An 'eventful' week

Oh, it has been.

I'll start with the bike. Last time I blogged, I was a little ticked off at not having got my bike back yet, but I didn't doubt that I'd get it back eventually. It's fair to say it didn't quite end up like that.

I was awaiting a call from All Terrain Cycles all Tuesday, and it finally came at about 5:30pm. I wasn't expecting the content of the call to be 'your bike's knackered, we can't repair it'. That's what I got, though.

It left me at a loss initially. I hastily arranged to borrow Rich's bike for Wednesday's planned massive brick session, then tried to work out what on earth I was going to do. It seemed plain that I wouldn't be able to race on my (t)rusty Merida again - so I needed another bike.

Plenty soul-searching followed, as I attempted to establish a budget for the new acquisition. Eventually, I decided it wouldn't be worthwhile to get a cheap stop-gap bike - I'd have to put my dreams of a TT bike on hold, and splash the cash on a shiny new road bike.

A trawl of the Internet took me, as it so often does, to Planet X, and the SL Pro Carbon. Specifically, this:


(albeit the white-frame version. And not as blurry.)

Originally, we'd planned to go down to the Rotherham showroom on the 16th to pick one up. However, it turns out that the showroom is just that - you can't actually buy a bike from there. So I've ordered one over the Internet. It should turn up sometime in the next two weeks or so. Suffice to say I'm pretty excited.

That's what the week kinda ended up being about, however this week was supposed to be about the big pile of training I'd scheduled. In the end, I managed to make it to 11 hours before collapsing in a metaphorical pile. Pride of place has to go to Wednesday's brick session - 2 hours of biking at 28.4kph followed by 1 hour of running (in searing heat) at 4:37/km pace. Not surprising I was knackered on Thursday, really...

That marks the end of the hard work this year, much to my delight. From here, it's a week of testing (woo), and then it's all about sharpening up my fitness for race season. I really, really can't wait!

I assume I'll probably have to. I can't see any of the race organisers moving their races to tomorrow...