Sunday, October 15, 2017

Happy Anniversary

My Dad passed away 24 year's ago tomorrow, the 16th of October. I knelt in mass this morning at 9am looking around me for calm and inspiration. Knelt in the same pew with my brother as my Dad would have.
I tried to get into my father's head, wondering what he would have been wondering at early mass long before that blondie-haired Joe arrived. Was he like me? Thinking of the race ahead? Thinking of what he had to do? Would his bag be packed up in Cross Lane, ready for the great escape? Wondering was he too, constantly worried as I am these days? Did a darkened church clear his head occasionally but not always too?
I know he worked himself into a box. From the poor diet of the war years through long, wet and cold incessant days on the buildings, stress, and never the pay he deserved for the hardship endured. I know I don't share his work ethic or morals but I did inherit his ready smile and compunction to see the good in others. I surely don't share his engine either. Maybe I have his need to exceed and compete but only in sporting terms. He, like me, couldn't sit still much.
And in that pew this morning I looked up to see the gilt-edged frames of yesteryear containing the stations of the cross. Right beside my seat was 'Jesus is stripped of his garments'. I was instantly snapped back seventy years to the corner of a sloppy field in Kilinieran in north Wexford. My Dad, then a pigeon-chested young athlete was stripping off his cross-country kit in exchange for dry gear in order to take on the long cycle home. No cars, no cash, no regrets. And he was smiling and joking with my uncle Mick and the gang. And I was sucked back into mass and he was gone again.
Until I pulled on my skinsuit 45 minutes later in a parking lot in Oylegate.
I'm not pigeon-chested or ever been Leinster champion but I still smiled and shook hands with all those I care for. I belonged. I didn't shed a tear at the coincidence until I was warming up on the road towards Wexford. I cycled. I looked at the ploughed furrows in countless fields and felt, definitely felt the season and the reason and tick-tick-ticked to the make-shift start-line and laughed with the time-keeper.

And for the first time in a very long time...I time-trialled fast and well. I didn't win. Not close. But I became my old self for the ten minutes it took me to cover five miles. I didn't panic. I started easy and opened the taps one kilometre in. Never changed position and rarely changed gear. I was alone and switched on. My heart was free and functioning, my blood warm and flowing but in someway stone cold, for I felt like bending the bike under me. My grimace was a smile when I glimpsed my gold chain, a beautiful blur.
I know how my Dad must have felt when he won alone [and that was often]. Kill it, drive it, push, push, push until you are away from all the pain and stress and carnage that life hurls. You cast open your vestments and bare your chest to life and God and the elements and know you are free...absolved from it all.
If only for a moment in time.

Monday, October 9, 2017

Gluten free roulade.

Always fancied myself as a rouleur. I can do most things on a bike quite well. Its hard enough to drop me up a hill, I can win the odd sprint and whilst I dislike time-trials I know I'm not the worst at them. That all may change soon. A slice of roulade yesterday made me think. Well, ok, more than a slice of roulade. It was a conversation about diet and diets that did it. Turns out I should be changing a few things. Getting the weight manageable, leaving out certain toxic foods, you know the drill. This conversation took place over a superb roulade. And as I cycled home I pondered if a gluten-free anything was as good as the full-sugar, full diabetes-inducing bad stuff I'm used to. I persuaded myself that I felt light-headed because there was no sugar rush. And ate a banana. Which apparently isn't totally right either. So its looking more roulade than rouleur next season.
I've been looking at organic meats lately and realising I'm not rich enough. Honestly, the price of an organic chicken in some places has me picturing a hen doing a pimp-strut down the supermarket aisle weighed down with gold chains. Like a Mr T with feathers. And without the Snickers diet. Ham is the same. A chunk of organic ham is equal to the price of a whole pig in some places. And then, as was pointed out to me, I'd be boiling it in fluoride-rich water which would probably undo all the good. And farmed salmon seems to be so toxic that a weekend sunbathing in Chernobyl would be preferable. But if I stay eating as I am I won't be IN the grupetto next year, I'll BE the grupetto.
Still, I worry. Cellulite appears like a road map on my body. Albeit a road to nowhere. My arteries are hardening as the rest of me goes soft. What should I do? Today's foods cause me stress...Life's stresses make me want to eat. A dietary Catch-22.
Age isn't all bad. I know I'll have to work hard to shed weight and I'll just have to get to it. Also, weight might have a lot to do with it but there's plenty of skinny-latte cyclists not finishing races I'm doing and likewise I've been roundly beaten [pardon the pun] by guys much heavier than me, even on rolly courses. Diet isn't everything it seems. Beetroot juice made me flatulent as hell. So in theory it works if you count jet-propulsion. Gels are just a nicely wrapped version of a banana. Artificial monkey food. I thought keytones were the noises my house alarm buttons make. And over the roulade it was suggested to quit potatoes, breads and crisps. Lee Child had a novel a while back entitled "Worth Dying For". I thought it was about those three foods.
Sitting here writing I feel as if I'm in the middle of a perfect storm. Tiredness and stress are part and parcel of my life. Cycling helps. But so does wine [Merlot has loads of antioxidants!!!]. Food gives me energy and I don't have the time to belt out a salad of Nigella Lawson's standard. [Although I suspect she may be covering her lettuce in chocolate sauce....].Half a bakery a day fills the void and gives me the energy to play with the kids, bamboozle the students and fulfil family commitments on top of a sneaky spin. I know I'm slowly killing myself off and doing myself no favours but its all I've got to give right now. I might try fasted rides although I'm confused as I thought a fasted ride was getting the shift outside the Colosseum disco before you got to the chipper....











