Deflated

No, not my tyres or anything like that - it's just how I feel.  A bit deflated.  Last night I had a reasonable cycle home, but when I got to the last but one hill, up to Manor House tube station, I pretty much hit the wall.  I didn't think that was even possible on a cycle of around 5.5 miles but, apparently, it is.  I was completely devoid of energy, my thighs were burning, and even in the lowest gear I had, I couldn't make it up the hill (especially with a bus up my rear end).  I had to get off and walk over the junction and then cruise down the other side of the hill, before getting stuck in horrendous traffic for ages, just a couple of hundred metres from home (it was very tempting to get off and walk, but I wanted to practise turning left into the next road to mine and cycling up that hill).  The traffic situation wasn't helped by a rail replacement bus basically riding shotgun for a number 29 - while the 29 was gutter crawling so as to pull in for its stops, the other bus was staying just behind it (it couldn't get past), but positioned on the outside of the lane, making it impossible for anything to get past.  In any event, once I worked out how much energy was required to cycle to and from work and compared that to how much I'd actually eaten during the day, it was not at all surprising that I had run out of energy - I'll need to look at that; it's a fine line between petering out because you're not eating enough and becoming the size of a 4-bedroom semi because you're overcompensating.

If I hadn't felt so terribly tired, I was going to go and have a look at what has become over the last few days a local landmark - the very first mini-roundabout I ever tried to turn right at (see this post).  You see, in their infinite wisdom, Haringey Council decided it was high time that particular roundabout had a facelift.  It was looking a bit old and tired and becoming a bit decrepit and dangerous.  They got a contractor, Ringway Jacobs, to come in and resurface the road and repaint the roundabout onto it.  Simples, no?  No.  Apparently not.  Somehow, in this routine bit of road maintenance, the contractor managed to paint the arrows (to show you which way to circumnavigate the roundabout) the wrong way!  Yes, they painted them pointing anti-clockwise around the roundabout.  This was first reported over the weekend, and it took them until yesterday to do anything about it - a temporary measure where it looks like the arrowheads have been painted out with some kind of tar paint.  You can read all about this wrongabout on the site of one of our local newspapers, here, or in the Evening Standard, or amuse yourself with some witty repartee about it on Harringay Online.

So, without the detour, I cycled 8.21km on the way home last night, taking my total to 90.48km.

Today is a running day and I set off a lunchtime, all ready for a nice pootle about the City.  I was going pretty well and then about nine minutes into my run I got a really, really bad stomach ache.  I don't know what caused it - it could have been any number of things - but I had to stop.  I was pondering whether to try jogging a little to see if it would just go away, but decided that it wasn't worth it (and, besides, I have to play netball later).  By the time I had walked back to the office, it was starting to dissipate and now I'm back at my desk it has gone altogether, so I think I'll live.  The thing is, I'm really gutted about it because I was doing really well - I was going at a consistently faster pace than I have previously and my legs, in spite of the cycling yesterday, were feeling OK.  Anyway, in the 10 minutes or so I was running for, I did 1.25km, which takes my total to 11.46km.

If you'd like to sponsor my stomach to not ache while I'm running, you can do so by clicking the Justgiving link on the right hand side of the page and donating some money to Marie Curie Cancer Care.