Newcastle

Aha - I’ve stolen Karl’s blog and am guest editing for the weekend. I love coming up North away from the big smoke as I always manage to truly relax and chill out, and Hobbe’s and his lovely wife always look after me really well, except for this morning. Karl was off on...
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So here’s my cycling mileage plan for this week: 30 yesterday 15 today 15 tomorrow morning 30 tomorrow afternoon 15 in the Sunday morning spin class If I manage all of those, then I’ll be less than 500 miles from my goal mileage. I’m finding that as I get closer to the target, I’m accelerating my mileage - it’s almost...
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I’d forgotten something that happened to me this morning to restore my faith in people behind the wheel of cars. I was waiting second in line at a set of lights in Gateshead. When they turned green, the driver of the front car pull forward slowly, and over to the right, leaving a gap of...
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So after this morning’s run, I headed out for my loop through Newcastle to the Scotswood bridge & back. I was riding Trixie the Fixie, who is definitely my favourite bike. I’m not sure if it’s to do with the simple joy of riding fixed, or the fit of the bike, but it all seems...
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A short, but relatively early run this morning with Shana. When the alarm clock went off, I did NOT want to get out of bed today - despite getting an early-ish night in yesterday. Shana’s obviously starting to get a lot fitter - we kept up a pace of about nine minute miles, while keeping...
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So anyway, one of the people I photographed on the Great North Run course today was Owld Jarra Jim - a man in his mid-eighties who’s still getting out and doing it. Turns out that he’s a bit of a star - even featured on the BBC’s web site. He didn’t start running ’till he...
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I didn’t do this year’s run. Actually I’ve not done it for seven years - tough course and lots and lots and lots of people make this more of a fun run. Anyway, one of Wife’s friends from back when she used to be a civil servant DID run the race, so Daughter and I...
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We had to go into Newcastle today to pick up some stuff for Wife. And as it was such a sunny day, she suggested that rather than the two of us going in the car . . . I could ride. Well, I can resist almost everything except temptation, and even though I’d already been...
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Before I write this, I’d just like to issue a Winging Pom’s apology in advance to any Australian men reading. Anyway, this afternoon, I rode with Daughter (who courtesy of Kellogg’s now has a bike computer) to her Stage class. Then while she was doing her razzle-dazzle things, I went for a ride to the...
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I was behind in my cycling mileage for this fortnight, and had hardly been on the bike since the Warwick triathlon two weeks ago. Officially, this was a rest period, after doing three sprint triathlons in six weeks. But also, I’d just reached a level of burnout, where I just didn’t want to cycle...
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