Puncture woes!
I was right to be unconfident about my repair to yriethydd's puncture. By the time evening came it was squidgy again so her mother had to go and fetch her and the bike. A bibulous celebration of her birthday followed which culminated in me dropping chocolate cake on the (buff) carpet and then knocking a cup of coffee all over the carpet. Fortunately my wife had been just as bibulous and was remarkably mellow about the whole thing!.
Saturday morning I went back to Cylopaedia (again!) to buy a new case for yriethydd's back wheel as what was on there was probably 6 or 7 years old!. I tried to get a new self-sealing inner tube for my bike but they didn't have the right size with Schraeder valves so I'll need to go back again on Tuesday. Anyway I managed to fit the spare, unused inner tube and new case to yriethydd's bike without too much trouble and get the back wheel on square again (you know what I mean, going around without binding anywhere!).
By that time it was too late to go on a training run without missing the Wales-Italy match so the afternoon was spent on the couch. I fell asleep during the next match though. The evening was again spent in high living as we joined yriethydd and some friends at a Greek restaurant, consuming metzes and a moderate amount of Macedonian wine.
I came to the conclusion that I would have to skip church today if I was ever going to get a long run in. I needed at least 30 miles possibly more.
Alas, it was not to be! Shouldn't have skipped church I suppose. I was a bit sluggish getting going but was going ok. At the 10-mile mark I decided a Geobar was in order. Unfortunately I fell in with an Ancient Mariner of philosophical bent. We talked for at least 20 minutes and it had come on to rain. I carried on to Ponty but as I was about to leave the park I realised that my front tire was getting very soft. At first I had trouble getting my pump to work but after tightening up the bit that fits over the valve I was able to get some air back in the tire. I decided to head for home, I didn't fancy trying to change the inner tube in the wet an didn'ttthink that I'd get a patch to stick anyway. In fact, the tire stayed reasnably well inflated as the self-sealing mechanism started to work and the hole got more and more plugged up with the fibres in the slime.
Still, I did the miles even if the conditions weren't great and I had the tire problem which I will need to fix properly tomorrow.