We Three Hills...

Resting Or Sore?


Christ on a bike! This year has gone by bloody quick thus far don't you think? Just a few more days until the longest day of the year and it seems as if it was February only weeks ago! My Hep C treatment is all but a faint memory with this little thing preventing me from forgetting about it completely...that being my 'SVR' blood test which will be pulled from me sometime in the first week or two of July. I reckon it's gone to be perfectly frank and this is why I'm not too worried about the upcoming test. It's just another test to me in a way anyway. I've had hundreds if not thousands of test for one thing or another to do with me blood, so what is one more;) It's gone! So why worry eh? And if it's not...it's not. I'll live.

Anyway. What have I been up to then? You guessed it. Cycling & kayaking and not a lot else really. Apart from these dreams I keep having of this beautiful Swan (very strange), I have been attending the hearings for the enquiry into contaminated blood products every few weeks or so in Westminster too. I still feel quite detatched from the whole thing even though I am part of the reason why it was set up. I just don't have the anger and fire in me that some of the others have...and quite rightly they should too! But for me, i find it all very fascinating stuff to witness and all but I find it hard sometimes to think that I am actually a part of it. I have always kept my distance from these types of things and trying to get into it now seems a little late in the day if not pointless also? I don't know. Maybe things will change inside me if and when i witness more deaths like I did several years ago. Even then I didn't get angry and feel the need to fight for anything. Sounds bad doesn't it? Alright...I did and do get angry about it all but I have just never been one to share it with anyone. Maybe I'm a bottler...or a wimp? Maybe I just don't give a shit? Maybe I give so much of a shit that it just doesn't register anymore? What must I sound like eh? I'm not the best person at explaining himself that's for sure. I reckon I'll probably stop trying then.

So...on to my cycling and kayaking. As you know I did that Rough Ride thing a few weeks ago and thoroughly enjoyed it. And as soon as I got back I remembered this website that I found last summer called Blood, Sweat & Tyres who raise money for The Haemophilia Society by cycling places. I first came across them last year when I was in the middle of my Hep C treatment and would have joined them on their summer ride across 90 miles of The Ridgeway if I had been in time. It was only two days away from the time that I found out about it and I thought about asking them if I could join them and then quickly decided I would wait until the next one in August 2007......which is exactly what I am going to do. I've got plenty of time to prepare myself for it, although to be quite honest I am ready for it now. The ride is 104 miles (over two days) from Dover to Dorking cycling along the North Downs Way via Canterbury. They have said that I am more than welcome to join them and raise money for the Haemophilia Society at the same time. I am in the middle of creating a fundraising page for myself so if any of you out there wish to sponser me then that will be the place to do it. I will post links to my page as soon as I have got my page ready and I will e-mail you with details too and no doubt post something on the Hep C Forum (if it's alright with you Carol?). It will be a challenge...a painful one, but one that I am looking forward to immensley. I can do it!

That's in August, but today (Sunday) I was up in the Surrey Hills alone and did all three of the best ones in a row (Holmbury/Leith/Pitch. I started off in Peaslake and went up the side of Holmbury Hill paralell to Barry Knows Best and along Resevoir Dogs all the way to the highest point, looked at the view with Leith Hill on the horizon to the left and Pitch Hill to the right and then took a dive into the snazzy new start of Yoghurt Pots and all the way down to the bottom, which was quite yoghurty I might add and then found The Telegraph Row route & took it all the way down to the otherside into Holmbury St Mary and then along the road a little way past the church and up the steepish and pretty mucky track that takes you to High Ashes Farm and the bottom of Leith Hill. Cross the road and head up the track directly up to the Tower and got meself a slice of date & marmalade cake and more water and quickly headed for Coldharbour via the South side of the hill passing the cricket pitch on my left and into the pretty cool series of single tracks that are Waggledance, Regurgitator & Summer Lightning...ignoring Deliverance on my way by (I've done it once...never again...& it was on a hardtail!) and almost all the way into Westcott and by road to Broadmoor and back up to the top of Leith Hill through some quite narrow single track all up hill and all wet and muddy. The weather was quite good but it had been raining the day before and the whole route was quite sticky & mucky! Straight past the tower again and back to the start of Barry Knows Best (riding paralell to the Yoghurt Pots instead) almost the exact way I came. Did Barry and popped out of the bottom minding not to get killed under a pasing car as I took the road into Peaslake Village again. Had the rest of my cake and spoke to another rider who had just found a new bit of singletrack downhill he hadn't seen before in Winterfold Woods. I didn't tell him that I had already been there before at the beginning of the year and cut my leg open;)
No time to rest as I still had Pitch Hill to do. My right arm was killing me by this stage...I pointed to somewhere to show my fellow rester the direction of a track i was talking about and as my elbow tried to straighten it caught and OUCH!! He asked me if I had fallen off and I just said that it was an old injury. And my right knee had been telling me something too since the climb back up to the top of Leith Hill. I kept my eye on it so to speak and carried on up past Peaslake church and up to and through T1 and eventually found myself at the very top by the trigpoint...past someones discarded disposable BBQ (tut-tut!) and down the fast, quick and very rooty descent into Ewhurst car park. Instantly turning around and headed the same way back trying not to get off my bike but it was too slippery on the roots and pushed Elvis past them until I was on dirt again...back up to the trigpoint and down T1 and down the side of Pitch Hill past the graveyard, left down the tricky and quite slippery rooty section right into Peaslake car par where my trusty car was waiting for me:) My knee wasn't any worse and my arm wasn't too bad either as I had made a conscious decision to try and rest it as much as I could. It seemed to work but it still hurts like hell!
It was a nice ride and nice and warm to boot as Ample would say;) with not too much wind. It was quite slippy in places and me & Elvis were absolutely covered in mud when I got back. There were quite a few cyclists about too and hikers/walkers etc. I'm glad I went as I haven't been up there for a few months now. I seem to spend all my time in Richmond Park these days! Having said that, I couldn't possibly go up there in the hills too much as my arm isn't getting any better. I don't want to ruin it anymore than I have too;)
So what was the damage? I started out at 1pm and got back to the car at 5pm but according to my trip computer I was pedaling a total of 3hrs. My average speed was 9.1 mph, max speed 31.6 mph (and I wasn't even pedaling when I got that) and the total distance I covered was 26.66 miles. Not bad for a ride in the Surrey Hills:)
I drove home and then went for another little ride of 6 miles to see if I could get into this Music Festival in Strawberry Hill...but they wouldn't let me in the grounds on my bike (I reckon it was because of all the mud on me;)...and I had left my wallet in my car anyway! Oh well;) So 32.56 miles total

So on to kayaking. I reckon I have mastered my C to C roll now and have done them over and over again in the pool and the Thames and the Mole now. I still can't believe that I can roll successfully in a kayak. I have always wanted to be able to roll in one since my North Wales Adventure holidays with the Haemophilia Society when I was but a little boy;) And now I can do them whenever I want:) I am very proud of myself as I thought I'd never ever be able to do one. I thought they looked impossible in the past...and now they come easy to me. I'm so chuffed:)


Jason

P.s. Can anyone tell me how I get a link into the text in my actual post? For I have a video my friend Lee made of me executing a roll in the Mole (Whoa! I made a rhyme:) last Friday afternoon during a 2hr 30mins paddle from Box Hill Stepping Stones all the way to near Bocketts Farm. I want to show the whole world I can roll now;)




http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o5ELJfSbm58


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o5ELJfSbm58


P.s. Happy Birthday Chris for yesterday:)






(C) JPT 2007.........1775.13 miles.