Lets go all the way (and other similar earworms)

I’ve spent some of lockdown, or reduced lockdown or whatever point we currently are by getting out on my (push) bike. I’ve been getting about 60 or 70 km a week in with the occassional longer session, still nowhere near to the amount I need to get in if I’m going to take on LeJog or a true “end to end” next year but its a start and its also helped me to get my dogs a decent run every day.

I don’t know if everyone else does it but find myself talking to my dogs all the time and whilst I’m out on the bike with a clear head I find that I get little bursts of songs in my head prompted by things I see or more often things I say to the dogs. Today my cycle ride was interspersed with “Highway to the danger zone” for no particular reason I can think of but it was rounded off by two others, the reasons for which I do know.

There are two bits of road that we cross, that have traffic islands in the middle, and I always find myself saying to the dogs either, “half way”, or if the road is clear then its “lets go all the way”, which always kicks off this track in my head. It was never a particular favourite of mine in the mid 80’s and I had to google it to find the artists name (Sly Fox by the way) but for some reason the chorus is buried in my mind and pops up every time I cross that road. That same google search also suggests though that the title is meant to be, according to the vocalist, a message of encouragement: “Whatever your goal, dream or vision, you should go all the way to get it.” so perhaps there is something there.

Mercifully on the return route, just after I’ve had this particular ear worm planted in my head I pass a roadside sign for a local club that also hosts the local “Silver dollar” club and so all of a sudden Sly Fox are usurped by the Allman Brothers with Midnight Rider. So now I’m torn because neither track is a favourite but I feel duty bound to pass my ear worm on. So I’ve tossed a coin (not a silver dollar sadly) and here you are, enjoy a trip to the 1980’s. “Lets go all the way is a bit more of a positive thought for the potential cycle than “Midnight rider” sorry.

Illegal?

In truth not all that much to say today. I found myself scratching around and for the first time I started off with a bit of music I want to share and went from there. So here it is. I stumbled on this track from a review of a collection of CD’s called “The Blue Bar”, its a three CD set of background music from (unsurprisingly) the blue bar. This is Track 1 from a “tech house duo” from London and the words are narrated by Benjamin Zephaniah. I hope you enjoy it as much as I have.

And so it goes on, today France has been added to the “shouldn’t travel, must quarantine list”. It’s a rapidly changing situation and although I didn’t really value the daily briefings, in a way I miss them because at least it was fairly easy to keep up to date with the do’s and don’ts. Now its all a bit of a melee and I wonder if (intentionally or otherwise) people have ended up doing something Illegal.

Living in a box

So the lockdown is now in its 7th week, (who knows how many really) the days are all blending into one another and another bank holiday is looming but in all honesty one day feels very much like the next (or the last). It does feel a little like living in a bubble (but its also a great excuse to drag out this old track, living in box). I think I’ve said before in this blog that I’m generally very motivated, both in my work life but also my personal life. But to be honest I’m having moments during this lockdown when I find that motivation waning a bit.

I’ve previously alluded to the fact that I find it helpful to have something to train for as motivation, well thats pretty much all gone for now, the Seahorse swim has (perhaps optimistically) been rescheduled to later in the year, but with the pool and the sea out of bounds and with restrictions in place about how much time we spend out of doors I’ve found substitutes in unlikely places.

I have always found exercise helps me to feel good so I’ve taken to killing two birds with one stone by spending some time cycling with the dogs in tow. (well to be truthful they are not always in tow, it depends which bit of the ride we are talking about), Bella starts off like a pocket rocket, then spends most of our ride striding along within inches of my pedals before she tires a little to run behind the bike. It doesn’t seem to matter how wide or narrow our cycle way is she is hurtles along inches from the spinning wheels.

Charlie on the other hand, with an older and wiser head on his shoulders seems to have got the hang of pacing himself so he runs at a pretty constant pace for the whole run/ride. He has a really proud stride with a big dally smile and his tail wags like crazy. I haven’t been taking him alongside the bike for very long as I thought he might be a bit old for it but he is in his element, and we keep his trips short and sweet.

So thats the exercise motivation sorted.

With the day job, like so many others my working life has been turned on it’s head. I would normally be planning lots of events that would involve a lot of people gathering together in some hotel rooms all of which is currently, and who knows for the foreseeable future a big no no. So mostly my time is taken up with undoing plans and either rearranging or rescheduling things I already had in place. There is a danger that that in itself can be a bit demoralising (and Ive had moments). Like so many others I am having to adapt to new ways of working that will very likely be a “new normal” that will look a lot different and that while it is challenging has to be a new opportunity. If you look back at history it is often a time of crisis that has driven technological change at a far greater pace (we went into the 2nd world was on horseback and came out flying planes) and its important that when the current crisis is over we have learned and improved.

