Category: Life

Turns out work haven’t got rid of me, the agency lost their mobile ‘phone and with it my mobile number. They rang me on the landline tonight, I’m back in as usual all week. Bugger. I was looking forward to a few days indolence.

It’s good in several ways though; it pays the bills while I apply for another job and it keeps my hand in so I’m confident for any assessment. Also it looks better applying for a job whilst in work, especially applying for a trunking driving job whilst you are doing a trunking driving job.

Well, what a time we had and no mistake.

As I said last time, we booked a cheap week away in a caravan in Cornwall months ago, in anticipation of the glorious British Summer. Then it pissed it down continuously for three months. Hopes were not high.

By some strange miracle we actually had nice weather! Huzzah!

My exciting plan to buy a cool car has suffered a set-back. Or three.

The Midget is still cool. In a dinky sort of way. I mean, look:

The training has started. My first week commuting to work. I’ve found a bit of a short cut to avoid the big, busy island approaching town. It’s still about 10½ miles each way. That’s my first 100+ miles in the bag, then.

I  realized after my last post that the day-sack (small rucksack) just wouldn’t hold all my stuff so I bought a proper rucksack. I started the week with that backpack. Seriously not good.

You know how you set yourself a goal (my first of note was to run a half marathon) then when you’ve done it you see that far from being impossible it’s common-place? So you raise your game ( full marathon, Ironman) but that’s not good enough because it’s not the brand name Ironman, just the distance. The Rola-Cola of endurance triathlons. Drunks shun you when they realize it wasn’t a branded event. Well, as I mentioned last time I’m going to put that to rights next year. So how’s about this for training for it;  a Lands End to John O’Groats ride!

I’m going to do it the other way around (apparently we happy few call it an ‘end to end’, anyway) as Scotland’s up North so it should be all downhill to Cornwall. Genius. You can tell I’ve been studiously researching it.

I’m looking at 120 – 140 miles a day at the minute, so I can do it in a week. The chap who’s very witty book on the subject I’ve been reading did 150 m/d to do it in six days. It would appear the record is something like one day, seventeen hours! I’ll not be going for that. I’ll see how the training goes. I did 112 miles in a bit under seven hours for the Outlaw, perhaps 150 miles a day is not too much of an ask. We’ll see.