Time to think

So last week I took a short jaunt off into the central European Alps last week to see if I could show the small people what it feels like to carve a set of perfectly formed turns into some freshly laid powder. These days I try and spend as much time as I can rolling up the side of geological scale bumps, but it has to be said, there are few feelings that compare to drifting silently down the side of a mountain with a pair of scientifically engineered planks strapped to your feet, surrounded by a bubble of fluffy whiteness.

We were not blessed with the best of the waste deep stuff, but 10 minutes cutting your way through some freshly fallen virgin snow, even if it is only ankle deep, is still worth a year of waiting. Fortunately the small people also have an appreciation of how cool that feels, so I not only had the pleasure of experiencing it myself, I got to see the look on their faces as it dawned on them what the old guy who pays all their bills has been going on about all these years. 

So, no cycling, no running this week. Some light swimming in the spa pool, but nothing that could reasonably be called training. The week was hardly filled with lazing around, I did work the body on the slopes, but it was a week off from feeling that I have not done enough miles. And some time to think.

Sitting in the airport at ridiculously early o’clock on the way out, scanning my twitter feed, it suddenly struck me that all the people I follow on Twitter have one thing in common. Well, more than one thing. They all cycle, run or swim (this is my triathlete persona after all….). But that’s obvious. And they all tweet (daaah … as the small people would say). No, it was something else. Something way more fundamental.

As I was sitting there waiting for the departure gate to open, the sun was just poking it’s nose over the horizon, lighting the departure lounge windows and in places elsewhere around the country, the faces of a quite a few of my already up and about twitter compadres. As they prepared their kit, wrapped up against the sub zero temperatures Siberia had so graciously sent us and set off on their way to various, mostly cycling,  events around the country, they were announcing their awakeness to anyone who wanted to listen and reveling in the glorious day it was shaping up to be. All this while large parts of the rest of the population were still either deeply comatose, or pulling the covers up tighter around themselves, preparing for nothing more energetic than a slow read of the Sunday’s and a steaming cup of char sometime later in the day.

Those of you old enough to remember will know, the song says “Life, life is what you make it”. What is clear through this collection of tweets is that all these people are busy making their lives… Fuller. Making their lives ….More. A passionate Lust for Life positively springs out of my twitter feed. While others are sleeping, watching other people’s more interesting lives on tv or reading about other people’s problems in the papers, these people are Doing. Being. Enriching. Achieving. Actively seeking out pain and exhaustion. Pushing themselves to and beyond their own personal limits. Just for the shear fun of it. And all the while, feeling great about it. Celebrating every second, every small victory, every blood red sub zero sun rise they get to see.

A lesson I try to teach the small people is to choose their social circles wisely. I tell them to surround themselves with people who share a common desire to suck the very marrow out of life, doing things that are exhilarating, exciting, inspiring. I tell them to seek out friends who thrive on making the most of every opportunity. Friends with whom they can share the joy of enriching their lives with new experiences and new skills. Just like riding into a wind, there will be many things that might hold the Small People back as they push their way through the hills and valleys of their lives. Can’t Be Bothered. Too Tired. Not Enough Time. Not Sure I Can. Not Sure How. Scared to Do It Alone. But if they can find a fast moving pack, a pack going in a direction they want to go, where all the members of the pack take their turn at the front, riding into the wind will become way easier.

When I was a whipper snapper, there was no Twitter. No social media. No easy way to see beyond the small world in which I lived. Inspiration was harder to find. Like minded people less visible. As a result, living life to the full was not always easy. It wasn’t necessarily obvious what Living Life to the Full actually meant. How it could be done. Despite my archaic pre-digital upbringing, I was eventually fortunate enough to meet many interesting people, some of whom have helped me do exciting and amazing things. Things I could not have done alone. That includes Mrs Short Bloke,  and the Blokes of course, none of whom could be accused of wasting more than few moments that could otherwise have been spent Doing, Being, Living.

But were I not so fortunate, were I to suddenly feel alone in my feelings that there must be a better ways to fill my days, I would not need to look far to find inspiration.  From Texas to Taunton, Somerset to South Africa. On G+, Twitter, Facebook, in the blogosphere, every where I look there are people showing the way. I chose cycling and triathlon but I am sure there are thousands of others pulling themselves out of bed with the sun rise to go Do other stuff… Canoeing, climbing, moto-cross, Thai boxing. Who knows what. What ever it is, they are out there, tweeting and blogging about how painful and exhausting their last session was, and how great it felt. How exhilarating their last race was, and how excited they are about the next one.

