… or the Route to Yogi. Thank you lovely Routeslip.

…. it has taken me 2 weeks to get off my bum to fix my punkchur that I got cycling on the Volcano lump.  I hope it doesn’t take me 2 weeks to sort a punkchur while I’m cycling across America!

… also known as my route through the Potato State. Thank you lovely Routeslip.

… read any training book and it will say there is:

• aerobic training
• strength training
• endurance training

Piffle I say The true aspects of training are:

• training (i.e. you actually go and do something). Pah!  Waste of time!
  
• alleged training (i.e. you infer in your blog that you might have done training but no-one saw you so it may have happened or may not have)
• and the best training of all pseudo training.  Where you talk about training, make great and sweeping plans with your mate Andrew frae work  for ultimate fitness within 6  weeks hours and if it disnae transpire you can blame him with some makey-uppy excuse.

Andrew et moi have planned a full program of circuit training, kendo, spinning, general liveliness with a spot of tai chi just as soon as I can get aff me erse to join the gym.  Watch this space ……. for several years before anything changes.

… with T the speed boy.

… I have been scribbling on maps (thank you lovely Washington DOT) and twiddling with Routeslip and now I think I have a vague route plan for seeing myself through Washington.

… are black.  So I did do my alleged training thing today.  I zoomed, well zoomed as fast as the rush hour traffic would allow me to Holyrood Park, then didn’t zoom so quickly up Arthur’s Seat, and zoomed even less so near the top coz it gets a bit steeper there.   Twas a glorious evening, very clear, very still, very sunny, very sneezy due to lots of broom plants and very zoomy downhill.  When I got to the bottom I decided to do another loop coz it was so nice and it really isn’t a bad hill to cycle up.

And when I arrived home and jumped of my bike (read stumbled) I thought “Strange how khaki capris feel damp.“  Horrors when I looked in the mirror - it looked like I had peed myself (I hadn’t !).   My saddle is plastic, I was sweaty.  Sweaty went on my khakis.  I’m dying those capris black tonight!

TMI n’est pas ?

Apparently in my other, other life there are plans afoot to start some training. Ha! Cycling up hills ? Who’d do that ?

… will let smelly, sweaty, sticky cyclists wash in their showers.

Tis important when cycling a zillion miles across North America that one is properly fuelled. I therefore decided that I should undertake some research and evaluate the qualities of trail bars as a lightweight (they’re lighter than the traditional Scottish cycling fuel of a bag of potatoes and turnips), tasty, high calorie nutritional snack for scoffing when either feeling a bit peckish or sensing an impending hypoglycæmia coma. So, I secured three types of bar from the lovely REI in Denver:

• Clif Mojo bar
• Probar superfood slam (what the f**k?)
• Owalla Berries GoMega

Over several evenings, while left to my own devices / cooking, I sampled these fine examples of energy foods. And the conclusion is …. they are poisonous …. I would only eat such muck if I were approaching death. They are all sticky, full of nuts or dried fruits and truly ghastly. Gimme real fruit, a bag of pumpkin seeds and a sack of fried pork rinds any day.