Author: Buck

Well that was fun. In no way, shape or form. As last time I stayed in a hotel and only got a few hours sleep due to the bar and the loud drunks at throwing out time, this time I had a plan. Nip to Nottingham, register and drop my bike and kit off, come home, sleep in the day then drive back fresh as a daisy for the start. Due to the bloody heatwave the A50 was rammed with all the families going to Alton Towers, so that screwed me up. I skipped the ‘mandatory’ race briefing, (yadda yadda, don’t get killed, yadda yadda,) and tried to come home the long way around, up the M1 to Leeds then across the M62. As it was a new route for me I was having issues with lanes in Nottingham. I was in the outside lane of two when someone in front of me stopped to turn right. I checked my mirror, saw a gap and darted to the inside lane. I hadn’t checked my blind spot. BANG! Someone was undertaking me. Oops. That’ll be a new wing for me, please. And two doors for you. Balls. When I got back I realised I had 10 hours before I had to get up so I did some last minute sorting of kit. Then I had an hour and a half in bed, but woke up again. I couldn’t get back to sleep but I wasn’t worried, I’d still be able to get some kip when it got to night time. Then next door came back with a bunch of her coke-head mates to celebrate the heatwave. Ace. So I ended up grabbing another hour about 0130, then I had to get up at 0230 and get on the road for 0300. I was a bit tired to start with. We started at 0600, I took this snap on the way on to the site, sunrise over the Outlaw lake: Not a bad snap from a camera ‘phone, I think. But look at that evil yellow bastard. You can tell what’s in store. Look at this: http://www.racetimingsystems.net/Results/IndividualResult.aspx?Id=673559&Round=2306&Page=1&Search=956&Theme=[f7941e] Astonishingly, after the swim (the weakest of my three weak disciplines) I made up 200 places on the ride and run! Gobsmacked. I’ve just this minute found that out. *chuffed face* Anyway, the swim was just a matter of getting my head down and doing it. Then came the transition, I jogged out of the lake, very conscious of the fat, shell-shocked geezer I’d seen wobbling out of the lake on my last video. I was feeling alright. Last time we weren’t allowed to get naked in the changing tent as there were female assistants about, so I swam with my tri-suit under my wetsuit, took my wetsuit off put my cycling shorts on (on top of my soaked tri-suit) then set off for the ride. Had I of attended the race briefing I would have know you could get properly changed this year. I […]

The countdown to the Outlaw is all that’s on my mind now. This time next week it’ll all be over but the blubbing like a little girl. Oh dear, oh dear. The confidence boost of the swim and ride on Monday has evaporated. Now I’m back to wondering if I can do it. Yes, I can. But how bad is it going to be? Squeaky bum time. If you want to have a nosey at my progress through the day, the race starts at 0600 and you can track it all day here: http://www.onestepbeyond.org.uk/the-outlaw-triathlon-live-results.php I won’t be getting out of the lake until gone 0730 so no updates until then. I’m number 956. Possibly putting ‘fat geezer at the back’ in the search box would work as well. They are showing bits of it on the telly at some point, I’ll look out for that. Though saying that, the video of me last time looked like a sad old git wondering what the hell had hit him. Very accurate, actually.   As I had last Monday off to do my training I worked at Iceland yesterday to make up my hours. Some ridiculously tough driving. And as I’m used to triple axle trailers those twin axle ones catch me out every time. They turn in so fast. You set up a perfect line, turn in, glance in your mirror and your back end is heading straight for some railings. Spooks the hell out of you, I can tell you. By the end of the shift I was a nervous wreck, it shatters your confidence when you have no idea what the trailer is going to do. Still, I got through some hideously tight spots unscathed. If I was driving them all the time I wouldn’t even notice.   About the only other thing of note was having finished the utterly brilliant Hannibal on telly I was moved to re-read the books. I got Red Dragon and Silence of the Lambs for 1p (£2.80 P&P). I remembered the books as being a bit ‘meh’, but I thought it would fill the time. Wow, I was sat here for an hour today busting for a pee but just had to read the next bit, and the next bit. Excellent. Also it makes you appreciate how faithfully they have kept to the books in the series. Lines of dialogue, situations, characters, all expertly realised.   Anyway, the main reason I’m posting is to keep you abreast of Twitter, I’ve not got much to say this week. So, without further ado;   DMreporter had: This week’s Daily Mail Cancer List: Mon) The Euro Tue) Salami Wed) Vacuuming Thu) Corduroy Fri) Empathy Sat) Iran Sun) Your own hands SPECIAL INVESTIGATION: Fury as bailed out bankers at taxpayer owned RBS feast on dodo steaks and the hearts of virgins at Wimbledon. PETER HITCHENS: “The Girl Guides pledge to God was our last defence against the rise of a fascistic army of robotic Hitlers.” CAMERON: “It was […]

