This Standard Scottish Life

The amazingly brilliant Gmaps Pedometer says.  You can eat as much as you like.  Even if the Gmaps Pedometer is half right I can still stuff myself with cake and pie and potatoes and porridge and perhaps a small vegetable tonight.  

But before any high calorie content can enter my mouth I promptly fall asleep on the floor.  Such is the energy draining route that Monsieur Le Oignon Sweaty devised for us as part of our Etape training.

To go up that big mountain.

In the distance.  

In June.

Not on our skis though.

But rather on our new bicycles.

Perhaps not all the way to the top.

Just most of the way up.

About 2469 metres will do.

But I have been higher.

Much higher.

I have been invited to give a talk at a local Rotary Club about my cycling trip across America.  I am beyond excitement about being asked. I feel quite grown up now.   And it’s another chance to show off / be smuggish (which is not very grown up at all).

And then I started wondering what sort of organisation The Rotary Club is, and the Wikipedia (it must be true then eh?) said they were all round good eggs and do lots of charity stuff.  I raised £666 (yes I know!) for Arthritis Research on my trip so I think that’s why they are asking me.

My only slight concern is whether there is any rivalry between such good egg type clubs.  Will they let me in to their Club rooms if I tell them that I was hanging out with Freemasons in Maine?  I did.  I really did.  (The Masons are much less controversial in Umerica than here and they actually come out on to the street).

… what condition my condition was in.

I have everything to do my conditioning for the L’Étape du Caledonia  I have:

• the lovely Polar CS300 heart monitor with integrated bicycle computer, satellite dish and onboard microwave oven.  This charming device informs me that I am morally, ethically, spiritually, physically, positively, absolutely, undeniably and reliably dead.   Really must learn how to use it properly
• new plimsols for the gym.  They are as light as a feather.
• a book about How to train to cycle 100 miles on my bike.  Eh .. I think in short you do it by getting on yer bike.
• lots of nice wooly clothes for cycling in the Scotchish winter
• a very nice bicycle
• an athlete (ahem).  That’s me.  

Haggis the famous TransAm bicycle

That what it says in my book.  

Conditioning.  Conditioning is the key to successful cycle training.

My book also says things like Periodisation, Neuromuscular Recruitment Patterns and Substrate Utilisation but I don’t like to look at those pages coz … well … on those pages are vary scary graphs mostly going straight up.

In yea olden days conditioning was called stamina.  And I am now in training to be more stamina-ed (stamina-ished?) on my bicycle for the preparation of L’Etape du Caledonian.

 I love conditioning, it is the most easy of exercise.  The conditioning program goes something like this:

1. attach heart monitor to cyclist in training (that’s me)
2. sit on sofa
3. complete 20 minute warm up by reading the cartoons and travel section of The Guardian newspaper
4. on completing warm up read chapter in cycle training book on conditioning for 4 minutes keeping heart rate below 150 beats per minute (bpm).  If heart rate goes over 150 bpm stop reading and stare into space for a wee bit til heart rate recovers
5. repeat number 4 above three times for a full conditioning work out
6. warm down for 20 minutes by watching Neighbours
7. nutrition is an important component of the conditioning training regime so within 10 minutes of completing warm down be sure to intake appropriate carbohydrates and protein (ham and cheese sandwich and some chocolate) and of course it’s important to balance electrolytes (i.e. drink quite a lot of beer which is a well know electrolyte balancer).  NB the conditioning workout leads to considerable fatigue so the cyclist in training should have others prepare their post workout nutrition.

Wot we spent on buying food:

£0.00 Total so far for Project Frugal £13.17 however Le Chef, who is incapable of advising me in advance if he wants me to prepare delicious, yummy sandwiches no doubt spent extravagant amounts on some dry old bread thing at work.  He will not disclose how much exchanged hands.

