Another dilemma.

I am suffering a lot from overheating while running. I’ve tried taking one of those runner’s bottles, but I don’t really get on with them. I do like my Camelbacks when it comes to cycling, though, and it turns out that they do some ones that are specific to running. But I can’t decide between these three:

That’s the Alterra, the Catalyst or the Flash-flo. Anyone had any experience of these?

Happy Solstice from me and Frood.

Hopefully by this time next year we’ll be either on the run-up to or have just finished the inaugural Dumb Run. Come on. You know you want to ride coast to coast across Scotland on a night when the sun only just sets and it doesn’t get properly dark at all, to finish into the sun at an award-winning beach in the historic university town and home of golf.

We’ll be going past my house.

This is the first summer solstice I’ve worked in 6 years. Sigh. I shall be heading off early today, I think.

I went for one of these in the end (click on the pic – the prices are pretty good at Swimstop). The reason for this is that the TYR suit I was drooling over yesterday is listed as being only good for competition — the lycra will degrade very quickly if used for training. I did get myself some of those rather splendid TYR goggles (in metallic fire!) though. Hopefully that lot will turn up in the post in the next day or so.

I’ve decided that I couldn’t do triathlon even if I didn’t have an agreement with Munky. I’d have to swim in my sports bra, and that would be desperately uncomfortable. The only way round that is to shed enough pounds that the boobs are no longer an issue, and I like them the way they are.

I am left wondering what bizarre item of fetish clothing MVC is going to take me shopping for next month. She has threatened (promised?) to take me clubbing. The questions currently chewing through my mind in that regard are: do I need to lose any girth around my thighs; and will there be talcum powder involved?

I have discovered what was with the vanishing comments.

It appears that occasionally some of you register as ‘high spam probability’ to the Bayesian spam filter and your comments were sent to the spam queue. Only there was no notification to inform me of this fact and so we had invisible comments.

I have hopefully rectified this situation, but, basically, if you leave a comment and it doesn’t show, drop me a line. I have turned on notification so that when people leave comments I am informed, but I don’t know whether or not it works yet.

Apologies to Carl, Keith and Munky, all of whom have been victims of my over-enthusiastic spam filter.

I’d forgotten that Wiggle do a wishlist.

Look! Feast your eyes upon all the bits of sporting tat and goodness I covet.

I’ve been really good with the running – at least twice a week since I moved apart from that time when I was really creamed in the knee department.

I’ve supplemented my running with swimming to improve my CV capacity, and I’m now up to 1000m crawl in half an hour three times a week. This might be pish if you’re Duncan Goodhew but I’m quite pleased with that for about 5 weeks’ training.

I bought funky new shoes and a bra that fits and stops my (ample) boobs jiggling.

Can someone out there please tell me why I’m still struggling with the running? Surely I should be able to do my regular short route fairly easily by now. Surely I should at least be able to get all the way around without having to stop or slow down even for the tiny bit up the steps from the beach; and make it to the end without collapsing into a quivering, panting heap.

For me that 2.6 mile run is still harder than 1000m swimming or the 17 mile sprint circuit on the bike I try to fit in during the rest of the week. I come out of the pool and I could go the same distance again if I had the time, probably at the same pace. I get off the bike and heart rate is back to normal inside 5 minutes. I get back from the run and I have to lie on the floor and drip for 3 minutes before I can think about stretching.

I must be doing something wrong, surely.

I could justify the purchase of one of these. It’s not the cost — it’s that feeling of being over-equipped. Like when I bought the Pinarello. I had some instances of thinking I didn’t deserve to own a bike like that because it’s not as if I race or TT or anything like that. Wouldn’t part with it though: it puts a grin on my face the size of Manhattan.

I just like the look of those suits. Maybe it’s the whole wobbly thighs thing (I don’t like the upper portions of my legs and can’t get over the idea that I have a fat arse). Plus it’s graphite and silver and just well cool.

Is it okay to spend 50 nauseous arthropods on a posh suit just cos it looks funky?

Just making a note of this route from the Bridge to Market St — looks like Frood and I are going to have to ride over from Inverkeithing. So we may have done 26 miles just getting to the start (we have to ride to Kirkcaldy to get the train). Then another 15 – 20 on the way home, depending on the route we take.

Hmmmm. This 67 mile ride is turning out to be quite a lot longer.

I have a new pet hate.

I have a long list of things I find irritating. I have a much shorter list of things I dislike intensely — my hate list.

I am not one of those eternal white-light do-gooders who proclaim hate as a negative emotion that stifles and chokes and leads only to badness and evil, all the while weaving daisy chains through their hair and singing to the crystal dolphins from the Pleiades. I’m with Honda on this.

Hate somethin’. Change somethin’. Hate somethin’ change somethin’ hate somethin’ bett-eeeer.

Cue whistling.

Things I hate include inconsiderate motorists. This led to a rant that was passed around several petrolhead fora and was reasonably well received, given the audience. It also led to me becoming an activist with the CTC.

Hate is just fine as long as it provokes purpose. It’s the hate we allow to fester and spoil that should be avoided.

So anyway. Today I learned a new pet hate. Today I learned to hate:

People who wear strong perfume into the swimming pool.

I like scent, don’t get me wrong. I bought two of Chris Brosius‘s perfumes in the end. But they are subtle as well as distinctive. You won’t smell them unless you get right up close. Plus I have a shower before going into the pool.

Whoever had drenched herself in Poison to the point where it formed a film on top of the water in the shallow end should be locked inside a box with a smashed bottle of the concentrated parfum and made to run on a treadmill for three hours. See how she likes it.

Needless to say I was very vociferous in my complaining to the staff, while making it absolutely clear that it wasn’t their fault. If I could identify the woman reponsible, which was impossible after it had come off and was coating everything like the red weed, I’d have had a go at her in person.

Had to look up the website of the Carmelite Nuns of Dysart for a work-related thing (no really). There’s a nice quote on their photos page regarding St Teresa of Avila:

This is a statue of the foundress of the Discalced Carmelite Nuns and Friars. Her spiritual teaching is followed by many people all over the world. She defined prayer as :

“A loving conversation with a friend who understands us.”

I quite like that definition.