(…the giant steps we had to take. Sisters of Mercy song lyrics.)
I’ve just read through my blogs for the year, (so you don’t have to. You’re welcome.) and it was an eye-opener. You, (perhaps just I) take for granted where you are and what you’ve done. Then I read back and bloody hell! I’d totally forgotten.
This time last year I hadn’t ridden a pushbike or swam for 3 or so years, hadn’t run for 5 months, had no life, was low, and all I did was work and sleep.
I did my first run of 5 miles last January, then a few days later just about made a 10 mile pushbike ride to work. I remember how bad that was. A year on I’m spinning it up and going for better times, back then it was all I could do to finish the 10 miles.
The swimming remains my Achilles heel.
Then I committed to the Outlaw triathlon. From my worst fitness in years to an Outlaw in 7 months. It feels a bit like it happened to someone else, so I don’t mind saying that was quite impressive.
Work was a pain. I couldn’t train around the stupid-long shifts they were giving me every day. I got myself into a flap thinking about how I was going to have to quit either my job or the Outlaw, I thought there was no way they’d let me have short shifts, logistics just isn’t that kind of job. I asked, and they changed my start time and gave me shorter shifts! Thanks work, that was really great of you.
I went from no running for 5 months to 3 marathons over 3 weeks in 3 months.
I’ve had a few setbacks, sports injuries from ‘too much, too soon’ (Every. Time!) and doing stupid things like running without socks, wrong size cycling shoes, etc, but I did the Outlaw and got a personal best. The sports injuries have killed my hope for a sub 3 hour marathon in April. *sigh*
There have been a few fails over the year. I didn’t keep going to the tri club, I was over-committed so had to quit my Russian language school and there was that (mercifully brief) period of really nasty depression that killed my training stone dead for a month.
Over the last year I’ve sold one motorbike, bought the awesome FireBlade and recently crashed another motorbike.
I bought my road pushbike, fitted it for triathlon, bought a turbo trainer, a bike computer and my triathlon specific pushbike.
Wendy got her pushbike (and has ridden it nearly 10 miles in total, lol), passed her car test first time and got her Mini.
Also I’ve recently returned to the saxophone and bought a cheap straight soprano sax for use at work. Also I’ve gone back to being a vegetarian. And have found a wonderful site (and bought the cookbook) called minimalistbaker.com . It’s all vegan recipes with 10 ingredients or fewer. I wasn’t actually after vegan. It’s only a few weeks ago I was telling someone on twitter that (from my past experience) the only good thing about being vegan is that it takes the sting out of the fear of death. I was just looking for a good recipe for fried rice, hers popped up and it was delicious. I tried some others and they were all great. Better than the meat food I’d been eating. If it’s delicious and easy to make why wouldn’t you eat vegan? I’ve not gone all in. I still have dairy on other things, and I’m not giving up my leathers. But like I say, why wouldn’t you?
So, that’s where I am.
I was feeling a little miffed that I’m out of the running for a sub 3 marathon in April, and my swimming isn’t what I want, but reviewing the last year I am now really happy to be where I am.
I seem to be over the nasty bout of loony, I’m not too badly injured, have the right shifts to train and have regained my training mojo. I’m going to draw up a revised training plan, get back to swimming, and batter it.
2019 is here and I’m ready for it!
Buck.