Pick a hashtag, peruse the Twitterverse, wander round the groups of G+. These places are positively stuffed full of people making the most of their days. People not treating life like a rehearsal. People not waiting for a do over. People doing it now, in this life, because they know that if they don’t, they will never do it at all. These are the people who never waste a second. The people who live to run, ride, compete, learn. The people who try harder.

So it struck me, as I vicariously enjoyed the dawning of another glorious day through the lives of my Twitter comrades, there are no excuses for lazing a life away any more. No excuses for not realising that there are more fulfilling ways to spend a Sunday morning than just slugging around waiting for something interesting to happen. There is always some one who shares a common passion. Someone who can remind you that doing what you love doing is what life is all about.

Now, I know there is a dark side to that. But the light side is worth that price. Whatever happens here in the rest of my life, there is always some one out there in the digital world to remind me that life goes on, that life is for living,  for living it Large . The Global Village has made sure I’ll never forget that.

The Kentish Killer, uniquely challenging

So there it was, the Kentish Killer. The first major event of the South Eastern English Sportive season. Over 1,000 high quality riders (and…err…me) pushing a good few thousand squid’s worth of carbon fiber 70 miles around the garden of England. Packing in a few exhilarating fast straights, some puncture inducing gritty descents and more than a few rather nasty grade four bumps, the route is a uniquely interesting and challenging ride, not to be taken lightly.

Last year I had done plenty of prep, I was feeling sparky, I cracked out what for me was a great finishing time and I got to enjoy a good fifteen minutes of luxurious first-ness, a rare pleasure for me. This year there was going to be no repeat of that. My fifteen minutes are well and truly up. Not for no reason. Others of the Blokes have put in some proper winter training. My winter cycle prep by contrast has been weak, I’m not running and I’ve been out of the water for weeks.

To make things worse, my body clock decided to schedule one of the deepest of the night’s sleep cycles right when let the alarm clock went off. Not a great way to start a 70 mile day. But despite me turning up at NB’s place 10 minutes late, we did eventually pull into the car park at Brands Hatch pretty much on time, around 7:45am. At that point we realised it was going to be colder than we had hoped, somewhere around 0oC. It was going to get warmer, but that was later.

This much I know: the key to a perfect clothing strategy is layers. Easily removable and packable warmness. Stuff that can be worn and then folded and carried in small pockets when the sun finally does show its face.

After some debate I eventually settled on thick socks, shoe covers, long trousers, long sleeved base layer, long sleeved shirt, thin wind cheating gilet, warm gilet, snood and thick gloves. The other Blokes were similarly warmly dressed apart from NB, who chose bib shorts (probably the only person of the 1,000 or so riders to do so). That proved a reasonably sensible decision. By midday it was a positively balmy 5oC and I was roasting in my long sleeves and trousers.

The snood went quickly, the thin gilet a little later and eventually even the gloves ended up packed into my shirt back pockets. As I roasted through the last few miles, I was really wishing I had worn arm warmers. Arm warmers can be easily rolled down, providing ample scope for heat loss on the bigger climbs. Given my metabolism seems capable of generating enough heat to power a small village when I’m pushing hard up a long drag, that’s important. Despite the fact that I had packed more than everyone else put together, I had forgotten my short sleeved base layer, so arm warmers were not an option. After this experience, short sleeve layers and arm warmers are definitely back in the clothing plan.

Unlike my clothing strategy, the event itself was exceptionally well planned and executed. The start and end at Brands Hatch is an excellent choice of venue. Easy to reach, ample parking, comfortable and plentiful toilets, a proper restaurant with pretty good and healthy hot food, comfortable seating and loads of space. All that removes the cramped and bladder stretching stress of some of other events the Blokes have entered.

The route itself is hard and exceptionally well planned. There is minimal interaction with traffic, lots of picturesque and quiet country lanes and some nice fast straights. Much of the road surface is in pretty good shape, in some places excellent (kind of like a decent single malt whiskey, there is nothing quite like riding freshly laid tarmac). There were a few short stretches of pot hole hell and a few gritty downhill sections to keep us on our toes but the soil around Kent is not sharp or flinty, so punctures are a matter of luck rather than an inevitability like some of the winter rides around the flinty soils of the Chilterns. I saw perhaps a half dozen punctures during the day and escaped any myself.

