Phase 1.2

In classic fashion, after crafting myself a clever and sensible bicycle training regime, I got busy, and then I got ill.

So, until yesterday, I hadn't done any further longer-distance rides.  After - yet again! - more procrastinating, I set off on another training ride along the Busway:



Several significant differences in preparation this time:

1. Lighter, smaller shoes.

2. Checked my tires.

3. Wore fewer layers.


What Went Well?

+ didn't overheat
+ really enjoyed it
+ didn't injure myself
+ went at a surprisingly fast clip
+ went further than anticipated (see above)
+ remembered to stretch at all
+ remembered to eat a protein bar and drink a ton of water when I got in
+ took a picture to mark the turning-point

What Could Have Gone Better?

- the soles on The Boots are ludicrously thick, and I nearly crippled myself climbing onto the now-far-too-high seat with my smaller shoes
- I was clearly dehydrated before I went out
- I hadn't eaten enough before I went out (seriously: very little all day)
- procrasturbating
- went further than anticipated
- didn't stretch as soon as I got in (again)


What will I do (differently) next time?

> adjust the seat before getting on the bike!
> drink a little more throughout the day (not directly beforehand!)
> get a mount for the phone on the handlebars so I can see how far I've gone rather than rely on a random notion of average speed to tell me when to turn around
> eat more sugary snackage beforehand and take something small with me for the turnaround break


Another thing not to do would be to look at other people's rides on Strava while I'm still feeling chuffed about my distance of 7.7 miles or whatever because one of my friends does 23 mile partially-off-road trips kind of as a matter of course.  If I do do that, I need to remind myself more swiftly that this is a guy who used to go mountain-biking on a Sunday, every Sunday, as a student, even when hungover to all hell. He's had over half his life to get really, REALLY good at this. Nice one, dude.

Remember: Do your own time...

Phase 1 Begins

After my bike challenge proposal, I decided on a vague training regimen of increasingly long trips, building up a mile or so a week, until I was near enough to my goal of the full distance between my house and Ely Cathedral.  I would do this on Sundays, and maybe Wednesdays, and I would neither wuss out nor break myself.

I spoke to colleagues who've trained for and completed cycling challenges such as London to Cambridge, or 100 mile round trips.  One of them came up with the excellent suggestion of using the busway's cycle path (since I live so close to one of them) for training, and another suggested a stepping programme of: increase, increase, step back, increase, increase, step back, etc. so that my baseline is always moving inexorably upwards. She also said that I should work out whether I'm stepping up time or distance. Both of them told me to listen to my body.

I discussed with R on Saturday how much I would do for the first step. I said: my longest usual non-stop journey is 20-25 minutes (my house to Cambridge Junction), so my first one should be slightly longer than that - 15 minutes one way and 15 minutes back. I discussed the ramifications of different options to an intricate level detail, and was reminded explicitly that I shouldn't "munt [my]self" on the first step - stick to 30 minutes. Oookaaaay...

Sunday came, and I watched myself procrastinate in the worst ways until I realised that I was basically waiting for it to be too late/ too rainy to go out. It hadn't rained, and I was disappointed.

Ah.

So I got off my arse, put what turned out to be too many layers on, set a count-down timer for 17 minutes, and got on my bike.  Here is the route I took:

It started off extremely boring, once I'd got onto the busway cycle path. Soooo dull.  I was pleased I'd opted for music, though I was sorely wishing for company. Quite how that would work, I've little idea yet - hands-free walkie talkies...?!

Anyway, after a while we left the science park behind and the landscape started getting interesting. More fields, more trees, am unexpected body of water, less noise. The little wiggle towards the left-hand side is where the cycle path abruptly jumps over three roads, including the busway, and I confidently crossed only two of them and ended up heading for a disused siding (the busway used to be a railway).

What went well?

+ I managed the distance
+ I didn't injure myself
+ I maintained a decent speed (av. 9.6, max. 13.6)
+ I felt fine (no significant aches & pains) during and after
+ I remembered not to take my usual heavy load of more urban gear with me

What could have gone better?

- I didn't stretch afterwards (probably the main reason I'm feeling it a bit more now)
- I didn't check bike's health (turns out you should inflate the tyres when heading off on a journey)
- As C predicted, watching me leave with all my layers, I massive overheated, especially on the way back.
- The procrastination!

What will I do (differently) next time?

> Start the journey colder (fewer layers, with options in saddlebags)
> Wear smaller shoes (my Big Black Boots weigh about 0.5kg)
> Check the tyres (and other things) first!
> Set a time for setting off and stick to it.

I'm definitely going to stick with the busway route for the next few iterations as a way of building up stamina and hours spent in the saddle while I level up.  As training ground it is excellently safe, and it forces me to keep going for longer, as there are only a few traffic lights, unlike any in-Cambridge cycling I do, which is packed with traffic lights and roundabouts, etc.  In fact, I'm almost tempted to switch the challenge to be "from home to St. Ives and back" because the busway to St. Ives is about 12.3 miles. There would be less dicking about with trains to get to the main leg of the trip, and it would be - for the most part - very protected from car traffic.

However, it would be extraordinarily dull.  I've had a look at the (mostly) off-traffic route from Ely, and it's via Wicken Fen and Anglesey Abbey - interesting local places I still haven't been to yet. I could make a proper (mini-)adventure out of this! :)

There's also an amount more hill (for this part of the world) going on. I haven't decided yet whether that's a good or bad thing.  I'm not convinced I want to end the journey uphill...

