Air Kiss

Yesterday I kissed a fifteen year old girl. I wasn’t sure if I should, especially since we’re just cycling buddies, and I mean, I’m 34. But it was her 16th birthday, and it was virtually an air kiss, and what else are you supposed to do, give a small wave?

Now that I’ve gotten your attention (one stalker of this blog was about to rub hands in vindictive glee) I can tell you that a bee kissed me yesterday too. With its rear end. I was shooting down, approaching the Total garage when a bee whacked against my cheek – hard as a small stone. I instinctively brushed it aside, and I think what happened was it had scooted onto my helmet strap, and the action of my hand added to the shock it had experienced of the first impact. That’s when it drove its sting into the ridge of my ear. For a few moments it felt like blood was dripping out of my ear. And I know how that feels because I experienced my ear dripping with blood (inside and out, in Korea, on the eve of an Ironman).

When arrived at the school I headed for a big mirror and found the sting and poison sack. I asked one of the students, Selina, who wants to study nursing, to use her long fingernails and pull it out, without squeezing the sack. She kept nodding and appearing to understand but when it came down to it she didn’t seem to know what to do. So I got another student to fetch me a tweezer. Think I snatched it out without squashing the balloon of OW! But my ear has itched all day, and it’s still red and painful now.

I ended up cycling just over 3 hours, and 90km today. Today’s my last hard training day before the 94.7 on Sunday.
I went with Barendine and a bunch of schoolkids. Jacques joined us at the Krugersdrift dam, but rode fairly sedately, trying to keep his heart rate at a constant 75%. The other kids were playing and performing like puppies. Quite fun. I was really pooped when I got home at after 5.

Still managed to get myself back on the bike at 9pm to go to the lab, except the internet was down. Bummer.

I wanted to study a Master’s in English, but given how my morale (to study English) has dropped throughout the year, especially the last quarter, I’m not that motivated anymore.

Maybe I can commit my energy to something more worthwhile, something that might offer a better sense of reward. Training, writing – or both? Goodness knows that this year I had a heck of a lot on my plate, most of the time too much. Think I need to slim down from here on out, and in more ways than one.