Dancing with Bikes and other stuff...

Today's photo is from last week's swim at Brogborough lake. I was joined by my mates Simon (left) and Peter (centre). Simon is an experienced Ironman and Peter is new to triathlon. He's bound to do well as you'll see that you could fit two of him inside me.

We figured it would be our last swim of the season, but the weather has continued to hold and I swam Saturday morning and hope to get a couple more in this week. The water, however, is fast becoming colder and there comes a point where, frankly, it's all a little tiresome.

So I've gone back to the pool and am sat here snuffling and streaming due to the chlorine I've taken in. I tell you what, we athletes are often snobby about our food intake, eschewing things we feel could be damaging to us and carefully inspecting labels to seek out any ingredients which are not 'natural' yet we throw ourselves into a communal swimming pool with other unwashed bodies and bucketfuls of god-knows-what chemicals all at a temperature of 30 degrees. Surely this has to be a recipe for illness and damage... food for thought (to carry on the rather tortuous nutritional analogy).

I went out to test my calf muscle this week after it had tightened up on me last Sunday. The good news is the tightened area was fine. The bad news is that it pulled in another part altogether. Hence I've decided to have a month off running to let it heal completely. Better that than fighting an injury.

To quote the words of Tony Curtis in 'The Great Race'... "He who fights and runs away... lives to fight another day."

But I've been cycling a lot, which is a good thing. I did a couple of 25 milers and two 50 milers last week, the latter of which was with the 'Roadies' from my club, Team MK. (Team MK triathlon club grew out of the cycling club. Today the teams are essentially one large club but the roadies - for obvious reasons - don't swim and run.) Needless to say, I threw myself in at the deep end with the fast group (three ability groups ride on a Saturday morning) and made a complete horlicks of it, suffering numerous lost bottles and a crank arm that fell off. The Roadies were chortling away at this strange, muscle bound triathlete who sat up in the saddle and had a bike that was barely road worthy. They made me really welcome though and I'm looking forward to going back next week, albeit with a serviced bike.

Speaking of bikes I'm getting a bit antsy for a new one. I've got my eyes on a Cervelo RS or a Cervelo R3 and am currently performing a 'do not touch me dance' around the object of my desires as I normally do before buying anything from a pair of socks upwards. This involves copious amounts of research and pricing and looking at pictures on the internet before finally commiting to declaring my love by way of a wallet opening. Why I do it, I don't know. It's a curse. But whatever I do, or buy, I have to have researched the options first so that I can act with confidence.

I'm also performing the same courting ritual with a Range Rover Sport at the moment so god knows what will become of that. If you believe in a god... any god... pray for me, pray that I don't spend my children's inheritance in this way.

What else? Well, the good news is that since finishing up the flurry of work I'm back writing again. I'm not even going to dish out any chapter numbers but I'm making good progress and it's now become an exercise in finishing rather than in creativity. Again, this is always something that happens to me. At a certain point I simply don't want to finish what I've started. There's always something brighter on the horizon. A better idea, a funkier movie. But I identified this weakness long ago and I now know that any endeavour, especially so called artistic endeavour, reaches a point where - to use another tortuous analogy - the allure and sexiness of a two week relationship disappears to be replaced by the different reality of life with the person beneath the veneer. The hardest part is persevering to get to know the real 'person' and realising that fulfilment and true harmony rests in the soul of a person (or in this case a project) rather than its exterior sheen.

Speaking of which, I really must get back to work.

Anything else from last week? I saw Tarantino's 'INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS' (sic) which I thought to be confused and disapppointing and easily (with the exception of 'DEATH PROOF' which I didn't bother to see) his weakest movie to date.

Alice picked up a part in the school production of LES MISERABLES - a great achievement for a Year 8 student. This means that she and Erin who has a role in her school's production of WE WILL ROCK YOU will be rehearsing after school and at weekends. Which is fine, until you remember that their schools are the thick end of 20 miles away and either Fiona and I have to collect them. 'Twas ever thus for a parental taxi.

No events for me now, I pulled out of The Roade Triathlon and next sunday's Bedford Sprint Triathlon due to my calf.

Someone who did have an event though was a new cyber-buddy, Todd Paul. If you're a twitter fan you can follow him at @toddpaul. What did he do, you ask yourselves, that was so special? Well, I'll tell you what he did.

He swam the English Channel in just over 13 hours.

And there's nothing more I can add to that.