Sitting in Ardkeen yesterday as the nurse picked staples out of my elbow, [now christened Frankenstein],{The elbow, not the nurse!] it occurred to me that it's been a tough year. Waaay too much going on to get into here but its been a nightmare. And it also occurred to me that if I didn't have bike racing to look forward to, or training to do regularly, I'd be in a bad place. Once those staples were out I knew I wanted to go racing. I needed to retrieve something for myself by racing and I needed to repay a hell of a lot of people for parking their time to look after me in whatever capacity. As it turned out it was good fun and well worth the pain. I'd had my Winter break in August, reading 'til the wee hours on the balcony every night accompanied by a vineyard. Then straight to hospital upon my return for the op to unwire my elbow to return it to full motion. Bloody anaesthetic. Not my friend at all. Then tentative steps on the turbo. Not a friend of mine either. Four hasty road spins of dubious duration and there I was in Camross, league hingeing on me getting a single point but feeling like I wouldn't get that unless I was the only entrant. Tom Simpson once put a deposit on an extremely expensive car. Something to aim for. He had to race and work hard to get the car. I'm not Tommy so I just told my team mates I'd get that point. Something to aim for. I was forcing myself to go for it regardless of the fact that on the way back from hospital the devil on my left shoulder that said don't go racing was knocking ten bells of crap out of the angel on my right. I took a leaf out of Zippy Doyle's pre-race primer and filled myself with so much espresso my passport would have read Ethiopian/Kenyan blend under Nationality. I wore my skinsuit but had to put a jersey on top because Camross exists in a micro-climate labelled unpredictable. After 10 kilometres I wanted to vomit/stop/sell my bike/feign a puncture/ease myself out the back and hide in a field. But every time I looked around a friendly club mate would ask how I was. And going through the finish I had David and Sean looking at me. Two guys that had given up swathes of time to let us have a regular run-out. I'd like to say I was out to show the purple and gold to it's full lustre but really I hoped to survive and get around without catching my tongue between brake block and front rim.
And then I came round. Thought the least I could do was a long range sprint to lead out any of my team that wanted a free ride to the line. Funny then that I ended up watching Street Outlaws at midnight last night. Its about street racing and that's exactly what materialised 500 metres out last night. I was getting ready to go when my friend Hughy got the jump on me 50 metres early. Mark Cavendish or Peter Sagan will tell you every tiny detail of a sprint. I'm not them but in what felt like 20 minutes of a sprint last evening I was looking at it like it wasn't me. Hugh on the left torqueing it down, myself on the right talking it up. Both of us hitting the nitrous and waiting for the end of the world's longest quarter mile. I just hoped my club mates were on my coat tails and they were. I needed a point. I got two. First four in the bunch sprint were Wexford Wheelers. And one up the road. Sweet as! Moral of the story? Sometimes you are better off sticking at it although everything points at failure.
Friday, September 15, 2017
Friday, July 21, 2017
Other uses for Crivit cycling gloves
12.39am. What the hell am I doing? Can't sleep. Heart rate higher than a Hooker's heels. Smiling like an idiot. I won a race last evening. Or, at least, I didn't really win, just felt terrible, got a lead-out that looked like the Wexford Hurling team streaming out onto a pitch and used my brute strength and ignorance to finish it off. Its been years since I felt this proud and the last time was in a Wexford Jersey too.
Strange then that as I suffered around Camross I had a head full of the Tour de France. Or rather, a Tour I'd like to see. At a straightforward league race we had multiple attacks, subterfuge, unpredictability, mano a mano, testosterone fuelled shenanigans and a game of chess. I wish I'd see that on TV a little more. No slow death by strangulation in a league race. Anyone having a go got something out of it. There was no soup-kitchen queue of also-rans waiting for something to fall off the table for them. Everyone agitated and made the race.
And nobody noticed that my handlebars were loose! Halfway round the second lap I was honking on the bars when I realised I was waaay more forward than I should have been. More forward than a drunk that hasn't scored at the disco when the lights come on with the first bars of the National Anthem. To be honest I looked like I was trying to climb over the front of the bike and perform tricks like a Chinese circus act on Speed. Every time I leaned, the bars went down. Every time I pushed on the drops, they went up. So I tried not to lean on the bars at all. Thought about stopping for an allen key. Not gonna happen. Thankfully only one of the four bolts had worked loose, leaving a little bit of leeway. So I bobbed up and down for 25km like a kid's toy.
