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Three weeks to go…TT or road bike?

I had to travel with work on Monday to Geneva. I couldn’t get a direct flight from Birmingham so I took a connection flight from Paris. We boarded the plane from Birmingham on time, but for some reason we sat on the tarmac for forty minutes before we took off. Wouldn’t be a problem normally but Paris airport is massive and the connection time was pretty tight. Cue frantic running from the arrival terminal to the departure gate, with a typically slow passport control in between. In a nutshell, I made the flight but my luggage didn’t.

After filling lots of forms in and being reliably informed that my suitcase would arrive on the next flight I made my way to the hotel. I had plans on going for a run in the evening, but that went out of the window. My luggage didn’t turn up until late the following day, by that time I’d had to buy some new clothes to stop from looking like a tramp. Being Switzerland, I had to sell my kidneys to afford it. The place is extortionate.

I did some strength and conditioning exercises on Tuesday and then went for a 10k run on Wednesday morning around the lake (not all the way around, that would be ridiculous). It was a pretty nice change of scenery. On my way round I spotted a small beach area with a cordoned off swimming area. Not one to miss an opportunity I turned around, headed back to the hotel and grabbed my goggles. It was so nice to jump in a lake without a wetsuit (it was a mini heatwave pretty much everywhere, but Switzerland seemed particularly hot), and not have to contend with weeds or rusty bikes. I managed to get thirty minutes in before heading back. Quality.

I got home on Wednesday evening so Thursday morning was a ninety minute interval ride followed by a short brick run. Friday was my longest run yet, twenty miles. Bit of a mental barrier broken on that one. My legs felt good, and no issues with nutrition so I was chuffed it went well.

Saturday was a rest day (apart from getting drained from watching the Lions lose the first test to the All Blacks. Balls). Sunday was a four hour ride followed by a forty five minute brick run. I took my TT bike out this time to see if I should use it for the race itself. I’m still undecided. It’s faster, but it got uncomfortable quicker than my normal road bike. It’s also got tubs, and I’m getting a bit worried about picking up a puncture. That would be pretty fatal. TT or not TT, that’s the question…

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The Ironman Journey – National Relays & Castles

After that first year I picked up a niggling tendonitis injury at the back of my right knee in 2013 that meant I couldn’t run or cycle without discomfort. Even swimming was proving difficult, experiencing pain when I pushed off the wall or kicked too hard. The only thing I could do was to rest up and get regular physiotherapy to try and sort it out. The year was a write off.

I picked things up again in 2014 after a very gradual reintroduction to running and cycling. Deciding I needed a goal I entered the Castle Howard Triathlon in Yorkshire. This is part of the Castle Series and seemed appealing for two main reasons. Firstly, it looked like a well organised event in a very picturesque location. Secondly, it was close to a nice hotel. A prerequisite for spectating from Victoria, my other half. Fair enough.

I’d also decided I needed to up my game with my bike. I’d been looking at Triathlon bikes for a while and had been checking out the recommendations in the Triathlon magazines. I’d decided to go for a Planet X Stealth. It came highly recommended as a very good racing bike at an affordable price. Given that I still didn’t want to be that guy who turned up with ‘all the gear, but no idea’ it felt like a good option. I went ahead and ordered it along with some deep rim wheels. I still wasn’t anything like a decent cyclist, but at least I could get in to the mindset of a racer. Whether it actually was or not, it felt faster.

I did my usual approach to training, which was completely disorganised. No set routine, with no plan. To be honest, I was just happy to be competing again. It really didn’t matter to me what time I did or where I placed, I just wanted the feel of being in a race. The day itself was great. The event was really well organised. I loved the swim in the lake, although the exit to transition was quite a long stretch uphill. The bike course was a single loop involving quite a few hills, and the run was two laps around the castle grounds. It was a tough event as the hills were quite steep but it was so good to be back involved in the sport. I clocked 2 hours 46 minutes, which was ok.