I’m very aware that I’m in a happier position than many others in this time of furloughing and job losses/career uncertainty and while its sometimes difficult I am staying motivated.

On a completely different tack, I’ve also taken an opportunity to use some of my organisational and spreadsheet skills to help out with a newly formed local support group. My job is to log all the requests for help that come into us from people needing a bit of support, these might be elderly, vulnerable, those self isolating, possibly lonely or anyone who for some reason needs a bit of support in these unusual times, and then to pair them up with a volunteer who can support them. This is proving to be extremely rewarding but it has a flip side that you come across some people who are having a really hard time and I can’t help but feeling that this is just scratching the surface of what this current situation is doing to people and families not just here but globally and thats a bit of a distressing thought. I guess its at times like these that the starfish story comes into its own.

You may have heard this one, but I find that it doesn’t hurt to be reminded of it every once in a while.

Once upon a time, there was an old man who used to go to the ocean to do his writing. He had a habit of walking on the beach every morning before he began his work. Early one morning, he was walking along the shore after a big storm had passed and found the vast beach littered with starfish as far as the eye could see, stretching in both directions.

Off in the distance, the old man noticed a small boy approaching.  As the boy walked, he paused every so often and as he grew closer, the man could see that he was occasionally bending down to pick up an object and throw it into the sea.  The boy came closer still and the man called out, “Good morning!  May I ask what it is that you are doing?”

The young boy paused, looked up, and replied “Throwing starfish into the ocean. The tide has washed them up onto the beach and they can’t return to the sea by themselves,” the youth replied. “When the sun gets high, they will die, unless I throw them back into the water.”

The old man replied, “But there must be tens of thousands of starfish on this beach. I’m afraid you won’t really be able to make much of a difference.”

The boy bent down, picked up yet another starfish and threw it as far as he could into the ocean. Then he turned, smiled and said, “It made a difference to that one!”

adapted from The Star Thrower, by Loren Eiseley (1907 – 1977)

I caught a very short interview on the TV this morning with Ross Edgley, who has recently swum around the coastline of Britain. as someone who dabbles in open water swimming I was interested in this but he also had a really inspirational insight into dealing with lockdown. He was asked how he had coped with the isolation of this epic swim (which took him 157 days) and his answer was that he knew in his mind that it would be over at some point but the really crucial thing was not to focus on that but to focus on the here and now, in his case the next stroke.

There are so many things we can do to help our mental health in times like this, exercise, eating well, enjoying music, so heres my contribution for today.

 

Who saw that coming?

Certainly not me, there I was enthusing about the seahorse swim, cycle training and generally getting fitter again and then Bam! the world got turned upside down and here we are in Lockdown Britain. Pretty much everything cancelled, well thats not entirely true but certainly a lot of things that was motivating me both in my day job and my own time.

And from here on I’m very much in two minds about how this blog goes.

Firstly my loved ones and I are currently safe and healthy so we have a lot to be thankful for. Many others are less fortunate and it feels slightly wrong to be upbeat when the country and indeed the world is in such turmoil. On the other hand there is a lot to be thankful for and I generally have a positive outlook.

I cant find a definitive answer to who it was that  coined the phrase “Never let a good crisis go to waste” but it doesn’t really matter, its as true today as it ever was and I am really inspired by the way people have rallied around and together looked out for one another including neighbours and complete strangers. So some good has come out of this situation.

As I’m writing this the UK government are just announcing an extension of the current lockdown for “at least another 3 weeks”, so thats a whole lot more time to be spent on whatever it is that people do when they are stuck indoors. But for now lets not forget taht not everything is cancelled.