I love book-ending. You know, where a story comes full circle and you are back in a similar situation. At the outset in For Whom The Bell Tolls for example, Robert Jordan is hiding in a pine forest, very much alive, only for him to be in the same situation hundreds of pages later, life ebbing away. Sometimes for example actors book-end their careers with an Oscar. Last night I discovered a different version of Book-ending. Camross is now a sleepy hamlet of few inhabitants. Back in the day the hall there used to play host to big bands. There was always a dance or something going on. My sister still has Alvin Stardust's glove, thrown from the Camross stage to his adoring fans, probably thirty-five year's ago. Honestly, that place was a Mecca. I've raced around Camross for years, loving it's unpredictable nature. And last evening was no different. Maybe it was the hall itself, or the shelter belt of evergreens at the finish, or the kink in the road towards the line but every lap I felt a drop in the wind close to the finale.. Maybe it would suit a long sprint??? It did!!!! I went early, got some lengths and held them. A vacuum that asked for filling. I felt like a star before the line, a ridiculous belonging for the moment it took to get my hands in the air and NOT scream in a primeval manner to scare the locals. Or push too hard on the 'bars and 'do an Abdu...'
But the book-ending took a different course...
Having an amazing bunch of club mates and friends help me all the way to the launch-pad from way out, and starting the race with a dicky, pringle-addled stomach, put pressure on me. I had to deliver for the faith the boyos had placed in me. Pressure and stress....It wasn't until most of the way home that the stomach cramps got so bad that I had to jettison my shorts in the gateway of a recently cut silage field and let loose.. A small price to pay, right? Wrong! Ever try to find a roll of toilet paper in a shaven field?? Thankfully Lidl did a great range of cycling mitts a coupla years ago. Now I have a link to Alvin Stardust's glove, Camross, and a perfect book-end to my tale! I may be down a mitt, but that's ok in the circumstances and a small price to pay for a Saeco lead-out!!!
Strange then that as I suffered around Camross I had a head full of the Tour de France. Or rather, a Tour I'd like to see. At a straightforward league race we had multiple attacks, subterfuge, unpredictability, mano a mano, testosterone fuelled shenanigans and a game of chess. I wish I'd see that on TV a little more. No slow death by strangulation in a league race. Anyone having a go got something out of it. There was no soup-kitchen queue of also-rans waiting for something to fall off the table for them. Everyone agitated and made the race.
And nobody noticed that my handlebars were loose! Halfway round the second lap I was honking on the bars when I realised I was waaay more forward than I should have been. More forward than a drunk that hasn't scored at the disco when the lights come on with the first bars of the National Anthem. To be honest I looked like I was trying to climb over the front of the bike and perform tricks like a Chinese circus act on Speed. Every time I leaned, the bars went down. Every time I pushed on the drops, they went up. So I tried not to lean on the bars at all. Thought about stopping for an allen key. Not gonna happen. Thankfully only one of the four bolts had worked loose, leaving a little bit of leeway. So I bobbed up and down for 25km like a kid's toy.
I love book-ending. You know, where a story comes full circle and you are back in a similar situation. At the outset in For Whom The Bell Tolls for example, Robert Jordan is hiding in a pine forest, very much alive, only for him to be in the same situation hundreds of pages later, life ebbing away. Sometimes for example actors book-end their careers with an Oscar. Last night I discovered a different version of Book-ending. Camross is now a sleepy hamlet of few inhabitants. Back in the day the hall there used to play host to big bands. There was always a dance or something going on. My sister still has Alvin Stardust's glove, thrown from the Camross stage to his adoring fans, probably thirty-five year's ago. Honestly, that place was a Mecca. I've raced around Camross for years, loving it's unpredictable nature. And last evening was no different. Maybe it was the hall itself, or the shelter belt of evergreens at the finish, or the kink in the road towards the line but every lap I felt a drop in the wind close to the finale.. Maybe it would suit a long sprint??? It did!!!! I went early, got some lengths and held them. A vacuum that asked for filling. I felt like a star before the line, a ridiculous belonging for the moment it took to get my hands in the air and NOT scream in a primeval manner to scare the locals. Or push too hard on the 'bars and 'do an Abdu...'
But the book-ending took a different course...
Having an amazing bunch of club mates and friends help me all the way to the launch-pad from way out, and starting the race with a dicky, pringle-addled stomach, put pressure on me. I had to deliver for the faith the boyos had placed in me. Pressure and stress....It wasn't until most of the way home that the stomach cramps got so bad that I had to jettison my shorts in the gateway of a recently cut silage field and let loose.. A small price to pay, right? Wrong! Ever try to find a roll of toilet paper in a shaven field?? Thankfully Lidl did a great range of cycling mitts a coupla years ago. Now I have a link to Alvin Stardust's glove, Camross, and a perfect book-end to my tale! I may be down a mitt, but that's ok in the circumstances and a small price to pay for a Saeco lead-out!!!
