Category: Life

I received my first copy of Triathlete’s World magazine a week or so ago. The only reason I subscribed was because the website of the same name had some interesting test reviews of the kit you need. They publish the introduction to the articles to get you interested, then tell you you have to be a subscriber to read the reviews and conclusions. I thought that was fair enough, it has all the information I need and will help me integrate into my new community. After a wait of over a month the first issue arrived, I grabbed it and flicked through. Massive disappointment. No ‘buy this bike, this kit, and follow this training plan for instant triathlon success’. Hmmph.   For a week or two it sat there untouched, a silent reproach for impulsively subscribing to a magazine I’d never read. Yesterday I picked it up for something to read in bed. It’s actually bloody good.   The article to which the title of this entry refers is not what I wanted at all, though! Some chap, very competitive, did a duathlon (run, bike, run) with some triathletes, decided to do the ‘sprint distance’ event (750 metre swim, 20k ride, 5k run). Then he heard about Iron Man distance as some chap at his works had done one. He thought “Well, if he can do it, I must be able to.” Is this starting to sound familiar to anyone yet? I can’t put my finger on it, but it’s like I know someone like that.   As a step-up he then did a half I.M distance race (1.2 mile swim, 56 mile ride, 13.1 mile run) and it all went horribly wrong. “I’m never going to win a triathlon. but I love getting out there, seeing other people pushing themselves, pushing myself as hard as I can, trying to get faster. The half-Iron Man event wasn’t like that- it was a war of attrition. On at least a dozen occasions I wanted to stop, just stop.” …”I didn’t pull out. Instead I shuffled off to start the most torturous run I have ever been on and several hours later shuffled across the finish line. Then I waited for the amazing sense of achievement to kick in- I’m still waiting.” He has abandoned, or at the very least put on indefinite hold, his full I.M. plans. Shit. Not what I wanted to read at all! He had already done the (admittedly bit gay) sprint distance tri, and presumably had trained for the half, but still found it more than he could handle. I’ve done a bit of running and entered a full I.M.. Shit. I was actually looking forward to the half as a bit of a giggle, nice splash about in the sea off Cornwall, scenic ride, pleasant run to stretch my legs off. I keep telling myself that I did that 51 mile ride then 13 mile run within the time at my first attempt. But there is […]

After all the grand plans of yesterday, of a measured incremental easing into the job of driver, I walked in this morning and got told I was going out for an assessment. That’s that. I know that in yesterdays entry I was saying their word is not to be trusted, that they’ve said all the right things before and not delivered, that I’d believe it when I saw it, but I couldn’t help getting my hopes up. I was gutted. Before the assessment the guy was showing me half a dozen files on his desk, all driver accidents that were ongoing. “And these are from competent, professional drivers.”  Basically saying the job was too hard for a newbie driver like me, be prepared to fail. He couldn’t do me then, so I had to come back in a few hours.   I ‘phoned Wendy, telling her they were setting me up to fail, that they’d gone back on everything they’d said yesterday. She was gutted for me. I spent a few miserable hours brooding on how they had screwed me over, again.   I went for the assessment, for the fourth time in twenty four hours, this time I got one. I was a dithering wreck. I sat in the cab, the seat and steering wheel were fully adjustable, had to been shown how to adjust them. The gearbox was a fancy-pants automatic/ optional manual input. Had to be talked through that. Needed to insert my digital tachograph card, didn’t know where, let alone how. Talked through that. Before I’d even set off I could see I wasn’t impressing.   Got going, he said we were going to do a few laps of the warehouse and a controlled stop to give me a feel of the beast. I forgot, did one lap then lined us up with the guardroom gatehouse to go out. He told me to proceed. In retrospect, I missed a chance at some practise, there. Went out, got onto the road that runs all the way alongside work, at the second (easy) island I let the trailer wheels run over the pavement. Purely through nerves. That, again, was a fail. After that I really raised the bar. The two corners I was dreading, (a T junction turn at the bottom of Birchwood Expressway, and Burgesses paper shop corner in Latchford village) were both unexpectedly easy!   I did really well. A few minor positional mistakes, but the roads were so empty I could easily correct. I was starting to feel good about myself. I was thinking that I would be able to pass some bugger else’s assessment, even if these bastards were out to screw me over. Then we got back in the yard and he told me to back it onto a bay. I was fairly confident with my reversing ability, I’d spent long enough cracking it for my driving tests. Could I do it? Could I buggery! It was one of those where you break out […]

Things MIGHT be happening at work! I stress ‘might’, I’ve heard a lot of promises before, to no effect. I have been battling for over fifteen months to get work to honour their ‘warehouse to wheels’ incentive. I paid for my own licenses, just needed them to send me out with a driver for a week (or put me shunting, or anything to get me from ‘just passed’ to ‘competent/ confident’) but all I got was promises and lies. I kept saying, ‘it’s there on the board; warehouse to wheels’, their solution was to take the board down. Anyway, I had given up on them. Then, last Friday, I was in the transport office when one of the drivers asked if I was driving yet. I told him I wasn’t, that DHL were a bunch of bastards who would never let me drive for them. He shouted the transport manager, saying ‘this is that lad from the warehouse with his class one’. The manager had a word with me there and then, said ‘come in Monday for an assessment’! Still not easing me gently into the job, ie warehouse to wheels, but at least giving me a shot. Obviously I immediately started bricking it! I’d not been in a cab for over a year, and I was supposed to hop in and drive around the deliberately torturous test route. I booked three hours refresher driving, with the intention of driving around the actual course. The bits I know are daunting, I rang the people I took my class two license with as they are Warrington based. Got the number off the website, rang and made a booking ASAP. It wasn’t until the end of the call he said ‘do you know Bolton at all?’ Eh? Turns out the Warrington site has been ‘mothballed’, and no, we wouldn’t be able to drive to Warrington to try out the test route. Super. So I did that straight after work on Tuesday. I was very nervous. It’s the best part of sixty foot of truck, and my last memories were of the terror of those Groundhog Day driving tests. As it turned out, I jumped in, tentatively edged us out, then was fine. He took me around some really tight corners, or so he said, I thought they were alright. My perennial problems cropped up though; passing too close to parked vehicles and carrying too much speed into situations. He said at the end that I was still up to test standard, but my inexperience did show.   I went in work today with my heart in my mouth. The head assessor was out, so I saw the other one. He was going to take me out, then realised I had no experience. Then told me to come back later. I went back, but then they had no spare trucks. Instead he sat me down and went through three hours of health and safety and driver induction paperwork. He said to tell my […]

