The Real Ale Wobble

What a filthy, wet and windy weekend that was!

Marvellous!

Some friends and I had booked some Bed and Breakfast accommodation in Llanwrtyd Wells for the Real Ale Wobble. So a bunch of 10, or so, of us pulled up on Friday night and started on the beers.

Not being a beer drinker, I stuck to good old fashioned lager. Everyone else was throwing back the Festival Beers and seemed to be reveling in the various aromas, tastes and tar-like consistencies on offer. One of our crew was on the cider for both nights, and I don't think he'll be touching it again for a few millenia. He was hanging drunk!

The ride on Saturday was, erh, interesting. I hadn't changed out of my mud tyres since I was feeling a bit lazy in the week leading up to it. So I "managed" with a crossmark on the rear and an ardent up front, through the muddiest and wettest ride I had ever been on. It was good fun though.

Huw? He fell in a river and got totally submerged. Keiran fell in during a bonus river crossing that Mark thought it would be funny to drag us through. Dan and Wanger nearly lost their bikes at this point in the day, too, as the river tried to sweep them away.

Brilliant.

We had to drink beer at a few "checkpoints" and then continue on our way, trying to keep warm. The ride was completed by a sign in and then a few more beers in the school hall.

The tyres worked well enough for the whole ride, except for the odd slip and slide in the deepest mud. This was also the first time I had used my new Polar G3 GPS. It was faultless and gave me a new insight into what my watch can do. It's so clever!

In the evening after washing, scrubbing and warming up, we all congregated in the Beer Tent at the back of one of the pubs. A few other people were obviously having the same sort of problems as I was having with the unfamiliar drinks racked up along the 15m long bar.

Lots of unfortunate aromas were following some uncomfortable looking people.

I'm glad it wasn't just me.

Piecing it back together

I had a scan this week, and all appears fine. That means more tests, but I'm used to that so it doesn't worry me. I'll have 2 or 3 days off of training at the end of the month for scope investigations, but that's fine too.

But I'm starting to feel a bit better now and managed to get out for some exercise this weekend.

I don't run because my knees are older than me. But I fancied a little run in my new offroad shoes, so Jo took me around Cwmcarn on the singletrack. The climbs were great, but I forgot just how much the downhills and the eccentric loading caused by that were going to hurt...

...Jo laughed at me!

In fact, she laughed at me for the rest of the day as I hobbled around the house, in pain.

She laughed even more at 7am today as I struggled to get up and get down the stairs.

Laughed like a drain, she did.

So she took me out for a ride with our old friends from Rush Cycles in Bridgend, to suss out part of an enduro that they have planned for next year. I was ok on the bike after about 30mins and after an hour I could stand up without wincing at my quads pain.

3 1/2 hours later and I felt great. Then I got off of my bike, and all of my abject and painful misery returned.

I made it to the cafe. The council cafe in Afan is the best around there and it was nice to have a proper milky coffee. Afterwards, I struggled to get to the car.

Running is a stupid idea.

But I enjoyed it!!