Wednesday, May 24, 2017
Mount Leinster Challenge
But really it all began 3 days earlier. I'd been too busy to get my usual 2 litres of water a day, or the Dioralyte needed to hydrate properly. Fast forward a few days and my legs seized like my timing belt had gone. I got over the Corrabutt, cycled towards home, 50k away, like an old man. My pedals were lead weights, my quads like a corpse's, my voice hoarse from shouting at the pain. I cycled and screamed through a downpour in Drummond. Luckily no locals were about to see the demented fool seep through, anger and snot and rain-water running down his lined face. If I'd seen me I would have been worried for my health.
Let me ask you a few questions! Do you love the Mount Leinster Challenge as much as I do???? Where else would you climb a hill called the Dying Sow? Where else would you smile through agony on a 20% incline to have your photo taken? Where else would your marshalls have begun a nationwide cyclist awareness campaign, or won significant races or know your name? What's not to love about a food stop that was a pleasurable challenge all on it's own? And the mountain itself? Like Ventoux, a leviathan sitting there waiting to slay you for a moment's hesitation or lack of respect. Who didn't smile on it's slopes at the mere achievement of being there, on those very inclines?
Where is the beauty in hurting yourself? I suppose it's the theatre of war. You see, every spin I go on gives me a feeling that I'm fighting. I'm not just talking about driver ignorance. It could be the simplest of things to fight against...the comfort of the couch, could be family or personal health issues, time-thief guilt, financial or work stress etc. Or a combination of all the above. But I'm fighting. Always.
However, the Mount Leinster Challenge is a beautiful theatre of war. You might meet your inner-self out there but you'll both be looking at the view! An Alpine valley that resembles a cascade of vivid green paint spilt from top to bottom on the East-side of the mountain. Or the heavy ramps resembling Caporetto sapping your will as you cycle the funnel of the 9 Stones. Or as your heart is sinking but beating furiously there's that pastoral quilt thrown over your right shoulder on the summit of the Corrabutt. County Carlow laid out like a giant's picnic blanket to the West. Hurt yes. Worth, definitely. The fact that you can endure all that in sound company and live to tell the tale is even more sublime.
Yes I suffered like a dog, yes I would go back again tomorrow. I underestimated the Challenge this year. I rode the 32km from home, approached the mountain like it was a Dutch canal bridge and got nobbled on the dead roads between battlefields. But I did meet Ben, hoping to race around Europe this Summer in between a PHD. I did meet Andy, back from Bilbao and pedalling effortlessly. And Mick, working hard in Oxford. I helped someone get their Garmin out of a ditch on the cattle-grids, chatted to old friends from other lives , has-beens and will-be's, whippets, tryers and damn fine people all living the dream in an event organised to the max. All you had to give was your sweat and time. Screams optional.
Wednesday, May 10, 2017
The truth hurts
I always thought living in the past makes you repeat it. Not true. Recently I went back to my past, a local league race, hoping to rekindle some of the fire I once felt while racing there. It had been a couple of years and as I drove down I had a mind filling with nostalgia. Glimmers. The zenith of my Comeragh league experience was winning one by complete fluke, jumping the bunch so as not to get completely savaged in the sprint. I wasn't passed. A couple of scalps in there too. Fluke. And that was a dozen years ago. But I always got in the front selection over Church Hill in Portlaw and had a dig or hung on to the finish with Ras riders and race winners. Or watched Sam Bennett throw up at the finish line after using the race for intervals. These are the races that Ciaran Power would use for training and proceed to tow groups around, helping everyone. I think the Aborigines call it Dream-Time, before reality arrived.
And arrive it did. Meeting the usual suspects, the Power family running the show like clockwork, Ciaran there to race and a huge number of wizened faces that, like me, should have known better.
I blame the bastards with better tattoos. You see its one thing having your ass handed to you by people younger than you. That's life. Its a whole other ball game when they are supposed to be at your level. And its a whole other universe when their tattoos are really good, full sleeved and gnarly ink-jobs. That really got to me. I can forgive anything else. I was pulled around like one of those shot cowboys in a black and white movie that get their foot caught in the stirrup. For 40 minutes. The horse was three black and blue clad robots that took turns in proving their strength on the front. And every time I glanced back there were less cyclists. I wish that had been it.
