Author: Buck

I’m still in limbo at work. I’ve faced the music, and danced, three or four times now. It’s getting irksome. Tomorrow, I should get my official sacking. Again. I just wish they would hurry up about it. If I was to keep my job that would obviously be the best outcome, but that is a vanishingly remote chance. Unless they’ve decided to change the company policy, and I’m the first driver to whom it has been applied, I’m sacked. Sad, but let’s get on with it. My training has been up and down. As I’ve been off work I’ve managed to stick to my Sufferfest training programme. Yoga, strength training, mental toughness, and the bike. My weight loss has been a work in progress. Or rather how I go about it is a work in progress. I’ve revised my expectations and my plan. Now I’m trying damage limitation on plague weakness days, diet on normal days. I started at 11 stone 5, and I want to get back to 10 stone. It may take a while. After losing 5lbs in the first week, the plague weakness struck and I put 2 back on. I’m slowly edging down again. I’m 10.12 now. It’s not just a vanity thing. I’m training for a triathlon that has 7,700 feet of elevation changes so I need powerful legs. I’ve been reading up on what constitutes good watts (power) for a cyclist. The answer is “It’s not that simple”. On the flat a 12 stone rider putting out, say 250W will thrash a 9 stone rider putting out 220W. But as soon as you come to a hill the lighter person will waste the chubster. “To illustrate this, let’s compare power requirements of a 70kg and 80kg rider riding a 6kg road bike up a hill of seven per cent gradient at 16kph (10mph) in still winds. Using data on rolling and aerodynamic resistance, we can calculate that an 80kg rider would have to maintain an average power output or around 298W. The 70kg rider would only need to average 266W to ride up the same hill at the same speed on the same bike.” A few articles state that for hill climbing you want to pushing the least possible weight against gravity. They say it might cost thousands of pounds, or even be impossible, to lose a 10lbs/ 4.5 kilos (or in my case 19lbs/ 8.6 kilos) off a bike, it cost nothing to lose that off your blubber. A quick comparison. My cheapo Decathlon “comfortable” road bike is a smidge under 10 kilos. The carbon fibre (light), top spec gears, version is 7.8 kilos and £2,000 That’s just under 5lbs of weight for 2 grand. Or to put it another way, in the first week of my diet I saved £2,000! (To be honest, there’s more to the bike than that, it has lighter, deeper wheels so less aero drag, it has a proper stretched out racing shape so easier to stay in […]

Things have taken a turn for the pear shaped. I’ve managed to keep up all my Sufferfest training. Mental toughness, yoga and the actual bike training. But my weight loss stalled. The plague weakness is making it impossible for me to stop shoving food in my gob. I’m trying to take a revised view of my plans. Try not to eat too much on weak days, (tons of fruit and veg to try to bulk out) then make gains (or rather, losses) on the better days. In the first week I lost 5lbs, since then I’ve regained 2 and lost a 2 more. I got up to 11.5, today I was 10.12. It going in the right direction. Obviously there has been no swim training due to the lockdown. I gave in this week and bought a power meter so I can do the fitness test (4DP) on the Sufferfest, accurately. I did it today. An hour’s beasting, containing within it 2x 5 second max efforts, a 5 minute max effort, a 20 minute max effort, and a 1 minute max effort. Individually not too terrible, one after the other… wow. The inaccurate power reading I’ve been going off had my maximum sustainable effort as 154W (measured over 20 minutes) today I held it to 199W. I think I had a bit more in the tank. Slight gearing issues (had to set the other bike up on the trainer and change the gear cassette, don’t think I did it right) meant I dropped into no-gear a few times, and had to quickly build my power back up again. Also the power meter is fitted to the left hand crank arm. If you’re right handed I assume you put more power through your right leg,so I had to keep remembering to concentrate on my left leg stroke. Otherwise I was working just as hard but my left was just carrying the power round from my right, so it wasn’t registering. Anyway, that’s nearly a third increase in my power settings going forward. Which puts me at 2.88 W/Kilo, for the same power I’ll be 3.13 W/Kilo when I’m down to 10 stone. I was watching a vlog from some young guy, looked like a mad-for-it cyclist, said he’d started a 3 month training plan with Trainer Road (a no frills training app) and had gone from 224W to 286W! I’ll stick with the Sufferfest to get myself fit and used to pushing through the pain. I really like the way they beast the best out of me. But when I get fit enough I’ll try the Trainer Road. The Sufferfest has videos with a story, and loads of encouraging messages, that cajole and demand greater efforts from you. And it has a sense of humour, which good in the dark places. The Trainer Road has nothing. It’s just a rolling bar chart. This much power at this many revs for this long. Times however many. Apparently there are thousands of different […]