As the training progresses I'll get a better idea of how well my body is coping.  As each segment necessarily gets longer, it'll also be a test of my commitment to the goal - I'm not someone who's currently coming down with loads of spare time as it is...

More updates to come over the next few weeks...

A proposal

So, about 21 months ago, I started this blog and the drive for better fitness that defined it.  I had a single, simple goal to aim for, which encompassed a whole bunch of smaller, possibly more complex goals along the way:

Walk six miles in one go for Sport Relief 2014, the goals along the way being: increase cardiovascular fitness, increase striated muscle strength, improve stamina, get out of the habit of getting taxis and buses when I could be walking or cycling instead, improve joint stability.

The big one I did, and managed to raise a shit-ton of money (over £1000) in the process. I also lost weight, gained what feels like better lung capacity, and a better attitude to being mobile.

My joint stability, upper-body strength, and general fitness are probably more questionable at this stage, but at the time, and for a good while afterwards, there were some definite improvements to be felt and seen.

So I'm fitter than I was this time two years ago, and I'm keen to get back into that sense of achievement and incidental physical health improvement.  So what's the word?  Six miles again doesn't seem particularly worthwhile, and I'm enjoying the bike, so I'm thinking: a cycling challenge this year.  And since I seem to cycle approximately three times faster than I walk, the challenge needs to be more than 18 miles.  And Ely is 20-odd miles away from Cambridge, so...

Again: it's nothing set against those people who cycle all the way from London to Cambridge (50-odd miles), but most of them, I'm guessing, don't have the kind of physical health problems I have.  So I'm going to do my challenge, building up bike hours and distances in the intervening 22 weeks, and see how I go.

Might be worthwhile learning some cycle maintenance skills while I'm at it...

Watch this space (and Strava, and anywhere else I can get stuck into) for progress reports. :)

Steps Forward and Back

So, I'm back on the bike again. What do you mean, you didn't know I was off it...?!

{Checks back catalogue; curses}

Okay, so, it looks like a) I've been somewhat quiet on this front, and b) history repeated itself a bit.  Here's what happened over the intervening months since my last post:

1. Cycling every day (pretty much; certainly work days when I didn't have gig gear to carry, and Wednesdays when I had real life people meetings in places).

2. Physio every day (EVERY day; like a BOSS).

3. Mat exercises twice a week (come on!).

4. Eating a balanced diet.

And then August happened.  And August has Edinburgh Fringe in it. So no cycling from 19th August onwards, but lots of walking, and a handy new wearable gadget that maps how much and where I walked (because my passive movement tracking app stopped working).

So I scaled Arthur's Seat (yay!) and even coached someone else up it (come on!). Didn't even injure myself, unless you count sunburn.  I even kept up my physio and the strength-building mat exercises (despite some logistical difficulties - you try doing crunches on a mat on a polished wooden floor... without sliding across it and into a table).

And then I fell over on my face on a simple walk back down an urban hill, a couple of days later, and lots of health things cascaded, including my one filling jarring free and me getting a lot of pain and then a rubbish temporary filling which didn't let me chew so my nutrition was difficult to maintain and yeah - living off liquid food makes you lose more weight than you're comfortable with, if you're me.

Arse.

And then the trip back from Edinburgh with Too Much Luggage and bad lifting form and behold - buggered wrist.

So I was sensible - cycling hurt my wrist, so I paused on cycling and did some stretching and strengthening exercises for the wrist, and stayed off the press-ups, etc.  Then I got back on the bike. Yay! Then I got back into the mat exercises. Now, bear in mind that I hadn't done any since August, because I didn't - I just charged on ahead regardless like someone who was intent on injuring myself. Which I did.

This was 30th September. 1st October I got on the bike, unaware of how much I'd buggered myself. By the time I was heading home, it was clear that what I needed to do was immobilise that joint as much as possible.

It's nice to find that I've learned something.  I didn't prevent the injury this time, but I prevented it getting worse.  I immobilised as much as possible, asking for help, reducing movement, adjusting everything I could to ensure that as little strain was put upon the joint as possible. (Except on Thursday 8th when I joined in a yoga conversation in work and decided to demonstrate that I shouldn't do a certain move by doing it. 24 hours of migraine-like pain later and I'd learned another lesson about hypermobile injuries.)

So apart from yoga foolishness, I am pretty much recovered (read: it still hurts a bit but I can use it and I was more stressed by not being active) and back on the bike,  I cycled to Milton Country Park on Sunday with a friend to do some walking and wittering, then to and from work yesterday and today.

It was somewhat sobering to look back at the previous two blog entries and think: oh, so exactly like 3-4 months ago, huh? I left behind some good advice for myself, though, so that's a blessing.

In preparation for 20th March - Sport Relief again, baby - I'm going to be setting up a plan for increasing activity, strength, endurance, and general fitness. I'll keep you all posted as to what's next...

So, what's the current state of play (physical health-wise), all told? I am still a little hurty in the shoulder-neck joint and in my right wrist, and I'm finding it hard to put the weight back on. (And yes, I've tried eating all the biscuits - all that happened was I felt like crap. Presumably I need to eat a bunch of steaks and cheese.  Who knows?  All I know is that there are very, very few people out there who want to talk about the problems of losing too much weight and discussing how to put it back on.) So there it is.