Ah sure twas grand until the real men turned up. At the start of lap three a storm broke over the race. The sun still shone but our countenances changed from happy-but-deranged-at-a-league-race to oh-my-god-what-was-that and discovering we were out of our league altogether. The big guns caught and strode through the group as if we were at a café. And they motored on so hard, so quickly that in 1500 metres the race was spread over 500 of those. 53x12 on a false flat? If you were gone you were finished.
I was gone. A chequered 17 year history at the Comeragh leagues came full circle as I turned full circle in the road and returned to the car. No mercy. Will I go back again? Hell ya!! You can't get better unless you learn to suffer harder. I'll be back damn soon!
And arrive it did. Meeting the usual suspects, the Power family running the show like clockwork, Ciaran there to race and a huge number of wizened faces that, like me, should have known better.
I blame the bastards with better tattoos. You see its one thing having your ass handed to you by people younger than you. That's life. Its a whole other ball game when they are supposed to be at your level. And its a whole other universe when their tattoos are really good, full sleeved and gnarly ink-jobs. That really got to me. I can forgive anything else. I was pulled around like one of those shot cowboys in a black and white movie that get their foot caught in the stirrup. For 40 minutes. The horse was three black and blue clad robots that took turns in proving their strength on the front. And every time I glanced back there were less cyclists. I wish that had been it.
Ah sure twas grand until the real men turned up. At the start of lap three a storm broke over the race. The sun still shone but our countenances changed from happy-but-deranged-at-a-league-race to oh-my-god-what-was-that and discovering we were out of our league altogether. The big guns caught and strode through the group as if we were at a café. And they motored on so hard, so quickly that in 1500 metres the race was spread over 500 of those. 53x12 on a false flat? If you were gone you were finished.
I was gone. A chequered 17 year history at the Comeragh leagues came full circle as I turned full circle in the road and returned to the car. No mercy. Will I go back again? Hell ya!! You can't get better unless you learn to suffer harder. I'll be back damn soon!
Monday, May 1, 2017
Biblical Belgian Toothpaste
I never once thought about climbing off yesterday. Yes it pissed rain. No it wasn't easy passing the carpark on each lap. Seeing more and more boots open, bikes abandoned, vacant stares on defeated cyclist's faces. Never crossed my mind. But I'm not Sean Kelly and tough as nails isn't my thing. Its just that its been a long winter, breaking my elbow only the half of it. When I sat and watched the TV in February I was a broken boy. The bike stayed in the shed communicating with the spiders. My mind was blank but despairing. Only my Coach Richie and one or two others kept at me, getting me up and going again. Non sports people don't get it. They are funny. If you break a bone its the end of you. For them a surge of adrenaline is an extra finger of Prosecco. For me, as a cyclist, I saw it differently. I'd invested heavily in my fitness from September to January and Richie got me to reboot, throw off the mantle of setbacks and get going again. And he was right. It was only a matter of weeks.
Fast forward to the Frank O'Rourke races yesterday. It was my club, the Wexford Wheeler's biggest event and it was time to repay their faith in me. All that time and effort to climb off? No thanks. So my legs were a purple/blue shade? So what? I was shaking on the headwind sections but hadn't I been out in every conceivable type of weather all winter? It was going to take more to get me to quit my first open race of the year. Besides, if my legs were a funny colour and if I was cold to the bone, so was everyone else.
So when Philip scuttled up the road in a break of four it was our race to lose. Albert filtered around the front running interference as the gap hovered at 30 seconds. We still thought it was crossable but a couple of stalls in the bunch and then it was a minute. Game over. Our guys had a few digs. But fourth and fifth places for myself and Dave were not yet guaranteed. After the race Dave said that he'd been way back coming into the last few kilometres. That was some game of leap-frog to play because there was no bunch, just a long, sorry line of sodden bodies marching home. I, on the other hand found myself too far up front, scared and exposed like a groom tied to a lamp-post on a stag-night.
I'd done a recce the night before. How was I going to use the south-easterly wind to my advantage? Driving up and down the finishing straight with me Ma in the passenger seat, I discovered a channel down the right-hand gutter that would be more exposed to wind-assist than the traditional left side I always seemed to be in.
Come race day I jammed it in a heavy gear and exploded down the right, two seconds before I reckoned the sprint would start. Instead of cramps, cramps and more cramps, I just felt numb. I doubt I'd have hurt myself if I'd fallen. However. I wasn't numb to the dude creeping up my left-hand side. On a Colnago. He used the same road-channel and the vortex of my escaping ass to tootle past and claim third. Just as well I like Colnago bikes or I'd be gutted.