Its been a while

So I’ve been really quiet on the blog front and I’ve just realised I haven’t posted anything since last May, wow time flies. Last year was a bit of a busy one in many ways with lots of  memories made and experiences undergone, but I guess the one that really caused me to take my eye off the ball was a series of tests and investigations for that condition that afflicts a lot of men of a certain age (and I now fall into that category) Prostate Cancer. As part of my routine follow ups for my whipples procedure I get a full set of blood tests carried out every year. For the last few years one of them, my PSA, (Prostate Specific Antigen) has been sliding in an upward direction. Now it’s known to be a particularly unreliable test (but at the moment its the best we have), often setting hares running and causing concern and distress with its results. Still I’ve reached the age where it has to be taken seriously, I know a few people who have had prostate cancer and the key message is always get it checked early as the sooner its found the better the prognosis. I also have some family history so another marker for being overly cautious. So scores on the doors, at my age a PSA score of up to 3.0 is OK, but once it trips beyond that it’s time to think about how its investigated/managed. The management can be as simple as get it checked regularly see how it’s going, and apparently there are various things that can cause it to go above 3. Mine has hovered at around there for the last few years but this year the test was re done a few times and each time it just went higher eventually getting to high 5 (no not the handshake) a number just below 6. Because the test is so unreliable and the alternatives so invasive I was next offered a scan, which showed that my prostate is a bit enlarged. That was followed with a conversation with a  consultant who pretty much said that I could choose what we did next, the scores were borderline so he wasn’t suggesting a biopsy, but it was on offer if I thought I wanted it. Bit of a no brainer for me keep a watching eye (and a worry in my mind), or go through with a bit of discomfort for a more reliable answer, and then back to the “get it checked earlier” scenario. Decision made. Now I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t a bit uncomfortable, the two ladies who carried it out made great attempts to distract me with small talk and whilst it wasn’t majorly unpleasant it also wasn’t something I’m going to rush to try again. The results took a couple of weeks to come through but all good. Mind at ease. Im still having the blood tests done regularly but its coming down again so all looking good.

So back to normality. Ive managed to get  a place in the 2020 Seahorse swim which gives me a training target to work towards and I’m also hankering to think about doing Lejog (Lands End to John O’Groats) or alternatively Jogle (The Downhill version), perhaps next year although my initial investigations suggest that for the sake of an extra 50 miles (and who is counting when you are looking at a total of around 1000 miles) you can do a true “end to end” by starting at Lizard point (about 15 miles south of Lands end) and finishing about 35 miles North of John O’Groats. Thats got to be the way to go surely. Time to get the bike back out and get some miles under the saddle.

Wont get fooled again

So just about recovered from the (self inflicted) battering that I subjected my body to on the river Dart, by invoking the reverse mantra PPPPP (Poor preparation leads to poor performance), I’m determined to not make that mistake again so I have resolved in the future not to undertake any challenge that I’m not properly prepared for.

One of my favourite bits of kit in my arsenal are my Kitbrix, nothing particularly rocket science about them they are fairly simple, fairly rugged kit bags, (strap line – Keep it together) designed so that you have all your kit in the right lace at the right time. The bit that intrigued me though was on the labels there is a quote,“If you find yourself in a fair fight, you didn’t plan your mission properly.”
― David Hackworth

Ignoring all of the above doesn’t end well and so today, I swung my leg over my trusty steed and got some miles in in preparation for the summer wiggle sportive. I can’t claim that it was all down to my new resolution, in truth a rather large chunk of it was down to getting a puncture in one of my winter tyres (with which the Merc is still shod, and yes I know its May already but I just haven’t got around to putting Summer wheels back on), then finding that in terms of seasonal products buying winter tyres in May is right up there along with, well I’m not sure but you get the drift. So in a hurry it was time to swap the wheels over, which means getting the garage to do them, although they need the car all day and I need to be at my desk, so what better than to cycle home from the garage? 13km in 53 minutes, and boy was it hard. In fact after only a few minutes I began to regret it. Still its a start.

Now, how about thinking the worst and wondering if my London Marathon ballot application comes off, apparently they notify you in October if you have a place in the following April, which is only 6 or 7 (winter) months to prep, perhaps I should dust off my jogging kit, just in case.

As is tradition, I like to find a musical link to close the blog, and hows this from the great “The Who”. Enjoy its a whole 8 minutes long.

 

 

 

Getting Wetter

So the big day came and went, yesterday saw us heading off to take on the Head of the Dart SUP Challenge. Our planning had gone as well as our training with a last minute trip to the pub to sort out logistics hurriedly convened last week. Seems that didn’t really address all of the issues, perhaps it was the twin distractions of plates full of athlete food on offer or the fact that we chose pub quiz night, either way we had a quick chat about timings and who would drive (a change of plan necessitated the evening before by Matt choosing to use the rear of the car in front of him as makeshift brakes instead of that convenient foot pedal arrangement, and leaving him people carrier less for the foreseeable). It seems that we didn’t cover everything though and so Saturday saw us revisiting the catering arrangements (aka who is buying the Pork pies?).

Late on Saturday the organisers made a call due to the weather and the route was changed. Not a problem, instead of paddling from Totnes to wherever the river finished and the sea started, we would now avoid the worst of the wind and choppy waters by simply turning round at the (almost) halfway point and going back to the start point. That e mail should have set the alarm bells ringing with its references to “competent” “intermediate” and “expert” Paddle boarders, no mention of “Newbies”, “barely proficient”, “which way up is the paddle supposed to be novices”. But in for a penny and all that.

