Month: March 2016

Set new personal best for distance

This week has been a real push on – mostly because the weather has been favourable and I’ve been itching to get out more.

The first day of decent weather was on Monday 21st, although there was still a chill in the breeze and more than enough of it to cause a headwind (one thing I am not is aerodynamic!) I pushed hard and made it round Victoria Park four times. This is what my old training routine was and I was really glad to get back up to that level, even if it was a struggle.

Tuesday’s weather was similar, but felt warmer. Perhaps there was a change in the direction of the wind that made it feel warmer. Whatever the reason, I was glad of it and managed the four laps again. I mentioned before that the mapmyfitness app failed on me twice, so I fixed that and went out again on Wednesday. I’ve posted the results of that session already, but by the end of it my legs were dead. I’d been pushing through the usual amounts of pain in my back anyway, but the midweek workout left me empty. So much so that I ended up having a hot bath to soothe the muscles. This may not sound extraordinary to you, but for me it really is – I hate baths – the idea of sitting in what I call ‘me soup’ is disgusting! I have always been a shower kind of a guy, but there are times when needs must.

Thursday was the day I had planned for my rest day, but I needn’t have bothered with the planning; I was dead on my feet! I am very pleased at the difference a day makes! Even last night my legs were like lead and my back was worse than normal.

Today I felt like a new man (a new man with a crocked back, but still…) It’s a Bank Holiday, the sun’s out. The temperature and wind conditions were extremely favourable, so I went out for my usual ride. I knew Victoria Park would be busy and the local Borough Council have recently painted signs on the ground at each entrance to the park saying:

‘PEDESTRIAN PRIORITY

CONSIDERATE CYCLING

WELCOME’

It’s a park. It’s sunny. It’s busy. I was more than prepared for a much higher volume of people in the park. What has bugged me is that people seem to think that these signs now mean that they have every right to do whatever they like to cyclists! They also seem to think that this warning sign also extends to dogs and skateboarders/roller-bladers! I nearly hit several stupid people and/or their pets, simply because their ignorance left them blissfully unaware of the damage that a 19 stone man who is travelling at about 10 mph will do to them and theirs should they decide to veer wildly to the left or right with no warning at all!

Okay – rant over. Even these dullards could not dampen my energy today. I got to four laps and felt like the lead was well and truly gone from my legs, so I decided to push on and see if I could manage six laps. I am pleased to say that I got to the end of the six feeling like I could have managed more. Common sense prevailed and I stopped there, so as to preserve my energies for further days and also to stop me from injuring some rudderless dolt.

I don’t think I will be doing this distance every day from now on… I would like to try and work my way up to longer distances gently in order to avoid injury. The last thing I want to do now is stop.

If it can go wrong for me, it usually does

Okay, so, the weather has been nicer and I’ve been out twice this week. One of the things I like about using the mapmyfitness app is that it tracks me the whole way around the route and I can also link the workout I’ve done to this blog.

The last two times I’ve been out (not including today) the gps on the app has failed and it has told me that my workout was χ minutes, but 0 miles and, therefore, 0 calories and so on.

I had to input the info manually, so it came down to best guess. In the end I have had to uninstall the app and then went to re-install it. This, for some unknown technical reason, wouldn’t work. While I was searching the app store to find it again I saw that there was one by the same people called mapmyride, so I figured what the hell and installed that instead.

The upshot is that I now have a working gps/workout tracker again, but I’ve also discovered that this one talks to you (if you have the hands-free kit in) and tells you your time at 5 mile intervals as well as splits and calories burned.

In other news, I had a very crappy week last week, so my weight went back up. Having weighed myself this morning I can report that I have lost weight, just not as much as I would have liked. I am now 19 st 4 lbs, which is a loss of almost 4 lbs since I started. It certainly would have been more if I had not been comfort eating.

So, without further ado… here’s today’s workout around Victoria Park, during which I am 99% sure that I was passed by Boris Johnson and a big, black Range Rover staff car. He was already past me before I could yell obscenities at him. Next time, Boris… next time!

Time to get the bike out

It’s been a while since I put anything in here. That’s because it’s been cold.

It’s been cold and I’ve turned into a big Jessie! I just can’t handle the cold like I used to.

One positive thing to take from all this is that I will be out more and more as the weather improves.

With that in mind, I’m off out while this lasts. More later.

Today’s entry is more by way of a check-in due to fatigue

I am very pleased to say that I managed to go out again today. It was a matter of waiting until the rain had stopped and it had dried up sufficiently for me to go out.

The bike desperately needs a service; the gear and brake cables need adjusting and I don’t know what I’m doing, so it will have to wait until I can find the money to take it down to Halfords. The bolt that had come undone when I uncovered the bike has vanished completely, obviously somewhere along the way, so the pannier cage now rattles.

My back and chest still hurt before, during and after, but I’m hoping that will start to ease sometime soon as my workouts continue.

So here’s today’s link: 4 laps of Victoria Park, again. I haven’t even checked to see whether the times compare – I only ever look at the calories burned.

I have lost weight, but I am going to wait until Friday and make that my weigh-in day, since I started this on a Friday.

There have also been some messages of encouragement from friends I haven’t heard from in a while, which has been a massive boost to my state of mind and really made my day today!  🙂