I'm no Paragon - yet!

Paragon – ‘A model of excellence’ according to the dictionary. Sunday was the day I had set aside to try out my new cycling club; Dulwich Paragon and I was a little nervous. In all the years I have been cycling I have never really found a group to cycle with that was quite right. The Triathlon club I used to be with, Crystal Palace, went at about the right speed but I had small children at the time and these guys liked to set off late, mess about for a bit, get punctures and, being triathletes, at least one person would usually fall off.  So I wouldn’t get home until mid-afternoon, by which time my poor, long-suffering wife would be holding the boys tied up and at gunpoint in the kitchen.  Then I’d have to spend the afternoon wearing them out in the park, which just made them fitter and me even more tired. In Hong Kong, I hooked up with a small group that was perfect but then I came back to England.

I have cycled alone, cycled with the odd mate (they know who they are – and they are odd!) but I have never cycled with a cycling club. In fact, I have always shied away from it a bit and in turning up on Sunday to ride with my new club, I had to confront why this was.  As I set off over Crystal Palace hill, I started to ponder why, after 17 years of half-serious cycling; I was now taking the plunge. Why I hadn’t joined before was simple; I was scared. Scared of being humbled, scared of the sleek-looking fitness machines I had often seen out on the hills making a mockery of my middle-aged pretentions to be a cyclist.

I’d like to say that I needn’t have worried, that I slotted right into the group and made them gape in awe as I launched my muscular lycra-clad 91kg up yet another fierce climb, my teeth gritted in determination as I swept past them, gleaming thighs pumping and then punching the air two-fisted Cavendish-style at the finish. But that would not be true. Sadly, that’s not how it was.

I knew I was in for a tough time when, having hooked up with a small group who were going for ‘an easy 50 miles’, I was out of breath as we set off down the long hill from Crystal Palace to Elmers End. It’s a long downhill, with a couple of level sections and I had to push hard to keep up and this was where my weight ‘advantage’ counted for me. I stuck with the group for about 10 miles, but with my lungs attempting to climb out of my chest and on the verge of full aortic aneurysm on the first serious hill, I urged them to leave me behind and watched despairingly as they slipped effortlessly away.

I tried not to be despondent – chastened, but not downhearted. It was a lovely spring morning, the lanes nearly empty and the North Downs green and lush despite the impending hose-pipe ban. Obviously, my club riding strategy needed a re-think but I am not actually training to take part in a time trial, so I just set about getting the miles done at my own pace. Despair is maybe too strong a word; I knew I couldn’t keep up, so wasn’t really that put out at being dropped. But fate wasn’t finished with me yet; it still had a helping of hope to throw in my face and another slice of pain.

40 miles into the ride and heading for home, up my old favourite nemesis, Ide Hill. Higher than the Tourmalet and the same gruelling exposure as Ventoux. Tugging once more at the gear-lever and glancing down to check I really was in the lowest gear and out of nowhere, a blue and white arrow shot past me. A knife-like pair of buttocks wrestling in tight lycra shorts like a pair of Labrador puppies, steel hawser thighs, popeye calf muscles and the now familiar words ‘Dulwich Paragon’ spread across the arse. This was Serge, the Frenchman I had ridden with earlier, closely followed by the rest of the group – and we were together again. Well, they waited for me at the top of the hill and then they made me stay with them. And I did, for the most part; wedged between them to shelter from the wind on the flat and getting there as quickly as I could on the hills. (They waited at the top) We stayed together until, utterly spent, I peeled off to go over Crystal Palace hill and back home. I confess that once they were out of sight, I rode so slowly that an old lady, her shopping basket laden with groceries, easily went past me – and I swear she turned to me and smiled mockingly as she stuck the knife in!

So I am not ready to join the speedsters yet – my imperious dominance of CS7 (one of Boris’ cycle superhighways – and my cycle commute) just means that I am faster than the assortment of hybrids and mountain bikes that barge rudely through the traffic in the morning. I am no Paragon yet – but I have a plan…

Vicarious training and a bad case of hypochondria

A bit of a lost weekend training-wise – unless it counts to watch other people running around energetically whilst watching in comfort from the stands. Saturday was the Twickenham Sevens – the latest round in the world series that takes in Dubai, Hong Kong and others. Somewhat belatedly, the RFU seems to have woken up to the enormous potential to lure both men and women, girls and boys to a springtime fancy-dress frolic with instant gratification rugby in the background and with partying and drinking in the foreground. Still, all the fun meant that any training on Saturday was out and, with a combination of the prince of hangovers and a 200 mile round trip to collect Henry and then go to Tom to take the 16 year old birthday boy out for pizza, so too was Sunday.

I had a plan though. A run on Friday and a run on Monday – 10km to and from the office in London Bridge. Friday was great – left the house at 7.00, took a while to get going but by the time I reached the Elephant and Castle, I was chugging along like a well run-in diesel. Admittedly, a few joints and muscles spent the rest of the day seizing and throbbing respectively,but with a nice bottle of chilled white wine and a G&T at lunchtime to celebrate Nigel’s birthday, proper lubrication was restored.

Monday not so good though. Tried the route in reverse – from London Bridge to West Norwood, but never really got going. Tried some stretching and bending somewhere in a park near Camberwell but that didn’t help much so I just had to man up and dog it out. A little humiliating to be overtaken by a rather chubby lady running to catch the bus, but I was able to console myself that her cholesterol was probably off the scale and her blood pressure a ticking time-bomb just waiting to blow.

