There's been plenty of drama over the past few days. Even the sky over - not Bagdad - Bloemfontein is unusally gusty. And chilly. We went cycling latish this morning and we were buffeted all over the place. Barendine was so sick of it, when I arrived at my pitstop to pick up my dad's car, she asked if I would take her home too. We'd only cycled 45km, but I knew how she felt.
Yesterday I went out on my own. Really didn't want to, and got punished for my negative attitude. At about 6.5km I was flying at over 50km/h, courtesy of a potent tailwind, and then KSSSSSSSssssssssss. In three seconds I could feel the molars of the road, chewing under my saddle.
Fortunately I came prepared, and unscrewed a CO2 cartridge over the newly replaced tube and KSHwillll. Nice and hard. I even had some spare gas to pump my frontwheel a little harder.
At Sunnyhill, with no more spare tubes and no cellphone, I decided to stop for a burger, except that they said their debit card machines weren't working. So I took my huff and left with it. I climbed the gate at Tafelkop and began to ascend what is popularly known as the toughest climb in Bloem. About a third of the way up I was like: what's the big deal? Then the gradient got worse, and worse, and then, unimaginably tough. Now I started saying to myself: this hill can't carry on forver, but I can keep climbing.
And so it went on until at last, the road curved left and I was on top. Lung burning. The radar in front of me, whipping around. Don't know why but I expected, at any second, to be assassinated by a automatic gun mounted on a pivot. Guess I've been playing too many computer games.
Went home and sent about 20 sms's to my neglected girlfriend, then went to eat at Vasco's with a buddy I haven't seen in - well, I saw him for 10 seconds last year and before that, probably a decade has gone by. Had a good chat. I ordered a chilli garlic steak and Sven assured me that the chilli wouldn't be too hot. It was WAY too hot, but enjoyed the meal neverthless.
Today I bought a new tyre. When I get punctures, which is never, I usually toss away the old tyres, because they've been worn through. As a result, when the punctures start coming they usually don't stop. I noticed the gash in the old tyre was about 2 cm long. That's almost right across the tyre!
This morning, after the cycle I went 'home' to fetch my father's car keys and saw a note scribbled on the telephone counter in my father's handwriting. The content through me for a loop. Something about me owing him R20 000 and agreesing to make repayments of R200 a month. Except I didn't owe him R20 000. Ah. I glanced into an envelope. There's a check for R20 000. Except I don't need it, I don't need a loan thanks.
I now have to concentrate on a few things:
- moving out of the hostel
- finishing my marking (an odious task!)
- doing university assignments
- training (going running today at 4pm)
- finding a new job
Fransa's car got broken into on Friday night. They couldn't remove the radio but managed to break it enough so that it's unusable. The would-be-thieves broke the whole back window to open the front door, which scuppered our plans for picnics over the weekend.
Meanwhile, training must continue, whether rain, wind or shine. Such is the life of the professional athlete, which is what I suppose I must become now.
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