Happy New Year!!!!!

It's goodbye to 2007 and Hiya to 2008. It's also Shell's boys birthday, Happy Birthday David you little toerag :)

Today I did my first bike ride of the year, which was actually my first bike ride since October!!!! Damn it was windy out there, so much so that it made for a very odd ride. It's a well used 20mile loop where the first 3miles and the last mile are flat inbetween which there's 8miles of climbing followed by 8miles of descending. Today the climbing was easier than the descending as that's where the wind was at my back. There was one point where I was struggling to keep double figures on the flat. It was tough going and combined with my lack of fitness and my training hybrid bike it meant I was over 20mins slower than I was last July. Plenty of time for improvement though.
Last Friday I hit the gym for a couple of hours (this is becoming a bit of a habit!!!) in the morning, then in the evening I headed off to drive the 14miles to my squad swim session. The main road was closed after an accident so I battled my way through the traffic and back roads finally arriving there a couple of minutes late only to discover that the pool had reduced opening hours over the festive period and was closed (grrrrrrrrrr!!!) so I had to fight my way back through the traffic to get home again.
Saturday I had several sessions lined up in the back of my head and in the end I did..........erm...........nothing at all.
On Sunday morning I ventured out to my Tri Club swim session for a nice steady technique based swim. A lunchtime phonecall then lined up a nice 10.5mile off road run for me (and the pup) which was great, especially when Rosie found a flock of sheep had escaped their field and were on the track we were using. She soon had them back in their field although this was purely down to luck and nothing to do with judgement by either of us.
Monday I had a shortened 90min gym session (due to the gym closing early for New Years Eve) then it was off to see some friends, drink a bit and almost miss seeing in the New Year because we were playing 'Singstar' on the PS2 (ooops).
After crawling into a borrowed bed at around 3am my alarm kicked in at 8am to wake me for out annual Run/Sea 'dip'/Fry-up at Woolacombe Bay.

A small group of hardy souls met at 10am for a 5mile looped run (with Rosie of course) coming back along the beach, then anybody lacking in brain matter stripped off and charged into the sea for a 'refreshing' dip (happily there was no repeat of last years hail storms) followed by a full English Breakfast in the beachside cafe. Fantastic!!!!!
The weather on New Years Day was so mild that by midday the place was packed. I've seen the beach less crouded in mid summer. The things people will do to work off that hangover.
That's about it for now I think.
Being off work has led to me doing some daft things like looking into new kitchens, bathrooms and even houses. None of them will ever happen though. The sooner I'm back at work and back to reality the better I think.
Until next time. Happy New Year all.