Wot we bought:

Wot we ate:

• OJ
• Cappuccino
• porridge
• I had another cappucino with Fraulein Direktor while we discussed very very important work type stuff.  She bought the cappucino, so no cost to me.  And this gave me a cunning idea.  If I can get all my friends to buy me or make me food then Project Frugal will never have any outgoings.  Send food parcels everyone!
• My lunch was a jamon (that’s Spanish for jam eh .. I mean ham), cheese and lettuce sandwich and three little tomatoes.  My sandwich was prepared by my own fair paw.  Le Chef – gawd only knows what he had or how much it cost.  Harumph!
• green tea
• water and lots of it due to furious spin class with Captain Awesome
• another Le Chef prepared culinary delight of curious origin twas served ce soir.  It was quite good.  It looked like it had beans and potatoes and carrots in it.  It perhaps even had parsnips in there too. I thought my tea lacked a certain something so I stirred in mango chutney which as everyone knows is just middle class tomato ketchup.  The meal’s tastiness improved somewhat in a strange exotic fruit way.  I recommend putting mango chutney on everything.
  • Uninteresting factoid: the French regard the parsnip with disdain.  They only feed it to their horses.  A terribly waste I say, Terrible waste.  And I thought they knew something about food.
• Le Chef is still stuffing himself with Kershy Hisses.  They were a food parcel from Umerica so no purchase necessary.

Reflections on frugality

Oh dear, oh dear.  Off the wagon already.   This is no good.

Wot we spent on buying food:

£3.98 Total so far for Project Frugal £13.17

Wot we bought:

Wot we ate:

• bacon sarnie & fried egg sarnie
• OJ
• Cappucino
• a peculiar meal of rice and something else which seemed to be vegetables and tasted a bit vinegary to me.  When I went into the kitchen later I saw the aftermath of the preparations for the peculiar meal.  The aftermath did not shine any light on what my tea was but there were big knives everywhere and a wok and vinegar.  While making our tea I can only think that Le Chef was distracted by The Archers or some shouty politician on Radio 4.
• green tea
• water
• huge meringue (mine was raspberry)
• Le Chef seemed to also eat an alarming number of Hershey Kisses without offering any to me.  But I don’t care coz Hershey Kisses are evil.  And I believe they have a laxative effect.  That’ll teach him!

Reflections on frugality

… we are mostly wearing …. quite peculiar clothes and even more peculiar things on our feet.

She came home.  Haggis.  She didn’t go to Siberia.  She just had fun on carousels at Heathrow for the afternoon.  She’s out there in the hall now in bits.  All I have to do is rebuild her.  Isn’t that a man’s job?

 Oi! Le Chef! Get yer allen key oot!  Ooh. Eer.  Missus.

I once got similarly separated from a pair of ski boots.  I checked them in at Denver Airport and they didn’t ever arrive at Glasgow Airport.  When the baggage staff traced them for me they were in Honolulu.  I think my ski boots were trying to tell me summat.

Haggis! I cry.  Haggis. Oh my God, Le Chef,  look there is Haggis with the baggage handlers.  Haggis! HAGGIS!    I am distraught.  I weep into my Executive Class G&T.

For those of you who don’t know, Haggis is not a Scotchish pudding made of lamb lung, bits o’ balls, stuffed in a stomach and butchered on Burns Night.  Well … OK …a Haggis is that but Le Vrai Haggis is my bicycle that took me across America.  You should really try and keep up people! C’mon now!

We are in the plane at Heathrow (a.k.a Hellrow) waiting to leave to go to Edinburgh.  I can see Haggis in her bag outside the plane on a baggage truck.  The baggage handlers seem to be reluctant to put her in the plane and Oh no! They are taking her away.  I shout,  Yes, this IS THE PLANE.  Just put the ruddy thing IN THIS PLANE.  But they don’t hear me and they drive away with Haggis towards an Aeroflot jet.  Haggis is off to the Gulag.  She was a good bicycle, only two punctures and some knackered ball bearings.  Doesn’t really deserve the Ivan Denisovich treatment.

I glug down a vodka.