20 January 2021
I will come clean and admit that November the 21st my last posting was too long between postings! however the tedium and monotony of lockdown from COVID assisted by shear laziness and bad weather has not been the most motivating factors to sit and write about cycling, running....... et al when you have not really managed anything dynamic, uplifting or remotely interesting to write about. Perhaps I should start with a list of events that have and will change my life forever.
Firstly my wife was diagnosed with Bowel Cancer just before Christmas, with a devastating impact on us and our future retirement, she is making progress and we are told its caught early, and can be treated etc. she has just completed a course of Radiotherapy and is now waiting for her surgery to remove the Tumour, which cant come quick enough for us.
Secondly, sadly she also has been told she has an overactive thyroid, diagnosed the same time as the cancer, but its taken the local GP surgery nearly two months to do anything about it, all she has is medication after being told there were no appointments available to se the specialist!
Thirdly we are now in our third lockdown, which means we are only allowed out for essential travel, and shops are shut unless selling essentials. Looking around there does seem an awful lot of people who are not complying with the lock down rules. At the moment there is not date set to end it, the exception being schools will be back on March the 8th!
Fourthly We have both had our first Vaccine, both the Astrazenica vaccine. we both had a reaction making us both feel unwell for a short time.
Lastly, I lost one of my brothers to Cancer just before Christmas, which meant a trip up to Mansfiled for a funeral, whilst in lockdown.
Back to Cycling and running, last year I managed to run 1454 miles and cycle 1274 miles, my furthest run miles in a year, but my worst cycle miles since before 2010, my average miles cycled is usually around 3200, so way down this year, which I partly put down to being a member of a running club and able to have some good social runs [even in lockdown with one other person socially distanced] and the weather when poor doesn't impact quite so much, however since lockdown I have missed the Quantcks and the Mendips for my Trail runs. cycling wise its 'billy no mates' as I have been unable to find people who want to cycle at my pace and distance, either too fast [most clubs] or too slow! and of course the ever present rubbish weather of this winter.
So far in Jan and Feb this year I have run 201 miles and cycled 46miles so running going ok, usually shorter 6 or 7 miles or less, I have managed a couple of runs on Brent Knoll and round the coast path of Huntspill, as well as beach runs, any local footpaths have been ankle deep mud for weeks! as we seem to be in a pattern of one fine day then three bad ones, which is very depressing. My daughter has bought a Treadmill, and I have used it twice, I find it difficult to motivate myself and get bored quickly.
There no other significant things happening as we cant go anywhere, the Grizzly have decided to abandon the attempt to run and event this year, first of all postponing till October and then finally deciding it was too risky with all this COVID still seeming never ending. I think this will be a common theme this year with organizer's not risking setting up events and there have been several other casualties as a result, Parkrun shows no signs of restarting, so!!! it looks like a bleak year to race in my 70th year!!! when I was looking forward to my new category and maybe some prizes for age group wins :)
My camper van, sadly has only been driven round town twice a week, I daren't go further as it might not be classed as an essential journey, I was keeping the battery topped up with a sola panel, but last week saw temperatures on -2 or -3 over several days which finally killed the battery
I must make sure that I post more regular updates of what's happening I think I am up-to-date, no interesting cycling or running to report, no fell runs or walks and definitely no camping!!
so by for now :)
