I thought the back tyre on my bike felt a bit soft going to work on Wednesday, then when I went to come home it was very flat. I pumped it up and it got me home, so I lazily thought it was a slow enough puncture that I could leave fixing it until the weekend. On Thursday morning it was very clear that that was not the case, and I turned back after a few yards to drag my rarely-used mountain bike out, top up the air in its tyres and swap some lights over. I worked at home on Friday as usual, but still haven’t got round to fixing the puncture, had to use the backup bike a couple more times, and now the weekend’s over. Let’s see whether I can remember to do it tomorrow before I have to head into the office again on Tuesday!
On Saturday I travelled down to That London for Frank Turner’s Show 3000 at Alexandra Palace. Because the last train back to Ipswich is too early this entailed driving to Colchester, then getting the train into Liverpool Street and another train out to Ally Pally. I was mildly paranoid that something would go wrong (especially as both the train and gig tickets were only on my phone), but it all worked out OK. I’d bought a ticket that was limited to a specific train, and when I got to the station the boards were showing it as cancelled, but it turned out that I’d allowed so much extra time to get there that rather than waiting half an hour I was able to just jump on the earlier service.
I hadn’t really appreciated quite how big the venue is, but the size of the crowd descending (ascending) on it soon made it clear just how many people were going to be there (pretty sure it was sold out, at 10,000 capacity). I got in the queue half an hour before the doors opened, which allowed me to get pretty close to the front, and because I was driving I didn’t bother getting a drink, which negated any need to fight my way to the toilets and back.
It feels like I normally rely on Frank Turner shows to discover new bands, as he always does a good job of picking support acts, but this time I’d seen both of them before. I’d somehow failed to find out who was supporting until the day, and was pleased to discover it was The Meffs and The Lottery Winners. I’d seen the former in The Smokehouse, a venue that would fit in its entirety several times over on the Alexandra Palace stage, and the latter supporting Frank in Ipswich a few years ago, and at a couple of Pet Needs-related events in Colchester.
Having been on my feet for around six hours (at times in a pretty lively crowd), at least the journey back passed without incident, although it was well after 2am by the time I finally got home. Then in a piece of less than optimum timing, after four hours or so of sleep it was time to get up for the Tarpley 20. I wasn’t expecting much (in fact my ankle was so sore when I got up that I almost started to wonder whether I could even finish it), but thanks to company all the way round from Neil (usually way ahead of me, but recovering from injury so taking it easy) I made it to the finish and even managed a slight negative split. Admittedly it was the slowest I’ve completed the course (around 30s slower than my first time back in 2000 just before the world ground to a halt), but my average pace was bang on my marathon target, so all I have to do is hang on for an extra 10k (presumably after a more restful day before) – how hard can it be?