Ironman Mark

At the moment I am sitting on a plane waiting to get into Fuerteventura.  We’ve been going for nearly two hours and we are about half way there.

It’s been an experience.  I am flying on a cheap-ish flight with an airline whose chief executive is a well known $*!!*&$.

I knew the luggage was going to be a bit over weight.  But I had thought of this beforehand.  I’d put some of my stuff in rucksacks in the suitcases and took then out and gave them to the kids as their carry-on bags (which I carried).  So no change to the weight carried, just in different places.

The bags got accepted without charge and I then gave them my bike box.  This was 5kg over weight.  There was little extra in there but what there was I took out.  Now only 3kg over weight.

When I gave it to the check in person it was someone else so they didn’t charge me anything.  Then I remembered that there were some co2 in my behind-the-saddle bike bag and so I ran back to the car and put them in there.  Sorted.

Then I got to the departure check areas and got beeped at so I had to take my shoes off and got frisked.  Then I got called over to check what was in my bags and so the laptop could be checked.

They found some vaseline and this was not allowed (it was in suitcase before but was now in rucksack and to be honest I did not even think that was a liquid).  Then they found my bike multi-tool (which used to be in my bike box).  Apparently that is very dangerous (as I might undo a screw with an allen key or something) and so that was not allowed.  They then found a co2 that was hiding behind some spare inner tubes in my behind-the-saddle bike bag (I took two CO2 out but didn’t realise that there was a third).  I thought I had taken them all out.  Then they found my bike spanner that I need to put the peddles on and off.  Again that used to be in my bike box

I now felt very bad.  The family were watching.  The world was watching me and I was getting special attention from four security people.  Fortunately someone else was taking a bit of the attention off of me as the security people had found an adult toy in his carry-on bags.  That was the elephant in the room; sitting quietly on the desk on the side while the rest of his bag was searched.

I now faced my vaseline, bike spanner and multi-tool being confiscated.  Fortunately a nice security lady took me through lots of doors and corridors so that we found my bike box, opened it and put the stuff inside (without being charged).  Although I did get frisked again!

Anyway, this morning I did a nice 32 minute run.  It started off foggy but after five minutes I had glorious sunshine.  A good way to start the morning