Transition Phase Over

Transition phase - the technical term for downtime between two seasons.

See, nowadays the Three Peaks Cyclo-cross marks the end of the adventure riding season for me - where I pack away my long distance mountain biking and get out cyclo-cross with its skinny bike and short Sunday bursts.  With such a great, long adventure season of biking this year, I really needed a transition season more than ever.  In past years I've not bothered.  I've just struggled out of the 3 Peaks and into doing my local 'cross race, occasionally a National Trophy (although I can never get excited about Derby).

This year I allowed myself two weeks of doing whatever the devil I liked.  Fortunately I have liked doing some 50-60 miles rides.  Although they don't necessarily count as epic effort, they have been enough to link one season seamlessly to the next with a bit of a break to massage my brain and enough effort to keep the legs alive.

My peak fitness dropped off towards the end of the distance season as the fatigue drained in and the effort drained out... but that's fine, that's what transition periods are for.

We agreed on a 60 mile averagely hilly ride today as a compromise to the (Alpe d'Huez) training monster I was advocating.  Due to dampness and rain and TSK forgetting that its autumn so not bringing appropriate clothing, we cut it a little shorter than we'd planned although ended up winding around some lovely lanes to get home.  That clocked us in at 61.25 mile and a respectable 1500m of climbing.  It was the same length ride we had in our heads anyway (though with half the Up of the AdH route).

We both agreed that this was the limit of our current fitness as we limped our way home.  This gives us an excellent baseline to work on and fortunately just happens to match my training plan.

We talked about our plans for next years events.  I've seen other people get burned and bomb out of big events like this in their first year.  I've been worried about burning out too soon until TSK asked if I wanted to do the Solstice ride again (December 16th ish).  He pointed out that if I do burn out by December I have plenty of time to recover and turn it around in time for the event.  I  realised, all of a sudden, we used to do Audaxes all the time - December, June, March, that's just what life was until Triathlon started to get in the way.  Y'know what? Life can be that way again.

I only took one photo when I got back to the village.  It was a kind of ridey day.  It was also kind of windy which makes me glad I've put narrower bars on my new bike and there won't be a Carradice when I'm in Ireland.  It proves I need to go places, ride more interesting routes, take some pictures of new people.  Rides aren't just about going faster and higher and further.  They're about going further afield - both physically and mentally and I can't wait.

It was a waiting for dinner to be bought photo.  An, "I regret not getting my camera out earlier" kind of photo and also an "insignificance of social media" photo... because the less I twittle the more I ride and that can only be a good thing.  I'm keeping a diary in addition (supplement) to the blog as sometimes it's nicer to write on paper with a fountain pen.  Flylillypad encouraged me to sketch in it too... or doodle - whichever.  It's a great idea that I love.

For the record though, here's what today looked like.

TSK has taken to the bath.  I have a to-do list that looks like this:

• Pay credit card bill
• Package ride up into palletable chunks
• Plan audax season
• Tidy loft for yoga
• Clear spare room for Beckster training weekend.

It's the kind of to do list I can totally get achieve... given a week

And back at it - A Peak 50 miler

Saturday - Road ride 51 miles, 4:39:06, 1516m el.

I will not lounge on the sofa.  I will chose the best day of the weekend to go out on my bike.  I mean I want to swim / run but I also want to ride and I don't want to do it on a cruddy day... it'd be nice to swim today so I have a day off before I swim again on Monday... and go to yoga on Tuesday but I will just pick the best day and go for a ride... I so want to go out on my bike.

Excuse granted.  Saturday is to be the better day with a glimmer of sunshine and one whole degree warmer than Sunday.  So we sprung off the sofa at 9:30 and got dressed and were out the door by 10:20. 

I wasnt' feeling nearly so sprightly as last weekend as we rode up to friends to feed the cats.  Then powered out over Rhod Moor and joined the A57.  Flitting between coat on / zip up / zip down, my fleece was doing most of the work.  We took the back road to Hope where we stopped for lunch as we were a full hour now behind my progress last weekend.  

Poor choice for cold food but hey, onward to Castleton and the back-road climbs that took us up 30% climb in Pindale.  Damn that climb is hard but I coped with it better than I have done before.  Half way around and into Peak Forest and Peak Dale I am starting to realise that I try harder when TSK is around.  That's OK because I need to increase my speed.  I thought, with some hint of depression that last weekend I had not ridden my bike fast enough to constitute a healthy speed for an audax ride.  An Audax has a minimum speed of 15km/hr and I had ridden all day at 10mph average (16km/hr) but included several lunch stops.  If I worked out the miles to hours ratio, I had covered my 60 miles at an average speed of 14km/hr and this bugged me.  I'm not the fastest Audaxer but I've never been timed out before.

