Having trained for the marathon on the south coast with its cliffs and pebbles over the first quarter of the year, it was really good to get across to the east coast and see how very different it is.
I’ve been working really hard all week, including playing a promotional-girl role at a consumer show on Saturday & Sunday in order to really immerse myself in a business. As a result, my entire weekend is on a Monday this week and James, my kind host, suggested that rather than exhausting myself by going for my usual run, we cycle down to the beach to have a leisurely breakfast.
The choice of bicycles, between a manly Land Rover bike and a girly unisex model was REALLY easy… the latter had a wide gel saddle!
My other hosts, Kerry and Dani, drove down to meet us there and I duly polished off a large and delicious plate of egg, bacon & tomatoes on crusty white toast, washed down with a latte.
We cycled on along the coast, finding a very happy man with a 7-kilo fish that he had just caught from a sit-a-top kayak, before we continued into the next bay.
Completing the circle back to the house meant that we had cycled 17km, or just over 10 miles, which I reckon is as good a workout as a run any day of the week. And bearing in mind that the last time I was on a bike was probably in 1990, you won’t be terribly surprised to hear that as soon as we got back I collapsed in a heap! Or that, despite the gel saddle, I’ll almost certainly be doing a John Wayne impersonation tomorrow!