The day my bike broke

I haven't been doing lots recently, been feeling pretty drained, had a few bad nights of sleep which has carried over into the day. Attempting to get myself into a routine still so getting up as if I had a 9am lecture tomorrow even though it isn't until 10. On the way back from my lecture today my bike broke. Having looked at it, as far as I can tell the bolt that runs through the centre of the rear wheel and through the gears has been sheared (or should the be shorn?) right through. Going to take it to Halfords on Friday as I have a rather busy day tomorrow and I don't want to be fighting the rush hour traffic in the early morning or the evening. I guess this means I'll have to give running another go, may do some tomorrow morning or hopefully tomorrow evening depending on work and how I'm feeling. Got 2 long shifts at the millenium Stadium this weekend for the rugby league games and so I'll attempt to update again on Friday, if I don't its likely I won't update until next week some time.

Wettest ride yet

Headed out today a lot later than planned due to some university which needed to be done. Gathering my cohort (Stephen) we left from Bute Park at about quarter to 2 and headed off. Had an inauspicious start when my chain came off about 10 seconds into the cycle, I should have known it would be a sign of things to come. It was easy going at the start, the first 10 km are rather flat as it is actually by the riverside. After that we headed a little further up and managed to take the wrong track and ended up cycling to Caerphilly Castle.

It was quite a nice cycle there although it wasn't really where we'd planned to go. As Stephen had to be back before it got too late we decided to call it a day and head back. It started to rain about 2 minutes after making this decision so I think it was a good one. We headed back to the trail and took a 2nd path we'd cycled past which we thought might be a better/different way back. How wrong we were. If you look at the map at about 24km in, that's where we branched out. It looked fine as we were coming up to it and the first hill wasn't too bad. However after that it felt like one never ending hill. The map has got a neat little button which shows you the altitude and our speed. As you can see on the graph it brings up, my speed dropped as the altitude increased.

We reached what we thought was the summit of the trail, rejoiced, and continued on. Only to find that it wasn't, in fact it got even steeper just round the corner, in fact the highest point on our route was where we decided to head back and make sure we hadn't missed a path that went to the main road. We doubled back and found one which suited my bike just fine, Stephen however was cycling a road bike and had to be rather careful as it was more of a trail for mountain bikes, plenty of mud and rocks and all downhill! The rest of the trip back was rather uneventful other than my chain coming off a few more times. Not sure if I'll end up doing any exercise tomorrow, think I might see how I feel and decide then. I've got a few lectures badly spaced throughout the day so I may try and go for a run in the evening.

Early mornings

When I worked at the council, 4 days out of 5 and some weeks 5 days out of 5 I was at the gym before work and I found that this really put me in a much better mood throughout the rest of the day. Whether it was because it was the routine or simply beating all the morning traffic I noticed the difference. At university I find it much harder to get into a routine due to the varied start times of different days and such. I'm going to attempt to get myself into a routine anyway and see how it goes. So I started this morning with a nice cycle ride to Tesco to buy myself some supplies for the day even though I seemed to be out and about for the only part of the day where it rained. Tomorrow I'm hoping to do a fair amount of the Taff Trail even if the weather is awful!

So it begins (again)

Well I've taken a week off really. Having celebrated the end of exams and my birthday in style I was pretty worn out for the rest of the week. Got some clip on pedals and shoes for my birthday and I took them for a quick spin on Wednesday but other than that I haven't done much. Did a weights session today which went alright, taking it slow still to make sure I don't do myself an injury. Hoping to go for a cycle tomorrow at some point, followed by a much longer one on Wednesday. Trying to persuade some of my Cardiff classmates to come along the Taff Trail with me however I'm not sure how quickly we'll be doing it. If they're a bit slow I might not repeat the offer. Next update tomorrow hopefully!