There – it’s out now. This is an interesting mental development in my unwilling but inexorable slide into middle-aged decrepitude - a new-found and quite heroic level of hypochondria. Maybe I should keep this to myself, but am I alone in ignoring my complete lack of medical knowledge ( I even failed Biology ‘O’ level in 1980 for goodness sake!) to devise a theory for every ache and pain, every small defect blown 100 times out of proportion? Today’s miracle of mental leaps of ignorance was a slight cough – it was just a tickly, slightly annoying frog in the throat – well, it started in my head as throat cancer then became a tape worm.

I know it sounds ridiculous – but as I ran past Kings Hospital in Denmark Hill, it seemed quite clear. The tapeworm explained both the throat and the feeling of bloatedness and fatigue. (Nothing to do with the 10 pints of lager on Saturday obviously!) And now my foot hurts a bit – it’s probably just a bit of muscle stiffness, but oh no! In my head the metatarsal has sheared in two, the jagged bone ends grating together. I could be osteoporosis or something even worse…You know, maybe I should just put away the box set of House DVDs and find something more positively inspiring. Maybe this is just the middle aged way of dealing with pain. When I was younger, doing these crazy endurance events was just about ignoring the pain because you knew you were invincible. Maybe now, the only way the body can cope is to throw something really dramatic at you mentally so the reality doesn’t feel too bad after all.

Off to the gym at lunchtime for a spin class – let’s see if I can get through that without triggering a pulmonary embolism or exacerbating my Lupus and setting off a bacterial shower - and let’s hope there is a defibrillator on hand just in case...

A bit more about the challenge

It occurred to me I ought to say a bit more about the event I am signed up for on the off chance someone stumbled across this blog and had sufficient time on their hands!

Periodically, I take part in quasi-sporting events involving covering long distances, usually on a bicycle and sometimes on foot. I use the term ‘quasi-sporting’ because they generally require little or no skill, just an elevated capacity to take a beating over a prolonged period. More often than not, the attraction of the challenge is sufficient to sustain me through the training and the event itself, but on this occasion, I am looking for some sponsorship.

I have joined forces with a team of like-minded individuals (they are all middle-aged and nuts too), though apparently much fitter than me and we are going to complete the UK version of the now famous ‘Trailwalker’ event. Invented by the Gurkhas and started in Hong Kong – the UK version of this involves travelling on foot from one end of the South Downs Way to the other (Petersfield to Brighton) in under 30 hours. Now, I have never gone this far on foot before, so
I have no idea how long it will take, but I am pretty sure I’ll make it. It’s roughly equivalent to two and a half marathons with Ben Nevis and Snowdon thrown in, so I am keeping the week after the event reasonably free.

I would be very grateful if you could support us by donating via the site at our Virgin Money Giving account. If nothing else, you know it will make me feel just that little bit more committed to taking another beating. On the plus side, someone will benefit from your generosity. Oxfam, who seem to be everywhere in the world where there is some sort of humanitarian crisis, are the co-organisers with the Gurkhas. The Gurkhas, despite the rather cavalier way we seem to have treated them until Joanna Lumley got stuck in, have served alongside our armed services for 200 years – and I, for one, feel a lot safer knowing they are on our side. I will take some inspiration from their motto: 'Kaphar hunnu bhandamarnu ramro' or, in English - 'It is better to die than to live like a coward.'

I used to do a bit of hill walking and even the odd mountain climb in my increasingly distant youth but I re-discovered some of the joys of hiking whilst in Hong Kong, a place most people think of as a teeming metropolis crowded with millions of fortune seeking money men. Of course, they are right, but I also discovered some of the amazing and deserted scenery of the New Territories. The attached picture is one of many completely deserted beaches on the first stages of the Maclehose trail, which makes up most of the original Trailwalker event in Hong Kong. Somewhat dauntingly, I was only able to complete the first 2 stages before bowing to heat exhaustion and fatigue - so I am looking forward to doing 5 times the distance I did that day. At least it wont be 32 degrees with 98 percent humidity. Will it?

The First Post

Right - on 16th/ 17th July, I am supposed to be travelling on foot from Petersfield to Brighton, some 100km away across the South Downs within 30 hours. I have done some daft things in my time, including the odd Triathlon (the classic early mid-life crisis), some insane cycle rides (classic mid mid-life crisis) and I suppose it is a natural progression to walking (classic late mid-life crisis) Whenever I enter these events, I entertain fanciful thoughts about transforming my now slightly pudgy and used body into a gleaming, muscular machine. Then I go through a period of good intentions, then I take some action to force myself into starting training in earnest. Usually, this involves throwing a large sum of money at the latest pointless fitness gadget. Last time it was a function-rich Polar monitor - heart rate, speed, cadence, 15 training zones, GPS etc etc. One day I'll figure out how to use it as a watch too! This time, I have decided to harness the power of electronic media to set myself up for a very public humiliation if I don't knuckle down and get training.

The good news is that I am not in total disarray. Admittedly, I tore my hamstring back in October while showing my playboy brother how easy it was to drop a ski waterskiing for the first time. That then morphed into a prolapsed disc, which I tried not to let get in the way of the winter skiing. Since then, I have tried running and cycling and am now showing signs of near normality. That is, I can run for about 20 minutes. So, some work to do still.

I have joined a gym, signed up to join Dulwich Paragon cycling club and have bought some heart-breakingly expensive trainers. I have about 8 weeks to go so I expect some pain.

Weight 91kg
Bottles of wine this week: 2
Diet: Fish and chips, Curry
Miles run: 2
Miles cycled: 90