THE GOOD BUCK

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.

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 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!

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.

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”.