I remember back in December when I started
training with a coach and wondering how doing such short, unchallenging
sessions would ever get me to Ironman fitness by mid-April. I also remember
starting my current job with British Cycling in January, looking at the three
emails in my inbox, trying to look busy and hoping they didn’t realise they’d
created a job where there was barely anything for me to do.
Be careful what you wish for.
Mid-April is now upon us, and happily I do
think my absence at work will be noticed though I’m working double-hard the
next few days to try to get as much sorted as possible. It’s been a while since
I last had an empty to-do list, now it is more easily likened to a conveyor
belt, although some things muscle their way straight to the top, some things
are frustratingly doomed to probably never be done, or at least not until the
riders stop getting sick or falling off their bikes.
Training peaked at twenty-plus hours last
week, Easter weekend involving a 40 mile ride followed by a 20 mile run and a
swim, and a 6½
hour ride on Sunday with a 30 minutes run straight off it. Half of this was
unfortunately written off for reasons out of my control (don’t even get me
started) and now the taper is in full swing. I’m doing my best to ignore most
of what my body is saying, I know it plays tricks on you approaching a race (my
toes are broken, I’ve forgotten how to swim, I’m unfit, I have shin splints, my
legs won’t pedal, my body weight has doubled and/or gravity has increased. Shut up brain). But tapering is not so
bad – when else can you justify homemade jaffa cakes (both time taken to make –
normal training would not allow for this – but it’s also carb loading, right?)
So I’m trying to distract myself by
affecting the things I do have control of with planning what to pack, figuring
out logistics. Given my propensity to forget my hockey stick when I used to
play hockey, my bike is at the top of list since I figure everything else could
be begged or borrowed. Thanks to a super-light bike, courtesy of Bridgtown
Cycles, I should have plenty of weight allowance to nestle some NouriSH me Now
in the bike box for pre and post-race. Everyone I’ve spoken to who has been to
South Africa just rave about how beautiful it is, and I do not intend to be prevented
from taking it all in when I can finally relax post-race by having
uncooperative legs.
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In the mad, pre-travel, pre-race rush I
never managed to post this on the blog. It makes interesting reading – I guess
this is why some people keep diaries, as an insight to thinking from moments
passed. I wish I could tell pre-race me that everything would be ok, but this
is itself may have induced complacency and confidence and affected the outcome
and made it all untrue (and now this is getting way too confusing and
philosophical). Although I would have told pre-race me that even with a very light bike, a magnum of fizz in a bike box will still be over the weight limit... Hello Kona :)
I feel so glad and blessed to have help to
do these races (thanks Paul Caunce, Judith (my ever-patient coach), Mike of
Bridgtown Cycles, Huub, and of course NouriSH me Now for recovery). Doing races
gives my training purpose and shapes it into a cycle of ebbs and flows, and I’m
already looking forward to the next (with both nerves and excitement, varying
measures). I hope I can look back on this post after my next race with the same
feeling of ‘everything works out in the end’ that I have of South Africa.
