Back in the Saddle

Blimey. It’s been over a year since I last updated this. So what’s happened in the World of Fay Health & Fitness since then?

1. Injured myself at home on the actual day of that event. Foolishly. Luckily, it’s a neck injury I’d had before, so this time I didn’t piss around, got hold of a physiotherapist (my old one having semi-retired), and got into a bunch of new, neck-related exercises.
    
2. After recovering from foolishness, continued to do lots of cycling, but just back on a daily, get-everywhere-I-don’t-need-to-transport-gig-gear/people kind of way.
    
3. Got back into mat exercises - press-ups, crunches, planks - plus the fun addition of chin-ups, courtesy of a bar you can slot above the doorframe (and a stack of books to stand on, because I’m not that tall (despite being tall for a poet), and our house is old, so the ceilings - and therefore doorframes - are high).
    
4. Went to the Edinburgh Fringe in August to take part in the usual shenanigans, which, from a health perspective, involved:
   
   Positives: a bunch of weight-lifting (hauling my crap up six flights of stairs virtually single-handedly as my flatmate had a hernia); walking 2-3 miles/ day up and down a very steep hill (luckily, I lived at the bottom of the hill), sometimes more if I had to go home and change between shows; continuing with the daily physio exercises and the twice-a-week, more hench mat exercises.
   
   Negatives: bad/ little sleep; the usual dehydration and when-the-fuck-do-I-eat issues leading to a little weight loss; abundant and often unnecessary stress (necessary stress I can deal with).
    
5. On the final couple of days had a troubling cough and sore throat, which I powered through on sheer adrenalin and stubbornness, which transmuted into a cold as soon as I started the long drive home through the night.
    
6. Cold turned into a chest infection and laryngitis, and then… and then I couldn’t speak, sing, or anything vocal, couldn’t bend over to pick things up, couldn’t lie down flat, couldn’t eat much, was constantly coughing and had chest pains and stomach pains, and then the bit where my throat kept closing off, stopping my breathing, all of which made sleep difficult.
    
7. I lost a LOT of weight. And no-one seemed to know what was wrong. Everything hurt, everything made me cough, and the only thing I’d ever relied on my whole life - my voice - was gone. And no-one seemed to know beyond a shrug whether it would ever come back.
   
   I pushed on through work, though had a lot of sickness leave, including after a trip to A&E (waking up in the middle of the night entirely unable to breathe and retching mucus) when I was signed off for a couple more weeks after I’d only just got back to work.
   
   As you can imagine, my mental health took a steep and long fucking dive. And even the physio exercises were out for a long time because of the aforementioned not being able to lie down flat, so my joints started to suffer in a major way. I slept (hell: I lived) on the sofa for about three months for fear of waking everyone constantly with the coughing and the terrifying choking noise that happened every time I dropped into proper sleep, even when propped up perpendicularly. It was bad enough that I wasn’t sleeping…
   
   It was horrible. And then there was the (thankfully apparently a clerical error?!) cancer scare.
    
8. Slowly my voice returned to something that was at least audible (though it’s currently fucked again - yay) as I learned what I can eat and not eat (I’m even more limited now than I was before), and which drugs and supplements help and which are, at best, useless.
    
9. They still don’t know what’s wrong, but the latest notion is to put me on a very low dose of something that, at much higher doses (like: fifteen times higher), is used as an anti-depressant.
    
10. I’ve recently got back on the bike. I am still horribly unfit. But I was haemorrhaging money trying to get around town and this is worth it long-term.
     
11. I’m even more recently back on the mat exercises, after I managed to injure myself doing ill-advised free weight-lifting (yes, again) a couple of months ago, and put a crimp in the cycling and some of the physio for a while.
     
12. I’m not living my best life right now, and I think the definition of that is going to have to change, but hey - who needed creative career plans anyway…?
     

I thought I’d go back to the blog because I actually wanted to ask some dietary advice, but I’ll leave that until the next entry, because it’s a bit much to cram into a catch-up post as well…

Thanks for reading (and, to some of you, waiting so patiently).

#SR16 #FinishingLine Part 1

Short version: I MADE IT! :D

Have stretched, and am drinking water and eating protein bars (I've developed a strange taste for them!).

More details to come later.

Big love to you all, and that's not just the endorphins talking!

:D

#SR16 #asithappens Part 2

So I'm over halfway. With no offence intended to St. Ives, I figured I'd enjoy a picnic by the lake far more than in the bus station, so doubled back until I saw somewhere likely.

Nice, eh?

The trip has also seen its first bit of genuine jeopardy - the lakes have overflowed and the path is massively flooded.

Cue over-optimistic splashing, followed by humorous pushing, and very muddy lower legs:

I'm currently composing a shory poem along the lines of "As I was going to St. Ives/ I met with quite the crowd of flies."

Overheating totally worth it for being able to ignore them due to goggles and balacavaish thing.