In the middle of all that are a series of grade 4 climbs, many of which have more than one blind bend, making it hard to tell where the top is hiding. That makes it challenging in a way all its own. It can be seriously demoralising to round a hard peak, only to find the next corner is the start of a new hidden ascent of equal distance and severity. A mountain climb may have more metres, but at least the ascent is clearly visible from a distance and there is never any doubt about how far there is to go. For some of the riders I saw, who seemed to be able to spin up the climbs with no appreciable change in pace from the previous straight, false peaks are probably not a factor. Not so for me. I’m not always entirely sure I’m going to make it to the top without exploding, so not being able to see the top can be a small problem. That’s partly what makes this ride so uniquely challenging, and ultimately so satisfying.

Throughout the entire 112km, I never once had the feeling that I may have taken a wrong turn, which is common on many of the other rides we have entered. That was down to the excellent signage (yellow with black chevrons, which are way more distinct than arrows and can be easily seen at a distance) and the enthusiastic marshaling. These are not guys slumped in deckchairs by the side of the road, periodically peering over the Sports section to make sure no one has gone under a Vauxhall Astra on one of the sharper bends. No, none of that. These are engaged and enthusiastic people standing out in the cold wind for hours on end, at every major turn and junction, actively pointing out pot holes, waving big red flags at advancing traffic on cross lane turns, directing, advising, encouraging. This kind of reassuring support, low key traffic management and extremely clear route marking are a huge part of the event’s attractiveness. It removes any route checking and safety stress entirely, letting me focus on the riders around me, rhythm, nutrition, time and of course, having fun.

And fun it was. It started out cold. Around an hour in a deep mist descended, masking the surrounding hills, but that soon lifted. By the end of the ride we were basking in glorious clear winter sun.

This year the feed stops were exceptionally well stocked. Realising early I was not going to record a time worth worrying about, I decided a cup of tea was permissible at both. I also refueled with a super heavy yogurt flapjack, an energy bar and some Jaffa Cakes (I have to say, there is something vaguely arousing about how good a Jaffa Cake tastes when you’ve spent the last few hours burning through your spare blood sugars). Small wonder I rode for nearly six hours and didn’t lose a single pound in weight.

Timewise, TB managed to bag a fast moving draft very early and the last I saw of him was leaving the first feed station just as I arrived. He has worked hard over the winter and it certainly showed. GB, NB and I passed a few times in the first half of the course, until the challenge of catching TB took GB off at a pace I could not match. NB and I spent the rest of the ride playing tag and riding together. GB eventually recorded an impressive time roughly 40 minutes ahead of last year. TB, having taken a short phone call en route, came in a few minutes later. The amount of effort they have both put in this winter is really showing in their form. They are both very strong at the moment. NB and I came in some 30 minutes later. Considerably slower than last year for me, literally 1 second adrift from last year’s time for NB.

So, a great day overall. I was not expecting much more time-wise, given how little prep I have done, so I am content. I was wondering whether a slow time on this ride would kick me into a more demanding training routine. We’ll see. The Puncheur is not far away. If I’m honest, I’d like to do better there, but I’m not entirely sure I am going to be able to pack in the training.

And now, the count down to the Kentish Killer

Things are not going too well on the training front for me so far this year. I’m 7lbs over target weight, I’ve doing about 90% fewer miles than my target mileage and the weather has been, well, uncooperative. I’ve not been frequenting the gym, or the pool.

I’m not sure quite why it is, but I just can’t find the motivation. Not so the other Blokes. GB has been swimming, riding and running regularly. TB has been pushing the commute on a regular basis, running spectacularly fast 5k’s and cramming in a weekly swim class. NB has not done much, but once he gets the bit between his teeth, I won’t see him for dust (and we all know that training for him includes accidentally brushing past his bike a couple of times on the way to the pub).

This is not good. Not good at all. There are of course no excuses. The gym is open. Even if there is snow outside, there are no wild tigers prowling the hall ways of my house preventing me doing a set of press ups, squats and burpees of a morning.

No, my problem is general weariness, distracting life “stuff” and an unusually busy schedule. I am, for want of a better word, slack-arsing. More precisely, I am letting the rest of my life get the better of my training schedule. There’s always some reason not to nip down the gym, not to go for a quick run, not to take a short dip. Some reason to do something else. Something trivial like having to earn a living or something important like driving a small person to a sports engagement. Something basic and functional like eating or something luxurious and indulgent like sleeping.

