it to themselves, never to be mentioned to another soul, I tend to tell people about it if I think it is funny. Just the other day I managed to get myself stuck standing on the arm of an armchair (no, not sure how); I probably could have got myself down eventually, but life's too short to spend it standing on armchair arms, so despite the fact that I knew I looked stupid and would be the subject of laughter, I shouted for James to help me. When he'd stopped rolling around on the floor laughing hysterically, he did help. Actually, on balance, it may have been quicker to get down on my own.)
The rest of my journey was uneventful until I reached Leonard Circus, which was completely shut and I had to walk around. This junction previously had a really stupid north-bound only segregated cycle lane that was all but impossible to get onto and cyclists often would just cycle on the wrong side of the road for that 20m or so as it was probably safer than the possibility of getting in a tangle with the kerb on the cycle lane. I really hope that whatever they are doing there (which looks like quite a major facelift) solves this problem and gives cyclists better options.
I'm not sure if I'm going to cycle back tonight - I have to go somewhere (more later) before I go home, so I'll need to work out if there is a sensible route I can take to get there. Otherwise, I may cycle back tomorrow evening.
Finally, I'm afraid my training plan didn't fit in my saddle pack this morning, so I'll have to supply the "tick photo" later!
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