the excesses of Summer holidays

Friday, October 6, 2017

Cycling's Silly Season

'Tis that time. Autumn. Time of change. The colours, the temperature, the air. For a racing cyclist its time to let off some steam with IPAs by the bucket, Hunky Dorys by the skip, Rioja by the vineyard and chicken boxes by, well... the box. In this downtime cyclists are prone to look inwardly and, as a result of not cycling enough to expend excess energy, find fault with themselves, their club or something that requires a bit of angst. It might just be the grease from the late night bag of sinful chips that makes us feel guilty and in need of venting our unhappiness. I know the vinegar does it for me.
Sometimes its easier to just go play soccer and pull a muscle. Sometimes we want to run cross-country or a whole marathon. That's good. That's focus. Sometimes we can drink enough to not think at all. But that has it's own drawbacks. Yep, unfortunately, we find time to think at some point.
Jumping ship is easy. You get to let everyone know how you feel and you go to another club and life is better. This happens. I know, we all know a lot of cyclists super happy in their present club. Like me. Actually, lets look at me for a minute. I left my present club a number of years ago and regretted it. I'd had a great season. My club mates were fundamental to that success. But I didn't recognise it at the time. I left and spent the next few years beating myself up about it. I was the problem. I had sat around at this time of year thinking I could do better elsewhere. I never once snapped out of my Leffe-induced coma of arrogance enough to realise that if I had even the tiniest problem with anyone it was up to me to fix it. A new club wasn't going to solve anything that I could fix myself. And I listened to others. Big mistake. Thankfully I've rectified that and, guess what? I've found my mojo again in the club I should never have left! Longest way round is the shortest way home and all that....
Look, sometimes you have to leave. You could be in a shambles. I have seen that in the last couple of years. There are sportif clubs that have little, lost racers in amongst their ranks who often deserve better.
Similarly there are racing clubs that can't or won't cater for anyone else. Sifting through old cycling calendars will show you a huge increase in the number of clubs. Cycling is booming. But take a closer look and you'll also see many towns with two or three clubs where there was one.
Makes you think!
Look, its completely natural. There's an inherent, Neanderthal want in us humans to expect or seek change in Autumn. There's also an inherent want in us Irish to take out our frustrations on everyone by saying nothing but doing something. Before you send that e-mail why don't you look in the mirror and ask yourself a couple of questions. How about looking at someone that changed clubs a couple of years ago. Are they better? Are they as adrift now as they were? Did they just need a coach? And how about you? Is your grievance one that you have internalised so much and argued with yourself about that really it probably only exists in your own head?
Or the flipside. Will you add something to a new club? Will you cause friction by joining another club? Did your racing year necessitate being part of a club at all? And the jersey...some of them are god awful. Only some clubs are great. Are you good enough? If you are a separatist in your present club won't you just be the same in another?
Really the off-season should be a time to buy beer for your club mates that really are great human beings that share the same mad passion for our gladiatorial sport. Does a silly season even exist considering racing is pure madness and the winter is for building ourselves up to that madness again? Isn't it all silly?