Sunday arrived. Needing an early start to drive to Devon and register meant a 6am alarm call. Our first planning faux pas manifested itself barely an hour later when it became clear that we all had different ideas about the meeting point, which meant that I carried my slimmed down kit a few hundred yards to wait for a lift that ended up ringing my doorbell and wondering if I had overslept, that cost us 10 minutes so by the time we were all loaded up and on our way we were already running late. Sunday morning traffic was pretty light in fact the most people we saw were queuing for a McDonalds breakfast, where we had a quick pit stop to refuel and then we were on our way.

Our arrival was pretty well timed. The car park was closed to the public and a helpful volunteer asked if we were here for “the Race” despite our lacklustre response to that we did get one of the last parking spots and we unloaded and pumped up our boards in a rather cold car park on the banks of the Dart. It was all going so well, registration done we settled down to sort ourselves out, full of trepidation, the phrase “bitten off more than we can chew” was  liberally applied as we checked out the racers and looked at the chilly river with its visible current flowing in the opposite direction to our planned travel. And then the next bit of misfortune, Matt’s board despite his puncture repair skills was loosing air. By this point it was no secret that he would have happily bailed out on the whole foolish escapade, but after two laps of the car park and the clubhouse we came up with enough Gaffer tape to build him a new board (or at least thats what it looked like, I think in reality his board is somewhere under all the tape). More athlete food followed (looking a lot like mini pasties), and then it was pre race brief. A packed boathouse provided some warmth while we were given our briefing and introduced to a world champion paddler. We were told what time penalties would be applied for various misdemeanours, discourtesies, impoliteness etc and then it was ready for the off. We couldn’t help but notice that among the participants there was a definite air of people not expecting to fall off their boards, most noticeable in those wearing wooly bobble hats. The like of which would get cold and wet in our hands (or on our heads) but which they didn’t seem to think would happen to them.

Then we were lining up to start, for a reason I didn’t understand my co conspirators both headed to the back of the pack adding a few yards to the journey. May not sound like much but trust me every inch counts. And then the countdown, the klaxon and we were off. Now my race plan (such as it was), was that we should stick together, it was a leisure cruise anyway, but that plan went out of the water within seconds when I realised that the only way to not be going backwards was to paddle like fury forwards, sorry Matt, sorry Dan its now every man for himself. The outbound paddle was hard, it was against the flow of the current and against the wind, apart from the stretches were the wind blew across us. One or two other leisure craft, (proper leisure craft, you know the type with engines) passed us adding to the chop. I was really looking forward to the halfway mark, for two reasons, one it was halfway, two I was expecting the return leg with wind and current in our favour to be a breeze so when I saw a paddler heading in the opposite direction my spirits lifted (she must have been way out in front and have turned round), nope, no bib just a random paddler heading the sensible way along the river.

The conditions seemed to change in a heartbeat, one minute it was hard but making progress, the next it was just hard, one minute you were gaining on other paddlers the next you weren’t, and then I took a tumble, well it was more of a back flip. I ended up prone on my board and the only way out was to roll off into the water. It was surprisingly warm and actually pretty shallow. The camaraderie was great and I had hardly hit the water before other paddlers were checking I was ok.

Just before halfway was the first time that proper race paddlers passed me, we had a head start on them but they were flying, then I rounded the buoy and it was homeward bound, time to ease off sit back relax and let the river take that strain. Wrong! Im sure the second half must have been a bit easier but Buoy it didn’t feel like it, so it was back to it for round 2. The return leg felt slower, I was by now regularly being passed by the race flotilla, but all I wanted to do was to get back. I’d lost track of how many bends there were in the river so the first glimpse of the finish line was a welcome sight and then it was over, my legs didn’t work as I scrambled up the slipway. Wed been told not to clog up the exit so I used the last of my energy to haul the board out of the water and then a welcome chance to sit down. And then there were three. All of us back safe and dry(ish) replenishing our energy levels with more athlete food, sandwiches, crisps and pasties, deflating our boards and ready to head back.

The good humoured banter continued all the way home, mostly threats about the likelihood of anyone doing anything that I suggested ever again, interspersed with a few thoughts about the new forest sportive that is coming up in the summer and some preposterous notions that we might do some pre race training for that one. Im sure they are over it though. I even had a message from Matt suggesting we book in for another paddle challenge. Lets see.

Thanks for reading. Couldn’t really finish this without dome music from Wet Wet Wet, especially this track from Holding back the River, which to be fair we didn’t do but we had a proper crack at it.

