Kerry Buckley What’s the simplest thing that could possibly go wrong?

I took Monday off, largely to recover from the Coastal 10 and/or the post-Coastal-10 pub session. As far as I can remember I didn’t do a lot, although I did manage to drag myself out for a slow recovery plod round the heath in the early evening.

Back to cycling to Felixstowe for Tuesday training this week, as so far the summer seems to be resolutely sticking around. I’m sure in the old days T-shirt evenings in late September would have been unusual, and referred to as an “Indian summer”, rather than just an extension of the normal one. My front light battery went flat shortly after we set off to come home, so I had to stick close behind the pack so I could see where I was going.

On Saturday I spent the afternoon rearranging some of the junk in the small garage to make enough space to fit some bike storage mounts on the wall. I still need to get another couple, and make even more space for them (which will probably require a slightly more effective tidying, and maybe actually throwing some stuff out), but at least for now I’ve gone from four bikes in the house to just the one.

Sunday was the Ipswich Half, which is always a tough one with a couple of big (for Suffolk) hills. It always has a good atmosphere too though, and although I did skip it for a couple of years it seems a bit wrong to not take the opportunity of a closed-roads local race. I was exactly two minutes slower than last year – not sure whether to blame the heat or the fact that I didn’t have Holly and Maria for company this year, because they got stuck in the toilet queue and ended up starting so far back that it took them five minutes to cross the start line.

Predictably we ended up in (or outside) the Cricketers again, and while some people went home to shower at some point in the afternoon and came back (and the Felixstowe-based folks left after a while to get a bus home), I ended up staying into the evening. I’m not sure being in a Spoons long enough to have lunch and dinner is entirely recommended.

I’ve nearly finished watching the original series of Veronica Mars, and have been enjoying listening to the Bring Backup podcast alongside it. I had to put the latter on hold though, as with only a few episodes to go they suddenly decided to reverse their policy of avoiding spoilers for the film and season four. I’ve also been watching the second series of Ludwig, although I can’t really remember any of the plot points from series one that are still apparently fairly important to being able to keep up with what’s going on.

On Tuesday we had a first aid demo/practice at work, organised by Oli and Leon, who’ve recently joined the on-site ambulance team. Good to get a refresher on CPR and how to use an AED, plus a few other bits and bobs. The best bit was when Faye managed to have a coughing fit just as they were talking about how to treat someone who was choking, although she was very insistent that she didn’t need to be Heimliched.

Lots of people were skipping Tuesday’s training session in favour of watching the football, and I ended up joining Rob, Jo and Neil for an easy local six miles straight after work, before cycling down to the Plough to watch Ipswich get beaten by Arsenal (although they did at least pull it back to 4-2).

On Wednesday I got to play at being an AA HomeStart man, by cycling over to Jane’s with my battery booster, to rescue her car that had suddenly developed a flat battery. Also a chance to get nearly knocked over by being leant on by Sky the greyhound.

On Saturday I got talked into joining Dave and family for a second breakfast in the Cricketers after parkrun. Gary and Maria had already started walking home, but we caught them up and they joined us too. Then in the afternoon I picked up Maria and we drove over to Felixstowe to help set up for Sunday’s Coastal 10 race. I think this is the fourth year I’ve put the signs out for the Landguard end of the route, and I’m getting quite good at remembering where they all go now.

Then on Sunday it was time for the actual race. As usual I wasn’t expecting to do particularly well, but in the end I was within half a minute of my PB time, and as that was four years ago it was my best age grade for the distance. I managed to keep up with Maria for the first few miles, then once she’d left me behind I slowly caught and eventually passed Dom and Robin. Ryan had a great day, finishing in second place, with team-mates Haydn and Neil (not that one) in third and fourth. Obviously that got us the men’s team prize, and Maria and two of the Sams also got us the ladies’, so a good day for the club on home soil. After an inordinate amount of faffing (and a bit of helping with clearing up) we stopped at the Falcon for a couple of post-race beers (the Half Moon was mysteriously shut), then most of us ended up in the Cricketers again later.

