The Grimace

Well I have a problem.  OK I can hear the groans of disbelief - What now Alice? Sprained ankle, mystery virus, ill fitting bike?  No.  Don't worry, this time its more...cosmetic.

You see, when I run, my face contorts itself into this sort of mutant grimace whilst tinting itself a vibrant shade of scarlet.  A friend's son observed me running yesterday and I am afraid he is now traumatised by the experience.  It sounds like he actually thought he was going to have call me an ambulence.  Interestingly, I have never yet managed to do a running event where the attendent ambulence staff haven't singled me out as I shuffled by to "just check I was feeling OK". 

I've tried smiling but it sort of just looks like I've got a mutant scarlet grimace AND have just had a partial stroke.  Plus, to be honest, smiling takes energy that I don't necessarily have to spare.




I'm the one in the white shirt (as opposed to marked by the white hand) but the similarity is striking.








Until next time,  if you see any concerned looking medics watching me exercise, please assure them that I am almost certainly absolutely fine!

love

Ironmaiden

Back in the saddle...

First week back training after three weeks struck down.  It isn't as easy as I'd like it to be, but I am out there doing it and that is what matters! 

Running is a wheezy shuffle, so no change there, swimming was wet and a bit cold and I seem to have remembered the basics, and riding the bike is like, well, riding a bike.  Although tonight I did have a wee bit of a mishap as I forgot how to operate my pedal clip thingees.  I had one of those dramatic moments of inertia on the highway as one foot flapped around uselessly and the other tried to pedal all by itself. The effect of one foot pedalling is not that different to the sound of one hand clapping.  But I figured it out just before gravity caught up with me and off I  tootled without any major incidents of falling into the path of erratic RWC traffic.

It is just a light week while I get back into training, so hopefully next week I'll get a fair idea of how far backwards that virus sent me. 

Until next time then!

love
Ironmaiden

OK, may be not such a little challenge.

Yup, OK that virus was real.  I ended up having to have TWO WEEKS off work (and training).  The coughing, napping, the general suffocation... a bad business indeed.  But I am back in the land of the living now, two days back at work.  I haven't started training yet, but hopefully in the next day or two I'll be ready to get back amongst.  The moral of the story - nothing makes you appreciate your health until some virus comes and steals it away!  Now I have the recoverer's euphoria and everything is good!

A couple of weeks without training though...who knows what kind of a setback that will be? I guess there is only one way to find out!

I am off to Blenheim in 10 days time to be support crew for a team in Spring Challenge.  I hope they realise my bike mechanic skills extend to:
- kicking the bike
- swearing at it
- bursting into tears
- throwing it in Fred's garage and pretending I never saw the damn bike in the first place.

but otherwise I am looking forward to a change of scene and catching up with some South Islanders!

Until next time, I've some catch-up cricket to play!
love
Ironmaiden