 

 

Woefully Ill Prepared

And no this isn’t a post about Brexit, I’ve been compelled all week to have Parliament TV on in the background and I’m all Brexited out. So today is Mothers day, Happy Mothers day to my mum and all of the mums out there. However it dawns on me that that also means its :

A) The end of March

B) A quarter of the year has flown by

C) Only two weeks left until we take on this years major challenge

D) In relation to that last one I, and probably my co conspirators are woefully ill prepared.

Usually the annual challenge is a flurry of preparation and training. This year the first three months have passed without even getting the boards wet. In fact someone, lets call him Matt (cos thats still his name) has yet to fix a puncture in his board. We havent planned the logistics, its all still to do with only two weeks to go. Lets hope that the Rolling Stones were on to something with this track.

 

Back in the Saddle or Back on the Paddle?

Its been a while since I was on here. Why? Well the main reason is that after last years wing walk I’ve been struggling a little bit to come up with a 2019 challenge that will both test me and be different. I’d wanted to wing walk for a few years, it wasn’t something I needed to (or even could) do any prep for unlike the challenges of previous years but it was exhilarating and I’ve not really been able to trump it so far. However I do still want to do something each year to raise awareness (and a little bit of cash) for Planets and so I’ve been figuratively testing the water among my group of friends to see what we can come up with. One of the stumbling blocks (almost certainly) has been that we havent actually convened a formal planning meeting, by which I mean a trip to the pub. Instead I’ve been canvassing them for ideas and we haven’t really reached a consensus. Rather we have come up with a whole bunch of ideas that appeal to some and not to others. The upshot of all of this is that it looks like 2019 might instead involve a number of different smaller scale challenges. For me 2019 also is a year with a few personal landmarks so it seems to make sense to spread things out over the year.

So here goes so far. I’m starting January with something I haven’t tried before (and something I have). Red January, is a Mind promoted event, strictly speaking its “Run Every Day” (during January) but more liberally interpreted as “Get active every day” with the notion that January is a bit of a blue month, and some physical activity is good for our mental health turning Blue into Red. 20 days in and I’ve (with a combination of swimming and walking the dogs), been active every day so far, 11 days left and this feels like it’s in the bag. I’ve married that up with (the something I have tried before) Dry January, same story, 20 days in feeling pretty confident that this one is in the bag.

Next up, assuming I can get a place(s), a few of my friends have taken up SUP boarding and we’ve found an organised SUP event which is an 8 mile river paddle. I’ve no idea if that’s a big challenge or not, for me it probably is as I’ve only been on a board about 3 times and probably only covered a distance of around 3 or 4 miles in total. More to come once I’ve secured places and started training. Hopefully this will be an April event.

And then onto the saddle bit, so you will recall I (and as a group a small “we”) have done a bit of cycling in previous years. This year partly to fit around the SUP challenge, we have found something that we feel able to take on on two wheels. This one we have entered for, to be honest its gone a bit pear-shaped already in so much as we (three of us cycling) agreed on an event to enter and I misread the distance involved with the consequence that I’ve already had to fess up that instead of signing us up for a 30 mile cycle, (the distance we kind of loosely agreed), I’ve signed us all up for 45 miles, that was an interesting conversation when I tried to collect entry fees. Hey ho accidents will happen, we’ll just have to up the training regime (its only an extra 15 miles when all’s said and done), and I know that’s an extra 50% but I’ve got broad shoulders and anyway one of my cycle buddies pranked me well and truly a few weeks back so he deserves it.

So that’s it for now although there is talk of a three peaks challenge which we might also squeeze in this year. and that only gets us as far as June/July. lets see how the year pans out.

So the musical bit in recognition of the small error re booking the wrong cycle distance heres a bit of Elvis (Costello not Presley) “Accidents will happen”.

It’s been a while

Time to get back in the saddle, or more likely time to get back up and paddle. I’ve just realised that its been a while since the 2018 challenge was taken on and then all of a sudden life seems to have been really hectic. Summer 2018 was great, but work seems to have eclipsed pretty much everything and whilst there have been a few murmurs nothing very concrete planned in the way of a “whats next”? It seems that I have a few co conspirators who might be tempted to join in if next years challenge involves SUP boarding. This is a bit of a new field to me, I’ve been out on my own board once and prior to that I’ve tried it out twice for about half an hour a time, however as someone once said, “its supposed to be difficult”, so perhaps thats the direction we should be taking. And therein lies the initial challenge. What direction exactly should we take? I have no idea what constitutes a “proper” challenge on a SUP board, how far should we reasonably contemplate? Open water or River? Lots of thoughts? Feels like its time for some proper planning and we all know that can only happen in the pub, well theres a start point then.