On the exercise front, I have not achieved much this past week – and here’s my excuse.
After my climb up the Alp last Saturday, I joined the usual, Sunday Brunch ride, but found it a till harder going than usual. Could this be the sign of something brewing ?
The following day, I was showing all the signs of a cold which only got worse through the day and into Tuesday. Wednesday wasn’t a lot better but I managed to force myself to The Griffin on the evening.
I was somewhat hampered joining in with the conversation as, as well as everything else, my right ear was blocked with wax making my totally deaf on that side. To combat this I tried using some very out of date ear drops but once Sue discovered that the use before date was in roman numerals (okay, not quite that bad) she threw them out and I obtained some fresh stuff.
The drops are making a difference and I keep getting spells when the hearing is almost back to normal but then the wax moves and all goes silent. Hopefully, this should be all sorted in a couple of days.
The cold (or maybe it was flu) persists but is better, so much so that I jumped on the Brunch ride this morning. I was not fully recovered, as became evident, as I fell off the back of the bunch and had to work had to get back. I held on until the end but it was a lot harder than it should have been.
I even had to take a coffee break up Box Hill which gave me three minutes relief.
I did finish the ride and took a further ten minutes to cool down pedalling nice and easy.
By forcing myself to ride, I have kept my streak going and has now reached forty consecutive weeks of cycling.
Sue threw me the other day asking if the Hot Tub could be made ready. I am the main user of the tub but after a winter of it lying dormant, I decided to give it the once over.
I switched it on and it lit up as it should.
I pressed the button to start the circulation pump, the light came on but no pump. Bugger.
A quick trawl of eBay discovered a reconditioned unit which I showed to Sue. Compared to the cost of a whole new tub, this was a bargain at only £150.
I ordered it on Wednesday and it was delivered Friday. Not bad.
Yesterday, I emptied the tub (it needed a thorough clean as it had been standing for months) and installed the new unit. Then started the slow process of filling it back up.
Once the level was above the filter, I pressed the pump button and was relieved when it started up. As a bonus, the recon. unit was a lot quieter than the original. I hit the heater button to start heating up the nearly one thousand litres of water and once the hose pipe had filled to the correct level, put the lid on and left it to heat up.
A day later, and the tub was up to thirty eight degrees.
I checked and adjusted the water chemistry (pH, Bromine levels) so that everything was ready for the first dunk of the year.
After getting changed, I lowered myself into the warm water. I didn’t realise how much I’d missed this.
Some gentle exercises moving my legs against the resistance of the water helped remove some of the residue from this morning’s ride.
I wallowed for a while, reading and just taking it easy. As I emerged my knees felt a lot better so, perhaps, I’ll have to keep this up.