I forced myself to do my trial run today. I didn’t want to, and because I’ve been putting it off it had grown to epic proportions in my mind. I couldn’t sleep for worrying about it last night. I had about 4 hours. When the alarm went off at 0540 I got back in bed. I was making excuses; too tired, I’ll go later etc. I forced myself back out of bed and (eventually) went for a swim. Because I’d built it up so much in my mind it wasn’t that bad. I managed to do just over 2 miles in 1 hour 18, but then had to stop as I’d said I’d run Wendy in to work and she didn’t have any bus fare. I make it that would have been 2.4 miles in about 1.34 (feel free to correct me, you know how bad I am at maths. I got the Errol Flynn ‘dashing’ gene, missed out on the maths one.) which is well within the 2 hour cut off. I came home, ran Wendy to work *cough* dicked about on Twitter for an hour and a half *cough* then dashed straight out. It was blowing some. Right in my teeth the whole of the outward journey. And I took the scenic (lost) route. I got to Rhyl and did some more being lost. I turned around and set off home with the wind at my back. Glorious. Except I got lost and ran straight into a ‘slow lorries for the next 2 miles’ hill. On knackered legs. Joy. A 2 mile dragging hill climb. And I was still lost so I cut across to a town that was supposed to put me back on the coast road. You guessed it, lost. But then I found it and was going swimmingly until I got to Elsmere Port, or near it, when I couldn’t see a sign I wanted so headed off to Chester. Not right, lost. So it was a long and gruelling ride of unknown length, but would have been 105 if I’d have got it right, I fear it was a fair bit longer and shitload harder. And half of it against a tough wind. The good news was; 1, I did it! 2, it was within the 8 hours (and I think I can knock a further hour off for the amount of times I had to stop, activate the GPS, set up maps then navigation, not get a signal, reboot my ‘phone, then get lost again. So real time was about 6 hours 50, which given the wind and hills I’ll take. 3, and by no means least, it was relatively comfortable on my arse/ undercarriage. By the end of the Outlaw I was in screaming pain because I didn’t know padded trousers came in different grades so was wearing something not even fit for riding around the block in. These cost about £70 or so but are *so* worth every penny. The difference […]

Epic news sports fans; I think I may have sussed the issues with my legs! Huzzah! I read up on the running and triathlon sites about tight/ painful calves, expecting to see dire warnings about the tendon shrinking tendencies of cycling. Not a word. There was a lot of talk of doing too much too soon, of being too old, not stretching and bad running form. I, of course, dismissed them all. Ha! I said. Then I read some more, from professional coaches and physio’s. They said the same. Well, OK, maybe I’ve been cycling and not doing regular running, just expecting to do 20 miles from cold. And possibly I’m knocking on a bit. But I stretch like a bitch every time. Then I read about ‘proper’ stretching and tried it. Oh my word! I’ve been doing it wrong since forever. One in particular, where you put one foot behind you then sort of drop down, keeping the shin on the front leg vertical. I put the back foot at far back as possible, the toes turned to the side and really drop into it. It pulls your groin to buggery. Totally wrong, it’s supposed to be pulling your calf. Back foot facing forward, heel remains on the floor, then try to get low. I can barely drop a couple of inches into that. Oops. All that remained on the list was warm up and running form. Last time I did this I laid myself up for months, that was through forced chi running (landing on the balls of your feet, not heel striking) this time I think I triggered it walking in my cycling shoes for miles. Today I looked up some ‘dynamic stretching exercises’ (where you stretch as you move, as opposed to static where you stretch and hold, bad on cold muscles.) I did the set before I went for a run. I buggered my calf before I’d even done the warm up set. One was a sort of bounding thing where you land on the balls of your feet and bounce up again, trying to minimise contact. As soon as I started that exercise my calf buggered up. This got me thinking on the last part of the advice I’d read; running form. If I could resist my natural form of forefoot striking perhaps I could manage the run after all. I went out (after doing some calf specific stretches) and focused on heel striking and managed the whole 14½ miles without pain! For about 2 miles I was actually loving it, really buzzing off how comfortable (relative term) it was. I got back, stretched, (properly) had a shower, and my legs actually feel better now than when I got out of bed this morning. This, I have to say, was whilst test driving my new running bag/ water carrier. It is beyond awesome. I bought a cheap (saying that, I think it was still £20) generic one a year or so ago. I did […]

I had a bad to-do this week. I was tootling down the motorway, avoiding killing the usual eejits, when I saw a hippy van, (a Volkswagen camper van) with a beardy-weirdy 20-something driving, a passenger, and another beardy-weirdy lounging in the back. I was instantly struck by a vast longing to be that hippie. It was the hippie dream, three people in a VW camper van, off to the sun and  a peace-out session. I was struck by simultaneous desire to be living the dream and a overwhelming feeling that the last 7 years of sobriety were an utter mistake. I can’t say that I’m over it even now. I realise that that isn’t the case though. You still get  up in the morning and go to work, there are no proper hippie communes and damn few real hippies. It’s just living your life with a drug problem. But, god, the dream! It’s just nostalgia for a lost youth and a yearning for what should be, no more achievable than joining Gandalf for a quest, or becoming a knight of Camelot, but sometimes rationalization means bugger all. It was so bad that for days I was thinking of non-driving jobs I could do in Cornwall so I could become a wreck-head hippie. It can’t happen. I have to think of Wendy, if nothing else. Still, it’s been a trying week.   In other news, my garden is coming together again quite nicely. I had that year or so when I barely touched it so it all went to wrack and ruin. I’m slowly reclaiming it from the grass. Bloody weed it is. I have one big patch at the bottom of the garden that is still grass infested. I was waiting for the nice early crop of strawberries then I was going to lift the strawberry plants and turn the lot over. Ha! Winter lasted until a few weeks ago so the strawbs are still ripening. Ho hum. Patience is a virtue. I will put some pictures up in a minute, having some technical difficulties here. ie, my camera battery is as flat a fluke and my ‘phone is saying the SD card is full. Charging the former and transferring the files I want to keep off the latter before wiping it. Anyway, I went to the garden centre yesterday to get a bit of cover for the raised bed. I had already planted some bulbs and baby plants there but the thousands of local cats (that Wendy feeds, grrrr) have literally shit on that attempt. So I went to get some cheap bedding plants. £46 pounds later I got some. Oops.  I saw this lovely white rambling rose. Heavily scented covers 20’ x20’. I had to get it. I’ve put it up by the shed, I’m going to train it over the whole thing. If that works it’s going to be ace. Also, when it’s established, I’ll take some cuttings and cover the fence. That should make all the […]