Steady week for Lee, lots of miles for me and the CX season finishes with a flourish!

Usual format for the blog. It starts with what should perhaps be called the family update and then moves into cycling. 

The week started with Lee's Dad taking another trip to A&E, Lee accompanied him again and they spent hours there but did get some use from it. For me, I decided I needed to be home rather than coaching at cyclones so I did all I could think to do. This was do some tidying, light the log burner, make dinner and then sit on my rollers until Lee got home.

This is Lee's medicine regime! My goodness she must rattle. Every morning her first action is to take this vast array of pills and potions. No dramas for her this week, I just want her physio to start soon. She hasn't really improved physically since July and I think we need good advice so we know what to do that will help. Lee has continued with daily exercises from rehab but they were set in March. She also gets a daily walk in. She is okay on flat, firm surfaces but anything else exhausts her instantly. In the evening it can take her a few goes to get up from the sofa. However, we should be grateful as this time last year, Lee was in hospital fighting for her life!

Despite everything that's going on we are still having a nice life as a family. The picture above is how the weekend ended. It was a lovely family meal. All five of us plus Olly and Amy enjoying a proper Sunday roast. I even successfully (according to Amy and Lee,) made passable gluten free Yorkshire puddings. I got the recipe from BBC good food but if anyone out there knows a better one please let me know. Of course the dogs lived their best life afterwards with Sunday dinner leftovers instead of their usual dog food!

It gets all cycling and exercise now

My #NHS1000MILES challenge continues whilst I continue with #DryJanuary2022 and #REDJanuary2022. My aim this week was to get 120 miles done with a combination of dog walks, lunchtime work walks, indoor cycling on my rollers, cyclocross and a group ride. My weekly total was actually 130 miles. I will now need to average 145 miles a week to get to 1000 in 7 weeks. It's doable and I'm hoping this will lay the foundations for improved fitness this year.

Missing Cyclones on Monday gave me a bonus rollers session and in total I managed to get on them 5 times. Along the way I've entertained myself with various cycling videos and a bit of rugby. It could have been different though. The plan is still to cycle to work when the weather is safe enough to do so and Saturday's session should have been a group ride. Sensibly though it was cancelled due to fog and ice. The picture above is from Saturday and even my dog walk was perilous in places.

The main event of the week was the 6th and final round of the Leicestershire Cyclocross League for this season. Set in the picturesque grounds of Misterton Hall a fantastic course was set up by Welland Valley Cycling Club.

Big shout out to Mrs Lindsley at this point for buying me these merino socks from Planet X, along with those orange MTB shoes from Luck (thanks again to Hans for recommending these,) and my orange helmet, I've suddenly got a very colour coordinated race day kit!

I wanted to celebrate the day in pictures. No idea why but I decided to get selfies with as many of the Corby Capers riders as possible.

These sum up the friendly, fun atmosphere at cyclocross. The racing can get serious at times but for the most part it's about a community with great camaraderie. 

Somehow my splendid cycling friend and fellow Cyclones coach Ian Bird missed a selfie so here's a picture of him to make up for that!

After a couple of practise laps and watching the earlier races I had time for one more sighting lap before gridding. It was a huge field for our race. This was a combination of vet50/60 men and senior women. 149 riders finished the race. I was 72nd out of 82 V50 riders which is good for me!

Mike Deely, who once had a stated goal of trying to do as many laps as me, very nearly caught me. I have work to do or he'll get me next time!

I was also really pleased for Rob Campbell who has made a huge improvement on his previous races. I got nowhere near Ian Bird this time and that's about his improved performance too! 

I really enjoyed the course at Misterton which was reversed on it's usual direction. For me it had a bit of everything: mud, fast bits, challenging sections and draggy grinds.  At one point I thought I was going really well in the woods and promptly crashed the bike...pride does come before a fall. Of course, the delay this caused allowed Mike to catch up a bit 😉

After our race there was time to watch the senior men and V40 doing their hour. The speed and skill on show was amazing. Here's a few pics of other Capers riding to finish this section.

So that's it for Cyclocross this year, well except for watching the world championships next weekend. For me it's now about getting some miles done, the eternal battle to shift some weight and getting fit for long group rides, time trials in the Spring and the build up to the Friday Night Summer Series in May.

Happy Pedalling