Chris Worfolk's Blog

The Suspect is a murder mystery novel by Rob Rinder and the second in the Adam Green series. It’s a fun read and I enjoyed it.

Cycle Against Suicide is a mental health charity. I recently took part on their King of the Castle Sportif which had celebrity guest Sean Kelly leading the ride. Kelly has four green jerseys at the Tour de France and red jersey from La Vuelta and is now one of the leading cycling commentators.

I have taken my bike outside about a dozen times since IRONMAN Copenhagen two years ago, so I signed up for the 65k rather than the 120k, and even then this was a lot further than I have ridden this year. I was nervous after having so many problems with getting my bike fixed.

They did a neutralised rollout at the start with motorbikes stopping cars at junctions and keeping everyone together. It was a bit chaotic but no crashes and felt very pro. The first half was lovely. There was one small hill but otherwise it was relatively flat. And was the ride went on, the rain lifted and the weather became much nicer.

I was following everyone else but my GPS said we were off course. I discussed it with a few other riders and everyone agreed we were on the right road. I decided to slow down and stick with the group so that I would have some local knowledge around me. After all, my GPS was clearly not reliable because it was saying we were on the wrong road when everyone agreed we were on the right road.

We were on the wrong road. But we managed to find our way to the feed stop. After some lunch, there was another rollout and we headed back down the coast. The view was lovely but it was also into a headwind and I started feeling pretty bad. I just stuck with it and tried to eat some more. At 10k to go, my nightmare scenario did happen and the rear tyre lost pressure entirely. Luckily, it wasn’t as bad as it could have been: I was able to pump some more air into it and it held foe the remaining ride. But there is clearly still a problem there.

Overall, a lovely chilled out event. With a burger included at the end as well.

Explorium is a science museum for children. We did the junior section which is aimed at 2-7-year-olds. All of the exhibits are hands-on and they pack a lot of stuff in there. We were there for two hours and didn’t get around everything.

I’ve had a few days off this month so Venla and I used one of them to go to the funfair. They had bouncy castles, rides, and we tried archery. Will Venla be the next Olympic archer for Team GB? We’ll have to wait until she’s big enough to actually be able to draw the bow to tell.

For the past 100 days, I’ve been on a movement streak.

A lot of runners run every day inspired by Ron Hill running every day for 52 years. Mine is a little different: I wanted to ensure I intentionally got outside every day but I’m happy to include walking and I wanted it to be metric so I’ve been running or walking at least a kilometre each day.

It’s not been much of a hardship as I train most days anyway. And it was a good reminder to get out of the office on days when I was dealing with some ehavy stuff.

On the downside, it hasn’t revolutionised by physical or mental health. Why can’t there just be one simple thing we can do that would achieve this?

We had a lovely few days hosting Elina’s mum and her partner last week. Managed to squeeze in town, shopping, multiple pubs, the beach and a museum into three days.

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? often titled Blade Runner is a novel by Philip K. Dick.

It’s really good. Dystopian future up there with Nineteen Eighty-Four and Brave New World. The book explores what it is to be human. The answer, according to Dick, is empathy. Androids, not matter how sophisticated the AI, can’t quite get human emotions. Whereas humans, even when given a Penfield Mood Organ to programme their feelings, still want a full range of experience.

For me, the most important theme of the book Mercerism. Does it matter where Mercer is real or not, if a collective experience and spiritual unity is generated from that idea? The answer is yes, it does matter. But that doesn’t mean there is no value in it. It could still be meaningful and worthwhile. So take that, Buster Friendly.

Cav! The Merckx record has been topppled with Cavendish winning his 35th stage of the tour.

Otherwise, some had described it as a dull tour. It’s true that Pog mostly dominated. But Evenepoel and Vingegaard both took stages. I wasn’t sure about Pogačar at first but I’ve come around to him over the years. Shame he isn’t going to ride La Vuelta.

Fantasy league went well:

I had Pogačar-Vingegaard one-two as well as Almeida and Ciconne. Cav was my sprinter and while there were lots more points to be had with others, I’m happy with my choice.

Back to back finals. Not to mention we already hold the trophy on the women’s side. What a time to be an England fan. Shame that Southgate has gone. I managed to get a £100 disappointment offsetting bet on Spain half way through the match so even though football didn’t come home, I did come out in profit.

Oldbridge parkrun takes place at Oldbridge House. It’s a country estate which now forms the Battle of the Boyne Visitor Centre.

The course is all off-road. Most of it is grass with some on dirt. It’s a lovely course in several ways: off-road, pretty flat, around some beautiful fields and a single lap (although some of it does form an out back bit). The main limitation would be if you like road or if you want a PB: the narrow tracks through the long grass mean there is not much overtaking room.

I’ve been ill with one of those colds that you it is difficult to believe is “just a cold” because it wiped me out. This was my first attempt at a run back and I was around 35 minutes, and even that felt like a slog. But I got around and ticked off my second O, leaving me with only one letter left for the name badge challenge.