What ever it is, it’s currently more important than getting down the gym or cracking out a fast paced 20 miles. I’ve allowed myself to be lulled into a false sense of fitness. I’ve lost The Fear. The Sunday rides I’ve done have been great fun, fast, not short and not entirely easy. But I have been OK. And there’s the problem right there. The hills on the Sunday rides are hills, but they are short and spaced out. 60KM is a reasonable distance, but far from 70 miles.

I’m definitely due a reality check.

The Kentish Killer is less than a week away. Even if the weather does pick up, it’s going to be a tough ride. Proper tough. Proper hills, and lots of them.

It’s hopefully just the kick I need.

A Proper YoLo moment

The Blokes are mostly of an age where that sense of one’s own mortality – the one that comes inevitably with age – is already well developed.

When I was young, a million years ago, I was going to live for ever. No one was ever going to get seriously ill and nothing bad was ever going to happen to me. There would always be plenty of time to do great stuff, see great places. There was no such thing as a Once in a Life Time Trip, no such thing as a missed opportunity that could not be recovered. Anything worth doing could always done, and done again, at some indeterminate point in the future. And The Future was, of course, something of which there was going to be an endless supply.

These days, with things starting to get a little threadbare, life seems suddenly terribly, frightening short. I get it now. For some things, Once in a Lifetime really does mean Once, in a Lifetime. The chance to do something only once. And never being able to do it again. Like, ever. Missing an opportunity really might mean I never get the chance to do that thing again, ever, mainly because I’ll be dead before that chance comes around again and doing stuff when you’re dead is pretty hard.

Hence one of the do-it-now mottoes of The Blokes Cycle Club:

Do as Much Great Stuff as We Can, As and When We Can

“As and When We Can” is an important phrase in there. We all have responsibilities, financial constraints, limited time, small people to look after, wives, jobs. We do, literally, as much as we can.

In the lives of TB and YB, 2013 will be a year they get to suck just a little more two wheeled marrow out of life than usual. Rather than hitting the Italian Dolomites and heading home like NB, GB, YBC and myself, these two YOLO’ers will be shooting off to complete the Mad Men of Ventoux challenge just two days later. That’s a total of 140Km and 4,400 odd metres of climb, 3 times up the hill by different routes.

As if that were not enough, they will then drive over to Alp D’Huez and complete La Marmotte, one of the most iconic rides in the European amateur riding calendar.

All this in one 11 day trip, of a life time. It will be hard and tiring. It will involve a lot of driving.

There will be lots of packing and unpacking, quite a bit of sleeping in unfamiliar beds with odd sheets. There will be sore arms, sore legs and sore back sides. There will be lots of sweaty clothing stuffed unwashed into overfilled bags. There will be lots of money spent and too many days off work that will have to be made up some other time.

But it will be unforgettable. It will be exhilarating. It will be, quite simply, amazing.

This would, for most people, definitely be a Once in a Lifetime trip. Perhaps TB and YB will get a chance to do it again. Perhaps they won’t. But they too will only live once, so it’s probably not a bad idea to do it now, while they can, just in case.

A new year, a new start

Forgive me readers, for I have lazed. It’s more than 3 weeks since my last post.

In fact, the New Year’s break got in the way of more than just blogging for this Short Bloke. I did virtually nothing over the break by way of exercise. One Sunday ride perhaps, but more than that… nothing. Shockingly bad.

Family ShortBloke, family Northern Blerk and a few other as yet to be nick-named Families spent the weekend of the New Year by the seaside.

As usual, I took 2 sets of running gear and some plastic bags, convinced they would be required to contain the by then sweat infused shirts and shorts on the way home.

Long stretches of beautifully maintained beaches, miles of smooth boardwalks, winter sun and a sharp fresh chill in your face. How could I possibly not take advantage of that with at least one or two short 5 milers ?

Easily it seems. No problem at all. All the kit came home neatly folded and the plastic bags went unused. I did nothing. Well, not quite nothing. There was a bit of drinking. No. A lot drinking. There was some sleeping. And there was some talking. Quite a bit of talking actually. Running? Swimming? Cycling? Not a bit of it.

