After all the father’s day activity today that involved a trip to Macclesfield and a trip to my folk’s house, I ran out of time to do the planned trans-pennine ride. Ah well, I’ll try and fit it in this week. It means my mileage for the last week is short of my target by some 60 miles or so, but when you run out of time, you run out of time. At least I didn’t run out of “go”. In contrast to Simon’s plan to take it easier this week, I’m planning to train right through MM and treat that as a weird kind of training exercise. I’ll probably hurt when I’m racing but what the hell.

This morning Michael and I did the planned ride at Llandegla and it was all going really well until his front wheel washed out in a large puddle and he landed a good 6 metres further down the trail. Severe cuts and abrasions to his elbow, both knees, chest and hip were the reulting injuries. A spectacular amount of mud on his clothes completed the ensemble. He’s ok. “It’s all part of it”, I explained to him. It’s not like he lost any teeth or broke his bike or owt. He was bloody fast today though. On one downhill section of the black run I had to ride pretty fast once I realised he was bearing down on me through a tight berm. He’s climbing well too. It’s in the blood, clearly 😉