THE GOOD BUCK

I started to write this yesterday, but it turned into a long and boring (to everyone who’s not me) post about triathlon. The main reason I set to writing was to take my new keyboard for a test ride. The old one, after years of faithful service, decided it couldn’t endure one more blog post so took the easy way out. I was looking at what possible differences there were between an £18 keyboard and a £40 one. Coloured back lighting and such. Huh. That’s exactly what I look for in a keyboard, disco lighting. Then I saw this for one of the cheaper ones: Come on, what’s not to love? So I got it. To be honest, the docile cat in question was probably playing with a stiff Rubik’s cube when they made the comparison. It’s a bit clicky. But it really suits my typing for some reason, so all good. I’ve been having trouble sleeping lately. Partly because of trying to get comfy with an awkward shoulder, I expect, but also I just can’t get my temperature right. With the window open on a -5C night, the very lightest tog summer duvet I could find (about 2.5 tog, I think) still bakes me. And if I use blankets instead they leave my knees cold. I think it’s the man-opause. Yesterday I had less than 4 hours sleep, then I was up until midnight, up again today at 05.40. I was sick with tiredness. I stayed up until Wendy went to work then managed to get 3 hours on the couch, so I’m feeling good now. I hope when I get back to work, and can lay on my side, this will quickly sort itself out. My shoulder is progressing apace. I’m still pretty confident I’ll get signed fit for work on the 10th. After Wendy saying to make a claim I’m now getting ESA (Employment Support Allowance, I think) so that’s £74 per week. It’s been so long since I was out of work I’d forgotten you can claim. I’ve been burning through a whole bunch of books. That’s one good thing about the enforced downtime, getting lost in a good read. That will stop when I get back to work, sadly. I won’t have the hours to dedicate to it once I’m working and training. Which brings me to my musings of last night. I’ll sum it up. I’ve had time to research some stuff. I found some lists of individual discipline times for a (benchmark) sub 10 hour triathlon. Swim 1.05 (mine is about 1.42), bike 5.15 (I’m 6.45) run 3.30 (I’m 4.18). I know I’ve said I wanted to go sub 10 before, but then I thought if I kept training it would just happen. Now I know that’s not the case, you have to make it happen. And Trainer Road have shown me how. Specifically the bike. For years I was commuting 22 miles a day. Always trying to push a little bit every […]

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 […]