Feeling tired this morning with aching feet and ankles reminding me why I need to find a job which lets me sit down rather than continue to stand up all day as I do now. Staying up watching the Tour de France until 2.00am every morning isn’t helping me either and I am feeling quite inanimate today. Then again, some would argue that I am inanimate most days!
Everywhere I go at work people are coughing and spluttering, ignoring basic human hygiene guidelines and spreading the contents of their insides all over the processing floor. I have tip for them. Cover your mouth when you cough!!!!
Feeling as I do today I wonder if I am not slightly off colour. Feeling sore in the muscles can sometimes be the first sign of a cold but I did do quite a bit of work culling mail last night and lifted heavy parcels for a couple of hours before that which could be the answer to my discomfiture.
I have been vigourously and regularly washing my hands at work trying to avoid the bullet which will bring my health to it’s knees. I hope I can get through the winter unscathed but it is the time of year when the lurgies strike.
There has been a lot of work this week and perhaps the raised tempo of life at the sharp end of mail processing as opposed to the usual terminal decline in mail volumes has contributed to my lacklustre feeling in the mornings.
Of course the Tour de France continues and last night I was feeling particularly overwhelmed and thought about abandoning for the night. There was 134 kilometres to go when I turned it on and doing the calculations in my head figured it would be getting on close to 2am when they finished. As it was a flat stage it was likely to end in a bunch sprint with no major changes in the overall standings and the thought of hopping into bed a bit earlier than usual was appealing.
I fell asleep on the couch and when I woke there were 60km to go and after getting up and mucking around for a while It was getting close to the finish so, like Cadel Evans on the Galibier last year I dug deep and stuck it out and saw it through.
As I thought, it ended in a bunch sprint but not without the usual major crash which saw many of the contenders for the win taken out including the best road sprinter in the world, Mark Cavendish.
There is a lot of finger pointing via twitter and the media this morning over whose fault the crash was but I think the desperate nature of the sprint finishes is something the authorities in the sport need to look at.
Cycling of course has it’s inherent dangers but they are dangers which can be managed. Crashes happen, it is the nature of the game but there is a difference in my book between a crash where a rider makes a mistake and crashes himself and brings others down and a crash where a someone does something desperate such as trying to force his way through a gap which really isn’t viable and causes a fall that way. It’s just reckless and there seems to be quite a bit of it going on at the moment. This isn’t a smash up derby where you can go and watch the action with the knowledge you will see carnage, it’s a bike race where in the best circumstances everyone stays upright whilst providing an exciting spectacle for anyone who cares to come and watch.
There are quite a few problems in the sport and one of them is the lack of expertise in refereeing. Cycling is a game like any other with rules to be followed to ensure the safety of all involved and protect the integrity of the sport. The referees are letting us down.
It’s one thing reading the rules in a book and trying to apply them but unless you have been in the maelstrom of a large bunch of cyclists battling for wheels close to the finish of a race I don’t think you really have much idea on how to apply those rules properly. This is the problem with cycling referees as I see it at the moment and it has been going on for some time.
If I was the Tour de France referee I would be pulling the team managers aside and telling them to tell their riders to pull their heads in. The next rider to recklessly cause a crash in the last kilometres would be going home straight away. Unfortunately it won’t happen.
With a bit of luck the riders will regulate themselves a little and tone down the aggressiveness. The finishes often look hectic but unless someone does something silly they are relatively safe. Lets hope they all get through the stage tonight in one piece.
For myself there is another day at work to look forward to and to survive. I will have to do as the sprinters do on a Tour de France mountain stage. Go at my own pace and plod along to the finish and not lose the plot along the way.
Hope you all have a great day.
Everywhere I go at work people are coughing and spluttering, ignoring basic human hygiene guidelines and spreading the contents of their insides all over the processing floor. I have tip for them. Cover your mouth when you cough!!!!
Feeling as I do today I wonder if I am not slightly off colour. Feeling sore in the muscles can sometimes be the first sign of a cold but I did do quite a bit of work culling mail last night and lifted heavy parcels for a couple of hours before that which could be the answer to my discomfiture.
I have been vigourously and regularly washing my hands at work trying to avoid the bullet which will bring my health to it’s knees. I hope I can get through the winter unscathed but it is the time of year when the lurgies strike.
There has been a lot of work this week and perhaps the raised tempo of life at the sharp end of mail processing as opposed to the usual terminal decline in mail volumes has contributed to my lacklustre feeling in the mornings.
Of course the Tour de France continues and last night I was feeling particularly overwhelmed and thought about abandoning for the night. There was 134 kilometres to go when I turned it on and doing the calculations in my head figured it would be getting on close to 2am when they finished. As it was a flat stage it was likely to end in a bunch sprint with no major changes in the overall standings and the thought of hopping into bed a bit earlier than usual was appealing.
I fell asleep on the couch and when I woke there were 60km to go and after getting up and mucking around for a while It was getting close to the finish so, like Cadel Evans on the Galibier last year I dug deep and stuck it out and saw it through.
As I thought, it ended in a bunch sprint but not without the usual major crash which saw many of the contenders for the win taken out including the best road sprinter in the world, Mark Cavendish.
There is a lot of finger pointing via twitter and the media this morning over whose fault the crash was but I think the desperate nature of the sprint finishes is something the authorities in the sport need to look at.
Cycling of course has it’s inherent dangers but they are dangers which can be managed. Crashes happen, it is the nature of the game but there is a difference in my book between a crash where a rider makes a mistake and crashes himself and brings others down and a crash where a someone does something desperate such as trying to force his way through a gap which really isn’t viable and causes a fall that way. It’s just reckless and there seems to be quite a bit of it going on at the moment. This isn’t a smash up derby where you can go and watch the action with the knowledge you will see carnage, it’s a bike race where in the best circumstances everyone stays upright whilst providing an exciting spectacle for anyone who cares to come and watch.
There are quite a few problems in the sport and one of them is the lack of expertise in refereeing. Cycling is a game like any other with rules to be followed to ensure the safety of all involved and protect the integrity of the sport. The referees are letting us down.
It’s one thing reading the rules in a book and trying to apply them but unless you have been in the maelstrom of a large bunch of cyclists battling for wheels close to the finish of a race I don’t think you really have much idea on how to apply those rules properly. This is the problem with cycling referees as I see it at the moment and it has been going on for some time.
If I was the Tour de France referee I would be pulling the team managers aside and telling them to tell their riders to pull their heads in. The next rider to recklessly cause a crash in the last kilometres would be going home straight away. Unfortunately it won’t happen.
With a bit of luck the riders will regulate themselves a little and tone down the aggressiveness. The finishes often look hectic but unless someone does something silly they are relatively safe. Lets hope they all get through the stage tonight in one piece.
For myself there is another day at work to look forward to and to survive. I will have to do as the sprinters do on a Tour de France mountain stage. Go at my own pace and plod along to the finish and not lose the plot along the way.
Hope you all have a great day.
Strange Notations From a Laborious Life 