Top Secret Gym Membership

I reschedule my week due to the two remaining GP runs which I should be able to make. I bike today and save doing the shopping until tomorrow.

The only problem is I’m not used to cycling on a Monday after an SQT Session and I’m slightly surprised that the legs allowed me to do it.

After plans for a ‘North Midlands’ region collapsed, Derby and Nottingham vowed to still work together on some of things that would have been united under that plan. Folk have apparently demanded integrated travel and leisure services between the two cities or that might just have been me submitting dozens of forms.

Anyhow, they have now launched their ‘Metro’ partnership, as they call it, which will now enable anyone with a Derby Leisure Card to use Nottingham’s Leisure Centres and vice versa. This was however buried half way down an obscure council email full of stuff that no one really wants to know about, so no one ever reads down that far in their emails except me obviously. So they may not have wanted anyone to know about it but I’ve told everyone.

I print off a couple of forms and we attack the situation from both angles. L takes her form into John Carroll in Nottingham, I take mine in to Derby Arena.

At John Carroll, it’s the first they've had and it flummoxes them. They’ll let L know when they’ve got it sorted.

I have a similar situation at the Arena but they were a bit more helpful and were fighting over me to see who got to do their first one. They think its sorted and they have now cancelled my gym membership in Derby, as its now unnecessary and Nottingham is not only much cheaper but includes swimming as well. So I probably won’t get in next time I try to use the gym.

In theory though, now for less money, I can swim in Derby too. If they had any pools of course. I think they still have one somewhere.

Dogging tonight up in Codnor.

(Monday 3^rd July)

'Entertaining' New Cycle Path

The council have redone the pavement and the cycle path along our stretch of the ring road. Unfortunately they have seriously messed up. The new cycle path is not straight and the grass verges jump out at you at the side road junctions forcing you into the path of the pedestrians and down the curb because the dropped curbs are aligned for pedestrians but not for cyclists.

The idea is, I think, is that pedestrians and cyclists share (never a good idea) the same crossing points over the side roads but if they’re sharing the crossing points then there’s not really any point have a dedicated cycle lane on the rest of the path. They might as well make that shared as well.

The other problem is that the crossing points are set so far back from the ring road that motorists cannot see down the cycle path without driving on to it. Nor can they see down the ring road for other cars without doing the same. As I said, a total mess and frankly dangerous too.

I’ve been avoiding it and riding on the actual ring road but it would be much better to have a usable cycle path.

My other problem this morning is the wind but a least it's stopped raining. I just hope its going my way this evening.

My opponent has another cold for squash tonight, not that this seems to slow him down at all and I don’t win a game tonight.

L runs to the pub and meets us there.

(Thursday 17^th November)

Something Less Intimidating

On the bus today and I pick myself up the new Robin Hood travel card from the machine at the QMC stop this morning. This is supposed to be Nottingham’s ‘Oyster’ card but I’m not really sure how it's supposed to work as you only touch on and not off. So it always charges you the same fee no matter how far you go. 

They have chosen to use the current Nottingham City Transport scheme rather than the more advanced 'Mango' scheme operated by Trent Barton which charges you based on distance when you touch off, like ‘Oyster’ does. It seems to me that Trent Barton will lose out if someone gets on one of their many out of Nottingham bound buses, touches on, but doesn’t get off inside the Nottingham boundaries and therefore gets a cheap ride all the way to Derby, Mansfield, Cotmanhay, Ripley, etc etc. A wrong call which I’m sure will have to be corrected at some point.

Apparently there’s a photo of me on Facebook wearing a mortar board. Can’t imagine where that came from.

I go for a Watt Bike session after work and the same athletic looking chap again gets on the bike next to me, clips in his proper shoes (I could have brought mine you know) and then dials his way up to 300 Watts. The girl in front of me is maintaining a steady 200, I think it’s best if I slot in somewhere between them at least on my warm up. That’s a 5k warm up, with another 5k as a cool down and a ramp session to 315 Watts in between. Five of the six bikes are taken tonight and when a chap decides to do a session on the shopper bikes next to us he only keeps it up for a couple of minutes. After looking at the five of us trying to out-die each other, he aborts and opts to do something less intimidating instead.

L walks the boys up to meet my bus. Anything to get out of ball chucking.

Tonight we finish series three of The Bridge

(Tuesday 22^nd December)

Just In Case That Makes Any Different

Another day on the bike and quite a bit warmer today, although with some black clouds hovering but even they're only last the morning.

In the evening L runs to Portland Leisure Centre, where I’m attempting to play squash. Portland has now completed it's transfer from Nottingham City Council to Notts County FC. The first thing do is to drop the word 'Leisure' and rename it the Portland Centre. Probably a precursor to them ripping the squash courts out.

L joins us in the pub afterwards. I feel relatively guilt free gulping a pint after my game as I’ve vowed to be alcohol free tomorrow, just in case that makes any different at Saturday’s Duathlon.

(Thursday 6^th March)

Shock Horror

After four days with no notable physical activity I’m knackered. Perhaps the country should get fit by taking up dog shows, as this is all I’ve done since Wednesday.

While I’ve been away Derby have sold a player. John Brayford to Cardiff for £1.5million, which is more than the total of what we’re spent so far on new players. So the talk of them investing in the squad this year seems to have been just that. Talk. Although I suppose there’s time to rectify this yet.

Also while I’ve been away Nottingham city council haveissued a proposal to build some squash courts. Three of them. Shock horror. It’s just a shame it's at the hardest to get to leisure centre in Nottingham. Beggars can’t be choosers I guess.

L’s night out is off. Whereas my night out, having been off is now on. I was going to go swimming but now I’ve been summoned to dog train. I’m not sure if they’ve looked at the weather forecast, which isn’t good. It seems to know that L is planning a bike ride.

It doesn’t look promising when we arrive for dog training and it starts raining. Leaving Doggo forever looking skywards in case thunder and lightning develops. It doesn’t though and we get a decent session. Although MD, after his weekend, is crawling at the end of it. As am I.

(Monday 29^th July)