Urgh.

I have a cold. Not quite enough to hamper this morning's ride (sore throat only) but at 4.37 this afternoon it suddenly thumped me rather hard.

My fph* is steadily falling. Today my bike was in hospital and I had to ride a hired bike. Missed my baby, but I survived it so it was a good experience and a step out of my comfort zone in a different direction. The frame was bigger than mine, the brakes were block brakes not disk brakes, and the right hand gear shift operated in the opposite direction to mine. I've been trying to do the descents faster recently, and making use of brakes that one would have to describe as under-achievers helped enormously in this regard.

We just emerged from a really busy weekend (sort of a four-day weekend, with Tuesday being a public holiday, and Monday correspondingly a school holiday) and are about to plunge into another. Robyn, who has just joined Guides, had a mini-camp and outdoor cook-out, at which she made roast chicken and potatoes and baked apples and custard over a fire. And Peter and the girls took part in a clean-up operation along the Hillcrest railway line - also because of the Guides connection. And Jeannette and I rode on Saturday. And I got some really fruity bruises. And there was soccer, and a braai, with Daniel's soccer team, and a sleep-over for Lauren, and games at home with friends on Saturday and Sunday evening. Puerto Rico is a brilliant game.

I love my life. I would just like a day to recover from it all now and then!

I should mention that Lauren's gym competition that I wrote about last time went really well. She came second in her section, and will be a member of the KZN team in the inter-provincial event the weekend after next.




* fph - falls per hour

Descent from Mount Euphoria

Two not so fun bike-riding things happened recently. The first was that cane ride I mentioned last time. We finished it totally exhausted. Totally. Everything hurt below the chin, and I could hardly move the rest of the day. I thought maybe it was just the pace of the ride. Most of the riders were Really Fit People, and my friend and I were at the back of the pack. Idly enquiring as to what distance we'd ridden, we discovered we'd done 37km. This explained why we were so wiped out. Almost too wiped out to be proud of the distance. We would never have done it if we'd known the distance beforehand. On the plus side, distances in the mid-20kms now seem rather arbitrary.

The other thing which happened was I took the plunge and got my first pair of shoes with cleats, which just seem to be known locally as 'cleats', and corresponding pedals. Loads of people getting started in the sport swear, at the beginning, that they'll 'never get cleats'. And then people become tempted. The more you start riding hectic routes, and the more ambitious you get, the more you can see the benefit of being attached to the pedals. (Sounds silly, I know.) But cleats let you get up hills more easily (each foot can pull as well as push), the design of the shoe and the rigidity of the sole makes for more efficient use of energy (though they're not great to walk in), and you're more stable without your feet being able to slip and slide off the pedals (which tends to happen quite readily on fast descents and rocky bits).

However.

Getting in and out of the damn things takes a lot of practice. Four days riding with cleats, and seven falls to date. Trying to come to a stop in a hurry, try to uncleat - crash. Not fun, especially on day 2 when I took four of the falls. It was a bit of a confidence shaker. (What have I done, this was a stupid idea, will I ever enjoy bike riding again, etc.)

I'm hoping things are improving. I'm going to persevere for at least June and see how things look by the end of the month.

According to local lore, apparently seven falls is the magic number, and then you stop falling. Or, in that wikipedia page on the pedals,

First time clipless users may not be proficient in unclipping quickly when coming to a stop, sometimes resulting in a low speed fall.

Another busy weekend is ahead of us, with a sponsored walk tomorrow morning at Danny's school, followed by a sleep-over for him, along with the rest of his class (the 'senior' class). There are about 10 of them in the class, and the sleep-over is the highlight of their three years at the pre-school. So he's pretty excited about that.

Then, in the afternoon, while Dan's staying on at school, the rest of us will be watching Lauren in another gym competition. This one is the KZN provincial selection meeting. The results will determine the KZN team who'll represent the province at the inter-provincial meeting in a few weeks time. Should be exciting. I hope Lauren's ok tomorrow. She's not been feeling very well the last week or so.

Sunday morning will be Dan's first soccer match ever, against another club. He's been waiting for this for months. I hope it lives up to his expectations.

Adrenaline Rush

Must go to bed soon as I'm getting up tomorrow (Saturday!) at 5 something in time to be picked up at 6. A friend and I are off on a bike ride with our group. This one is a 'cane ride' - as in a ride predominantly through sugar cane farms, with the emphasis on fitness and distance rather than on technical mountain biking skills. Depending on where we ride, we get a very different biking experience. Thursday afternoon I had my best ride ever. Switchbacks (zig-zagging paths up steep ascents), rivers, rocks, drop-offs, bridges. The adrenaline rush is incredible, and I come home and sort of glow for about 24 hours after. It's like all my adult life I've been waiting for this, and I just didn't know it. Although I've been keen to get into bikes for a few years, I had no idea what mountain biking would actually entail. I think I am someone who has a real need for physical thrill and challenge. When I was a child, sailing provided me with a somewhat similar experience, but that ended when I left school (other than the odd day casual sailing with the family). The biking is filling a gap I hadn't managed to identify before.

My euphoric mood from yesterday's bike ride came to a sudden halt this afternoon when Stephen, at a party, took rather a nasty fall on his own bike ('bike' = black plastic toddler's push-along bike) at a birthday party. The house has a large gently sloping tarred drive along the front, and I idly noticed that Stevie was having fun scooting along it. Five seconds later I looked again to see him hurtling down the other (incredibly long, and much steeper) section of the driveway, curving down towards the bottom of the garden. He must have rounded the corner and just kept going. It just never occurred to me that he would do that. Stupid of me. I started running, scattering glass of coke and keys as I went, but there was no way I could reach him in time, and he landed hard on the tar. Grazed and bruised arm, shoulder, and cheek, and a nasty little cut above the eye. I need to watch him more carefully. He is so independent and capable I can forget he is so little and inexperienced still. I am neurotically careful with Bad Stuff like Swimming Pools and Cars, but tend to be a bit too relaxed with other things. These things happen to kids, but this incident was totally avoidable if I'd just been keeping a better eye on him. Anyway, got to just learn from it and move on, I guess. Visit to the clinic, magic glue on his cut (so much less traumatic than stiches), and an x-ray just to check the wrist (no fractures, huge relief), lollipop. No major damage I suppose. I hope he is not scared of his bike now!

Life is incredibly full and busy. Lots of good stuff, but really, really busy.

We spent several hours last Saturday at Lauren's first gymnastic 'levels' competition. It was fun, and quite a lot more formal than the casual ones she has attended in the past. Different gyms from all over the province sent gymnasts. It was fun to see all the teams in their club colours. We were all thrilled when she received a fifth place (out of 13 in her section), and we were also quite surprised at the result, as she got a disappointing score on beam due to her omitting a couple of steps in the routine. This meant she got into the medals (six medals for each section) and got to stand up with the other medal winners.

Other than gymnastics twice a week, Lauren also still does ballet (also twice a week), and recently joined a Cubs group, which meets on Tuesday evenings. Add to this three school extra-murals (hockey, sewing club, and an academic extension group), and recorder and choir, also at school, and she is a very busy little person. Seems to thrive on it though, and fortunately homework is currently something she can dash off without much trouble in between all of this. A couple of weeks ago, she joined me on her first 20ish km bike ride - one of the events at the Karkloof Classic MTB event. The ride was several km longer than planned - an enormous swarm of bees caused the ride to be detoured along unprepared tracks strewn with logs and other obstacles. I was so proud of how well she did. Peter did the 10km ride with Robyn and they also had fun. I'm hoping Robyn will soon feel confident enough to come on the slightly longer rides.