After the cycling yesterday (even though it was almost entirely downhill) today is my non-training day so I have a gentle swim (just half a mile) to loosen my knees up. That'll be my nice STRAIGHT knees. Hooray! Still doing the exercises...
Then we're off to Monmouth to see Guy's lovely mum, Joy, for lunch. As well as being a non-training day, I decide that it's also going to be a non-diet day... so we have coffee with biscuits, then a restaurant lunch with roast beef, white wine spritzer, sticky toffee banana pudding, chocolate brownie and ice-cream, coffee and fudge. Before you think I am a total guts and deserve to look lumpy in my Lycra, I did only eat half of each pudding - Guy really doesn't do puddings so Joy and I have this great arrangement where we decide on two puddings we fancy, order both, split them in half and then have half of each, each. Each each? You know what I mean... they were both lovely, by the way!
We also have a very involved discussion about bicycles and gears. Yesterday, just as I'm getting my head around the 'left lever back brake, front gears, right lever front brake, back gears' I also found out that the lever on the right (back gears) makes them go up, whereas the lever on the left (front gears) makes them go DOWN. How mad is that? Guy tries to explain why they are designed this way. As the main gist of his argument seems to be 'because they are' it's not much help in persuading me they have to be so complicated. I need labels on the handlebars if I'm going to know what gear is what on the tri. But it may not be a problem as there may not be any gears... oh dear.
After lunch I get an email to say that the London Bicycle company (yep, I'm naming and shaming) have CANCELLED my bike hire for the triathlon as only 2 people have hired bikes from them and it's not 'feasible' to only deliver 2 bikes to the event. Is that 'not feasible' as in 'not economical'? Oh dear. So, now I have the swim which is fine, the bike ride where I don't have a bike, and a run where I don't have any knees. Could this get more pear-shaped? I've raised £280 now so I'm jolly well doing it. I can sort this. Although being told 6 days before the event on a Bank Holiday weekend complicates things. I have two options: (1) ask the organisers nicely for help (already done!) and (2) hire my bike in Caerphilly and take it to the event on the back of the car. Then that's another problem - old Smart cars had the most beautiful bike racks in the shape of wishbones on the back - so stunningly designed that I wanted one even when I didn't have a bike. There was one on Ebay for £80 a week ago and I would have bought it until I found out that it won't fit the new model of Smart, which I have. The bike rack for a new Smart is unbelievably ugly and costs £400. Yes, that's FOUR HUNDRED POUNDS. No way! So can we get a bike rack for the back of the Fiat 500? Not sure... we would have figured it out over the winter, but now we may only have 6 days, one of which is a Bank Holiday, and I'm working on 4 of the others... hey ho.
'There are no such things as problems, only opportunities' as they say in life coaching.
On the plus side, Joy gives my sponsorship total a fabulous boost - I'm nearly at £300! And my knees are straight.
PS: I've just discovered there's a bike hire shop in Windsor - about a mile from the event site. I may have to cycle it to the site but it'll be like a warm up! I'll phone them tomorrow... YAY!!
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