Week 22 - Half Term!

Monday

Half term! I clambered on to the bicycle and did 15.6 miles at 14.1mph. After that, I decided I had earned a few ales in the evening.

Cycling, beers

Tuesday

Tonight, as soon as the warm-up was done, the Karate lesson was full-on! The black belts started with ippon kumite work with a partner and things kept getting harder from there! Sensei Russell eventually slowed things down with a bit of kata when it was clear that everyone was very sweaty and blowing hard! One chap overdid things a bit and started to feel ill. The karate family rallied round to make sure he was taken care of.

I took over from Sensei Gary and had a fun 10 minutes with the white belts before the end of the lesson!

Karate

Wednesday

After I went for a morning run and had some breakfast, Lucy and I were away on holiday! We travelled to Ironbridge in Shropshire. It is a beautiful place to be, completely focussed on tourism, but still managing to be relaxed and calm with none of the over the top tackiness of some popular destinations. The bridge itself is very pretty, but not as splendid as the river or surrounding countryside. 

When we got there, we did a tour of the shops and bought a dozen books from a charity shop and local bookstore. I even found a copy of Martial Arts of the Orient featuring Master Enoeda! We had lunch at a very relaxed and pleasant cafe. After depositing our luggage (and all those books!) in the room, Lucy and I set off on a walk on the other side of the river through the Benthall Edge woods. We found one track rather challenging because of the steep muddy climbs involved. We turned back and settled on a flat path through the woods along the river bank. We had the place to ourselves!

The view from the other side

Benthall Edge woods

After half a beer and a sit down, we went back to the room to get changed for dinner. We had a lovely time at The Malthouse, with decent portions of tasty food and good service. I enjoyed two pints of Hobgoblin Stout!

Run, beers, junkfood

Thursday

This morning, after loading the luggage into the car, we went back to the same cafe for breakfast. Suitably refreshed, we set off on the Iron Trail. It is one of the best planned walks I've done, with plenty of history for Lucy and lots of winding paths to explore for me! It was quite steep in places, both up and down, and it got the heart pumping!

Following the Sabbath Walk

Steeper than it looks!

Back in Ironbridge, there was time for ice cream (there's always time for ice cream) before heading home to do an hour of weight training and then to watch England defeat Pakistan in a T20 match at the Oval. A few beers were needed to celebrate the victory!

Weight training, beers, junkfood

Friday

At 8:30, I dropped the car off at Halfords for its MOT and major service. Then I walked the mile and a half home.

Today, I had to visit the Post Office and then had some shopping to do. I used the road bike because I had some distance to travel. At the Post Office, I noticed that there was a bald patch on my rear tyre! It was so bad I could quite clearly see the threads! I wondered how long my tyre had been like this! I dashed back to Halfords to buy a tyre. I decided I'd try a 28mm seeing as the wider tyres are now all the rage with the pro riders. I chose a Schwalbe Lugano 2.

Fitting it was a bit of a struggle - it seemed to be really tight going on the wheel - I don't know why this would be. Anyway, I got it on, and continued with my shopping trip. By the time I got home I had clocked up 21 miles of cycling.

In the evening, I helped myself to a few craft ales!

Cycling, beer

Saturday

My Karate session went well, better than it has done recently. It's still the case that my lower grades have more spirit and energy than the brown belts so I'm still wondering what to do about that! This afternoon, we concentrated on helping one of our orange belts who has a late grading tomorrow. We did his basics, partner work and kata. I think he'll do well.

Karate

Sunday

Jonnie, James, Mark and I cycled off into the sunshine and headed west on our Coughton Route. The cakemaker is away and we had a time limit, so I considered it a strange choice of ride seeing as it is one of our most challenging. However, it worked out well, with everyone getting up the climbs and looking out for each other as usual. The only issue was a malfunction on Jonnie's bicycle. The rear wheel was rubbing on the frame. Even though we all had an attempt to fix it, we couldn't find an answer. Jonnie rode the whole route with the sound of the tyre rubbing against his frame!

It was a gloriously warm and sunny day. I had set off in one layer of Lycra on top of a layer of Factor 50!

At a makeshift cake stop (with no cake)

Heading home

We turned north at Aston Cantlow and headed back home, essentially cutting off a small corner of the ride. This was the right decision considering that we had a birthday celebration to get back for!

We got back to base after 42.5 miles at 13.5mph.

Later on, I joined family and friends at Jonnie's place for plenty of barbeque and beer!

Jonnie in charge

Cycling, booze, junkfood