There have been less free miles this week and more trying not to get left too far behind on the climbs also with a little bit of battling a breeze thrown in.  Last week I'd clearly done more miles by this point in the day but was less concerned about getting home.  I was already starting to ache here today as we changed our mind about direction and re-descended a hill to take a turn towards Miller's Dale.  

I was still fighting up the hills though.  In fact, I realised that I am getting ready for bigger rides because the hill climbs no longer bother me.  Up or down or flat, it's all just a part of the journey.  I no longer seem to feel the gnawing sense of, "Oh GOD! We don't have to ride up *that* do we?!"  I just get on with it.  I dunno, maybe nowadays I am rocking a bigger gear range.

Millers dale gave and excellent photo opportunity of the dale and the bridge that we were about to pass under twice before heading back towards home.

Riding along here I realised that last weekend's ride had involved a lot of hiking as I walked my bike down to the A6 down a footpath and also as I pushed it out of Eyam.  That realisation made me feel a lot better about progress and my ability to complete a 120 mile ride at the end of February in the frozen North West of this country.

Back to today: After 3 hours of riding I was desperate for the desert that went with my lunch so I suggested a stop in Tideswell.  Since it was later in the day there was plenty of space in the slightly warmer café so, no special Ginger Pudding for me!  I had to eat apple and raspberry crumble with custard instead.  I then drank too much tea (seems such a waste to throw that third cup away) before heading back out into a slight drizzle which stayed with us all the way back.  

We turned for Litton as I continued my tour of parts of the ride I did last weekend.  TSK was enjoying himself seeing new places.  The tea partly fuelled the rest of the ride, partly hindered it by making me feel a little full!  Litton, Foolow, Eyam, Grindleford, they all slipped by in some kind of efforted riding which all felt much more productive than some of the bimbling that I've been guilty of in recent years.  If I can keep using my legs for 50 mile rides, I'd like to think I can limp through an Audax by freewheeling the other 70... something like that anyway!

The good news is, that although I couldn't be bothered to do any shopping on the way back to the house this week, I did't feel nearly as sore when we stopped riding.  Clearly my shoulders and neck are starting to get used to this again.  

Closing out 2015 early

It's nearly the end of the year. We are supposed to take stock aren't we? Out with the old, in with the new. New Years resolutions. I should be ready for one last indulgence then a new year, new me.

No.

I did a tiny bit of indulging before Christmas.  I had one night out during which I realised that I like my colleagues a lot - even enough to stay out drinking till 1:30 am with them... but after that I was tired.  I picked up a cold which has now manifested into a lovely green chest infection and I am done with over- indulging.  Christmas for me has been a time of getting together with family, a fairly modest meal with my mum and dad and another one with the Rodgers clan before retiring gracefully into a coughing heap of flegm and relaxation from which I see little return over the next week.  I am, in a word, fooked.

It's greedy to imagine that any new me will continue.  I have had a new me all year. Courtesy of our lovely nhs service who perceptively diagnosed that for 24 years, the contraceptive pill has been ruining my health. Having escaped out of the other end of a near-miss illness I have been improving in ever-lasting cycles, not sure entirely how long it will last.  Turns out, until Christmas.

The cold has charmed its way into my chest and left it rumbling like a cauldron overflowing with the green stuff. Amazingly it is the first time I have been ill all winter which makes me happy, although I could have done with it holding off until after Ripley cyclocross and the nationals, quite nicely if you pretty please. But it's not worth me sweating it, I am ill and that is that. Please don't tell me I will be well rested because I just came out of a rest period. I am just going to be weedy and aerobically screwed when I come out of this. I think the national championship race is going to be about me finishing which, for the first time ever, will be an improvement on last year when my calf muscle locked into a tiny ball like a baby hedgehog and refused to come out, leaving me with a 1st time ever DNF.

So, looking forward short term is no fun. Looking forward longer term is indecisive still. It is difficult to get excited about committing to a long term goal while feeling like death on toast, when short, involuntary whimpers emit from my throat when I move. But a long distance bike rally in Southern Europe is somewhat driving my ambitions once I can get off the sofa.

I have read and explored more deeply into my yoga practice this year and am hungry to develop. Clarity, focus and meanings sneak into everyday corners of my life where before there was an empty void.

This is why I won't be looking forward in 2016. Last year I trained without planning it and I can't see next year being that much different.  I set out with two goals in mind - to have fun and to keep doing it.  I ended up within a whisker of an age grouper's place on team GB and incredibly proud of myself for doing so.  The cyclo-cross season has gone equally well with fifth and sixth place finishes in national events and I still feel there's so much more I have to offer... if I can just shake the flu.

