Month: May 2019

There is no Tri?

Just reviewing. I did a blog on the 4th of May, saying I was finally clear of that evil bug. I’d made several false starts at training, only to be too weak to continue. Since then I’ve done a bunch of rides on the Sufferfest, but on the easier setting, to get my fitness back. I did a few fast runs then decided to run a marathon. I did it, but it was so, so bad. I actually quit several times. I thought, ‘Right, just get to the next mile marker and I’m turning around, I just can’t carry on.’ Then I carried on. It was a triumph of bloody mindedness and grit, but I just wasn’t ready for it. As usual I’d been starting swimming. Tomorrow. OK, the next day. I hate swimming and I’m really bad at it so I have a huge aversion to overcome. Then, at the beginning of last week, I looked up when a TV series was returning (Stranger Things). The 4th of July. I thought, ‘Great, that’s only a month away…., hang on, my triathlon is the end of July! AAAAAGGGHHH!’. I’ve done about 4 or 5 swims since my last triathlon, no long rides, and even my run fitness took a battering from that 6 weeks of terminal man-flu. And I had 9 weeks to get to 2.4 mile swim, 112 mile ride, 26.2 mile run. PANIC! Oh, and work have been stitching me up with long shifts again. Super. So this week I’ve done 3 swims, 2 Sufferfest sessions and a few runs. I worked out a target-work-backwards plan. Then thrashed it. As usual. By the end of this week I was supposed to be up to 50 lengths of the pool. First swim I did 52 (in 40 minutes), second 62, third and hour, which I think was about 80 lengths or 1.2 miles. (I wiped the data before I had chance to confirm, but it was roughly that.) Today I thought I’d see where I was by doing a half. Being a Saturday there was no lane swim or adults only, so I had to go to an open swim session. I got half an hour’s swim, 42 lengths (2/3rds of a mile) before all the parents and toddlers piled in and I had to quit. Then I did a hilly 62 miles on my bike. 3,156 feet of elevation. Some of them were killer steep, I did 43mph in an aero tuck down one hill (then had to slog back up). I need to do that run again and again. The hills killed me. I had nothing. I wobbled back in the pitiful time of 3 hours 47. Then I went out for the run. 13.1 miles. The first two miles I was quite happy. 8 minute miles, not too painful. Then it hit me hard. I was desperate to quit. I slowed the pace and ground it out. It was miserable. I was looking back at the […]

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Change and about.

It’s been a strange time. Work are introducing spy cameras into the trucks, against the express wish of every driver there. I got into a principled huff and have been looking for other jobs. I applied online to Royal Mail, Chorley, but didn’t make it past their online personality test thing. Then I saw two other jobs that looked OK. I applied for them, and got invitations to go further, but then I found reviews. It’s not just Amazon that do online reviews anymore. These were from actual drivers, past and present. The first job is a total lie, with terrible kit and long hours, being treated like dirt. The second, which looked on the advert to be local drops, loading and unloading your own trailer, good money, and most importantly only 8 hour shifts, was nothing of the sort. Long, long shifts, bullying culture, treated like crap, admittedly the money is still good. I was getting a bit low but I think I’m bouncing back. It’s not that my job is ideal, but it’s still SO much better than the alternatives. I’ll keep my eyes open, if Royal Mail, Warrington, advertise I’ll be all over that, but I’m not leaving my job for a worse one. I mentioned that I was looking for other work to a trainer at work today. Because of the spy cameras, but also because I never know when I’m going home. He had a good suggestion. Ask to be trained as a shunter. They are the drivers who stay in the yard all day, moving trailers around. A tedious job but one with fixed hours. I could be on the good money I am on now and know when I was going home. And it would remove the other, otherwise unavoidable, irritant in my job; traffic. It’s certainly worth an ask.   Another downer is my bike. I bought the red one because it did everything the black on did and had great bodywork so looked fantastic. I got to work a few days ago and noticed half of a fairing panel was missing. It’s completely inexplicable. If it had been a full panel I would have thought it had fallen off or been nicked, but half was left behind as though it had snapped off. but there were five bolts holding the snapped off bit in place. I haven’t crashed it or dropped it, there is no plastic debris at ours, so not kids vandalising it. It makes no sense. Gutted though. I spent hours searching for a replacement fairing panel. It’s a 24 year old bike, and apparently left hand side ones are most sought after from people getting it wrong with the sidestand and dropping it. Found one, tried to buy it but eBay said there was an error, so I went back and tried again but it had sold. I found another panel and bought that. Then eBay sent me an invoice for the first one. It was a glitch, […]

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Finally!

I don’t want to speak too soon, I’ve made several false starts recently, but I think I’m finally free of that bug. It’s taken forever. For the last 3 weeks I’ve thought I was over it, gone out for a few training sessions, then felt as weak as a Southerners cup of tea. It’s been dire. Also, there’s the knock on effect of losing your mojo. While you are training and pushing yourself you are determined to be better the next time. After you’ve spent a while being lazy you know how bad it’s going to be getting going again and you start avoiding it. After my last blog, lamenting how utterly terrible everything was, I’m back to optimistic today. I’ve had to switch off the 4DP setting on the Sufferfest (cycling training app thing) that is tailored to my exact strengths and weaknesses (well, weaknesses and slightly less weakness) until I can get my fitness back. It’s still set to my maximum sustainable effort, so it beasts me, just not quite as much.  Last week when I was feeling OK I did the longest session on there,1 hour 40 minutes of mixed sets. It was too much really, my knee felt like a balloon afterwards. Today I was cunning and just did a nice easy 45 minute session. Warm up, 1 minute hard, 1 minute rest. I can do this! Then again. By the third time I was thinking I was going to have to quit. But Sufferfest are sly. They give you just enough time to recover so you think ‘OK, I’ll just do one more’ and keep going. 11 of them. Half way through they said “This is one of the most intense workouts you can do, treat it as such”. Nice, easy, 45 minutes my fat, lazy arse! Then after the 11 sessions it got hard. 15 seconds of high revs, high power, sprint. Then 15 second rest. Times 20. It doesn’t sound much, but there is no time to recover. Again, they are cunning, you can just about stop gasping then the next 15 seconds starts and you think ‘Anyone can do 15 seconds!’ so you push it out, even though you are still dying. My admiration for the trainers at Sufferfest is total. They are evil,sadistic geniuses. The clue is in the name, I suppose. Their genius is in torturing you to the exact level where you push at your absolute maximum, but can finish without quitting. It really is where the Iron Crosses grow. So I slogged through that. And it was terrible. But I did it. Then I went out for a run. The last few weeks that has been slow and painful and maximum effort just to keep going. Today the first 4 miles were a joy. I just set my legs to running, and they kept it up, at a modest pace, with metronomic ease. That was a double joy as after the sufferfest being so hard I thought my […]

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