I didn't have a sprint so much as a numb, jelly-legged wobble to the line. But the hardest part of the day was ten minutes later trying to hold a coffee cup without drowning everyone in the hall. I shook like I had the DTs. And then it struck me. If I had the shakes while staying warm by cycling, how on earth did the stewards, Marshalls and photographers feel? They must have been destroyed!!! Good God! And what about Sean Rowe, a cross between Gandalf [for appearing out of nowhere, anywhere on the course] and Captain Ahab [for that rain-cape and his single-minded dedication, bordering on obsession]. The bigger performances of the day were of the non-cycling variety. I had it easy. Hats off!!!!
Fast forward to the Frank O'Rourke races yesterday. It was my club, the Wexford Wheeler's biggest event and it was time to repay their faith in me. All that time and effort to climb off? No thanks. So my legs were a purple/blue shade? So what? I was shaking on the headwind sections but hadn't I been out in every conceivable type of weather all winter? It was going to take more to get me to quit my first open race of the year. Besides, if my legs were a funny colour and if I was cold to the bone, so was everyone else.
So when Philip scuttled up the road in a break of four it was our race to lose. Albert filtered around the front running interference as the gap hovered at 30 seconds. We still thought it was crossable but a couple of stalls in the bunch and then it was a minute. Game over. Our guys had a few digs. But fourth and fifth places for myself and Dave were not yet guaranteed. After the race Dave said that he'd been way back coming into the last few kilometres. That was some game of leap-frog to play because there was no bunch, just a long, sorry line of sodden bodies marching home. I, on the other hand found myself too far up front, scared and exposed like a groom tied to a lamp-post on a stag-night.
I'd done a recce the night before. How was I going to use the south-easterly wind to my advantage? Driving up and down the finishing straight with me Ma in the passenger seat, I discovered a channel down the right-hand gutter that would be more exposed to wind-assist than the traditional left side I always seemed to be in.
Come race day I jammed it in a heavy gear and exploded down the right, two seconds before I reckoned the sprint would start. Instead of cramps, cramps and more cramps, I just felt numb. I doubt I'd have hurt myself if I'd fallen. However. I wasn't numb to the dude creeping up my left-hand side. On a Colnago. He used the same road-channel and the vortex of my escaping ass to tootle past and claim third. Just as well I like Colnago bikes or I'd be gutted.
I didn't have a sprint so much as a numb, jelly-legged wobble to the line. But the hardest part of the day was ten minutes later trying to hold a coffee cup without drowning everyone in the hall. I shook like I had the DTs. And then it struck me. If I had the shakes while staying warm by cycling, how on earth did the stewards, Marshalls and photographers feel? They must have been destroyed!!! Good God! And what about Sean Rowe, a cross between Gandalf [for appearing out of nowhere, anywhere on the course] and Captain Ahab [for that rain-cape and his single-minded dedication, bordering on obsession]. The bigger performances of the day were of the non-cycling variety. I had it easy. Hats off!!!!
Monday, March 20, 2017
Ten things you must do (or have) to be a champ.
BREAKFAST ALONE; Get your ass out of bed before your partner/kids/parakeet. This gives you 'you' time. Now you can chew your porridge and chew over whatever sport-porn magazine you have on the kitchen table. It may just be a moment of morning glory as you dribble the spit of jealousy onto the page containing the latest, impossibly sexy,carbon trickery, or perhaps the pair of runners that weigh less than your 30g serving of oats. But it puts you into that Runner/ Cyclist/ Triathlete frame of mind for the whole day.
ESCAPE; I've never minded hitting the road in the dark of pre-dawn. If it means getting my training done before my family notice I've gone, then its win-win. You come back with a baggy of endorphins that will energise more than any chalky-white line off a pub's toilet cistern and its fairly free in comparison. Back by 10am you can juggle the lot, give your partner free time or attention by the ladleful and keep everyone guessing as to why you are permanently smiling. Heading out, in fact, often heading home before some clubs have left on their group rides often gives you an amazing feeling of having got one over on everyone too! Try it!
PREP; In the 3.5 minutes it takes to heat my three-bears worth of porridge and watch the thermostat on the coffee machine ratchet up I will have filled my two bottles, one with electrolytes and one with protein, laid out my apparel [sounds better than tired 'aul gear] in order of putting on, starting with chamois cream and HRM strap. And everything is right side out so as not to resemble an octopus in the grey light of dawn. Bike is in the hall, tyres pumped the previous evening, oil bottle outside the front door in a flower pot so as not to stain the hall mat. Oh, and there's a scoop of protein powder waiting in the shaker for my return.
