Work gets in the way of riding

Thursday, June 10 – At school, no riding

So much for plans. Cory's schedule had me riding 30 minutes today, but I had to be at school to meet the Dean at 8:00, so arriving hot and sweaty was not really in the cards. Then I had to hang around to meet "The Men from the Ministry", and then the Associate Dean in the afternoon. The outcome is that I have an extra course to teach between now and the TR. The money will be welcome, but inevitably more teaching will mean less riding. Oh the sacrifices we make to be financially solvent.

So, once I got home I had lots of preparation to do for the course which I start teaching next Thursday. I've taught a very similar course, Business Strategy, previously, so the "ramp up" will not be too horrendous. But it is a new textbook and you need to spend some time getting familiar with the textbook author's perspective and approach. Oh well, tomorrow I'm scheduled for a 3-hour mountain bike ride. That will be a welcome respite form the book grind.

PS "The Men from the Ministry" was a BBC radio comedy series about the bumblings of a couple of petty bureaucrats. If you've ever worked in any branch of government lots of it will ring true.

 

Friday, June 11 – 70 kms in 2:32

I've been a naughty boy again. The plan was for Friday to be day 1 of a three day mountain bike camp. I'm to ride 3 hours on my mountain bike per day for three days. And on the first day not only did I only ride for 2 and a half hours, but I also did it on my road bike.

The new course I'm teaching has rather thrown a spanner in the works and I had to track down course materials and get ready for next Thursday. So I was on the phone to the publishers and then downloading all of the course materials from the textbook website. This meant that I didn't get out until late and only had two and half hours to ride before dinner. Also, my mountain bike and I were in different cities, so it had to be on my road bike. I had to ride some relatively flat roads to get to my destination and then did hill repeats for 45 minutes. Hills are one of the few areas where I feel good and can generally maintain a good pace. On a race like the Test of Metal I pass people on the climbs, only to have them blow past me on the technical descents. In road races they say that climbers win by minutes, while sprinters win by seconds. On the TR the strong climbers often finish hours ahead of the people who are in their granny ring, or off their bike pushing on the big hills.

So, while it was not exactly was Cory had on the schedule, it was a pretty good ride. For tomorrow and Sunday I will put in an honest three hours per day on the mountain bike riding double track climbs and single track descents.