Sunday, Monday stuff

Out with the club on Sunday, in very cold conditions.  Plan was to again ride with the fast boys then cut off - our plan being to retire to the caff in Settle as the A-Team headed off to Feizor for long-tailed scampi and amazingly attractive waitresses.  In the event Tim, the strong man of the club, couldn't wait to show us all how feeble we are and sped off, taking two or three guys with him.

Herb and I, partly out of chivalry but more out of an inability to keep up, stayed with Fiona and Bob, as Skipton is starting to get a bit butch in its tendency to drop people.  I mentioned this a few rimes, as we'll have trouble attracting people to ride with us - I've been a new club member at both running and cycling clubs, and one of your worries is always "will I keep up?" - with Skipton CC of late the answer seems to be "you'd better, or you'll spend a lot of time on your own".

Anyway - our happy band made its way (via a "deflation incident" for Herb) along Littondale and up the climb from Halton Gill where we found Iain, who'd stayed with the fast lads until they announced "no cafe stop - haven't got time" - so he turned back and rode with us.

Up to five of us now, we wended our way to Settle where we had beans on toast and much tea.  The ride back through Wigglesworth and Gargrave was cold but those beans (and possibly some slight weight loss) made the ride home infinitely more pleasant than last week.  We stayed together pretty much all the way back to Embsay, as Fiona lives in the village too.

53m in the Bank of Fred (entries have closed but we don't know if we're in yet...).

Then yesterday I used my new psychological insight that running after work is much easier if you do it from work instead of when you get home - just 5m to carleton, but it's getting easier and I'm getting a tiny bit quicker.

I intended to get out after work tonight (track was a bit hopeless considering the snow), but I had several parcels arrive (including my new avalanche airbag - useful as it's going to hoss down in Chamonix this weekend) so needed to go home to play.

I'll try and get another lunchtime one in tomorrow then it's a few days off running, back on beer and hopefully knee deep in powder snow.  Chamonix awaits...

And I finally seem to have lost some weight - about 5lbs has gone - 23lbs to go...