Five weeks with bikes and it doesn't seem to get any easier.
Gloriously unseasonal weather today. The forecast is for it to continue. The maximum temperature will only be 14 on Thursday but with a gloriously circular yellow sun as the dominant weather. Out today, feeling hot in short-sleeved t-shirt and light cotton trousers. Queues at the ice-cream van. Beer gardens full. When I returned home, I realised I had caught the sun. Tanning in October!
I would willingly forego a hot baking humid stuffy sweaty summer if the pay-off is a glorious autumn like this. I like my temperatures in the high teens and low twenties. Anything higher requires a beach, a foreign language and idleness. In less than four months the days will be getting longer, new life will be pushing through the soil and the weak sunshine of a temperate winter (second half of) will be as welcome as a Glorious Autumn.
I was in considerable discomfort on the bike today. Almost all the time it seemed that my legs were really killing. My thigh muscles are firming up spectacularly, but they don't seem to be very effective. Last weekend I was having real problems with a racing pulse and tremendous sweatiness. Today, I was simply sub-par in energy and strength. Part of me thinks that it is cycle related (and I don't mean bicycle). But why should that have such an effect on my leg muscles?
I had to sit down and rest having crossed Balham Hill, and again on Nightingale Lane. It was actually nice to abandon the bikes and walk round the pond on Wandsworth Common. A quick drink in the Nightingale, scared away by stentorian yummy-mummies and a quick sprint to The Grove. Fortunately, we sat outside, because inside was a baby that never stopped crying. It was a small baby and that's what they do. I don't want to be the sort of person who objects to babies crying in public places, but, a pub's a pub, and it used to be the one place you could go to escape crying babies.
I don't suppose large quantities of beer were particularly helpful, but I really did struggle to get home. Most of all, it's the final stretch, up Atkins Road from the pint it becomes the South Circular. It's not really far at all, indeed on the way out the regret is that the freewheel down is so short. But uphill, on the way home, when thigh and calf muscles are aching to the point of despair, I really would not recommend it to anybody. It's a long way to walk!
I had a long soak in the bath, which was good. I fell asleep in the bath, which felt good but probably wasn't. I just don't understand why Tooting Common on Monday and Wandsworth Common today were so painful. Why just a few yards down the road were so painful. Why was it so easy two weeks ago and not today? It stands to reason that I ought to be getting fitter (although why my belly is expanding is against reason...) so why does it seem more difficult?
