This was going to be taking advantage of maybe the last fine weather this year, an overnight cycle exploring the Grand Canal. But I was uneasy for various reasons, one being the uncertainty of how much of the canal towpath was suitable for a road bike. This web page is the most up to date and comprehensive summary of work to upgrade the path to greenway standard. Maybe I'll get to do this exploration next year? But who knows what next year will hold for me?
Instead (and encouraged by A to make good use of the weather) I settled for a one day ride around the Wicklow Mountains, taking me over the Wicklow Gap, through Rathdum, the beautiful Vale of Avoca, Woodenbridge, Augrim, Tinahely, Hacketstown, Kiltegan, Baltinglass and home. Oh, and I tried for the coast but turned back through lack of time: that's the little appendage at far right of my track.
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| My track: 124.7km, elevation gain 1254m, average 16.3km/h |
No photos. No thoughts of great inspiration, lots of hard slog, lots of magnesium supplement to ward off inevitable leg cramps. I also tried adding electrolytes to my drink: I'm not sure whether this helped. But all in all, I did it, I completed the course I had roughly planned the night before. My insides were a mess on returning home but I slept, oh how I slept (always punctuated by loo-breaks nowadays).
Loo breaks. Leg cramps. In a routine doctor appointment some six months ago the blood test indicated a higher than normal PSA level. This is a marker for possible prostate problems. That together with more frequent loo breaks recently. In spite of a second and a third blood test showing normal PSA level my GP sent me to a specialist at St. James, the specialist did an internal examination and sent me for an MRI scan and I now have an appointment on Tuesday next to hear the worst. Am I worried? Am I bothered? It one sense no, what will be will be. But worry isn't that easy to dismiss or control. Of course I am worried. I thought my body was doing passably ok for my age. Sometimes I look at my arms. Younger readers of this blog might think me simply phoney if I told you how I feel about my own arms. I know they've no muscle and are pretty mouldy, but I am so glad to see them. Why should that dreaded word "cancer" invade my thoughts? What right has it over my body? And so I cycled away yesterday with a big challenge before me to blow the cobwebs out of my machinating mind. Of course I am not worried: what good would that do?
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