Moving On.

I’ve had some anxiety and some tiredness since my last blog but nothing to write home about.

I did an easy 8 mile run yesterday and today set out for a half marathon to set a starting distance for my weekly Long Slow Run (LSR) today. Wendy needed to go and get bloods done and was looking very washed out so I thought I’d go with her. That meant I had to set off a nippy pace. I did an 8.05 first mile which was a bit too fast for a foundational LSR, then got a bit faster,7.55 7.40s, then a few 7.30s. That’s way fast for me for a LSR, especially as I’m just returning to training. I looked at my time at 9 miles to see what it would take to get a sub 1.40. Roughly sub 7.30. I nearly killed myself 7.18, 7.23, 7.21, 7.21 but I scraped it in at 1.39:58. I’ll take that. 10 minutes off my best, but I didn’t set out to run fast. It was supposed to be LSR. And I put the maximum effort in at the point where I was wanting to slow down, so good effort. When I got back Wendy insisted on going on her own after all. So that was unnecessarily hard for nothing. I don’t appear to have done any physical damage and I’ve not triggered any long covid (so far), so it’s all good. Now I have to get a plan and stick with it. Gradual, carefully planned gains are better than stupid, impromptu flat out efforts.

I’m still struggling a bit to find motivation to do my bike. I had two proper jobs left to do on the Harley. Fix the grinding/ refusal to go from neutral to first gear and sort the ‘needs choke to run’ problem.

I read up on both. The first seems to be clutch adjustment. Read how to do it properly in the manual. Slacken all the tension off the clutch cable, adjust the clutch, then tension the cable. I did it the other way round. It’s made a big difference to the clutch. It flicked into gear with the engine off, but my battery didn’t have enough juice to start the engine so I couldn’t give it a live test. I am hopeful though. The battery going flat again lead me to a small side job I’d been putting off, swapping the regulator/ rectifier unit. That is probably why the battery isn’t recharging. I took my old one off, snipped some wires, put the new one on and… it doesn’t fit. Super. It’s about 1 or 2 millimeters too wide to fit between the down tubes of the frame. The reg/rec has an electrical component and the frame around it is just a finned radiator affair to cool it down. I think I can grind off the excess without affecting the unit. The battery is on charge. I can test if I’ve fixed my gear problem tomorrow. Then it’s improvise the fit of the reg/rec and adjust the carb. They said online the need for choke, and the banging, is too lean a mixture on the idling jet. Either the mixture is too lean or possibly an air leak at the manifold. I’ll take the carb off and find the mixture screw, make sure it’s set right, test the manifold rubber, in fact, I’m going to buy a new one. New carb, new seal. Surely then it’s just a matter of setting it them?

So, the jobs roll on. I have lost the mad urgency now. I have a bike that does me fine (my VFR750) and the Harley seems never ending. I’ll get there.

The good news is run, one job done (I think) and I’m not battered with long covid. The latter is fantastic. I’m sat here fine, taking it for granted that I’m alright, but it was only last week I thought I was going to be suffering for another year or so. It’s still fresh enough that I can appreciate being a bit tired but no wasted with it.

Later,

Buck