What made it worse were the surfers. The temperature on New Year’s eve was something around 0c. Cold. Windy. Really quite horrible. Did that stop the surfers ? No, it did not. There were loads of them, sealed head to toe in rubber, hanging ten over the huge waves pounding down the side of the Pier. It was incredible to watch. And inspiring. There they were, in the freezing water, not deterred by the dark, dank day around them. Neither rain nor wind denting their enthusiasm.

Dedication to the Fun. That what it was. Proper dedication to the Fun. The waves are rolling and not to be missed. That’s all there was to it. The weather was just not a factor. Nor was the effort of encasing themselves in 8mm of rubber, lugging a huge board down to the beach and diving head long into the cold dark waters. It was all very clearly worth it the moment the first of the many rolling waves carried them off in a gnarly sort of way.

It made me think. Life is for living. Waves are for riding. Boardwalks are for running. All I had to do was pull on some socks, shorts, a shirt and some shoes. It would have been easy. I could have got out there and racked up 5 miles with so little effort. And I would have enjoyed it. I would have felt better for it.

Except I didn’t. I got drunk and slept in.

Bugger.

It was nice and all, toasty, soft and comforting. But, basically… bugger. That wasn’t the plan.

In summary, the year in general started well, but the riding year did not. Were I planning to lose sight of my penis beneath an expanding girth, forget my own name and die of liver cirrhosis, the year would have started really well. But that’s not the plan. The plan is to ride up a rather large mountain faster than I did last year.

So, I was a little nervous when TB lead NB and I out on our first Sunday jaunt of 2013 the week we got back. We decided a Buntingford 60 miler was a little overambitious, given the circumstances, and settled instead on a more comfortable and familiar 60K route around Bayford and Hertford.

As expected, TB was in by far the best shape, having spent much of December cycling into work. He has also developed the excellent habit of a regular Wednesday 10K lunch run. As a result he is now pressing 24 minutes over 5K, a barrier he thought completely out of reach only a few months ago. He’s also looking remarkably strong on two wheels. He cruised ahead of me all of the way round, making easy conversation without so much as the merest hint of breathlessness at any point.

I, on the other hand, was relieved to be, well, not dead, by the time we turned the final corner towards to long drag up to the cafe. I did manage to storm the last of the major climbs, which felt great. I also managed to keep TB in sight for the entire ride. More than I hoped for, so I was pleased.

These days, convention provides for a separate finish on the Blokes Sunday rides. In the early days we would patiently wait at each junction to ensure every one was together, right up to the last few hundred metres of the ride. I say “we”. The truth is, in those days I never did much waiting. I did lots of panting, lots of swearing, lots of apologising and lots of catching up. But I never did any actual waiting. That would have needed me to be in front. In the early days, that never used to happen.

After 2 years rolling the same tarmac and few mountain climbs later, we all know where we are going and the last two or three miles are generally completed at individual pace. Arrival times at the regular Blokes’ favourite Cafe are therefore a reasonable measure of relative fitness.

On this occasion TB and I were balancing our bikes against the mess of other bikes already propped up against the Cafe window at roughly the same time. He had been kind to me, keeping a manageable pace, but even so, I don’t feel I held up his regular order of 2 poached eggs, brown toast and green tea that much. By contrast, when NB finally arrived, my 2 poached eggs were already eaten, the grilled tomatoes were well on their way and the tea was getting tepid. A delightfully crispy slice of grilled bacon and a lightly toasted slice of Hovis disappeared as he finally laid his helmet down and stripped off his top layer.

For one reason or another, NB has done very little riding of any substance for quite a while. And it showed. He was not a happy bunny.

But NB has a gift, an intensely irritating ability to gain fitness incredibly quickly. It feels like every time he so much as looks at his bike his time over 100 miles decreases by 10 seconds. All things being equal and assuming he can pick up his training schedule, I fully expect my arrival at the cafe to coincide with a second can of Red Bull (he doesn’t drink tea) in the not too distant future.

For me, on the other hand, recovery from missed training rides and skipped gym sessions is a tougher challenge. I’m not doing enough and I can feel it. That can’t go on if the plan is to come together.

The surfers are right. If I don’t do it now, even if it’s cold and wet outside, I may find the tide has suddenly gone out and there are no more waves to ride.

