Bummer! You can't outsmart Mother Nature.

Well, I've been back from Germany for a week or so, and as soon as I did get home I developed a full blown (GmbH) cold that I thought I had managed to hold off.

Never mind. I managed to do some light training once my throat had settled and I stopped coughing so much. This gave me a chance to go and ride with an old mate, for the first time ever. This is the guy that we used to go next door to visit, or lift fence panels out so that our dogs could play together whilst we barbecued food and drank ourselves silly. Crikey, we ate some cheese between our two houses and the "parties" that ensued.

Jim and I met at Cannock Chase and rode around the new "Monkey Trail". It's a lot of fun, but I refuse to take my carbon wheeled bikes there again. It's trail bike country with lots of air, some tight twisty nadgery singletrack, and some really clever rock constructions. You gotta try it.

I felt better after this ride, so I decided that I would go and do some riding at Clic24. This is the race that started me on my 24hr solo career, and "The Hobbits' Tale" is geared to raise money for the coffers of Clic24 and then straight to ClicSargent. So I was there to increase awareness of what I was doing, and why it was Clic24's fault. I was due to solo the second 12hr hours and say hello to like minded charity collectors

It was a good idea, but it all went wrong. My cold was still active as I started at midnight. I didn't know it was there until I was on my 4th lap out of a target of 14 laps in 12 hours. My pacing was perfect, and I was within 30secs either side of my target time and just warming into the ride when my throat got all tight and I started to hack and cough everywhere. I turned into a little sputum factory in the space of about 10mins. People on the course were asking if I was ok since they could hear me coming up behind them from miles off.

I must have sounded like a right manky pig, sorry.

That lap was finished right on schedule, but my breathing was getting a little difficult as I felt myself having a wee bout of bronchospasm. Even using my buff over my mouth to warm and moisten the air as I breathed in didn't help.

End-ex.

I made my apologies to Neil and his crew and went to bed, to cough and hack all night.

Clic24's course is a lot of fun, you should give it a go one day. I reckon that it's possible to do 30 laps there in the dry in 24hrs. I'm not the one to do it (27-28 would be my max), but we all know a few who could do it. Now we need to persuade them to come along!!

However, this weekends solo effort was marvellous. A guy called Stephen was about to manage to do 24 laps in less in than ideal conditions. I hope he managed it, but will update this blog in a couple of days to reflect the result.

Awesome!

Thanks for supporting me Rob, but sorry it didn't work out.