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I started this year, and indeed my current training regime, with no clear goals. Do an Ironman, and go sub three on a marathon. While I’ve been stuck at home and bored I’ve been reading up some aspects of that. Advice on how to go sub 10 hour on the triathlon. What goals you need to set for each discipline. The swim needs to be an hour. That will be my biggest challenge. I’m consistently about 1 hour 40. The thing is though, following this bike training plan has made me realise what I’ve been doing wrong. If you put the same effort in, time after time, you train your body to do that effort. You get fitter, and it becomes a bit easier, so you can go a little bit faster, but on race day you just grind it out exactly the same. Same effort in, same results out. Since I’ve been doing this bike training plan on Trainer Road I’m being driven forward. I started by building a base of fitness and putting in some harder efforts in the first 6 week cycle. Then at the start of the second 6 week week cycle I got my fitness tested again (FTP), got a better score, so they made the workouts harder. And now they are paying me the compliment of assuming I’ve built enough stamina and fitness for them to really start to beast me. Last Saturday was a 1½ hour ride, with 6 blocks of 10 minutes, 2 minutes hard, 2 minutes more at 98% of FTP (very hard), 2 minutes 102% of FTP, then down again. It doesn’t sound too bad, but the whole point of FTP is that is the point beyond which your legs can’t clear the lactic acid. So you accumulate burn even at 102%, then have to hang in there, legs on fire, as you slowly reduce power and clear the burn. The first few sets I was clearing the burn by the last minute of drop down. Then you have a minute to get your breath and do it again. By the last block of 2 x 10 minute I didn’t think I could hold on until the minute rest. I lost my pace, I was standing up and sitting down, heart rate a few beats off maximum, gasping for air. I somehow managed to force myself to keep going until the rest, then I had minute until I had to do it again. I am quite amazed I made it. Half of the battle is mental, knowing how desperately close to quitting you are at the end of one block and knowing you’re going to be in a worse state for the next one. The point I am eventually making, is: I did 1½ hours of training, and over an hour of it (with the warm up) was close to or over my new PB FTP. The FTP is test is 20 minutes long (which near kills me as you’re […]

I’m fairly confident I made the right call with my shoulder. I’m just over two weeks in and I can take my sling off for periods and quite easily put my hand on my head now. I put the sling back on as soon as I have to move about, or I forget and, for instance, grab the handrail going down the stairs. That is definitely not a good thing to do. The way it’s going I’m fairly sure the doctor will sign me fit for work on the 10th. My shoulder droop is no longer so pronounced. I’ve still got a lump and my poorly shoulder is a bit lower than the other one, but now it isn’t so sore I can come to attention and the difference isn’t massive. In other good news my sister’s sciatica seems to be on the mend. She’s got a hospital appointment with a specialist in Liverpool on the 10th of February as well. Hopefully they’ll be able to numb her up while she fully mends. She wants to get back to work. She’s been stuck at home since November, until recently too done in to get out. I’d have gone mad. She says her back isn’t bothering her anymore and the electric shocks up her leg are really improving. She said her leg is 50% now. That’s good. I’ve told her I’ll go running with her to build up her back muscles. She wasn’t enthusiastic. I’ve been keeping up with my bike training. It’s not fun, like The Sufferfest. They were shouting at you, encouraging you and making in-jokes. Trainer Road is just a bunch of boring blocks. The blocks are the power, or more accurately, the resistance. The horizontal line is my maximum sustainable power (FTP). The yellow line is the power I’m putting out, the red line is my heart rate. So you ride along for 2 minutes at, say, 120 watts, then it goes up a step and the trainer moves the resistance up to 140W etc. The big blocks are 95- 98% of my FTP, the spikes which are only 5 seconds on this particular workout, are 150%. I looked at this one and thought “That looks do-able. 5 seconds!Ha!” Another one that nearly killed me. The 5 seconds burns your legs then you have to carry on at more or less your maximum for 2 minutes then do it again. By the final block I was hanging on by a thread. But this is how you improve. And how I stay sane while I’m housebound and can’t do anything with my arm. We’ve been getting weird symptoms again. We went for a Covid test, but it was negative. It could be Long Covid, or some weird other bug. It keeps on giving us sore throats and bits of weakness, with the insatiable hunger. Though the last could just be my bored gluttony. On the bright side, it’s nothing like the wipe-you-out bouts we were getting. It’s just […]

The spirit of 2020 is lingering on. Normally by this time I’d have done a blog review of the previous year and another, fresh and optimistic one for the next year. You’re spared that at least. Breaking my shoulder just before the new year is dragging 2020 out for all of this month and half of next. I know it’s only a token date with no real significance in the grand scheme of things, but it is a bit of a downer. Sad panda. On the bright side; I had my one week check up and the doctor was pleased with my mobility. I’m starting to be able to let my arm rest out of the sling for periods, but I can’t use it. And the best news, for me, is that this is the first time I’ve been able to rest my hand on the keyboard to type! Blessed joy! How I’ve missed typing with two hands! The other joy is that I looked online, (well, Wendy looked online to tell me not to) and they said there was no reason why you couldn’t, carefully, continue training on a static trainer. I was already going to give it a go, but that was a green light. After 2 days of sitting around counting the seconds, with nothing to do except eat or try to sleep, I was going nuts. Wendy was looking forward to going back to work to get away from my miserableness. By the third day I knew I had to try something. So, after Wendy discovering it was safe, I strapped my arm to my body and had a go on the bike. I text my sister and said “I’m giving it a go. I’m going in! She replied “In sane.” Success! I have to sit upright and put all my weight on to my left arm, but I can train. It doesn’t injure my shoulder and it burns off my agitation and misery. Happy, happy bunny. Some ex druggie, now running fanatic, told Wendy “Well, it’s either that or drugs.” Whoa. That was a bit insightful. Anyway, the upshot is I shouldn’t lose any fitness through this episode and I have a tool to get me through it mentally, so it’s win win. The iffy news is the doctor said my shoulder break was an in funny place. He said there was a 90% chance it would heal by itself, but if not I’ll have to get a plate screwed in. He offered me the plate now, but warned it had potential complications as it’s over a nerve cluster, could restrict blood flow to my arm, and would limit mobility. The only real plus to it being that I know it’s done. I’m going to wait and see if it it heals. At worst I’ll lose another 5 weeks off work then have to have the plate put in anyway. At best it heals, and I start rehab physio. I was talking to a guy […]