I enjoyed it so much I went back the next year, although that one was a completely different experience. I’d entered on the spur of the moment as Victoria was away on a hen weekend. With time on my hands I looked around for an event and realised Castle Howard fell on the same weekend. I also decided to have a lads night out in Lichfield on the Friday before the race. Forgetting I wasn’t equipped with superhuman recovery powers I turned up on the Sunday to compete having spent the day before recovering from a hangover. Big mistake. I’d clearly forgotten how tough the course was. It was a sunny day and I was no doubt under hydrated. I felt reasonably ok until I got on to the run. My legs locked up within the first mile. I spent the rest of the 10k trying to shake cramp out of my legs through a mixture of walking, hobbling and stretching. I finished in 3 hours and 16 minutes. What a numpty. However, the highlight was definitely seeing 8 year old, Bailey Matthews, who has cerebal palsy, run unaided through the finish line to complete the event. What an inspirational kid.

I also competed in the National Relay championships at Holme Pierrepont in Nottingham. It’s a good event, with a sprint distance as the format – 400m swim, 20k bike and 5k run. You compete in teams of four with everyone doing a discipline each and passing a wrist band on to the next competitor. The Lichfield Tri lads entered two teams and I was with Palmer, Aaron and Wedge (all pretty handy on a bike). It all went well until the run. I was taking over from Palmer who was finishing the final bike leg. Unfortunately I mistimed my trip to the toilet so was late with the handover. Palmer was shouting for me at the transition point and wasn’t impressed. I eventually got there, muttered my apologies, took the wrist band and promptly ran the wrong way. I eventually got myself sorted out in the right direction to finish my 5k lap. Not my finest moment.

2015 was a good year for racing. As well as Castle Howard I’d completed Belvoir Castle Triathlon (I was getting all Medieval). This was another lake swim in the grounds of a castle. I got in the water (after my customary multiple portaloo visits), put my goggles on and my straps snapped. This wasn’t a good start. I managed to tie them together just before the hooter sounded.

The rest of the race went really well. I liked the course a lot, there were a few hills thrown in on the bike so it was a good tester. Coming in to transition I nearly managed to go straight over the handlebars when I didn’t get my feet out of the cleats properly. The marshals liked that. It clearly wasn’t my day. The run went well though and I completed in 2 hours and forty minutes. Not exactly smashing it, but it was a good run out.

The big one though was the move up to middle distance. It was time to start going long.

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The Ironman Journey – London Triathlon

The next event I entered was Birmingham Triathlon, held at Sutton Coldfield park, opting for the Olympic distance this time. Knowing a little bit more about what was involved I scoured the triathlon magazines for handy hints on the right kind of equipment. I read some of the recommendations and invested in some new bike shoes with Velcro straps and some elastic laces for my trainers. My primary goal was to avoid the messy transition I’d had last time but also to try and stave off cramp.

I started to read around nutrition as well. I can’t say I intensively researched it but I got some basic ideas around what to eat and drink during training and races themselves. I was clearly losing a lot of essential energy through sweat, so I started to play around with different types of food. I knew bananas always gave me an energy boost, but I needed more sustainable energy reserves. Through trial and error I found that upping my sodium content in drinks was a winner as well as refuelling regularly on cereal based energy bars seemed to work. Controlling my food and fluid intake was clearly important for me in keeping cramp at bay.

I saw Birmingham triathlon as a trial run for London. I knew the area well as my cousins lived just on the outskirts of the park, so I felt that would work in my favour. The swim was two laps of one of the park’s pools, the bike was eight laps within the park, and it finished with a two lap run. Things went a little smoother this time in spite of a threat prior to the event of blue algae in the swimming lake (no idea what that meant, but I assumed it was bad). I didn’t have the same cramp issues but my legs felt very heavy off the bike. Similar to the BRAT triathlon I found it difficult to get in to my usual running rhythm so was quite a way off my normal 10k time, but managed to clock 2 hours and thirty seven minutes to place 27th overall. However, it was another experience to build off and gave me the confidence I needed going in to London.