Is it maybe starting to almost feel like autumn? We’ve finally had a bit of rain, I’ve worn jeans instead of shorts a few times, and there was even one night when I closed my bedroom windows, although that soon proved premature and the indoor temperature even with them open again hasn’t really dropped below 20°C. Ninja cat has occasionally deigned to come and purr on my lap a couple of times, but is still spending 99% of his time hiding in the garden.

Much like rural buses, having had the first race for ages on Sunday, another one turned up a day later. This was the Bury St Edmunds leg of the A14 track challenge, which is where a few local clubs get together for 5000m on the track, with three races through the evening for people running different times. Once again I’d entered the middle (20–23 minute) one, so after cheering on some or our faster runners in the first one (Ryan came third, in about 16 minutes, having won the previous day’s 10k) I slogged my way round. I ended up only being 19s slower than last year, but more importantly after being out-sprinted for the line by Robin last year I turned the tables this time! A few of us had taken the train there, with our bikes, in order to facilitate an evening in the rather fancy Bury Spoons.

What with tired legs and the aforementioned weather changes I drove to Felixstowe instead of cycling for Tuesday’s training session for the first time in a while, although Neil put us to shame by cycling on his own. I also didn’t run very fast. We did cycle to Alton Water parkrun on Saturday though, to join Mark for his 500th parkrun (still another year and a bit before I get there).

I took Friday off work, and intended to hack down the overgrown bit of hedge at the side of the house. I made a start, but filled both brown bins with stuff I had to cut down just to reach the hedge. Oh well, they’re being collected on Wednesday, so I’ll do a bit more after that. Actually, now I think of it, that might have been Saturday, in which case I can’t remember how I frittered away my day off.

I went for a long (well, not that long) slow run on my own on Sunday, and a bee flew into my eye. It stung my eyelid, but I must have scraped it off quickly enough because it didn’t come up in a lump and stopped hurting quite quickly. Then later we had another of those Sunday “who fancies going to the Cricketers for some food and a couple of pints?” evenings that ends up with us leaving at about midnight.

Late again, mainly due to a busy weekend. I don’t remember much of interest happening during the actual week though.

On Saturday I was cutting it a bit fine leaving home for parkrun, then as I got to the bottom of the hill about a quarter of a mile away my rear wheel suddenly started rubbing (or so I thought), then stopped going round at all. I didn’t really have time to look at it, so quickly locked it to a handy nearby rack and ran the rest of the way, dropping my bag and reaching the start line with about a second to spare (not that it mattered, as I wasn’t planning to go quickly). Then I had to carry the bike about a mile and a half home.

Once I’d recovered enough to have a look at it, I realised that it wasn’t the wheel that was stuck, but the bottom bracket (easily confused with a fixed gear). It turned out that it had somehow unscrewed itself and locked against the crank, which should have been easily fixed, but when I tightened it up the chainring was fouling the chain stay. After a lot of faffing about I realised that the bottom bracket was fitted the wrong way round, with the longer taper on the left – I can only assume the previous owner put it together that way, then unscrewed it a bit to stop it hitting the frame. It all works OK again, but now I have to find some red and white paint to touch up where it scratched the stay.

Sunday racing returned this week, in the shape of the Framlingham 10k. It was its usual hilly self, and I dragged myself round in only five seconds longer than last year, which is an improvement if you squint through the lens of age grading.

Back to the subject of bike maintenance, I bought a bleed kit for the brakes on the Grinduro (see last week), and on Sunday afternoon I successfully bled the front brake. Unfortunately when it came to the rear, the bleed nipple on the caliper was seized solid, and defeated a variety of tools. I managed to get some pad clearance back anyway, by opening the filling screw on the brake lever reservoir and pushing the pistons back in, displacing some excess fluid. So that bike is now rideable again, taking the total up to five (six if you count the terrible but more-or-less working mountain bike).

I was just getting ready to take the bike out for a spin to check that it all worked when I was informed that various people were heading to the Cricketers for food and beer before they all went to the Corn Exchange to see an Iron Maiden tribute band. I didn’t join them for the gig, but it would have been rude to skip the drinking too, so I combined that with the test ride, heading straight there, but adding a few miles (some on unpaved tracks) on the way home. The wheels I built seem to work properly, and even got the Solomon seal of approval for appearance and trueness.