Lance… a legacy lost

The largest of the small people in my house is hard at work learning how to be an educated person. One of the GCSE’s on the revision list is Physical Education. When I was at school, PE was mostly about prancing about in your underwear, climbing ropes and playing British Bulldog slightly too aggressively. It wasn’t really about learning anything. PE then was more about blowing off some steam and making sure that even the plump kids moved around a bit every now and then.

These days it’s a proper subject. They do all kinds of stuff about physiology and the science of performance enhancement. They do set pieces in a number of proper sports, providing evidence of achievement to a recognised minimum level of competence. They actually learn stuff that is useful. Honest. They do. It’s a proper subject. It really is.

The other day the teacher gave them a little talk about the whole Lance thing. When she got home, small person asked me if I had heard the news… “Lance Armstrong took drugs… It’s terrible”. She was so disappointed. She couldn’t believe that this guy, who had been such a paragon of virtue, such an inspiration, had been cheating the whole time. She’s 15. She’d hardly heard of Lance Armstrong before. A few weeks before she may well have thought he was that old guy that had walked on the moon when the world was all grainy black and white. Having learned about Lance the athlete in some detail, she was horrified and extremely disappointed.

We had a long discussion about it. The fact that he had been such a hero. The fact that he was such an amazing rider, such an inspirational athlete, the best rider of his and probably any other generation before him. His tireless work for charity (“ah, so he’s the guy who made all those yellow arm bands.. cool”). How he came back from the brink, recovering from the very nastiest kick in the balls any man can suffer. And then, the fact that he cheated so shamelessly. The fact that he denied it over so many years. The fact that it was cheating on an almost industrial scale. That fact that so many other riders and trainers were drawn into the web of deceit.

The whole story left her feeling personally let down.

He had won most of his races while she was still learning how to tie her shoe laces. Had it all been real that would not have mattered. He could still have been an inspiration to this member of a new generation. His achievements were so great, so outstanding that his legacy could have spanned the generations. Yet the fact that he had cheated so shamelessly instead induced a strong feeling of betrayal, even before she had a chance to become a fan. Clearly, the reaction was coloured by the way the teacher had pitched the story. There is no doubt it was not a positive or forgiving tone with which the story was related. But it struck me that here was a child of 15, feeling personally disappointed in a supposed role model from an entirely different generation.

For many people – perhaps most people – the desire to admire the super human achievements of others is a basic, deep seated and strong driver. We love to watch our heroes succeed. We positively revel in the success of others. We feel part of it. There are people who will watch their favourite football team on the same screen, standing in the same position in the same pub, wearing the same shirt, every week. They are convinced that if they are not there, wearing that lucky shirt, their team will lose. Superstition perhaps. But it shows they think they are more than just another spectator, they are part of the game. Where they are, what they wear, actually matters. John Terry being on form is important, but the colour of their shirt matters just as much as the players out there on the turf. For that fan, it is a fact that a decision to stay at home or watch the game at the pub over the road can change the course of the game just as much as John Terry or Theo Walcott’s right boot can. These people don’t just watch, they partake.

Be it the striker of a favoured football team, the sprinter that runs faster than anyone else alive, the cyclist who wins the hardest race on earth, seven times, we watch because we want to be one of them. And for some of us, for the short time we spend doing what they do all day, in the confines of our own minds at least, we are one of them. That’s why it hurts so much when we find out it was all a lie. We were not the best after all. All our victories are meaningless because you took drugs.

Damn it, I did my bit, I watched. I cheered. I aspired. I tried to emulate. How could let me down like that ?

It takes a long time and much effort to win the kind of admiration and status Lance had attained with his fans. When that kind of admiration is betrayed, in such a shameless, calculated and unscrupulous way, the effect is so huge, the breach of trust so great, that the feeling of betrayal and disappointment may take more than one generation to dissipate. It’s a shame. Because even with the drugs, his achievements are incredible.

I wonder, in years to come, will the drugs be forgiven and forgotten ? Will Lance again be the greatest rider who ever lived ? Will the history books of the future have footnotes about the drugs and chapters about the victories? Or chapters about the drugs and footnotes about the now expunged victories ? Will the memory of Lance Armstrong, the super human rider, be able to overcome the stigma of drug enhanced performance and live for ever through his victories ?

Listening to Small Person, it doesn’t sounds like it. What a shame. What a damned shame.

A Plan for the Giau

If I were a little more pedantic, I would rename this blog Enfield Pretty Ordinary Blokes.

