THE GOOD BUCK

I’ve been having patches of anxiety and such for a while. Then out of the blue I’ve been slammed by a really nasty bout of loony-ness. Depression. I’ve had several attacks of random loony in the past, I was expecting that again. Where I fixate on one trigger event or concept (the local kid’s ball, – I still get uneasy at the sound of a ball bouncing –, or prior to that, Death and Time) which is horrible and scary. But no, just depression. In our family that’s at best passé. It’s been a few weeks now. On the bright side, it’s not constant, I keep having good days. They other day I was having an episode of sane and I convinced myself I was just imagining it, that it was just feeling blue with a large dose of self pity. I was driving along, concentrating on the road and my Russian ‘tapes’, when suddenly it hit me full force. Utterly crushed me. More than I thought I could endure. I’m not imagining it. And the self pity is hard earned. As I say, in my family my little bout of nuttiness is embarrassingly minor. I’m the guy with the plaster on his blister telling someone in a full body cast how much it hurts. But when it washes over me it takes everything away. I can’t get excited, or make plans, or do anything. The bad bits feel literally unbearable. The weird thing is; whilst I know consciously that bouts usually last three months and that it will probably go again in a day or so, when it hits I can’t believe I will ever be right again. I’ve had a good day today, hence being able to blog. I’ve not done any training for about a fortnight, totally not been able to face going out to my swim lessons. On the bright side, I’ve been constructive in my avoidance. I’ve built a really spiffy and sturdy back gate to replace the shoddy fence-panel-on-hinges thing I put up originally. For some reason the wind funnels across our house. At the front we’ve had to bungee cord the bins to stop them from flying away, I have to park my motorbike on the pavement because it’s been blown over twice out front, and the back gate gets blown off it’s hinges. I’m totally on top of that now. Also, I’ve returned to the saxophone.  And I’m flying through some really good books. Also I’ve found a brilliant vegan cookery site https://minimalistbaker.com/ and I’ve been cooking loads. I was after veggie fare, to be honest, but that came up on a search for fried rice. Some gorgeous food. Best damn veggie burger I’ve ever tasted. The stir fry rice is delicious. And, amazingly, vegan. It was only a few weeks ago I was telling someone on Twitter that the only good thing (in my experience) about vegan food was it took the sting out of the fear of death. It must […]

My training is taking all sorts of turns. Because I was dropping off my plan for the sub 3 hour marathon in April I was upping the mileage more than the rule of 10% per week. Also, because I was pushed for time, it was basically every run I was doing was trying to raise the bar. Every run. Not a pace run, a long, easy run, sets, rest, then batter it. Go out and run 3 miles at stupid pace. Next run try and run 3½ miles faster, next run try and run 4. It was a stupid thing to do. I’ve gone and knackered my calf. As soon as I try to go fast it sets and starts hurting. And gets worse the more I push it. I was scared it was a tendon thing, but Dr Google says it’s just a weak muscle or muscle overuse. Too much, too soon. I need that printed on every pair of trainers I buy. The remedy is rest, then slowly build up again. With some strengthening exercises. I did about 2 runs in 2 weeks. The first it had eased off so I warmed up for 2 miles, as soon as I went fast my calf seized. I managed to shuffle home. The second I started slow but it was hurting so much that I turned around at a mile, but then it eased off so I turned around and managed a 6 mile run. That was when I hit Dr Google. Armed with the knowledge and the experience that I could, slowly, push through it, I tried a long, slow run today. I managed a half marathon with no real problems. I’m hoping to build some stamina and maintain some fitness so I can build my speed again. I’m thinking April is out for next year, though. Downer. I’ll try for a flat course later in the year, if I can’t do it for April.   On the bike front I’ve got my fancy pants bike set up on the turbo trainer and I’ve got a monitor and a laptop so I can run Zwift. It’s a computer game that, with all the techno bells and whistles I’ve got fitted, monitors your power (in watts), your pedalling rpm and such, and converts it into your speed and performance in the virtual cycling world of Wattopia.  Which all sounds a bit pointless, but the thing is you are on a resistance trainer so it’s all good, hard training.  You can see the power and rpm you are pushing out, you get to race against other people from all around the world in real time and there are challenge sections where is suddenly says you’re on a timed section, the best has just finished it in 3 minutes 49, your ETA is 5.45, so you have to go flat out for the length of the challenge to try to beat it. And if, like today, someone comes past you with “such-and-such […]