I concentrated a lot on cycling prior to London, trying to improve my bike handling skills and improve on my time from Birmingham. All of this was still done solo. I did a few group rides but trying to fit in long outings with the club was proving difficult with two young children. I was ok with that though, I knew I was never going to trouble the top triathletes. I just wanted to improve and feel as though I was actually competing as well as I could.

The weather on the day of the race was terrible. I drove down with a friend from the rowing club and the rain got steadily worse as we got closer to the O2 in Greenwich Park. By the time we parked up the rain was coming down in sheets.

The event itself is pretty impressive. It attracts over 4000 competitors every year so there is a lot of commercial interest. The event exhibition was situated right next to the transition area and it was full of companies displaying a whole variety of sporting merchandise. We had a good look round after I’d set all my gear up but I resisted the temptation to spend a fortune on a new bike.

I attended the race briefing before starting to get ready for the swim. It was a wave start due to the amount of competitors. My wave was announced and I assembled with the others in the hall listening to the pre-race motivator go through his warm up routine. He was pretty funny to be fair, he clearly had a well-practiced set of jokes to lighten the tension and it was a good distraction before we got ushered out in to the dockland swim start. It was still pouring with rain as we shuffled along the pontoon to the water’s edge, but to be honest, how much wetter can you get?

The swim section was a straight up and down loop clearly marked by huge buoys, so it wasn’t a difficult one to get your head around. Once in the water I made my way to the outside of the pack. Although I’m a strong swimmer I didn’t really want to be stuck in the washing machine of the main group. Taking the slightly longer way round was preferable to trying to get around flailing arms and legs. I wanted to avoid being knocked about as much as possible.

Once the klaxon went I made my way to clear water as quickly as I could. I got the usual bop on the head but nothing too off-putting. After a few minutes I got in to a rhythm and started to enjoy it. Every now and then I would swallow some of the water, it was a really grim taste. I daren’t think what was in there, probably best not to think about it but I’m sure it’s not good.

I was only a couple of buoys out from the exit when I started to cramp in my left calf. How come this never happens in training? It was knotting up a lot so I limited my leg movement as much as I could. It was hard to shake, but by the time I got to the exit ramp it had subsided enough to hobble in to transition and pick up my bike.

The bike leg was two laps on the roads outside the venue. The rain had not eased off at all, in fact it had got even worse with the wind picking up too. The only respite from the conditions was in a tunnel half way along each lap. For half a mile I was able to warm up a bit and enjoy cycling before heading out in to the awful weather at the other end of the tunnel. Everyone else competing was in the same boat though. It just wasn’t what you’d expect in the middle of July. I had a couple of cathartic swearing exchanges with some other competitors, it somehow helps to have a shared whinge and know that you’re not the only one having a tough time.

By the time I got off the bike I was more than happy to put my trainers on and get out on to the 10k run. This involved 4 laps that ended and finished in the exhibition hall. Most of the time was spent dodging puddles to try and prevent my feet getting any more drenched than they were already. It was a relief to come in to the hall for the final time and cross the finishing line.

My time was 2 hours and 33 minutes, including a 48 minute 10k. I was quite pleased with that in the conditions, and it was an improvement on Birmingham. After completing the event I finally felt that I could maybe call myself a triathlete. It may not have been elite standard, but I liked the multi-discipline nature of the sport. It made training more varied and the events themselves were enjoyable, in that masochistic way that I like.

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The Ironman Journey – Braving OW and my first Tri

After a few months I entered my first warm up event ahead of London. I picked BRAT sprint Triathlon. I was reliably informed by my new club mates that this was a well organised event and the sprint distance would be a good introduction to racing. However, it was a lake swim and up until that point I hadn’t done any open water swimming in the UK. Even though I considered myself a strong swimmer, the open water element was worrying me. I have never been very good with the cold. I’d swum in the sea often enough on holiday, but that was different. Swimming in the sunshine on the Mediterranean was nowhere near as daunting as jumping in some quarry or lake in freezing temperatures with no visibility.