CHARGING UP; Not like the good old days, a lick of speed in your bottle like for a Grand Prix chaudiere race in Northern France. Charging today is a double shot of oily espresso. It releases chlorogenic acid that sets your endurance day up to be more easily endured. And of course there's the other charging, plugging in your Garmin or whatever GPS you use. Ever spent an eternity watching one bar of battery life wondering when it will shut down? Most likely in the middle of your super energetic and in-need-of-accuracy interval. And charge the phone. It might just be for Strava but the one time you forget to charge it will be the crash/ hospital/ carnage of a lifetime ride. A charged phone at just the right moment doesn't have a price.
DOWNTIME; Set a weekend or holiday where you do nothing. Be human again. Don't mention sport. Shower everyone around you with love and proof that you can be more than one-dimensional.
TARGET; You have to have at least one. Its so easy to fall off the wagon when you don't have a D-day or two pencilled in on your calendar. You might occasionally kill the cookie jar, empty the dessert trolley or guzzle a province worth of Tempranillo but you will stumble back to your default setting of 'in training' if you know there is a day of reckoning. Excuses have a hollow sound when you have targeted something and told everyone about it. Without the D-day marked off there's no reason not to go full diabetic with the diet or full orbit with the alcohol.
BELIEVE; Hard to believe it but your local pub is often frequented by chubby gobshites talking behind your back, in between bouts of listening to their arteries hardening. Alcohol and low-level lighting help to bring fool's thoughts even lower than you can imagine. But you are NOT in that pub. You believe in yourself and what you are doing...training, racing, resting, planning...and aren't you the lucky one? Sometimes you may not feel it, maybe you are tired or injured, but you are always lucky. Fit, awake, alive because you believe in what you are doing. And you don't have the banger headaches, broadening gut and slowing bowel movements of the gossiping beer-swiller either!
SLEEP; Ah Morpheus. Get your rest. Compression socks, no coffee after 5pm, Read a good book but get resting. Human Growth Hormone is great stuff! Ask Sylvester Stallone! But seriously, HGH is a naturally occurring hormone that supports recovery and repair and its released when you nap/ sleep. Free drugs? Get them into you! The other free drug available to you is serotonin. Mood elevators can be bought on any street corner or from the pale dude in the pub jax or gained naturally by getting your R.E.M. sleep. It's a short segment of your night's sleep but its the one that keeps you sane, alert, smiling and motivated. Oh, and you need your beauty sleep for God's sake!
PERSEVERENCE; Ghosts coming out of the mist, or the "neon haze with Confederate dead" to quote James Lee Burke. Yep, you see them; the crappiest weather...Baltic temps, Biblical rain, Floridian wind, yet they are out...exercising, gaunt, doubled and smiling. Living here on a Craggy Island you'd often feel as if you were in the Hobbit. Except our little spot feels like its weather being thrown at us, by the bucket load.
Of course, you also have to persevere against the ignorance of those that don't understand your dedication in the face of so many obstacles. As an island with such a widespread diaspora, its incredible how some people can be so insular and parochial in their mindset. But ignorance is just another obstacle for you to overcome, because you CAN.
CELEBRATE; Achieved your goal? Reward yourself! Super happy just getting there? Reward yourself! Beaten the odds on your generation/ family/ background/ age/ weight of expectation? Celebrate! It might be a bar of chocolate or even falling asleep at the bar...but do it. Your soul will thank you for it!
ESCAPE; I've never minded hitting the road in the dark of pre-dawn. If it means getting my training done before my family notice I've gone, then its win-win. You come back with a baggy of endorphins that will energise more than any chalky-white line off a pub's toilet cistern and its fairly free in comparison. Back by 10am you can juggle the lot, give your partner free time or attention by the ladleful and keep everyone guessing as to why you are permanently smiling. Heading out, in fact, often heading home before some clubs have left on their group rides often gives you an amazing feeling of having got one over on everyone too! Try it!
PREP; In the 3.5 minutes it takes to heat my three-bears worth of porridge and watch the thermostat on the coffee machine ratchet up I will have filled my two bottles, one with electrolytes and one with protein, laid out my apparel [sounds better than tired 'aul gear] in order of putting on, starting with chamois cream and HRM strap. And everything is right side out so as not to resemble an octopus in the grey light of dawn. Bike is in the hall, tyres pumped the previous evening, oil bottle outside the front door in a flower pot so as not to stain the hall mat. Oh, and there's a scoop of protein powder waiting in the shaker for my return.