My training is taking all sorts of false steps. There was that disaster when I thought the top Tri people ran without socks (confused it with riding without socks, which I think is a thing) and knackered my feet for a fortnight. Then I went for a professional bike fit (getting the saddle at the right height, position forward and back, angle of seat, setting the cleats in the right place, adjusting the handlebars to correct length of reach, armrest, and height, etc. Basically getting the bike to be a perfect fit for me.) The guy doing it was an ex Tour De France professional rider, so he knew his stuff. The fit is great, totally not how I had it, so hopefully that will rule out further knee pain and such. Better than that though was the free advice. It took about 2½ hours to fit me up (really!) so he had plenty of time to talk. Everything I thought is wrong. Everything. I remembered as a kid riding all day in boots and jeans and going flat out in top gear. From that I extrapolated the best way to train is no padding in your shorts to toughen up your nethers, and put it in top gear on the trainer and grind it out until you get huge muscles. All wrong. As he pointed out, if you could toughen up your bits don’t you think the professional riders would do it? And don’t go for big muscles. You have the physique you have. He said, as a runner, I’ve got strong legs anyway, get them moving. I am comfortable at about 70rpm on the bike. He said I should be aiming for 95. I’ve done a few training rides on the turbo trainer at that cadence. It is brutal. I’m in a pathetically low gear, legs screaming, sweat streaming off me. He said to maintain that cadence so when you transition to the run your legs are already at the right speed. Fair do’s. I’ve just got to adapt. After he’s adjusted the bike to perfection the tri bars had a big bit sticking out the back which needed to be cut to length. Which entailed taking the gear cables off, then rethreading them through the frame. I gave it a go. I managed to do it, but it just wasn’t right. The rear derailleur wasn’t taking the slack on the cable. So I had to take it in to Ron Spencer’s to have a proper bike mechanic look at it. It turns out there is a length of outer cabling, through which the cable must pass, hidden inside the frame. That was out of line so the cable was snagging. Got that fixed, brought it home, all set to start battering my commute. The seat post isn’t the conventional round one, it’s a thin, long, aero blade. I can’t fit the clip on mudguard to it, or mount a rear light on it. *sigh* The last two […]

Finally got to my first swim lesson with the proper coach tonight. Martin, Wendy’s workmate, (who has been going for a while) said the coach will ask your goal, assess your swim, then be brutally frank about your chances of achieving it. Martin has heard him tell people they just don’t have enough years left to achieve their ambitions. I was all set for confrontation. You say I can’t do it, I’m going to prove you wrong if I have to go to a different coach to do it. He told me to swim up and down while he walked besides me in the pool. After 2 lengths he stopped me, and asked what I wanted to achieve. “I want to be able to knock 40 minutes off my 2.4 mile swim time within 3 years.” No problem. 3 months. Bugger me! Didn’t see that coming. I suspect he may have misheard me, but he was very positive about my chances. He was happy with my stroke, my kicking and my rotation, said not to change it. He correctly identified my initial problem, not being able to breathe.  He set me a task of swimming to the deep end, then dunking under and breathing out through my nose, surface, in through my mouth and repeat. After a few goes of that he told me to breathe every second stroke on the swims. It sounds stupid, but it was really working. I had been keeping my head down for as long as possible because every time I breathed I had to roll right out of the water and stick my head up to get a huge lungful of air, which more or less stopped me dead. Then there was the panic of missing that huge breath, and the panic as I was running short of air before I took it. By only breathing out through my nose it trains you to only breathe in through your mouth. You’re not wasting half of your breath seconds blowing out. By doing it every second stroke I was sipping regular air. Never running out, never panicking, not having to gasp huge amounts, which in turn let me relax and keep my head in the water as I breathed.  That is my first ambition, to master the smooth, head in the water, breathing of the good swimmers. He had another point as well. “The trouble with adult swimmers is they come here and tell me why they can’t do it before I’ve even had a chance to look at them.” He didn’t think there was much wrong with my swim once I’ve got my breathing right. He really thought I could do it. That is the best bit of tri news I’ve had in ages. As I say, I know I can batter the run, the bike is going to be incredibly hard but just a matter of constant training. The swim was what could have stopped me dead. Brilliant. Buck.

Just some stats for future reference. I did the Warrington half marathon today. I didn’t think I was going to be able to, but managed to get a shift swap at work. It was a good run for me. I managed to batter my previous personal best (from 2012 when I was a young and vigorous slip of a 46 year old lad) by 3 minutes 24 seconds.  I was a bit disappointed with the overall time of 1.36:17, I wanted to be a lot closer to 1.30, but hills. And wind. And other excuses. I’ve got the Manc half next month, so hopefully get within spitting distance of 1.30 then. Still, PB. The stats, subject to change when the final results and proper breakdown get posted are: I was 1.36:17 5,295 people entered the half (I don’t know how many were no-shows/ DNF’s yet.) I finished: 277 overall, 246th in the men’s race, (only 31 women beat me! That’s quite impressive for me.) 25th in my age group. The age group stat is meaningless until I know how many were in that category, but 277th out of 5,295 puts me in the the top 5.23% for the overall race. Just looked at my last Warrington half stats in 2016. 1.47:42 558 overall 496 gender 65th in age group. Wow. That’s way more encouraging. Right, I’ll confirm when the official results are up, but just on the stats I’ve got that’s not bad. Then Lettie, a niece-in-law, said her chap did it in 1.15. I thought it was a wind-up. He’s a noob, only been running for about a year, after knee surgery. No way. She seemed serious. As was Wendy. I looked it up, that would be a 5.45 m/m pace. Nah, not even. They looked it up on the results, there he was 1.15. I was stunned, full of admiration, but mainly gutted. In the end Lettie got to doubting herself so texted Mark, her chap. He’d ran the 10K. Bloody hell. But, for some actual perspective, today somebody ran a 2.01 in the Berlin marathon. A full marathon at 4.38 m/m pace. I hear competitive knitting is the future. Buck.