I also had no idea where you could do open water swimming. I was amazed to learn that there were several venues within a few miles of my village. I was reliably informed that the best one was Blithfield Reservoir near Abbots Bromley. Apparently the water was very clean but, due to the depth, it was very cold. I think I put it off a number of weeks before finally plucking up the courage to go along during one of their organised sessions.

I’d already received my wetsuit as a hire arrangement when I entered the London Triathlon event. You had the option to hire one for the season for a fixed fee, and at the end of that time you could buy it outright. This worked for me, as I had no idea whether it was something I saw myself doing long term or not. I didn’t know whether it was suitable or not, but at least I had something to wear when I turned up for that first session in April 2012.

Being early in the season, the water was a balmy 12 degrees. I was told when I first turned up that because it was my first time, I shouldn’t go in than longer than 10 minutes. As soon as I got in I realised why. Putting your feet in was one thing but when the water goes down the back of the wetsuit it’s a different thing altogether. It takes your breath away. The next step was to put your face in to get accustomed to the feeling against your skin. I did this a few times and then tentatively started to swim. Ice cream head came on within a few seconds. My breathing became more rapid as my cheeks, lips and nose started to go numb. It’s a strange sensation of mild panic as you feel your body struggling against the drop in temperature. It slowly became more bearable as I calmed down and started swimming properly.

One of the strangest feelings is knowing that your feet can’t touch the bottom. All of these irrational thoughts about being attacked by underwater creatures start popping in to your head as you start thinking about the depth of water below. It’s probably from watching Jaws far too many times as a kid. I still have the same thoughts now to be honest. The Family Ness cartoon has a lot to answer for.

I swam out to the second buoy, probably no more than 200 metres from the swim entry point before turning back. I’m not sure it was a massively enjoyable experience but I’d made my first tentative steps in to the world of open water swimming. Each subsequent session became easier as I became more acclimatised to the cold and I started to enjoy it. I liked the feeling of freedom compared to a pool swim. Swimming up and down a lane is great for technique and fitness but can be pretty monotonous. Being outdoors brought a new angle to it. I was starting to see the attraction and looked forward to the weekly ice cream head moments.

By the time the BRAT sprint triathlon came along I felt comfortable swimming outdoors. The distances involved for the sprint were 750m swim, 20k bike and a 5k run. These didn’t seem too bad, so I felt I was within my comfort zone. I had no real idea about transitions though, I just took what I thought might be needed on the day for each section.

The swim went well. I came out of the lake fairly near the front before heading to transition and on to the bike. As has now become customary through all of my triathlon races, I got overtaken by quite a few cyclists throughout the bike section. This is the disadvantage of being a fairly competent swimmer, but a novice cyclist. I got introduced to the sound of disc wheels as those competitors with all of the racing gear came hurtling past. You can hear the sound of the thrum of the wheels behind you before getting overtaken. I didn’t overtake anyone. It’s quite disheartening to slowly lose positions, but I was hopeful I could reel some of them back in on the run.

I finished the bike leg and put my trusty steed on the rack. This is where my lack of transition knowledge hit home. My bike shoes were fastened with metal clips which were stiff and awkward. I fumbled around trying to get those off and then faffed about putting socks on for the run (oh, the shame) before attempting to put on my trainers. The back of my legs started to cramp as I was doubled over trying to tie my shoe laces, so I sat down on the ground instead. When I eventually sorted my laces out I got myself to my feet and hobbled out of transition on to the run section.

Having not done any running off the bike in preparation, my legs didn’t know what was going on. I shuffled along for the first kilometre trying to get my legs going. The course was two laps by the lake, with a sharp incline up a small hill halfway round that rattled my legs even more. My shuffle turned in to some kind of run as my legs came back to life on the hill descent.

