Some people have no sense of priorities do they? Not only could I not train with Dan yesterday, but he can’t train in the mornings for the rest of the week. Can you believe he actually has to spend some time with his family? Ridiculous notion in my opinion. It turns out his wife is heading back to Blighty for a hen weekend. Yes, the hen from the same marriage I mentioned before. The marriage that stopped Alex (the Stag) doing the challenge this year. How could they possibly think their undying love and impending nuptials are more important than our training? Selfish I call it :). Anyway, the net result is that Dan is home alone with his kids and I am cycling solo again today.
Cycling alone is a lonely, dull business when you're covering familiar ground for hours on end. At only 45km wide & 13km long, there's not much of Malta the 40 LifeCycle riders haven't seen before. The dawn sunshine becomes searing heat in a matter of minutes, and it's a real slog to keep going with any enthusiasm. The only highlight of these training rides is a sense of team spirit, of being in it together, so hooking up with one or more of the other riders is not only an incentive for getting out of bed at 5am every morning, but it also really helps pass the hours more quickly.
Amazingly this week I have been waking up quite brightly, ahead of the alarm, and been wide awake when I get up. I’m not quite sure why – last week was really tough and I’d found I was dragging myself up and out of bed So, despite being incredibly tired after Sunday’s 160km in 39 degree heat, something is different to be causing this change in the mornings.
Mulling it over as I headed up Mtarfa hill I couldn’t think of many differences. The only thing that sprang to mind was the end of the World Cup on Sunday. I have to be honest, I didn’t even watch any more than the first twenty minutes of the Final, and was asleep by half nine. Maybe that’s it? Could it be the extra rest from not staying up to watch the football was the cause? I honestly couldn’t think of anything else that was different. Except one small thing. I also decided on Sunday morning that I would stop drinking (alcohol) until after the challenge. Now, let’s be clear it’s not like I was downing a bottle of wine a night, but watching the football is so much more enjoyable with a drink, don’t you think?
So there are two possibilities for my increased liveliness in the mornings – I don’t know about you but I am amazed that an extra hour of sleep can have such an impact! :) :)
Anyway, whatever the reason, I was up before the larks (to be fair Malta doesn’t have many of those) and on the bike for 5.30ish. As with every other morning, the house and streets are silent, and it’s taking longer now for the dark to start lifting. When I’m putting my shoes on it feels like the only other living soul who’s awake is our kitten, Alfie, who is simply overjoyed to see me. As good as it is to have company at that unseemly hour, it’s not ideal that his idea of a friendly morning greeting is to hang off my big toe by his teeth.
No puncture today – a good start, and eventually another beautiful morning. The early starts have their obvious downsides but you do get to see a fantastic sun rise every morning. I took this today as the sun came up with Mdina in the foreground. The sight of the day though has to be the two cars crashed on the Freeport hill. I can only imagine the first one didn’t stop at the T-junction and ploughed straight across the main road into the kerb, only for the second one to do exactly the same thing, and into the back of the first. Maybe they were both temporarily blinded by that beautiful sunrise? Other than that it was just the usual chaos on the roads – a steady 62km across to Freeport and back into the office for around half eight, and feeling pretty warm but pretty good. Again, here’s the link to the ride for those who are interested:
And last track on the iPod today? Burning Down The House by Talking Heads – the 80’s was a barren decade for great songs, but this one’s not too shabby, so here's a link to that too.
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