60 miles!

Now, there's a major problem when you're writing a cycling blog, and it's to do with photos.  Now, if we had sophisticated technology at our disposal, we would have amazing cameras that we could attach to our handlebars, Terry and I, and we would be able to take photos of each other's bottoms for something hilarious to post on this 'ere bloggage.  We might also be able to shoot super-quality video in the same way, and you would then be able to hear what it sounds like when I am wheezing my way up a 'hill'.  But we a'n't got any of that.  So for the time being, all we can show you is what we look like when we stop for a butty:

Or perhaps what we look like when we see something amusing (or rather, should I say, something that amuses us?):

These splendid snapshots were taken just over a week ago, when I did my best distance so far (although, almost every distance I do now becomes a personal best), of 60 whole English miles!  60 miles, I tell you.  Not 6.  60.  Now, I don't mind telling you that I'm pretty damned proud of myself for that; also proud of my trainer for pushing me.  Pushing me, in the sense that he makes me do longer distances than I think I'm capable of, rather than actually physically pushing me, because that would probably be impossible because I am heavy, and he might fall off his own bike (which is a Trek - Terry, tell us about your bike).

And let me tell you something else: that 60 miles that I did, was, in actual fact ... quite easy!  This is what I'd been told, by people who work at the Power Station who cycle, that when you pass the 50 mile milestone things get a little easier.  I didn't really believe them, because how could things get easier when they're actually getting more difficult?  But they're quite right - though also, at the same time, quite wrong.  Things are easier, because I'm fitter; things are also much more difficult because Terry is a hard task-master: he said he was thinking of rewriting my training schedule because it now looks too easy (what with me actually being a cycling TITAN!).

So, that 60 miles, in brief, took us from Lancaster, round some lanes near Oakenclough and that, crossing back and forth over the motorway, and into Preston.  Actually, to the far side of Preston, to a picturesque park that I didn't even know was there.  Then it brought us down the A6, and home.  60 miles, on the dot.  I still had energy left afterwards, and was dancing - yes, dancing, to the tunes on Terry's iPod.  I'll be taking my own iPod next week.

Next week I would like to write all about our cycle straight away, so that I don't forget things.  As it is, this week, I can't tell you much because it's all disappeared, leaked out of my ears and nose.  I can tell you, though, that we live in a beautiful part of the world, of the country, and every time I go out on the bike I see something gorgeous, something breathtaking, something that makes me smile and be glad to be alive.  We'll get some photos of these astounding sights over the next few months.

For now, erm,  до свидания (goodbye, in Russian).