Month: July 2013

Begging for the mercy of a never-come rain.

Hot. Damn hot. Hotter than a snake’s ass in a wagon rut. To be honest I think the BBC’s weather reporting is getting a bit too informal. It has been beastly. Mainly due to the garage pissing me about so I’ve been riding to work every day in this damnable heat. Not that I wouldn’t have anyway. Committed triathlete and all. *coughs* The insurance people and the garage’s own telephone crew said “it could be as long as 5 days.” That was 19 days ago. They say the replacement panels they were sent were damaged so had to re-order them. Then when they came to fit them they noticed the front panel was damaged as well so they’ve had to order that. Now they are saying they should have it done for Monday, so I’ll be able to pick it up Tuesday. Bah. To be honest it’s just the weekly big shop that has been the problem. Riding to work is what I’m supposed to do. I’ve not been able to give Wendy a lift in of a morning, but that just means I get more of a lie-in, so her loss is my gain. And my training’s loss. Lie-ins mean I’ve no time to train before work. Talking of which, I read a forum on Runners World about who was up for next year’s Outlaw. I read a few pages and got a bit irritated with the preachy attitudes. Noobs, you’ve got to be able to ride X miles in Y hours and swim like a dolphin or you can’t do it. I commented that I’d done one ride over 60 miles, less than 20 swims in 2 years and had buggered my run fitness with an injury for several months before this year’s Outlaw, finishing in 14.09. “If you are a bit stubborn and eat at every feed station you can do it.” I thought this was an encouragement to the newbs, if a fat old useless duffer like me can do it, anyone can. What I failed to consider was some of the people on there had trained really hard and only just scraped a finish and some were DNF. Oops. My well meaning post was perceived as saying they were all shite. As you can imagine, this generated some comments. I later backtracked. As that was my second a basic level of fitness was enough to get me through. The first year was tough going from my first half marathon to my first Outlaw in 9 months. But I did it. So what was that? Just over a year to go from coach tatty to Outlaw.  Of course it was hard, it’s meant to be. Grit your teeth, man-up and do it. Which brings me neatly to today. I thought that 50 mile run was in about 4 weeks and I’ve not done any distance training. So I strapped on my trainers, loaded up my bag, found a 38 mile run route and set off. It […]

Continue reading

Moving on.

We’ve done the Outlaw. No-one wants to hear about that any more. That would be very boring. However, I will say in passing that it was so bad on the day I was thinking that was my last triathlon. Until I got that statistic that once I finished the swim I managed to overtake over 200 men. (That was how the statistics were presented, ‘men’s race’. I’m not trying to fudge the figures or discount the women, shitloads of them kicked my sorry arse.) That is incredible. If I took swim lessons I could be a contender. I’m up for it again now. Here’s some snaps and we’ll move on, saying no more about it. Pushing it out for the finish. Every inch exist in miles. And over the line, unaware I was being photographed; Do. They. Ever! As I said on Twitter, “This is what it’s all about: “You can talk of personal growth and aims, but really it’s all about wearing a T-shirt that says ‘I am awesome, bow before me’”   This week I’ve been back to training, perforce, as the garage have my car. I did the first two days in this beastly heat on the bike, nearly 22 miles a day commute, flat out in top gear and lost 2lb! Bonus. As I’m thinking of kicking some triathlon arse next year I’m trying to heat acclimatise myself. If you can race in this you can blitz a cool day. So I bought a hat, donned my gallon of water holding bag and set off this afternoon. Goddamn! It’s a great idea but heat kills me stone dead. Still, keep at it. Check the hat with the neck curtain thingy: As one of my Twitter chums noted, Beau Buck! I was getting strange looks on my run today, with my hat and backpack with the water bottles and such. People obviously thinking I was taking the bit of sunshine too seriously as they were running in just shorts. It’s heat conditioning, dammit. And it killed me. What else? Not a lot. Sleep, train, work. I did make a resolution to avoid the A30 in Cornwall when I do my LEJOG (Land’s End- John O’Groats) as two Scottish riders were killed this week shortly after starting a LEJOG.. They’d only been riding a few hours  when they got twatted by a HGV. Dead as Betamax, just like that. Lorry drivers! They’re all arseholes.   Anyway, on to more fun stuff, namely the wonderful world of Twitter. Again I’ve been a tad busy so I’ve not been on that much. But I have two weeks of it. Here goes; The DMreporter had: SNOOPING: Cameron tackles President Obama over claims the US spied on Britain – “it’s cool, I don’t mind, we’re still friends right…?” BONKERS: EU ruling to reduce mobile roaming charges ‘threatens UK companies profits, lowers tax payments and takes away orphanage funding.’ DISGUSTING: Fury as radical feminists undermine Andy Murray’s Wimbledon victory by claiming a WOMAN […]

Continue reading

Phew, what a scorcher!

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. That’ll be a new wing for me, please. And two doors for you. Balls. When I got back I realised I had 10 hours before I had to get up so I did some last minute sorting of kit. Then I had an hour and a half in bed, but woke up again. I couldn’t get back to sleep but I wasn’t worried, I’d still be able to get some kip when it got to night time. Then next door came back with a bunch of her coke-head mates to celebrate the heatwave. Ace. So I ended up grabbing another hour about 0130, then I had to get up at 0230 and get on the road for 0300. I was a bit tired to start with. We started at 0600, I took this snap on the way on to the site, sunrise over the Outlaw lake: Not a bad snap from a camera ‘phone, I think. But look at that evil yellow bastard. You can tell what’s in store. Look at this: http://www.racetimingsystems.net/Results/IndividualResult.aspx?Id=673559&Round=2306&Page=1&Search=956&Theme=[f7941e] Astonishingly, after the swim (the weakest of my three weak disciplines) I made up 200 places on the ride and run! Gobsmacked. I’ve just this minute found that out. *chuffed face* Anyway, the swim was just a matter of getting my head down and doing it. Then came the transition, I jogged out of the lake, very conscious of the fat, shell-shocked geezer I’d seen wobbling out of the lake on my last video. I was feeling alright. Last time we weren’t allowed to get naked in the changing tent as there were female assistants about, so I swam with my tri-suit under my wetsuit, took my wetsuit off put my cycling shorts on (on top of my soaked tri-suit) then set off for the ride. Had I of attended the race briefing I would have know you could get properly changed this year. I […]

Continue reading