Day 7 - status report

As promised, this will be a proper update of the weekend. It's been a blast, and I'm a tad knackered now. The pic on the left is me hoofing it down one of the paths at Llandegla yesterday, which was awesome fun. But the biking comes later, so rewind 24 hours.

I was pretty good up til Friday lunchtime, with the exception of the giant chocolate chip cookie that I had on Friday morning. Can you classify yourself as being good if you still make one bad choice? Everything else was good anyway. Friday afternoon passed in a blur of last minute packing, panicking over which dress to wear (and the inevitable final decision to go with something completely different than originally planned) and just about being ready when my lift arrived.

The journey up to North Wales was tediously long as we got stuck in traffic, so we ended up just making it with 10 mins to spare before dinner started and all dived in the loos to get changed quickly out of jeans and into dresses and heels. This is Bridget and I in all our posh dress glory.

Dinner was probably about a million calories - it didn't start too bad as there was soup and bread rolls (with actual proper butter - god that stuff is good!), and then pan-fried chicken with loads of lovely veg, stuffing, and roast potatoes. So far, so good. The main was enormous, so I loaded up with veg, ate til I was full and left some of the potatoes and chicken - a good habit for me to practice. Then there was dessert which was profiteroles with fresh cream and a light and dark chocolate sauce. This is why I'd been saving points all week and it was well worth it. There were probably about 4 or 5 glasses of wine with dinner, and then 2 glass of sparkling wine afterwards - in other words: many, many points.

After a fun night, and a late finish (I think we got to bed about 2am), we were up bright and early to split up into a biking party and a walking one. We rocked up to Llandegla in the rain, and as expected B looked a little bit mutinous at the prospect of the weather. We cajoled her to at least come to the cafe for lunch first (the best bacon baps in the UK they claim, and to be honest they were pretty damn awesome - I had mine with extra mushrooms) and luckily once we'd refuelled the weather was looking a little less fearsome, so we kitted up and set out. That's my baby in the pic below - expensive but worth it! And then a general pic of us getting ready.

This particularly cheesey shot, is me looking smug that we've got to top, and a tad excited about where we're going - i.e. the fun downhill bit in the forest below that I'm pointing out. We were only doing the blue run as B wasn't feeling up to trying the red, but the long swooping runs down were just awesome and as they weren't too technical I was able to hammer it on the speed front which felt fantastic.

The shot above is Bridget showing off her mud collection. I wasn't quite as bad as my bike sports some rough and ready mud guards which fend off the worst of it. The trails were still pretty wet, and in the big version of the opening shot in this post you can actually see the spray being thrown about 6 feet in the air off my rear wheel, although I doubt you can see it on here. The best thing about the trails, really though, was that I found the climb up during the first couple of miles pretty easy going - I felt good and not too strained. I am sooooooo tackling the red route next time I go there!

Once back down to the centre, we jet sprayed the worst of the mud off the bikes and reassembled the jigsaw puzzle involved in getting 3 bikes, some luggage and 3 people back in a medium size car. Then a long drive home, and I admit that I wasn't as good as I could have been with my evening food choices. I was going to have home-cooked stir-fry before realising I had no stir-fry veg. Then since I was feeling tired and hungry I was going to go and get some take-away since I didn't feel like waiting round for something to cook, but didn't have the energy to leave the house either. Finally I remembered that one of the local takeaways delivered, so ordered some vegetable chow-mein to be bought to the house. Not ideal, but also not the worst choice I could make.

I have pointed up everything from this weekend as best I can, and as at this morning, I had pretty much broken even. Today's been all about running around. I had to retrieve my overnight bag back from the boys as it got bought home in the walkers' car from Wales, then go over to B's to get my bike back, then shoot down to Bristol for a first date, which lasted over 3 hours (we only met for coffee!). Just need some tea now, and then I'm going to have a quick tidy and collapse.

My right eye is killing me - it's been sore all day, but I've just taken my lenses out and now it feels worse. I'm praying I haven't got another ulcer on my cornea as I remember it feeling like this when I did just before Christmas. It won't stop watering like crazy as well as being overly sensitive to the light. Might have to go get an emergency optician's appt tomorrow if it's still feeling a bit off.

So in summary:

• Food eaten - way too much - about a million calories, but it was good. Although rich food doesn't agree with me so much anymore.
• Fluid intake - plenty - but mostly alcoholic, or post-ride Lucozade - errrrr, perhaps a little more water required.
• Exercise - one awesome bike ride, and then not enough today.
• Time spent off plan - about 12 hours longer than intended, but I'm back on it now, for next week.

And then repeat all over again starting tomorrow for the wedding next weekend!

• Weekends enjoyed - 1 really good one!!!