I'm no Thatcherite but .... Thatcher's Cider...

Good evening!

Now, I'm no Thatcherite but you can't beat a bottle of Thatcher's cider.

You may have guessed from the blog's name that my name is Katrina.  Most people who know me well call me Trina but another variant that some people use is Katy.  So it's Thatcher's Katy cider for me!  I know I'm biased but it tastes reeeeeaal gooooood! :-)

My "ex", G, is here this weekend.  Although he can be considered "the guilty party" in the breakdown of our marriage, I do try to be as reasonable as I possibly can.  It's the best thing for my children and for that reason we do our best to get along.  He stops over (in the spare room) about once a fortnight, which means I can get out and about if I want.  I'm stopping with my friend tonight so I've left G and the boys at home trying to sort out the tip that is my eldest son's bedroom.

It's going to be plastered on Tuesday and the plasterer wants me to take off the radiator.  Hello! I'm a girl!  I don't do things like that (I nearly said can't but I'm sure I could if I really wanted to)!  Anyway, G has taken it off and when I left the house the pipe was spewing water all over the house!  Aaagh - so G was hot footing it off to B and Q (a Do it Yourself store), whilst I quietly and deftly took myself out of the situation!  Heaven knows what I will come back to tomorrow!  Wish me luck!

This morning I went for a cycle ride.  This is the first time I have been on a bike, apart from the short ride to work, for three weeks.  Three weeks I rode further than I have ever done before on a 35 mile sportive.  My butt needed the three weeks reprieve.

I know!  I know!  I can hear all you hardened cyclists out there saying "That's nothing - I do that before breakfast" but you have to take into account that I'm a lady of a certain age and I have only been riding for about 4 months.

For about 8 years I have been a runner and whilst training for my first marathon I sustained an injury (plantar fasciitis) once I'd got to 17 miles in my training.  Oddly, there was no warning, it just went and I could hardly walk for a few months let alone run.

I usually walked to work and back but even this 1.5mile trip proved difficult so I decided to cycle instead.  I live on a hill so getting to work in the town centre was dead easy but coming back home was always a good work out and I hated it.  Suspecting that this was something to do with my bike as well as me, I borrowed a bike from work and bliss - it was so much better.  So much so that I purchased one on the work cycle scheme - I didn't have to pay as much tax on it and it comes out of my monthly salary.

Shortly after I purchased my bike some colleagues entered themselves into a 35 mile sportive and I thought I could do this too - I had about 12 weeks to get up to speed.  And length.  Each weekend I would extend my mileage, and hurt my butt that little bit more!

Being a runner I already had lycra shorts so when I came across some padded knickers for female cyclists I thought that was all I needed.  Not Sexy!  No - it looked like I was wearing the world's largest sanitary towel :-(  Not a good look.  What's more they were useless at stopping my butt pain so eventually I got some proper cycling shorts.  These are better!  Phew!  Even so, getting off my bike after 35 miles was achingly painful.

So it's been three weeks since my last ride and today I went 14 miles or so - and I was really made up to note that I did it at over 1.5 minutes per mile faster than the first time I did it!  Yay! :-D  Please note that if I ever compare my achievements to the likes of Victoria Pendleton then I would have given up a long time ago.  I have found that the only way to measure achievement is to just beat yourself - there's no way I can compete with a leggy 30 year-old!

That's my excuse and I'm sticking with it!

TTFN

T