CHARGING UP; Not like the good old days, a lick of speed in your bottle like for a Grand Prix chaudiere race in Northern France. Charging today is a double shot of oily espresso. It releases chlorogenic acid that sets your endurance day up to be more easily endured. And of course there's the other charging, plugging in your Garmin or whatever GPS you use. Ever spent an eternity watching one bar of battery life wondering when it will shut down? Most likely in the middle of your super energetic and in-need-of-accuracy interval. And charge the phone. It might just be for Strava but the one time you forget to charge it will be the crash/ hospital/ carnage of a lifetime ride. A charged phone at just the right moment doesn't have a price.
DOWNTIME; Set a weekend or holiday where you do nothing. Be human again. Don't mention sport. Shower everyone around you with love and proof that you can be more than one-dimensional.
TARGET; You have to have at least one. Its so easy to fall off the wagon when you don't have a D-day or two pencilled in on your calendar. You might occasionally kill the cookie jar, empty the dessert trolley or guzzle a province worth of Tempranillo but you will stumble back to your default setting of 'in training' if you know there is a day of reckoning. Excuses have a hollow sound when you have targeted something and told everyone about it. Without the D-day marked off there's no reason not to go full diabetic with the diet or full orbit with the alcohol.
BELIEVE; Hard to believe it but your local pub is often frequented by chubby gobshites talking behind your back, in between bouts of listening to their arteries hardening. Alcohol and low-level lighting help to bring fool's thoughts even lower than you can imagine. But you are NOT in that pub. You believe in yourself and what you are doing...training, racing, resting, planning...and aren't you the lucky one? Sometimes you may not feel it, maybe you are tired or injured, but you are always lucky. Fit, awake, alive because you believe in what you are doing. And you don't have the banger headaches, broadening gut and slowing bowel movements of the gossiping beer-swiller either!
SLEEP; Ah Morpheus. Get your rest. Compression socks, no coffee after 5pm, Read a good book but get resting. Human Growth Hormone is great stuff! Ask Sylvester Stallone! But seriously, HGH is a naturally occurring hormone that supports recovery and repair and its released when you nap/ sleep. Free drugs? Get them into you! The other free drug available to you is serotonin. Mood elevators can be bought on any street corner or from the pale dude in the pub jax or gained naturally by getting your R.E.M. sleep. It's a short segment of your night's sleep but its the one that keeps you sane, alert, smiling and motivated. Oh, and you need your beauty sleep for God's sake!
PERSEVERENCE; Ghosts coming out of the mist, or the "neon haze with Confederate dead" to quote James Lee Burke. Yep, you see them; the crappiest weather...Baltic temps, Biblical rain, Floridian wind, yet they are out...exercising, gaunt, doubled and smiling. Living here on a Craggy Island you'd often feel as if you were in the Hobbit. Except our little spot feels like its weather being thrown at us, by the bucket load.
Of course, you also have to persevere against the ignorance of those that don't understand your dedication in the face of so many obstacles. As an island with such a widespread diaspora, its incredible how some people can be so insular and parochial in their mindset. But ignorance is just another obstacle for you to overcome, because you CAN.
CELEBRATE; Achieved your goal? Reward yourself! Super happy just getting there? Reward yourself! Beaten the odds on your generation/ family/ background/ age/ weight of expectation? Celebrate! It might be a bar of chocolate or even falling asleep at the bar...but do it. Your soul will thank you for it!
Wednesday, March 15, 2017
Cut and trust.
There's always a bigger picture. We've all learned that over time. A tough time is often just a blip but it can feel like an eternity in the right/wrong circumstances. Of course I never take my own advice, and the initial time after breaking my elbow felt like an eternity. Anaesthetic is a wonderful thing, just not when it makes ya feel like a Patagonia-jacket wearing, skeletal junkie drifting in and out of scenarios. I'm not sure how many Friends episodes I watched [or rather, 'sat through' as I wasn't particularly compus mentis for a week] but I know it wasn't fun. I was so edgy I couldn't watch Fast and Loud for God's sake!. I know now that a week isn't a long time really. Gradually cycling hove into view again. I must like cycling considering I've ridden through 2 courses of antibiotics, re-configured the cockpit of my bike to resemble a fighting bull throwing a matador overhead, elbowed my way around the roads and gone out the door at 7am to fit my 'training' in instead of curling into the arms of Morpheus and sleeping off my aspirations.
Today, 7 weeks after my fall, the sun is shining and Coach has me doing sprints in the afternoon. Cannot wait.
