I've missed his insults. It's his one redeeming feature...
It's now only a WEEK until the Mud Runner Oblivion - gulp. The other four Cows are doing fantastically and I'm still on the bike... (Back fine, knees now given up, thank you for asking).
Wee Gill still hadn't entirely embraced the idea of 'mud' and we (ok, I) thought that it would be A Good Idea to go mud hunting and take her along the muddiest filthiest slippiest tracks we knew. So we did.
We started just like last week - me pointing the Cows in the right direction and then whizzing round on the road. And, just like last week, they beat me again. Drat!
Once we reached the 'fun stuff' (Wee Gill - that's what the rest of us call mud) I cycled behind them, or in front of them if I thought I was likely to fall off. Seems that the thing to do on a mountain bike in mud is to go fast, skid a lot, keep pedalling and hope you hit a solid bit of ground soon. And also hope that the bike stays upright. Mostly it worked, but there was a fair bit of shrieking and feet going down into puddles...
And then this - LOOK - Wee Gill actually treading in the MUD! Hooray!
Quick Ceri bounced on ahead - and the rest of us ambled along and gratefully stopped to have our photo taken:
You'll notice that both Beagle Nik and Wee Gill have remembered the 'Posh Spice Finishing School One Leg In Front' pose. I'm leaning heavily on my bike and Ice Cream Sian looks like she's wondering why we've stopped...
And the mud was brilliant! All the rain this week isn't wasted at all... just look at these gorgeous legs:
Then it was up Cowpat Field (don't step in the steaming mud) where I did some splendid slipping and sliding on the bike but managed to get far enough ahead to take a photo of three Happy Cows:
Where's Quick Ceri? Um, about 50 yards past me....
And then this: No, we've no idea what she was doing either. We've actually turned this into a caption competition on the Ice Cream Parlour's Facebook page...
We're simply calling it Venus Rising From The Mud. Obviously.
We carried on past (I know - PAST - again!) the pub and down through yet more mud towards home. As it was quite downhill there was even more shrieking from me on the bike, and from Quick Ceri who actually got stuck in a mud puddle... And in the Barbecue Wood (people have barbecues in there - we're still pretty inventive with names) I fell off twice. The second time I did think 'oops there's a tree' but managed to miss it. The pedals whacked me in the legs quite a lot and I found myself wishing that my cycling trousers were as padded in the front as they are on the butt as I landed on the handlebars several times when executing emergency stops with the wrong brakes... I have 13 new bruises.
And Quick Ceri raced me home again. And beat me again. I'm contemplating asking Guy to have the car waiting round the corner next time... If you've been on muddy bike tracks and then cycle Very Fast on the roads the mud all flicks up off the front wheel and hits you in the face. Who knew?
I had mud in my hair and I even achieved top gear on my bike for the first time ever. And I STILL didn't win... Nearly caught Beagle Nik on the line (the parlour gate) but then realised I had to leave time to stop, so she got there before me. Must practice late braking.
We had a lovely coffee/chocolate/ice cream in the parlour until I (a) realised there was a faint whiff of cow poo and (b) realised it was me.... Time to go home then...
So next week is Oblivion - 10 kilometres, 10 fiendish obstacles, acres of mud and two lakes.
And we're REALLY looking forward to it!
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