V. Bridget Jones

At risk of sounding v. Bridget Jones:

Monday:
Time on cycling machine: 6 mins - sprint
Calories burned: unsure - readout on blink
Distance travelled: ditto
Small child in trouble for inappropriate use incidents: 3

Tuesday
Time on cycling machine: 15 mins - sprint
Calories burned: unsure - readout on blink
Distance travelled: ditto
Small child in trouble for inappropriate use incidents: 5
Pain from previous days efforts: slight awareness of leg muscles - nothing too bad - am I doing it wrong?

Wednesday
Time on cycling machine: None (sorry)
Calories burned: ditto
Distance travelled: ditto
Small child in trouble for inappropriate use incidents: Don't know - father was looking after them whilst mum went out for drinks.
Pain from previous days efforts: Still nothing. In fact slight exercise-induced euphoria. Still I guess 15 mins is nothing to write home about. On the other hand, haven't been on a bike for the best part of 20 years, so it's a small personal victory.

Thursday
Time on cycling machine: Planned for this evening
Calories burned: TBA
Distance travelled: ditto
Small child in trouble for inappropriate use incidents: None - in fact littlest infant was using machine amazingly well, showing off to Grandad when I left this morning.
Pain from previous days efforts: Nothing from the exercise. Headache from drinking on empty stomach.

Nice piece in Bristol Evening Post about fellow rider, Grant Crawley, yesterday.

Chobham, here I come

The exercise bike that my friend promised me has arrived.

The kids are intrigued: the four year old nearly lost his fingers trying to get them into bits of it that no-one else even knew were there: that's my boy! And the pair of them were at the wrong end of firm words from dad when they tried to ride it tandem!

It's nowhere near as derelict as I thought it would be: it has a good solid base and electronic read out (although I'm not sure that anything other than the timer works), so I'm really chuffed.

Anyway, I managed to put in a ten minute sprint and work up a sweat before my shower this morning and now have that lovely glowing feeling that only exercise can give you.

I can feel the muscles at the top of my legs recovering from the shock, and I just know I'll hurt a bit tomorrow, but not nearly as much as I would if I rode the whole 100 miles unprepared (suspect I'd get no further than the first drinks stop without the help of this machine).

Enthusiasm can carry you so far: from there on in it's hard work.

But I now feel really optimistic and like I really may actually stay the course: take the bets off me guys - I'll see you at the finish in Chobham!

Busy times

Lack of blogging action doesn't mean any lack of activity - honest!

At risk of being a name dropper, this week we arranged for Raleigh to drop a bike off for Elyes Gabel - the 'studmuffin' (thanks Nicci for this term - which will now always be linked to the name Elyes!) who plays Guppy in Casualty whose doing the ride. And we were all a flutter because he called the office: he's got a melted toffee kind of voice to match those puppy eyes...mmmmm. We do, of course, also now have his picture on the office wall.

Anyway, back to reality, my exercise bike is being delivered tomorrow by Mirella, who I hope reads this: THANKS!

Yesterday I interviewed the lady who started the ride - she's 84 and has had heart problems, so tried hard not to stress here. She's one of those ladies of a certain age who married professionals and did lots of very worthy charitable deeds, very practical and absolutely formidable - knew how to network and charm before networking was reinvented by the Americans.

Did hear some funny stories yesterday - but think they all held back a bit, afraid I'd print the lot!

Furthermore, the Bristol Evening Post has agreed to support the ride in all kinds of ways (another meeting yesterday).

Miles under my belt this week - only two rides (short ones), but have all the food and training bumf in my grubby little mits and am feeling a bit better now - they suggest that if you're up to a couple of 25 mile rides beforehand, the 100 miles is acheivable.

That makes me feel a lot better about my inability to find time to ride, and a lot more optimistic about acheiving my goal.

Hope to be able to report at least 10 miles by Monday!

Paddington does his bit - the image!

Think the reason the picture didn't get up was it's size, but anyway, here it is - Paddington on the left and Ev on the right.

And the brand new Action 100 logo!

Paddington does his bit

Action 100,unveiled its new silver jubilee logo, with a little help from charity mascot, Paddington Bear, and Bristol West MP, Steven Williams.

The ride will run for the 25th time on Sunday August 27, 2006. In its history, the ride has raised the best part of three quarters of a million pounds for Action Medical Research, an amazing charity that has helped fund medical breakthroughs for more than 50 years.

(But I can't get the picture up into this blog for some reason!)

Chicken Pic as promised

Hey - I got the chicken picture up (See entry 'no to the Chicken suit' for more info, but to summarise, there was a suggestion that I should cycle in a chicken suit that we had out for a photo shoot!))

And it didn't require the use of any difficult software... this blog could start being more colourful!

And for the record, yes, it's me in the suit - it was a toss up between me and Nicola, and I ended up in the suit as photographer Phil insisted that the chicken needed to be more portly.

What happened to the benefits of being the boss?

Photo call tomorrow

Sudden rush - the MP for Bristol Stephen Williams has agreed to a photo shoot to unveil the bike rides new anniversary logo.

He'll be in top company - Paddington bear will be there along with the lovely Ev, the chairperson.

Another promise of a picture.

Although in order to get a photo onto this blog I have to reinstall the Evil Daisy software, which means I'll get a horrible pop up saying 'Hello' every time I start up the PC. Not sure why it bugs me: probably means I'm an incurable grouch - better go off for some nice lessons.....

Registered

I'm registered - no backing down now.

Action 100 team have been running around with form - don't think they believed I would!