Thanks for all your messages of encouragement so far, you little diamonds. <3

Right! Lunch is done! Let's go! :D

#SR16 #asithappens Part 1

Longstanton Busway station is just over 50% of the way to St. Ives, and has toilets. A fact for which I'm profoundly grateful.

The wind is northerly, but relatively mild. This is good news for the way back, if it persists.

After weeks of freezing on the bike, I am overheating. Oh well!

Back and hips doing well, only mild complaints from wrists.

Onwards! :D

Time is ticking

Well, I had a mostly-rest day yesterday, eating a frankly unfeasible quantity of food. In about ten minutes’ time I set off. I’m generally feeling pretty good, if tired from a peculiarly vivid series of dreams about running around a park which turned into a shopping mall while trying to get back to my bike; I woke up before I could get a satisfactory answer as to how far I’d run (all my gadgets would only show me how long I’d been running for rather than how far). Lady Gaga was involved somehow.

My hip joints are still a bit buggered*, which I think answers the “which route will I take?” question. The Ely-Cambridge one has a lot more hill, including a very steep one at the beginning, so - with regret, seeing as the weather is actually relatively pleasant! - I’m going to do my 25 miles via the Busway to St. Ives and back again route. I’m going to see a physio about the hips/ back issues and hopefully build up to doing the Ely-Cambridge run another time. It looks very pretty!

There’s still time to sponsor me, of course, for Sport Relief: http://my.sportrelief.com/fayroberts - to help support vulnerable people going through hardships here in the UK and in places around the world.

And if you’d like to physically join me for all/ part of this, just give me a shout.

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* technical term

On Attitudes and “Progress”

I had a conversation with someone very recently that made me see them - and myself* - in a whole new light.

First, some background (skip if you like).

Strava, the app/ site I use to log my rides and measure my progress, has a couple of things that I really like in terms of motivation:

1. Social aspect - people can give you "Kudos" (basically a thumbs-up) for a ride/ run (I don't do running) and can leave comments. It's a whole thing. I like both giving and receiving kudos, and sometimes I comment on "I ran really badly"-labelled activities with "Maybe, but you did run."

2. Comparison on "segments" - people can set up either public or private segments so you can check to see how you do on certain sections of a road/ track/ whatever against the average person/ your gender/ your age group (well, those in that demographic who use Strava, anyway).  More importantly - to me - you can compare how you do against yourself, and each time you do a segment faster than before, you get a new personal record (PR), complete with tiny, virtual gold medal.

You can set up the app so that, while it's recording your current progress live, it will read out to you which segment you're on and - if you've done it before - what your current PR is for that segment.  It'll also tell you how you're doing when you're halfway.  (If you've never done it before, it'll tell you the overall best from other people - I generally ignore this.) I, personally, especially for commuter runs, would prefer it to announce what my average time is, so that I can tell how I'm doing for getting to work. But hey - if I tell them, maybe they'll make that available as a option.

Background done.

So yesterday, on the way to work, I had some tailwind.  The prevalent wind in (my part of) Cambridge is generally in the opposite direction, so it's nice not to be fighting my way into work. (On the other hand - more of a slog getting home; oh well.)  The Strava Lady announced that I was starting the 0.2 mile "Milton Road Buslane start to Milton Arms sprint" (I didn't name this) segment.  I was whizzing along by this point - good tailwind, no randoms crossing in front of me and slowing me up; it was all good; maybe today was the day...  I got to halfway, and she said "halfway: ahead by 7 seconds." Ooh! I'd somewhat resigned myself to not beating my 1:06 PR for at least the next few months, and I thought: it's today! Come on! And behold - I beat my previous PR by 8 seconds.  That's a 12% decrease, right? Considering the all-time recorded time on Strava for this segment is 31 seconds, I doubt the leaderboard are crapping themselves, but it means there's room for improvement (if I ever get a tailwind again/ do continue to get stronger and faster through the training).

So far so nice start to the day.

So then I get talking to a non-cyclist. I tell them the "it told me I was 7 seconds ahead so I pummelled it and beat my personal best! Yay!" story and... they didn't share my jubilation.

Their opinion was that I'd done it wrong: "So, instead of coasting for 7 seconds, you pummelled it? That was a mistake - you'll never beat that."

At the time, I just felt puzzled (and, okay, mildly deflated).

This morning, with a milder tailwind, and tired from a dodgy night's sleep, I heard the announcement of the start of the sprint on my earphones, and gave it a medium amount of welly, wondering how close I'd get to the previous day's PR, but not too bothered either way.  And I got to thinking about that conversation. It occurred to me that it spoke a lot about both my general attitudes to life (when the wind's behind you, really go for it!) and theirs (you don't want to push harder when things are going well...).  I've not entirely finished thinking about this (hence post), but it seems to me that this is something about ambition, goal-setting, and where effort is best placed.

