Sod the cycling... I'm off diving....

Don't know why but since the Cumbrian Xmas Cracker I've been struggling for motivation on the bike. The weekend after the event did 38m on the Saturday then, and this is quite amazing, I got the MBX out on the Sunday and went up on Winter Hill to watch the Winter Hill Fell Race in the snow. We had about 10 from Chorley Harriers running and about 15 in support, here's the motley crew on the left !

So the days passed with various gym visits to the diving holiday to the Red Sea coast, Egypt. This was an all inclusive deal with Thomas Cook, specially for people 5'6" and under judging by the legroom on the 25 year old airplane ! My headphones didn't work on either flight, I should buy a lottery ticket this weekend judging by the response from the sharp tongued air hostess who said this was very rare and I was the only case she could recall where the IES (inflight entertainment system..... apparently?) hadn't worked, when I explained it was on both flights she quickly changed the subject and asked me to stop shouting. I think my ears were still not 100% after the diving.

The resort was the Tulip Resort Hotel at Marsa Alam, well to be precise, Marsa Alam was 60km south of the resort but hey, minor detail. The all inclusive actually means almost all inclusive, if you want espresso coffee €2 extra, if you want fruit juice €2 extra and so on. Had a pool side bar melee with a bunch of Italian staff who stole 3 burgers off the griddle ear-marked for ourselves and this nearly developed into an international incident had our 6'6" Drayman from Castleford not interjected. Still he praised me for standing up for the Brits and my reputation thereafter preceded me, with bar staff falling over backwards to oblige !

So to the point, the diving..... We (my mate Simon, my son Ciaran and I) did a PADI deep dive speciality course, this involved dives to 40.0m, where everything creaks.... a lot ! the dive instructor had us counting off a slate to 15 against a stop watch to see if the nitrogen narcosis had affected performance (this is where being narky comes from). My times were the same, my son was faster at 40m that on the surface which leads me to the conclusion he is better off living on the bottom of the ocean. Simon lost the plot and took double the time !

My 12 year old daughter, Katy did her Open Water Course, she can now dive to 18m with us. This is a 4 - 5 day course and quite tough, she struggled with the sea dive off a boat in 12m of water but cracked it the following day with 2 fine shore dives.

We swam with giant turtles, a dugong (a sea cow), see above, this was about 2.2m long and the locals called it Dennis ! The highlight of the trip was a dive called Elphinstone a reef about 6km offshore. We were looking for oceanic sharks or reef sharks. So, coincidentally, the film Open Water was on the hotel TV the night before so my son and I were really psyched-up for the dive. We were sat on a Zodiac bobbing around in the Red Sea wondering what the hell we were playing at when the dive guide said OK let's go and we fell backwards into the sea. Well the reef was amazing, some 300m long and 200m high and about 20m wide, the current moved you along at the correct speed to see this amazing feat of nature unfold before your very eyes. We did 2 dives to 25m for 45 minutes and were disappointed not to see the sharks but did have an encounter with a family of dolphins ! Here's my son Ciaran on the Zodiac between Elphinstone dives with Nino our guide. So after 6 days in the water it was time to endure the trip home but not before an excursion to Hurgarda, an Egyptian city about 230km north of where we were staying. It was some drive on empty roads. Hurgarda was a large enough city of resort hotels, typically Arabic. Katy got herself sunburned whilst we were out at Elphinstone so struggled with the car journeys. We went downtown in the city and were pestered by locals trying to sell us all manner of things legal and not so legal ! The trip back to the hotel was interesting, a 230km taxi journey for €70. Stopped at 2 roadblocks due to the terrorist actions in Cairo that evening.

Back home, restarting the training has been OK, a spin class on Tuesday and a 53m ride today, Thursday with Thomo, my goodness the legs are sore ! Planning some miles over the weekend and yes the new bike has arrived, just need to pick it up, oh and pay for it !!

Till next time......

Cumbrian Christmas Cracker - 1st Feb 09

Well, as the title suggests today was the deferred Cumbrian Christmas Cracker from last December, 60 miles from Grassmere south to Flookborough.

Just got the Garmin 705 in the week after breaking my Polar CS200 when I threw the bike in the car after the chain snapping escapade. Its obviously a very capable tool but I have to say the instructions are pretty basic.... it's on the web for help from the community.

It was up at 05:00 stuffing cold rice pudding into the system... nice ! load up the gear, the bike and then off to pick up Gaz and Pete, we were on our way at 06:20. Arrived at the start at 07:30 for registration. After the shock of the car park fee £6 we settled down to getting ready. The weather was cold but clear once it came light.

The route took us out of Grassmere straight up Red Bank at 25%, bit of a shock when we hit the ice on the up slope, so it was off the bike, restarting on the slope was interesting ! The descent was not too icy. Thereafter, every time we crossed any run-off from adjacent fields they were frozen so great care was required. The route took us to Consiton, down the east side of the lake along the route of the Coniston 14 running race and then on to Haverthwaite, across the A590 to Cark then past Bigland Estate to Flookborough into a fierce headwind. We stayed together mainly but I have to confess to getting on the back of a 3 man breakaway group for the 6 mile run into Flookborough, it was fast.

The food stop was excellent, clearly the organisers had catered for about 300 riders but less than half has shown, this probably due to the deferral process deadline of 19th December 2008. Didn't really need to stop but what the hell, it was a social ride. Stopped for about 30 minutes

The stop was at the low point of the elevation profile above. Straight out of the food stop we were faced with a 25% 'wall' that nobody had mentioned ! Then it was the climb over Bigland, across the A590 and north through Grizedale Forest, Salterthwaite, Outgate, outskirts of Ambleside, Rydal Water and home.

We came in 88th / 89th and 90th out of a field of 140with an elapsed time of 4h 35m and a ride time of 3h 58m.... maybe we shouldn't have stopped !! We did well to avoid the snow which came in later that afternoon.

This is Gaz just coming into the finish, still smiling ! The christmas pudding and custard went down very well. So the stats..... The Garmin advised 56.5 miles but further investigation reveals that the Garmin reads about 4% low on a bike this is due to the 'fix' rate, about every 100m so the curves don't get measured. In a very rural setting this can be quite a loss. The ride is quoted at 58.5 miles consistent with this shortfall. Calories burned 4041, average speed 14.4 (slowed due to the ice - my excuse and I'm sticking to it), total ascent 4,350ft or 1,326m, reasonable for the time of year.

Till next time.....