I started so full of beans last week. I had goals, I had a plan to get them and the will to achieve. I lost 5lb in my first week, I was battering the Sufferfest and all was going great. Then a day later I started coming down with the plague weakness in the evenings. It smashes you. You just have to eat. Well, I just have to eat. Wendy manages to woman-up and tough it out. I put on 2lb which, with more weakness, took me all week to lose again. Then I had a bit of a debacle with the swimming. They said my card was declined over the ‘phone, and that I’d have to pay at the door. I went to Sainsbury’s straight away and my card was fine in the cash machine and contactless, so I don’t know what the issue was. Anyway, seeing as they wouldn’t accept my card I pedaled to the baths for my booked swim with the money. They don’t accept cash. What? So that didn’t happen. I couldn’t be bothered doing it again the next day as that was the final one before it was shut for at least a month. I was thinking I’d commit to training and get a membership when it re-opens. It was only about £19 a month last time, and it’s £4.20 a swim so it’s the way to go. I’ve been doing my Sufferfest workouts. I don’t feel bad at the start of the day. But here’s the rub, after the last two long rides I’ve been completely wasted. I’ve been trying to work out if it’s a serious energy crash from dieting and exercising, or plague. I did a 2½ hour ride today with 2x 25 minute hard (ish) blocks. By the end of the ride I was weak. I read a few articles on Long Covid last night, by far the most common symptom is chronic fatigue, and there were several mentions of the theory that the recurrent bouts could be triggered by exertion. That is not good. That is very not good. The thing is, at the moment it’s a brand new virus, and nobody knows what it does, or how it does it, or for how long. If you read the list of things it can affect it’s just crazy. It does whatever the hell it likes. Brain damage, organ function, lung damage, nerve damage, toes, hair loss, you name it, it can do it. Now they’re comparing the plague weakness to chronic fatigue, autoimmune issues and M.E. All of that is by the by, my point is, there are no answers yet because it hasn’t been around long enough for them to collect data from beginning to end. The effects of the first wave are still happening. It has raised some very awkward questions for me, though. I’m going to have to monitor my workout/ weakness and see if it is a direct correlation. It’s rest day tomorrow, so, assuming […]

The Sufferfest has some brilliant advice on mental toughness. It starts with a 3 point plan. 1 Taking the positive path. 2 Creating the excitement. 3 Fostering a strong will. Taking the positive path is a mental decision. They give the example of a group bike ride, going up a hill, and you start to struggle. As soon as you think “I can’t keep up”, you are thinking you are going to drop off the pack, you think you’re not good enough, it was stupid to come out for the ride, you start beating yourself up and making it worse. That’s all before you’ve dropped off another inch. Instead, as soon as the negative thought occurs, they say imagine a STOP! sign. Then picture two paths behind it. One leads to defeat and disappointment, the other leads to your ultimate goal, your Mount Sufferlandria. You have to STOP! the negative thought chain, choose the right path, then determine what the very first goal is past that STOP! sign on the path to Mt S, and don’t stop until you’ve achieved it. Creating the excitement is about controlling stress. You think it’s your race in the morning and you aren’t ready, you can’t do it, it’s too much. Instead, STOP! and visualise yourself at the start line, pumped and ready to go. Review all the training you’ve done to get here, you are prepared. Do some deep breathing to calm yourself then picture yourself on the finish line, victorious. Turn worry and stress into positivity and excitement. Fostering a strong will. Now this is where it all goes pear shaped. When you know what you want, and why you want it, nothing can stop you. Why. You. Want. It. My first thought is to say “I don’t know/ absolutely no idea” but that smacks of negativity. So here we are. Why do I want it? Bolton (one of the hardest) Ironman Lands End – John O’Groats Sub 3 hour marathon. First observation: those are all events that other people consider benchmarks. Is it a need for recognition and approval? Certainly not on any conscious level. The thought of it being that makes me despise myself just a little bit more. I started all this fitness lark just to pass the army run test. Then found I quite enjoyed it. And thought I could do better next time. Then someone on twitter said about a half marathon and that was a massive challenge, did that and suddenly it wasn’t a big challenge, it was something even I could do, so 9 months later I did an Iron distance tri. Perhaps it’s to do with me not being able to feel pride in my accomplishments, so always looking for the one big enough that I’ll be happy and proud of myself? Again, not consciously. I never expect to achieve that and I’m not sure it’s even possible for me, though I’m sure it would be nice. I read a book in which people […]

Goals (month): Get to 10st 6lb. Move 4DP profile to a harder setting. Swimming: get floaty. Goals (Week): Lose 5lb – done. Raise 4DP (hardness of turbo trainer on The Sufferfest) – too ambitious, not done. Start swimming, 1 swim – done. Reflect: Good week. I’ve never managed a diet before. I have serious issues about going swimming, so that was a major success. Due to me not being able to do an accurate 4DP fitness test with my trainer on the Sufferfest I can’t just try harder on the test and move my settings up a little bit, I have to use previously established results. The lowest one above where I am is a third tougher. I’ve been back training seriously for a fortnight, with a few weeks of commute riding before that. I’m just not able to raise my power by a third in one go, yet. I did manage to ride up Frodsham hill without going into the Ring of Shame today, so, progress. Reward: My chippy tea last night. Guilt free. Revise: Next week: lose 2lb, and do 2 swims.