Its visa time. I'm OK. Mine lasts for 3 or 5 years, as does Jo's. Long enough for this jaunt anyway. But daughter Katy and Mother-in-law Sheila are on a short leash with Obama's Homeland Security crew, who are on the sidelines just waiting for an infringement. Their visas run out on Tuesday, and so they are leaving town on Monday to fly back to UK. Sheila isn't returning to the US, she wants to stay in the UK. She's 80 now, and frankly, we were amazed when she wanted to come in the first place. We celebrated her 80th birthday with pizza at one of the local Italian restaurants, and it was amazing to think that the girl from a small mill town in Lancashire would be celebrating her 80th in San Francisco's Italian quarter!
Truth is, she's missing her "proper British" bacon sandwiches. American bacon is "like flies wings" according to Sheila. And it's true, I haven't had much, if any bacon, since I got here. Me and Alex had some after a ride when he was here over Christmas and it was fairly horrid, full of fat and empty of flavour.
Katy is hoping for another visa, but has to be in UK to get it, so Jo and Katy will have to wait in the UK until the appointment with the US Embassy comes through. Leaving me as a legal alien here in San Francisco. I'll be alright, I've got a loyalty card for Trader Joe's which is as near to being a down-home American as you can get.
In the meantime this legal alien is going to be making the most of his time by doing loads of training, down at the "Breakaway Performance Centre". That's the name of my local gym's specialist unit, and I know it sounds a bit - well, self-congratulatory - but it has transformed my training and the enjoyment of my sport. At the end of the day, it's a business, and a successful one at that. It's firmly aimed at people like me with a bit of spare cash, and there's lots of those around here. The rumour is
that it was set up by a group of guys who got payouts from the big dot-com successes - ebay, facebook et al. Whatever, they know their market and I'm unashamedly one of them. I can train hard, get specialist advice and coaching, specialist equipment, anything. Well, when I say "anything", clearly they can't provide an experience close to that of running down the bypass on a wet, cold, windy night with trucks blasting past. They can't provide Shutlingsloe, or Winnatt's Pass, or Blaze. And I suppose if you look a bit harder at their portfolio they can't give you Styal woods, that run through the farm, the weird bit in the hinterland near Marks and Spencer's. Further analysis would show that they can't get near the Alistair's farm run, the ride round Windermere and the Helvellyn Triathlon bike course. When you get down to it they aren't able to provide mates either. Actually I should qualify that. They can provide mates. There's a special programme for it - "Date Nights". But I don't mean people who will spend a bit of time with you, I mean proper mates. Anyway, back to the point, they don't do real friends. Not on demand, anyway. I'm not saying I miss times like when I ran up Shutlingsloe with Rich and James, or the weekend Rich came up to the Lakes and we got soaked and cold running the Alistairs Farm route. I'm not saying I miss the long, trundling route through Alderley and back through the arse end of Wilmslow. I not saying I miss Carolyn's smile, Chris's banter, James' farting, or Steve's silence (how could you miss silence?). What I am saying, is I'm halfway down a bottle of pretty decent Californian Cabernet, I've got a belly full of lamb stew, Van Morrison on the CD player (yes, CD player. I've had it with all that smartass Napster online stuff), and my family have all just gone back to the UK and I haven't. I'm stuck here working. But I'm OK. Since you bin gone, I ain't missin' you at all.
So - the gym. I've made some good friends there, some decent people. Obviously I'm spending a lot of time with them, training and planning our racing seasons, and last week we had a party. It was the one year anniversary of the setup of the Performance Centre, and the party was held in the cycling studio. This is where we sweat and suffer, measuring ourselves against the great God of power output, so it's an obvious place for a party. And the obvious time to have it is during a training session so that half of you are burying yourselves trying to maximise your body's potential and the other half are sipping margaritas! Once we had finished our training session we started the party properly and had a great time. It was nice to spend some social time with people you normally only train with, and there were some interesting people there, including partners and kids so it was good fun. As part of the night there were various awards. This was my crowing glory, as I was awarded "Favourite Foreigner" Don't tell Obama.
In the meantime this legal alien is going to be making the most of his time by doing loads of training, down at the "Breakaway Performance Centre". That's the name of my local gym's specialist unit, and I know it sounds a bit - well, self-congratulatory - but it has transformed my training and the enjoyment of my sport. At the end of the day, it's a business, and a successful one at that. It's firmly aimed at people like me with a bit of spare cash, and there's lots of those around here. The rumour isthat it was set up by a group of guys who got payouts from the big dot-com successes - ebay, facebook et al. Whatever, they know their market and I'm unashamedly one of them. I can train hard, get specialist advice and coaching, specialist equipment, anything. Well, when I say "anything", clearly they can't provide an experience close to that of running down the bypass on a wet, cold, windy night with trucks blasting past. They can't provide Shutlingsloe, or Winnatt's Pass, or Blaze. And I suppose if you look a bit harder at their portfolio they can't give you Styal woods, that run through the farm, the weird bit in the hinterland near Marks and Spencer's. Further analysis would show that they can't get near the Alistair's farm run, the ride round Windermere and the Helvellyn Triathlon bike course. When you get down to it they aren't able to provide mates either. Actually I should qualify that. They can provide mates. There's a special programme for it - "Date Nights". But I don't mean people who will spend a bit of time with you, I mean proper mates. Anyway, back to the point, they don't do real friends. Not on demand, anyway. I'm not saying I miss times like when I ran up Shutlingsloe with Rich and James, or the weekend Rich came up to the Lakes and we got soaked and cold running the Alistairs Farm route. I'm not saying I miss the long, trundling route through Alderley and back through the arse end of Wilmslow. I not saying I miss Carolyn's smile, Chris's banter, James' farting, or Steve's silence (how could you miss silence?). What I am saying, is I'm halfway down a bottle of pretty decent Californian Cabernet, I've got a belly full of lamb stew, Van Morrison on the CD player (yes, CD player. I've had it with all that smartass Napster online stuff), and my family have all just gone back to the UK and I haven't. I'm stuck here working. But I'm OK. Since you bin gone, I ain't missin' you at all.
So - the gym. I've made some good friends there, some decent people. Obviously I'm spending a lot of time with them, training and planning our racing seasons, and last week we had a party. It was the one year anniversary of the setup of the Performance Centre, and the party was held in the cycling studio. This is where we sweat and suffer, measuring ourselves against the great God of power output, so it's an obvious place for a party. And the obvious time to have it is during a training session so that half of you are burying yourselves trying to maximise your body's potential and the other half are sipping margaritas! Once we had finished our training session we started the party properly and had a great time. It was nice to spend some social time with people you normally only train with, and there were some interesting people there, including partners and kids so it was good fun. As part of the night there were various awards. This was my crowing glory, as I was awarded "Favourite Foreigner" Don't tell Obama.