The Blokes are, to a large extent, pretty ordinary middle aged males, employed in various corners of industry, married, with kids, living in the burbs. Outside our houses sit mostly sensible cars with lots of seats. A typical round at the Jolly Farmers (located in Frogs Bottom, honestly… it really is…) includes draft bitters, pale ales, a few weak American lagers and the occasional diet coke.

Like many other random group of Blokes, our lives are filled with favourite shirts that have seen better days, football teams that should have won more cups and underwear that other people bought for us.

But, unlike many other random groups of ordinary Blokes, we have decided that it would be quite amusing to ride a bicycle over some of central Europe’s biggest mountains.

That’s vaguely unusual. In the literal sense of the word, it’s a little extra-ordinary. The problem is, a fairly important prerequisite for successfully completing an extra-ordinary physical feat is an extra-orinary level of fitness.The challenge for most of us is how to fit extra-ordinary fitness into ordinary lives.

A man who knows once told me that 150 miles a week for quite some time is pretty much an essential part of getting fit enough to make it over a mountain on two wheels. The problem is, it’s quite hard fitting 150 miles into a week that is filled with a 9 to 5, evening dad-cab services, brownie point chores, self extending D-I-Y lists, eating (too much), washing and, well, breathing. I leave sleeping off that list with only a small hint of irony.

Some of us find it easier than others. Last year not all of us made it work. I’ve been mulling what options we have in the coming year

Let Boris lead the way

Switching to a cycle commute is a really great way to cram in serious two wheeled mileage. Why spend two hours a day commuting with your nose crammed into someone else’s armpit when you can spend it raising your VO2 max ? Aside from that, when the weather plays ball there is nothing better than toodling along the Embankment with the sun in your face, contemplating the day ahead.

A city commute can of course be a little scary on occasion. The secret is seeking out quiet roads, long stretches of bus lane and never, ever… I mean like really never…… ever… riding down the left hand side of a lorry, for any reason. Ever. Even passing close by a large truck on the right hand side should be avoided if at all possible.

When I first started commuting I was expecting to be weary during the day. In the event, I wasn’t. For the first two or three weeks I was a little more tired than usual come Friday evening, but within a month or so that really was not a problem.

A decent commute can easily put 75 odd miles into the weekly total, so it’s definitely worth it if it can be organised. The occasional extra hill and extended loop into the summer evening can add a little spice and keep things interesting. Pressing it on the way in can be fun too, though it can of course result in the need for a six foot armpit exclusion zone come late afternoon if showering at the other end is not an option.

In my experience, the secret of a cycle commute is habit. Every day is hard, but 3 days a week is an essential minimum. Otherwise it’s too easy to slip into mañana mode.

Bottom line : The cycle commute has to be the default way of getting to work. Not the exception. That’s a downward spiral.

Gym Routine

Gyms can be boring places. They’re always super sweaty and mostly a little grimy. And they can be expensive. There is no substitute for proper road miles, but gyms are a useful way to focus on specific aspects of fitness, build basic core strength and shelter from the rain. I particularly like doing the same routine every time so I can measure progress more easily. I like using the static bike and mixing it up with some intervals on the running machine.

Like most things, for me the secret of good gym usage is routine. I lost my routine recently and I haven’t been regularly in weeks.

What I need to do is pick a class, pick a day, pick an hour. I need to keep that time free and make sure that a bunch of Siberian wild horses lashed to my midriff pulling in the other direction is about the only thing that will stop me going to the gym at that time every week… twice or three times if possible.

Spin

Almost all the Blokes do a spin class every now and then. Spin classes are a good work out with a defined structure focused on increasing general fitness. I benefited greatly from the few I did when we started all this and I continue to go when I can because I find them quite fun.

Riding the spin bike can also help with rotation. A spin bike is sort of like a fixie, except, well, for the not moving part. Regular spin classes can help develop a smoother rotation, which is generally a good thing on the road.

I’ve got to be honest though. I find spinning a little too boring. There’s not much to look at and it gets very hot in the spin room. An occasional class is fun but I am not sure I can handle a regular date with the spin teacher.

After dark

Few families would feel too aggrieved if the Bloke of the house disappeared for an hour or so after 10:00pm, assuming he’s dressed head to toe in Lycra and not a sharp suit lathered with strong aftershave. That may raise one too many eyebrows.

