Good manners

This morning, as I was cycling to circuits along a side street, a little old lady stepped off the pavement to get past a bike that somebody had dumped, almost directly in front of me. I made a slight oh-oh noise and managed to go around her, but wasn't too fussed. In this city, you need to be brave to cycle and I've sort of got used to people stepping out without looking: it's not nearly as bad as sadistic bus drivers, or people who open their passenger door straight into the cycle lane! It was 7am, so she probably wasn't expecting anyone on the road. Anyway, I was going quite slowly, as I was parking only about 100m ahead, where the nearest bike rack to circuits is. But as I was locking up my bike, said little old lady caught up with me - and apologised for stepping out in front of me. I was absolutely gobsmacked!!

Training is... painful. For the last year my times, while not great, have been some of the better on the squad, purely because I'm big and powerful (not technically great). Now there are people taller than me, and fitter than me... and yet I'm so used to being the faster that I'm pushing myself HARD just to stay ahead. Admittedly they're young and inexperienced so I don't need to be pushing quite so hard just now but it really isn't fun atm!

We finally got around to doing some hard sprint work: we do a surprising amount of endurance and stamina and general fitness for what is essentially a sprint event. I've been telling myself I need to do some hard work and of course I haven't so now I get to do it with the coach yelling at me... Ah well, all in a day's work.