As regards never taking my own advice, its silly really how we notice what others are or are not doing, try to correct them but aren't capable of taking correction ourselves. I'm aware of my own shortcomings but not taking advice is top of the pile. Sometimes you just want to be brave and do your own thing. Other times, something neanderthal cuts in and drives you. Often there's no explanation. Stopping listening to my own advice, in fact my own alarm bells ringing like a four-storey fire, has led to stupid places and people. Trust as a theme has been beating me up recently. People I accepted despite the alarm bells or people I ignored in haste and now regret. But sure that's life, ain't it? As I've got old I seem to have developed a Perspex detector that was non-existent in my twenties. I can now see through people, detect layers, different needs or angles that went straight over my head years ago. Or maybe I'm just a cycnical mofo that deserves to lose people and refuses to see his own faults.
But I know that life goes on. I'd put my hand in the fire now for probably a handful (!)of people in total.
Its ying and yang really. I've let people down and vice versa. Hemingway said you spend the first two years of your life learning to speak and the next fifty learning to keep your mouth shut. Words do damage.
So in cycling terms I'm on a crusade, well, a little crusade. Okay, tiny. Without the 1000 knights, countless hangers-on and the march to the holy-land, my 'crusade' seems ridiculous. But the plan is simple. I'm going to forgive all the people in cycling that I know of that have crossed me with negativity, be it their arrogance, stupidity or egotism. The ones with one side of a story. The ones that looked down on me. The ones that twisted the knife. I'm even going to let slide the 'only members or prospective members here Joe' guy from seven years ago, and the people who stood there and said nothing at the time. Carte blanche I think its called. You see there's many an eejit out there, many a pseudo alpha-male in cycling, but I've been one as well sometimes so I can't expect people to be good if I can't myself. I'm going to try and trust people again. Hemingway also wrote 'the best way to know if you can trust somebody is to trust them...'
Everything this year is a new start. I'm so happy to be back in the Purple and gold, I'm delighted to be out on my bike and training hard and planning ahead. Its best to start anew on all fronts. I intend to continue being happy and spreading that joy in our sport without asking for anything in return. I know, looking at the seven-inch scar on my elbow, that I'm lucky. Time to give something back for all the good luck I've experienced and all the good people I've met that never pointed out my shortcomings because they knew they had some themselves.
Today, 7 weeks after my fall, the sun is shining and Coach has me doing sprints in the afternoon. Cannot wait.
As regards never taking my own advice, its silly really how we notice what others are or are not doing, try to correct them but aren't capable of taking correction ourselves. I'm aware of my own shortcomings but not taking advice is top of the pile. Sometimes you just want to be brave and do your own thing. Other times, something neanderthal cuts in and drives you. Often there's no explanation. Stopping listening to my own advice, in fact my own alarm bells ringing like a four-storey fire, has led to stupid places and people. Trust as a theme has been beating me up recently. People I accepted despite the alarm bells or people I ignored in haste and now regret. But sure that's life, ain't it? As I've got old I seem to have developed a Perspex detector that was non-existent in my twenties. I can now see through people, detect layers, different needs or angles that went straight over my head years ago. Or maybe I'm just a cycnical mofo that deserves to lose people and refuses to see his own faults.
But I know that life goes on. I'd put my hand in the fire now for probably a handful (!)of people in total.
Its ying and yang really. I've let people down and vice versa. Hemingway said you spend the first two years of your life learning to speak and the next fifty learning to keep your mouth shut. Words do damage.
So in cycling terms I'm on a crusade, well, a little crusade. Okay, tiny. Without the 1000 knights, countless hangers-on and the march to the holy-land, my 'crusade' seems ridiculous. But the plan is simple. I'm going to forgive all the people in cycling that I know of that have crossed me with negativity, be it their arrogance, stupidity or egotism. The ones with one side of a story. The ones that looked down on me. The ones that twisted the knife. I'm even going to let slide the 'only members or prospective members here Joe' guy from seven years ago, and the people who stood there and said nothing at the time. Carte blanche I think its called. You see there's many an eejit out there, many a pseudo alpha-male in cycling, but I've been one as well sometimes so I can't expect people to be good if I can't myself. I'm going to try and trust people again. Hemingway also wrote 'the best way to know if you can trust somebody is to trust them...'
Everything this year is a new start. I'm so happy to be back in the Purple and gold, I'm delighted to be out on my bike and training hard and planning ahead. Its best to start anew on all fronts. I intend to continue being happy and spreading that joy in our sport without asking for anything in return. I know, looking at the seven-inch scar on my elbow, that I'm lucky. Time to give something back for all the good luck I've experienced and all the good people I've met that never pointed out my shortcomings because they knew they had some themselves.
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