I thought I’d taken my kickings for 2020. As my mam reminded me, I’ve already had the plague and been sacked this year. It’s only two days left until the symbolically optimistic fresh new start of 2021. Ha! The last two days it’s finally turned cold. Snow that hasn’t fully melted away, rain, and sub zero overnight. Yesterday I had 04.00 start and that was quite bracing, riding through frozen snow ridges and tiptoeing over ice patches. Today was worse. The ground was a sheet of ice. I normally hop on my pushbike right outside our door, today I pushed it out and across the road before starting. The wheels were slipping out as I was pushing. In hindsight I should have sacked it off then. Asked Wendy for a lift, or walked in. I gingerly started pedaling in, got about 300 yards and the front end slipped out. Somehow, in the second before I slammed into the ground, I had the presence of mind to decide to do a tuck and roll. Usually forearm, shoulder, hip. It was too late to get my hand down so I just went on to my shoulder. Huge mistake. I landed it completely wrong (normally there would be forward momentum, this time the movement was straight down) and the corner of my shoulder took the full impact. Wow, did that ever hurt! Some guy walking his dog came up to see if I was alright. I was really struggling to understand him, my brain was so absorbed with the pain. After a minute or two I realised I wouldn’t be going in to work so pushed my bike back home. Luckily Wendy was starting later today so was still at home. I took my coat and T-shirt off to see if there was any damage. That was enough to have me shouting out with the pain. I rang the agency and told them, then Wendy took me to the hospital. They thought it was dislocated at first, which had me quite hopeful, but then the xrays came back and they said it was a fractured clavicle. I thought a fracture was like a crack in the bone, not a break, so while I was waiting to get transferred to the right department for treatment I rang the agency and told them I probably wouldn’t be coming in tomorrow. That was a tad optimistic, as it turns out. The breaks department showed me the xray. Clearly snapped. Super. They gave me a sling, some cocodomol, and an appointment with an outpatient doctor in a week. The nurse asked what my job was, I said “lorry driver”, “Well, you wont be driving any lorries for a while.” How long? 6 weeks. Well, isn’t that wizard. I’m an agency driver, so no sick pay. I can’t return to running, and I don’t know if I’m even going to be able to train on my indoors bike. AND I’M HAVING TO TYPE LEFT HANDED! The pain just […]

Well, I’ve started my new job. The first day was really stressful, I’d been off for 6 weeks so I was getting comfortable at home, and a bit nervous about going back to work. So it’s a good thing I got this job, no matter what. Also, I was building a resistance to going back to work as I was losing my lorry driving mojo. A lot of driving an artic is in having confidence that you can. As soon as you question that, after a bump or a long lay-off, the job gets a lot harder. And it was all new. New is a bit frightening. Anyway, I had a full week booked, and once I’d learned how to use the agency app (things have changed massively with agencies in the 4 years since I was last with one) I realised it was the same run for 5 days. The first day was a bit of a nightmare, before I got on the 5 shifts. I got messed about, then sent to a tiny yard in Manchester to pick up a trailer. The yard was so tight a manager came out and stood in the rain to watch to see if I smacked anything trying to spin the trailer. You’ll note that word was “watch”, not “help”. That was my first day back on the job. So stressed. After that I had the same run. Over to Warrington Rail Terminal (where Pete, Wendy’s brother works, surprised him) then run over to Birkenhead docks, drop the trailer, back to WRT, then shunt (move trailers around the yard) for the rest of the day. The last two shifts the docks run was cancelled so it was drive 4 miles, then shunt all day. Well, in theory. I was waiting hours before getting anything to move. Easy, boring, money. The first shift was only 8 hours long, then the rest of the week I was on 12 hours with one 12½. I was trying not to lose my training mojo so I was doing 12 hours at work, ride home, up to an hour training on the indoor bike, shower, tea, make up the next day’s rations, have an hour with Wendy, then bed. Which was still giving me less 7 hours sleep. By the time I got to the 12½ hour shift I cracked and skipped training. To be fair, I was having another (increasingly minor- yay!) bout of plague weakness as well. It just made me want to eat everything and do nothing. Today I seem to be good again. So that’s a relief. I was getting worried that it might be all stupid long shifts. The swimming baths have opened again now, but there is no way I could get to them; I would only have been able to maintain my bike training so long before my routine broke down, and I want to get back to running. It all takes time. My first 7 shifts were 8 hours, […]