THE GOOD BUCK

Well that was fun. In no way, shape or form.

As last time I stayed in a hotel and only got a few hours sleep due to the bar and the loud drunks at throwing out time, this time I had a plan. Nip to Nottingham, register and drop my bike and kit off, come home, sleep in the day then drive back fresh as a daisy for the start.

Due to the bloody heatwave the A50 was rammed with all the families going to Alton Towers, so that screwed me up. I skipped the ‘mandatory’ race briefing, (yadda yadda, don’t get killed, yadda yadda,) and tried to come home the long way around, up the M1 to Leeds then across the M62. As it was a new route for me I was having issues with lanes in Nottingham. I was in the outside lane of two when someone in front of me stopped to turn right. I checked my mirror, saw a gap and darted to the inside lane. I hadn’t checked my blind spot. BANG! Someone was undertaking me. Oops.

The countdown to the Outlaw is all that’s on my mind now. This time next week it’ll all be over but the blubbing like a little girl. Oh dear, oh dear.

The confidence boost of the swim and ride on Monday has evaporated. Now I’m back to wondering if I can do it. Yes, I can. But how bad is it going to be?

Squeaky bum time.

I forced myself to do my trial run today. I didn’t want to, and because I’ve been putting it off it had grown to epic proportions in my mind. I couldn’t sleep for worrying about it last night. I had about 4 hours. When the alarm went off at 0540 I got back in bed. I was making excuses; too tired, I’ll go later etc. I forced myself back out of bed and (eventually) went for a swim.

Because I’d built it up so much in my mind it wasn’t that bad. I managed to do just over 2 miles in 1 hour 18, but then had to stop as I’d said I’d run Wendy in to work and she didn’t have any bus fare. I make it that would have been 2.4 miles in about 1.34 (feel free to correct me, you know how bad I am at maths. I got the Errol Flynn ‘dashing’ gene, missed out on the maths one.) which is well within the 2 hour cut off.

I came home, ran Wendy to work *cough* dicked about on Twitter for an hour and a half *cough* then dashed straight out.

Epic news sports fans; I think I may have sussed the issues with my legs! Huzzah!

I read up on the running and triathlon sites about tight/ painful calves, expecting to see dire warnings about the tendon shrinking tendencies of cycling. Not a word. There was a lot of talk of doing too much too soon, of being too old, not stretching and bad running form. I, of course, dismissed them all. Ha! I said. Then I read some more, from professional coaches and physio’s. They said the same. Well, OK, maybe I’ve been cycling and not doing regular running, just expecting to do 20 miles from cold. And possibly I’m knocking on a bit. But I stretch like a bitch every time. Then I read about ‘proper’ stretching and tried it. Oh my word! I’ve been doing it wrong since forever. One in particular, where you put one foot behind you then sort of drop down, keeping the shin on the front leg vertical. I put the back foot at far back as possible, the toes turned to the side and really drop into it. It pulls your groin to buggery. Totally wrong, it’s supposed to be pulling your calf. Back foot facing forward, heel remains on the floor, then try to get low. I can barely drop a couple of inches into that. Oops. All that remained on the list was warm up and running form. Last time I did this I laid myself up for months, that was through forced chi running (landing on the balls of your feet, not heel striking) this time I think I triggered it walking in my cycling shoes for miles. Today I looked up some ‘dynamic stretching exercises’ (where you stretch as you move, as opposed to static where you stretch and hold, bad on cold muscles.)

I did the set before I went for a run. I buggered my calf before I’d even done the warm up set. One was a sort of bounding thing where you land on the balls of your feet and bounce up again, trying to minimise contact. As soon as I started that exercise my calf buggered up.

I had a bad to-do this week. I was tootling down the motorway, avoiding killing the usual eejits, when I saw a hippy van, (a Volkswagen camper van) with a beardy-weirdy 20-something driving, a passenger, and another beardy-weirdy lounging in the back.

I was instantly struck by a vast longing to be that hippie. It was the hippie dream, three people in a VW camper van, off to the sun and  a peace-out session. I was struck by simultaneous desire to be living the dream and a overwhelming feeling that the last 7 years of sobriety were an utter mistake.

I can’t say that I’m over it even now. I realise that that isn’t the case though. You still get  up in the morning and go to work, there are no proper hippie communes and damn few real hippies. It’s just living your life with a drug problem.