Quiet roads can make night rides faster than average, which makes for a good work out. It’s not for everyone though. One or two of the Blokes regularly squeeze a fast 20 dark miles in, but personally I find it hard to get motivated once the sun goes down. I’ve actually only tried it once. I don’t really like riding in less than perfect visibility at the best of times and a wrong turn into an unlit street really put me off. Useful if you can handle it, but not for me.

Use the routine

Some of the Blokes fit rides around the dead time between dropping off and picking up their kids from their various activities. The bike emerges from the the back of the car as the kids disappear into what ever activity they are doing and goes back in when they are done. The problem is a fixed location and fixed time frame. No extensions allowed so careful route planning is essential.

In my case it’s actually a swim while the smallest person kicks some leather around a large patch of grass. The timing works out well and the pool is close by. All I have to do now get into the routine. … where have I heard that before ?

Turbo charged training

As I understand it, professional riders spend significant amounts of time on a turbo trainer. Serious riders seem to use them all the time. They use them for warming up and for structured training sessions that focus on specific aspects of fitness.

Not having a garage, I don’t actually have the space to keep a turbo set up. That would of course be a problem if I actually had a turbo trainer to keep set up in the first place.

TB and NB have one, but I am not sure either see regular usage. None of us have a set of rollers, so I can’t comment on whether those are useful or not. Maybe I should find out. I’m happy with the Gym bike, but I do wonder whether a session on a set of rollers or a turbo has any specific advantage over a gym fixed bike session.

Sunday’s are not for reading the paper

I realised very early on that if I wanted to build stamina and strength, I was going to need to do regular long rides and climb some big hills. That means a route that has some bumps.

Time-wise, 3 to 4 hours is enough time to fit in a decent mix of hill work, straight and fast runs and a small but essential protein fix over a short cup of well earned tea.

So, finding a window of opportunity where we can disappear for 3 or 4 hours without being noticed. Hmmm……

Given none of us are billionaires filling the gaps in our playboy lifestyles, weekdays are not really an option. Saturdays are filled with small people doing stuff. That leaves Sunday. Day time? Not regularly. Not possible. Not if we don’t want the small people to forget what we look like.

That leaves early Sunday morning. For some of us that means 7:30am till 10:30am. For others it means 05:30am till 8:45am… You takes your vows, you makes your choices. Either way, the secret for me is to get back shortly before or at worst not long after the small people slug their way out of their bed, which is around 10:30 / 11:00 am.

Aside from being an essential part of the training programme and a great way to get away from it all, there have been 3 other benefits from the regular Sunday morning rides.

Firstly, it’s been a great yardstick for improvement. When we started I was always trailing everyone over most of the hill drags. That’s not entirely the case any more. That regular and consistent bit of frustration at not being able to keep up has been a great driver for me. The converse can work against you of course. For some, constantly being way out in front with no real competition can be a good way to remove the incentive to improve.

Secondly, we’ve ridden through all four seasons of the year. As a result I’ve learned a lot about how to dress, I learnt how important it is to manage fluid and food intake and I also learnt how hard it is for me to regulate my heat. I had experience of doing that in everything from -3C windy and wet right up to 20C and bright sunshine. Training in the gym alone doesn’t give you that.

Thirdly, it’s way more sociable than any of the alternatives. Life’s too short to just ride alone all the time. Comparing notes and talking crap over a cup of tea and a couple of poached egss is an essential part of any training programme in my opinion.

Sportives

The final component in our training programme has been regular entry into organised Sportives. These events, usually organised by local cycle clubs, are becoming very popular with the growing legions of amateur cyclists like our good selves. Mostly in three distances, (30, 50 and 80 miles) the longest we have done is 125 miles, fittingly called The Long One.

There are plenty of reasons to do Sportives. It’s great fun riding with the quality riders that tend to turn up, it’s generally a longer ride than we would organise ourselves, we ride in places we wouldn’t necessarily think to go alone and it takes all the stress out of the process of planning a properly long ride: you turn up, follow the signs and check your time at the end. Easy.

This coming year we are booked into The Kentish Killer, The King of the Downs and The Puncheur. We hope to do more, timing allowing. It’s a full day out from the family, so caution is required when making a booking….

So there it is.

Ride to work, lock out some gym time, find a slot once a week where I can fit in a communal long ride, get my protein fixes at our favourite post ride debriefing centre , do some Sportives and throw in the odd spin class. The Blokes recipe for two wheeled success.

Easy. No problem.

Now all I have to do is… actually do it.