So here it is, my one bout of belly-button gazing for 2015...

Remember when it used to snow in England in winter?  Well, Glyn Hopkins came out for a play in the snow with me.

After dining out on English snow we went to Austria for some more.

I think I hibernated in March but we had some nice sky.

As the days got lighter in April, I was on site in Kent and Bird-watching became a side-effect of my running addiction.

All that running put me in good stead for the surprisingly sunny Whinlatter Extreme Duathlon in April where an 18 mile MTB warm up was suddenly a real thing.

In May, the weather took a turn for the worse and whilst away with Norton Wheelers we took a beating in the hills in the pouring rain before retreating to the sanctity (if you can call it that) of High Force, before indulging in a rest-day of shopping and driving... what a pair of old biddies?

In May we said an emotional (two fingers salute) goodbye to the Vanu and hello to the tipi...

...which we used to its full effect.

The roads in Wales were kind to me for the Triathlon season

In July we experienced similar fair weather for excursions on bike, foot and in wetsuit around the Scottish Highlands.

August saw a visit from royalty

and I had the opportunity to race the Tri relays with this motley crew before the big race in September - the Bala Triathlon - took me to some proper mountain scenery after an indulgent few days of luxurious recovery.

My last happy rides with Phoenix before she retired from competitive cyclo-cross

At the end of September, I was very proud to make it onto the podium for the 3 Peaks cyclo-cross for all the wrong reasons.  My dad, riding his 40th race should have been decorated with some kind of medal so far as most of us were concerned.  However, the race organisers chose to ignore such an accomplishment and instead were forced to award us the second father-daughter prize, narrowly beating an 85 year old and his 50 year old daughter.

In October, Dirty Beast made it into my life.  

And a new programme of evening cyclo-cross and mountain bike rides started to make things happen in the racing world.

including the advent of husband-racing in our family.  Rapha, providing a brilliant event for us both to enjoy.

Yet in amongst the cyclo-cross, we took some time out and did a bit of roofbox-tipi-stove (this has totally become a thing) camping in the Lake District.

November also took us to the South East twice in two weeks to catch up with this fella in the dirty...

...and slightly cleaner, with his new wife in early December.

December, is not recognisable as such.

As I've written above, December has seen me faltering, clinging on to the last edges of the will to train, compete and repeat.  Recovery is getting slower, enthusiasm waning.  A symptom of my disease or it's cause? Who knows?  My running has suffered, my swimming clings on to the feathery edges of possible.  It is like I am suffering March's downfall early.  Maybe by coming out of it early, I'll be stronger next year but since we're not looking forwards, we are only concerned with today, let's not fret that.

Today I swam.  I swam a hearty 20 lengths of a 50m pool in rounds of 300m which, considering I've been swimming 200m rounds, I am happy with.  I was not entirely annihilated by the youth of Guildford, in fact I held my own in the fast lane.  My breathing held up OK, given that I didn't need to use my nose and no-one seemed to mind the orca-style distress calls which occasionally uttered from my lungs so eloquently, so involuntary. 

So, I return to finish this post with a renewed air of invincibility and jam-packed with insane ideas for 2016.

A happy new year to everyone.  I plan to spend mine nursing my breathing system, resting my body still further and hoping, above all hopes, that some muscle has grown out of the turkey dinner consumed heartily on Friday night.

Here's to springing Januarys

Black Friday nights

Tonight's ride started too late, caught the worst of the weather and although I tried to make it shorter, I only succeeded in making it a little flatter, more exposed, into a head wind, more off-road, downhill in the worst place (the tail wind, ergo - colder) and 10% longer.

It was bloody brilliant.

I explored new lanes, found posh houses I didn't know existed.  Rode to Wentworth Castle, looked down on the hundreds of red and white lights on the M1. I avoided 90% of traffic on black Friday, despite only leaving work at 6 and as the rain lashed torrentially I was in the middle of a field on the Trans-Pennine trail, approaching Wortley, laughing at puddles.

By Oughtibridge my rain leggings started to leak which is just where I started to get blown along at 30 mph, the rain flying straight up into my eyes, soaking my gloves and chilling my already wet toes.  I toyed with the idea of riding over the hill to avoid Hillsborough on a Friday night but I was *that* tired and cold I decided to face the main road.  So I pedalled downhill as fast as I could for 8 miles before the lovely warming uphill to my house.

I thought I would be sad to retire Phoenix as a race bike but with adventures like these, I am proud that we're growing old disgracefully together.