I consider myself still "in development" - I likely will until I'm in my 90s, at least.  There's lots of things I don't know and can't do yet, but I've not given up on all of them (okay, still working my way up to swimming - shush). Generally, nowadays, while cycling, I push to at least 80% maximum effort - whether or not I'm  running on time/ late for/ early for my next appointment/ there is no appointment. I've not only changed my body, but I've changed my mind about how long it takes me to get from one place to another, and how long a distance I can actually do.

So I think that "let's just fucking do this, and do it hard" is a great way to get further faster. To progress. But that's only important if what you want to do is progress - which, to my mind, means: do it faster, better, stronger - and if you don't, if you want to maintain your current position, that's a different approach, and a different set of priorities.

At the moment, I'm not strong enough to overcome the underlying bullshit that is HMS/ EDS. So I need to progress on that front. And my (artistic) career isn't where I want it to be, so progress needs to be made. Maybe my friend is in exactly the place they want to be.  Or maybe something's scaring them about the notion of moving on, and I think - if that's the case - it's more likely to be fear of success than fear of failure. And I think I could learn a lot from my simple attitude to fitness, and apply this to other parts of my life. There's places I want to be, and I need to be taller to get there...

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*Yes, that's a correct** use of the reflexive.

**one of the few

And then it all went a bit wrong...

What is it they say about having a crap dress rehearsal meaning that the real thing will be great?

I can only hope that it doesn't work for cycling like it does for singing, because I've been in some truly dire dress rehearsals that led to embarrassingly poor concerts.

So yesterday.  Yesterday I decided that I was going to finally have a play along the near-home map of the route I'd mapped out from Ely to home (north Cambridge). I'd even painstakingly devised a route on Strava that was Home to Ely.  Looks like this:



One small problem. If you "load route" on Strava, it in no way guides you. I didn't know that, so it went wrong quite quickly.  Basically this happened:



Firstly everyone and their dog were on Stourbridge Common, and the paths are not the smooth, well-maintained, recent, metalled surface of the busway. No. They are bumpy with uppity tree roots and switchback like no-one's business. And then I ended up in Barnwell.  I'm still not sure how.  As you can see, I went the wrong way in Fen Ditton for a while, then found my route which was, unlike as it looked on the Strava route planner, totally on-road.  On-fast-car-windy-hilly road.

I have in no way practised hills. The busway doesn't really do them. I haven't lived anywhere hilly for a while. I thought I missed hills. I still do, but my hips and knees were less sure, especially when being passed by fast cars.

And then I realised that I was trying to follow the "Ely to Home" route backwards, having smacked my thumb into the wrong one on my phone (the route for which I could barely see on the screen in bright sunshine as it was, as Strava denotes the route to come using orange against shades of yellow, and where you've been in bright blue), so I pulled over (again - I'd already lost a lot of momentum to this), stopped the recording, loaded the "right" route, and started the recording again.

Whereupon this happened:


As the youth say: I don't even. I just can't.

I was very pleased with myself, having gone wrong already a couple of times (long way around Stow-cum-Quy instead of through it? Okay!), to find the right road, and be ganging on through Lode (very pretty - nice, smooth roads, too).  I stopped when I figured I'd gone far enough to turn around and still get my miles - as I recalled, the "correct" way back was longer.

There was a pretty bridge with sunsetty shades all over the landscape. I stopped there:

Road Behind

View Ahead

And then I ate, drank some water, and set off on the "proper route".  By this point, I wasn't startled by going on the road with the whizzy cars, and I knew there was a hill coming up.  I was warmed-up and fed, and it was all good. Right?

Turns out the other thing Strava route-planner doesn't make clear is when something is so off-route it's a dirt track, and that the only other options are private farm roads or turn back.

I stopped, swore, turned back, stopped again, and programmed in a cycling route on Google Maps, which soothing voice navigated me all the way home (via some confusion in Fen Ditton, but a lot less confusion than anything that had gone before).

So, what's the conclusion?  The conclusion is that I have to make a conclusion - do I:

a) Stick to the boring-but-safe busway route, and just head on up to St. Ives (~12.5 miles away), then head home; or

b) Programme in a clever route on Google Maps and just do the crazy version anyway?

Both are tempting, for different reasons.  a) is safer, and will achieve my 25 mile goal without too much stress.  I will also get to see a different part of my training route that I haven't encountered yet. That's interesting, right?  And I'd already said that I would do that route if the weather is rubbish on Sunday. b) is the original challenge, and a heck of a lot more interesting. There are also pubs on the way that will afford wee stops if necessary.

On the other hand, I've now done a trek that was 74.8% of my eventual goal, and didn't break myself (though I'm really feeling it today). I call that a near-win.  I have also concluded that I'm not doing another big training ride on Wednesday - I'm resting these little legs (daily commute aside).