Thursday 31st March Take the long way home!

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Thursday 31st, 39F, 4C, light breeze, very heavy overcast. Dry with some sunshine and 50F promised for later but the westerly winds will be gusting to 25+mph this afternoon. Not ideal for a longer ride to the east. I'll get there yesterday but arrive back home the day after tomorrow. I'll never get away with it! ;-)
 
Talking of unnecessary exertion: I was just reading a Danish running coach saying that beginners should start by walking briskly before running to avoid injury. I am often tempted to run but don't even own any trainers, these days, let alone "proper" running shoes. Interestingly[?] I read another coach's advice saying that any running shoes would do. He suggested that the fetish for having expensive shoes chosen and fitted even by "specialist" running shops often failed to do other than empty the runner's pockets. Sports shops were even less likely to provide skilled service except in daylight robbery.

I've tried running in my £5, $7, charity shop, [as new] Ecco walking boots but they seem just a little "over the top" if you see what I mean. Birds start making plans to emigrate again as soon I clomp past. Mind you, soldiers run in their boots during [cough] boot camp training if the Hollywood films are to be believed. Though I'm not sure I could manage to chant "Chump is a chump, Chump is a chump" for very long without becoming extremely bored and my mind beginning to wander. Perhaps I just need a sociopathic sergeant major to provide some impetus?

I'm going to have to change over from my MTB winter boots soon but I doubt the NW MTB shoes will provide much jogging pleasure. At least I was never tempted to go the "road shoe" route or I would have been all over the place in the supermarket aisles. Road shoes with protruding plates are almost as daft and totally impractical for touring as wearing track spikes to go jogging in the lanes.

Last chance! I really must get off my (er-um-er) saddle and go for a proper ride today. Or March will become yet another example of severe undernourishment in the miles department. Though it doesn't look remotely like sunshine at the moment. [7.30am.] In fact it seems to be getting darker. The birds are playing 'trampoline' in the trees so they must have heard the rumour about sunshine.

Left at 9.30 after morning coffee and rolls. Stopped at 23 miles to look around a bike shop. It hailed on me at 25 miles but I kept going with a nice tailwind helping me along. Reached my goal at 43 miles after taking an unmarked wrong turning.

My goal for today's ride was an old, unmodernized village shop almost on the east coast of Fyn midway between Nyborg and Svendborg. It had been on the market for some time at higher price but was recently taken over by another estate agent and is now being offered for about £25,000 or $35k equivalent. For the entire time I was wandering around taking photographs a large dog in in the garden of the house behind never stopped barking. There were two cars parked outside the house so I doubt the owners were absent. Perhaps this is the real reason the old place has never sold? As I was taking photographs a bus came down the road and swung around the corner in front of the shop. I was afraid it was going to swipe my trike but he proved to be a cheerful and very good driver and waved as he safely missed my only transport home.

Left the old shop at 2pm to come home with a strong and gusty headwind now impeding progress. Completely ran out of energy at 75 miles with only a cheese sandwich and two muesli bars washed down with pure apple juice to last me all day. I had to stop and buy some bananas at 80 miles just to get home. BY that time I was hardly able to put one foot in front of another in the supermarket. Ate two bananas while resting on a handy stack of garden compost bags outside the shop.

Recovered enough to ride the last few miles despite puncturing on flints outside the shop. 84 miles in 9 1/4 hours with at least an hour of that for stops. So I maintained my 10mph average overall. I should have bought the bananas early on in the day and kept my energy topped up at intervals. A fool and his energy are soon parted! Finally arrived back home at 6-30pm with my flat tyre valve banging on the road. Modern "wireless" tyres run extremely well on the narrow rims when flat so there was no point in mending it and making myself even later. In the old days, when I was young, HP tires would quickly roll off sideways when the tube punctured.The ride's autopsy will have to wait until tomorrow.

Click on any image for an enlargement.

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