what happens?

It's been a while since I posted here. That is down to the fact that my foot is still unusable. I have a date with a foot and ankle consulting surgeon in September and hope that that will provide a way of moving forward again.

I'm starting to suspect Hallux Rigidus as the main culprit.

So there has been no running, more is the pity. On the other hand (or foot) there has been a lot of biking - usually over the glorious Malvern Hills and usually on some pretty devestating terrain. My vocabulary is now spiced with such descriptive name-checks as Hitchcock, Chossy Gullet, Narnia, Yew Tree, Dambusters and others.

It's a bit difficult to document with photographs, and more so as my regular biking pal has just had his bike pinched from his yard. This means fewer trips currently but once he gets on top of that I think we are going to photograph some of the action.

Stay tuned (fettled?)...

[i desperately need a] short break!

I have the chance to take a short break this coming weekend but I'm short of ideas. I want to go somewhere to ride my bike - off road, trails, single track, &c - but it has to be somewhere that I can get to by train with the bike.

Needs a camp-site. Needs to be off the beaten track. Needs to be massive in terms of funn.

So far I have come up with Afan, down in South Wales, as it is relatively close and probably ticks all the boxes, although I don't know if it's that accessible by train. Still I can cycle a certain distance in a day. Mid Wales would be better I think but that's a tad more difficult to reach.


Any and all suggestions are welcome.

Thanks

S

[still not] training

watch this space...

[not] training

Hello folks!

It's time for that old refrain "I've not written here in a long while so it's about time I made something up."

It's getting on for two months since I was able to run. I finally made it to a Physio who confirmed my investigations into the possible causes of the pain I have - the dreaded Sesamoid bone - and surprised me with some off-the-cuff acupuncture and a bit of ultra sound. She then requested that I continue to not run and come back and see her in a weeks time (now the 26th of May), so I oblige and have upped my cycling / weight lifting quota.

Biking is becoming fun after a wee while of re-adjustment, and the lifting is paying dividends. I'm managing to control my bodyweight with an admixture of Matt Fitzgerald, Cutters Choice and some obsessive calorie counting, but this Lithuanian beer is quite compelling. 5.2% at two in the afternoon, with a roll up in me pocket and We Jam Econo on the TV.

Serious.

I got bit by a dog this morning. That was fun. I'd just begun an hours speed play on the bike when I felt teeth on my shin. A quick unclip and, for once, my angry boot caught the mutts head. I confronted the owner about it who cowered almost as much as the dog. I wondered aloud and at volume whether the parent of a bike riding child would be so forgiving in my place and told her to consider some training. For the dog you understand.

Friars Balsam. Stings like a bee...

Gruel are playing the 1in12 next weekend, with Bong, Drunk In Hell and an Irish band called Drainland so if you find yourself in Bradford with an urge to rock out with yr pecker firmly in yr trousers then get along, lil doggy. They don't bite. I'm gonna try to go but it's a long way from here to there and I am brassic as per usual.

Ok, i'm off. TTFN!

VOTE TORY - GET SHAFTED.

[not] training

I finally got to see a locum about my foot, and as it happens she is also a runner. Cue sympathy for the, ahem, habit based nature of my affliction. I'm off for an Xray (what ever became of  The X-rays? Great gnarly garage punk band from the North) today and I have a phone number for a physiotherapist to call later this morning.

The Doc and I talked about all sorts of things, which was refreshing. I think she probably had few appointments booked for her evening surgeries. So not only did I walk away with my foot felt and some referral papers but careers advice, benefits opportunities, a potted history of a med students time in A+E and the practise of  'thinking outside the box' with regard to employment.

 Plenty of people my age (on the doorstep of the big four-oh) retrain and change their lives. Helene Diamantides springs to mind. If memory serves me right, didn't she re-train later in life and become a succesful physiotherapist? It's all stacked against me but that is nothing new...

Fun'ing [it's a bit like training but not quite]

So I  managed to get the big tires onto the bike for a ride over at Malvern last night. A couple of  nights before me and The KG had fixed up his front derailler, and got a little drunk on Aussie beer in the process, and he was keen to get out to see what would occur. It seems the benefits of shifting improves his riding experience no end. Who'd have thought it?

We parked below British Camp and set off in search of a mysterious gatehouse and a path that leads downhill to Gullet quarry. This becomes a bridleway and does in fact go downhill. After a few experimental leaps of navigation we found our selves riding through the woods on the west side of the hills above the deer park. We were probably riding where we shouldn't have. Nonetheless it was a decent run out with a few thrills and few spills.

At the top of Midsummer Hill we took a small  path down a pretty steep descent that was blocked halfway with a fallen tree. The KG had a moment where it looked as if his mid-nineties V brakes would kill him, on terrain that was nigh beyond dabbing, but he came out on the Castlemorton to Hereford road cut through like a young Steve Peat.

Well, nearly.

We stopped off at the quarry lake-side and cleaned the steeds, as they were gonna be squeezed back into the boot of his Ford, much to the amusement of some bar-b-cue-ing casuals. It was refreshing to wade into the man-made lake and clean off the clay. When my man used a clump of grass as an impromptu Squee-gee I knew we were on form and in Gear.

The ride back up to Clutters Cave and over the reservoir was punctuated with half a bar of work, rest and play for morale and a fast ride in the gathering dusk - beautiful scenery as the light tinged the vague haze with pink over the valley of the River Severn..

 "I love being on high ground in the evening, there is always such an air of peace about. The mornings can be special too, but then there is a more expectant air, a fragile stillness that is soon to dissolve into the bustle of a full day. The evening hills have the promise of a yet deeper peace."
Mike Cudahy - 'Wild Trails to Far Horizons', pg. 17. Italics mine.