It’s a sad state of affairs when you get too busy to blog. Considering we haven’t been away this summer, it’s been pretty hectic.
Obviously, having a new(ish) baby about the place is a good reason to keep my fingers off the keyboard in non-work time, but it also seems to have just been a bit of a packed time. Loads of things have happened that I’d usually go into great detail reporting, but the reporting time itself is at a premium, so instead, in the ultimate compromise, a list-view of recent goings-on:
- Two fell races (and one more coming up this Wednesday) – in the Rossendale mid-week series – finished just about where I wanted to in the Golf Balls fell race and let myself down a bit in the Pilgrim’s Cross fell race. Google Earth maps of the fell races here
- Two smashing days out on a long weekend:
Morecambe: – had a trip to the seaside in some pretty decent weather at last – and a great chance to play with Lily on the beach (although she lost Ariel’s arm!) and visit the recently renovated Midland Hotel – an art deco landmark. A fully restored Gill relief sculpture of the Morecambe Bay area was a lovely highlight, as was getting a snap of Mum on the steps of the Hotel holding her wedding photo from the same spot. I also managed to sneak in a nice ride back from Morecambe via the gorgeous Trough of Bowland and long climb of Waddington Fell.
Great Hucklow: – an annual trip to catch up with some old friends from Gloucestershire – Will and Juliet – and their fun family. A grand day out including some climbing wall fun and Will being part of the Doris Dancing team.. - Some good momentum in the Three Peaks training, with some great 6:20am starts now three Sundays in a row (albeit with some appallingly bad mechanical incidents, the training still happened!).
- The Olympics have been a time to be proud as a cyclist. We should make the most of times like these and it won’t be long before the Telegraph and Mail bits of the country start hating pesky lycra louts again. The Olympics in general have been a great reminder of how utterly rubbish the ‘normal’ sport on TV is in this country. So, so so so so so so badly skewed in favour of footballers pretending to be fowled. Some dodgy tattoos though.
- I’ve relaunched the UKCyclocross.com website. It’s now a fully functional ‘ning’ – a cyclocross social network with some stunning functionality – I really hope people start using it to upload their own reports and images.
I’ll hopefully gather some time in the near future to start writing ‘properly’ some time soon. When things calm down. That distant, lovely day that never comes.