Quids In

With no races on Sunday and the Velodrome actually open because the pantomime has finally finished, I get to do my first SQT Session in about six months. My Dad turns up to watch the novelty of it and the way everyone else chews this old man up and spits him out. I enjoy it though and the well earned pint later in the Exeter.

I go to work the next day nursing a locked up right calf. Maybe I’ve been overdoing it. L asks if that’s my dodgy one. No, they’re both dodgy. Not that it stops me biking to work on both Tuesday and Wednesday this week.

MD too is nursing a slight injury because I hit him in the eye with the Lad’s hard rubber ball. Accidentally I might add. It doesn’t stop him either. I book training sessions for both of them on Tuesday and Wednesday. I’ll probably be a gibbering wreck after all that lot but I have to go twice as I have so many people to nag for membership fees.

There is entertainment on Dog TV this week with the Lad getting hold of a pair of training shoes. L carelessly left hers drying in the kitchen after she washed them. Clearly they don’t taste very nice as he soon gives up on them.

There is no squash on Thursday but L’s tennis does restart after a two week break which I think she should have complained about because there was no reduction in the monthly fee but she’s not as argumentative as me.

We are also miffed at the council offering 15% off leisure centre memberships for life for new customers. I ring them to complain but I’m rather shot down when I’m told we already pay less than that, a lot less. Apparently the membership price is fixed from the day you join and never goes up. No inflationary increases or anything. We have been paying the same since 2008. Which is great I suppose but also explains why the leisure centres are skint and having to cull facilities. If you're still paying sixpence a month from the 1960s then you really are quids in.

(Thursday 10^th January)

Deviation From The Norm

There’s a slight deviation from the norm as we do Colwick parkrun this morning and then in the evening L and I go to the Derby Velodrome to watch the National Madison Championships.

We don’t bother with the support races and turn up for 7pm when the main women’s race takes place followed by the men’s.

In the women’s race is was always likely to be a case of whoever partnered up out of Katie Archibald, Elinor Barker and Laura Kenny would win. They should probably have made them all have non-Olympic medal winning partners to even things up a bit but they didn’t. Archibald and Barker edged it over Kenny and Ellie Dickinson.

In the men’s race up and coming stars Matt Walls and Fred Wright took the honours.

The event itself was very disappointingly supported for which I totally blame the organisers as there has been close to zero promotion of the event. There are big advertising hoardings outside promoting the forthcoming Christmas Pantomime but nothing for world class cycling events. There was also close to zero information available on the format of the event, a one page programme only appeared the night before.

(Saturday 13^th October)

Race Free Sunday

It’s a race free Sunday, it’s a very long time since we’ve had one of those.

I fail miserably, again, to get Glastonbury tickets. I feel I am probably hampered by our poor internet connection and the fact I am having to use WiFi since the Lad severed the cabled connection. This prompts me to instigate an upgrade to fibre.

That aside, today we do ‘normal people’ things. We go to Decathlon to get L a tennis racquet and make a trip to the rubbish tip. Hopefully we’ll be back racing next week!

There is some excitement though and the Lad doesn’t mind missing his training for it, L and Daughter are finally cashing in last year's Christmas present, thoughtfully bought be me, and are going on the velodrome.

L did suggest they could go over on the bus, arguing that I didn’t have to come and I could have took the Lad training instead... What? and miss them on the velodrome? Not a chance! It’s the highlight of the month.

We drive over, L looks petrified but Daughter is bouncing. We are a little early, so I hand the car keys to Daughter and she practices her parking while I walk the Lad around the car park. MD looks on from inside the car, probably wondering how he can get out.

Then they’re both heading for the track and handing me their phones as they go, urging me to take lots of photos. After some instruction they start doing laps, L looks petrified but Daughter is bouncing and each time she passes me she mouths something that looks like ‘please take more photos’ or it might have been ‘if you take any more photos I’ll kill you’ but its hard to tell due to the speed she’s going. She does seem to be really taking to this.

Then, oops, she’s fallen off and I zoom in for a close up. Now I can definitely hear the words ‘stop’ and ‘kill’. I'm sure she doesn’t mean it.

Afterwards, L still looks petrified but Daughter is bouncing and the ‘crash’ video goes viral. I at least know what to buy one of them for next Christmas. 

(Sunday 7^th October)