Following a couple of poorer days in the grander scheme of life, today offered one of those pick-me-ups that make it all seem worthwhile.
Got off to a bit of a slow start following a lay in to catch up on much needed sleep after Thursday night but decided that the weather forecast was as good as i’d get for bedding and pointing the hip tiles that have been missing on the house since before I moved here. It was going to be done soon after arriving but since it was too cold for mortar until April and then I did something to my leg to prevent ladder use and that, it’s taken until now and been annoying me all the time. It surprises me how much something like it niggles me but roof problems always do. But it’s done now. The replacement tiles are a perfect match and the weather was perfect for a good job.
I took the opportunity to sort the flashing over the conservatory, too, bedding in the ridge area and replacing a split section on the rake. All the lead is very fragile, I guess it’s only code three and hasn’t been oiled from new so i’ll probably replace it all next year but for now it’ll do.
A bit of shopping then lead to the first motorbike ride since mid April. I wanted to go last week but wasn’t confident enough in the leg. Today I could wait no longer. There were very few cars on the road so the run was quick and smooth. Weight shifts caused me a bit of pain, so there was no knee down action but I did have an enjoyable bit around Marden where they’ve changed all the 60 limits to 50 and 40′s. Why is a pointless question but since i’d have been banned for doing over 100 in the old 60 limits (and it didn’t stop me then), I continued to do over 100 on the same roads with the same hazards with the same (lack of) houses and the same (lack of) other traffic. There are now, i’ll admit, several more steel posts with round labels on them to kill me if I fall off in the wrong place so maybe that’s the justification for the change in limit. Somehow though, the dip in the road on the right hander before the village which sees 4th gear and hard acceleration bring the front up just enough to hold a bit of left lock while it’s weightless seems that bit better knowing i’m doubling the limit instead of just bettering it by a fair margin. Despite being rusty and going a bit easier than normal for mid-summer riding (on the tricky bits…in places I was just plain slow) it was a good ride.
Then food eased into watering the greenhouse and a Juneathon row to Audiofuel’s Juneathon mix which was a great distraction while I blew my lungs out. The rower is amusing me as I carry on with it, though. I’ve an idea how many watts it takes to raise a litre of water by a degree centigrade and how many minutes I spend on the rower and how much effort equivalent this is to running or biking and some things on the computer just don’t add up.
I average 25 watts on the easiest setting, 42 on the next and 64 on the highest. At over 8 minutes on each setting, at a conservative calculation, it works out at 135 calories if the watt reading is correct. The calorie counter read 55. The bloke in the Telegraph is saying he wants to do 2000m in 8 minutes on his Concept 2 rower – now he’s either super human or his counter is wrong or mine’s wrong because 2000m takes me 17 minutes at 31 strokes per minute, 162 bpm average. It’s only a reference but it sucks. And then, having found the instructions earlier, I read the recovery counter scale. It measures heart rate for a minute after ceasing exercies and scales high to low reading against time for a grade from 1 (very fit) to 6 (very unfit). 3 is fine, 4 below average. I rated a 6. Now if I can do a half marathon in 1.37. I wouldn’t rate myself very fit but what could I do one in if I ever got as far as 1 in the Reebok scale of fitness? A 6 is surely not right though, is it?
It amazes me.
Still, i’ve had a good day, written too long a blog and must now got to bed.
Goodnight.