As it was my day off today I thought I’d treat myself to a day in the Lakes, trying out that Trihard, so called ‘UK’s toughest triathlon’.   The thing is, all of the challenges I’ve set myself I’ve had a reasonable level of fitness to start with, and a huge dollop of bloody-minded determination. Basically, set my mind to it and got the job done however beastly the ordeal. Such as my first long bike ride. Set off, knocked off 51 miles (‘cos I got lost, otherwise would have done the 56 miles that is the half I.M. distance) then did a half marathon run straight after it. It was hellish, but I just got on with it and did it. Such was my expectation for this little adventure; maybe half kill me, but just battle through.   A few minor set backs to start with. Such as it being in the Yorkshire Dales, not Cumbria. Way into the Dales. Two bleeding  hours of foot down! Then I couldn’t find the start point. Grrrr. Got it sorted eventually.   I looked out of the car, it was a 1 in 4 ascent to start. 25% hill. Challenging. It was so long, as well as steep, that I ended up pushing my bike up a bit of it. Beaten at the first hurdle. I was stunned (as well as shagged!) but carried on. A few miles later it did it again. 25% hill. This time it went on for several miles. I ended up stood on the pedals in first gear on the lower front ring, tacking across the road from one side to the other trying to keep the momentum going. I failed again. The one good thing about bloody Yorkshire, as I saw anyway, was there was hardly any traffic on the roads. I got to the top of that hill/ mountain range and I looked like this;     Which is not just knackered, it’s shell-shocked! I’d ascended from the level of the river, here;   Up roads like this;   I was sorely (I choose my words advisedly) tempted to turn around and go home. I couldn’t face the prospect of going down the other side then having to come up it again. It had cost me quarter of a tank of petrol (£12.50 –ish) to get there, same to get home so I pushed on. I was beginning to concede defeat, but thought I’d better get the full measure of the course and myself whilst I was there. One thing I did learn, for this race I will be taking my tri bars off. You are either heaving at the normal handlebars going uphill, or hanging off the brakes trying not to crash, going down.   What do you know, when I got to the point I realised was going to be my furthest extent, I had to climb right back up again! By the time I had got to the last 3 miles I […]

I’m still on about my triathlon. Run away, run away now. I am still working up to the full Iron Man distance Outlaw race (July 24, provisionally) but I have found a few diverting projects besides.   In may (21st, to be confirmed) there is a half I.M. distance race in Cornwall. That really appeals! Quick swim around St Michael’s Mount, (1.1 miles) tootle to Lands End and back on the pushbike (56 miles) then a half marathon run (13.1 miles). Even the swim won’t be on a level surface!  So enthused am I, that I’ve talked Wendy into taking a weeks holiday down there. I would like to make it two, but she won’t leave the cat for that long!     That could be me! Also, as a cheap warm-down to the season I’ve just booked a small but taxing triathlon in the lake District. It’s the 14th of August. 1800 metre swim in Semer Water, 42 miles of pure hell hills around the Lakes, lots of 1:4 hills, then a leisurely 12 miles up and over the hills. It has been rated as the toughest (for it’s distance, presumably) triathlon in the U.K. In a rush of blood to the head I’ve gone and entered that! I was going to build up my stamina at cycling and see if I was up to it, but I just went on the home site, Trihard (love the name!) and one of May 2011 events is already sold out. I panicked and signed up. Shit, I’ve got some training on now! 42 miles of Lake District hills! There’s incentive for you! My training has been a bit patchy. I did a quick 30 (hilly) miles to test out my tri-bars. They are not as life-threateningly weird as I’d been lead to believe. Did a 10 mile run just to keep my hand in. Today I got a surprise half day off work so I had a nap then went to the pool. I started off, determined to crack the four strokes/ breath, without lifting my head. Still not ideal but improving. The thing I’ve learned is; don’t blow all your air out as soon as you submerge your head again, hold it until the third stroke, blow it out, then breath on the fourth. It stops that horrible panicky feeling that you have to breath RIGHT NOW, that causes you to gasp in water. Anyway, I thought I’d try and learn as I trained, so set out to do 100 lengths. Succeeded, carried on to 150. That’s 150 x 20m, or 3k. My rough maths told me (2/3rds of a Kilometre to a mile) that that was 2 miles. Damn you Johnny Frenchman! It’s 1609 metres to a mile, ie 11 lengths short. I could have been a contender! Anyway, that disappointment aside, I was thoroughly pleased with that. Less than a month ago I was taking my first swim in 15 years, and was delighted to do 10 lengths, head […]