Seasonal Affected Dissorder !

I keep saying going out in these temperatures is character building. It certainly is, won't it be so good to lose all these layers and just go out in a pair of bib shorts and a short sleeved top.

The sustained frozen roads over the Christmas break put paid to many miles between the 28th December and 1st Jan 09, but back out on the 2nd, 3rd and 4th Jan 09 for 33, 29 and 51 miles respectively. With various gym visits in between, spin classes, X-trainers, pool running and various other weights and resistance work, it all seems to be going reasonably well.

The 6th Jan 09 saw the entries for the Etape du Dales... amazing !! Entries opened at 12:00 and it was sold out, 777 places by 14:30 ish. I got in, as did Thomo, Duncan and Pete so pleased about that, as I've said previously, what a fantastic route, May 17th will come quick enough.

The weekend of the weekend of the 10th and 11th Jan 09 saw rides of 33 and 67 miles, the latter fighting a 20 mph headwind for 2/3rds of the route along the Lancashire coast towards Liverpool, but it was good once we turned for home.

Work is very quiet, in fact almost non-existent at the moment so went out on Wednesday with Gaz for a leisurely 40m. About 14m in my chain broke, it must have only done 600m. I got my chain splicing tool out, pleased with myself having carried it for literally thousands of miles over many years to find the pin that pushes the chain pins is missing... not impressed, it's heavy and useless. Fortunately Gaz had one by Crank Brothers, very good. So we spliced the chain, bortered in oil, one we went. 10m later it snapped again in a different place. So we spliced it again and decided to turn for home. The 3rd time it snapped, it got hurled into a field !! and my wife came to the rescue. The shop put me on a new £40 chain with no questions FOC, complete with a lecture on how to maintain a chain.

Friday 16th Jan came down with a sore throat, this turned into a head cold and then moved to the breathing apparatus, just coming out the other end, a little fed-up to say the least but should be OK for the coming weekend.

Just signed-up to Lance's Twitter account, it's quite interesting, for example, this from a couple of days ago.....

Tidbit - we got up to 102 kms/hr today on a fast downhill. That's 63 mph. You don't want to hit the pavement @ that speed! 2:06 AM yesterday from TwitterBerry

Sign-up to Lance's twitter on: https://twitter.com/lancearmstrong?page=1

Just signed-up to the Dragon Ride, South Wales 14th June 2009, 185km / 3,000m, did this in 2007, good ride, it'll be the last big one before the Etape.

So, till next time.....