I got through it but it always felt that my legs were on the verge of cramp, which was no doubt down to my lack of preparation and non-existent nutrition strategy. I’ve always been susceptible to cramp so it shouldn’t have been any great surprise to get it in this scenario, but some kind of thought around fuelling would have come in handy. It was a great feeling when I crossed the line. Clearly I had a lot to learn about the sport, but it was nice to get the first one under my belt. I came 40th, finishing in 1 hours and 18 minutes, with a 20 minute 5k, so I was pleased with that.

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Another training week done. One month to go…

Another week done. The mileage continued to creep up. Tuesday was a seven mile run. I was staying overnight in Bracknell for a work event. The hotel I was staying in was very close to Bracknell Forest so I decided to head out there early in the morning. It’s always nice to go somewhere different as you think less about the running when you don’t know exactly where you are.

I followed a trail that ran past Go Ape and did a right hand loop through the woods. It was really nice and calm. I only saw a couple of other people. On the trail back to the hotel the way was blocked by a crane moving logs. I couldn’t really see any sensible route around it so I decided to run by the side of it. Bad idea. I thought the crane was moving the logs to the rig so I opted for the the left hand side. Just as I was going past the logs appeared over my head. The bloke operating the crane clearly hadn’t seen me and obviously wasn’t impressed by my decision. He beeped at me and presumably swore as I ran off. I hadn’t planned on getting decapitated that morning anyway.

Wednesday was an hour interval ride before work with 4 five minute harder bursts, followed by a 10 minute run off the bike. It felt good. Thursday was a swimming session at the University pool dodging other swimmers. It does my head in when people don’t follow pool etiquette. One of my fellow lane swimmers decided to push off in front of me as I was coming in to turn. Not a problem if they are faster, bit of an issue if they’re not. He wasn’t. Cue lots of underwater swearing.

Friday was supposed to be an 18 mile run, but I couldn’t fit in the time as I had an early work start. So I did a half marathon instead. I took the running belt with me this time, probably looked a bit suspect but was much better for carrying my truckload of drinks and food. I was pleased with the run. My legs felt good and I didn’t flag, so the nutrition worked.

Saturday was a rest day in the sun with my family, which was great. British heat waves are a rare commodity so of course we got the paddling pool out and had a water fight. Quality.

Sunday was my long bike ride. Due to it being Fathers Day I got up mega early, 4am (yep, I know. Ridiculous). I had to get a six hour ride in and didn’t want to knacker up my day with my daughters, so 4am it was. I’m glad I did. This time I didn’t have a hangover or a dodgy stomach from a curry like the previous two weekends. The ride went really well. I was stacked up with food (obviously), and I managed to maintain the pace. I clocked up my first 100 miles since the Rutland Sportive. I needed that mental boost to get that under my belt. Strava clocked me at 99 miles but Garmin definitely said 100. Honest.

The rest of the day was spent stuffing my face and enjoying the sun with my daughters. Result. Bring on next week.

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The Ironman Journey – Triathlon for beginners

I had always been intrigued by triathlon. I had known a few people that had done it and had been pretty successful at it. A lad I used to train and race with at the Lichfield Swimming Club had moved on to triathlons and had gone on to compete at a pretty high level. My reservation had always been the bike element. I was a pretty good swimmer and runner, and as I’ve already indicated, had done quite well at biathlons. I’d just never done any competitive cycling so felt this was going to prevent me from doing well.

After I stopped rowing I was once again looking for my next challenge. I needed something to train for, a goal. I decided on a spur of the moment one afternoon in late 2011 to take the plunge and enter the London Triathlon. I’d had a look at it online and as the event was so well subscribed you had to enter well in advance to secure a spot. Not really knowing the distances I plumped for the Olympic version as it was the longest one they did and seemed like a decent challenge. This consists of a 1500m swim, 40km bike and 10k run. How bad could that be? It was nine months away so it gave me enough time to get my head around doing it.

Once I’d entered the event I thought I better look around for a local club and found out that Charnwood Triathlon club did a weekly swim session on Monday evenings at my local swimming baths at the Friary, Lichfield. I thought this was the best place to start as I could get myself back in to swimming competitively whilst getting to know the sporting ropes from other triathletes in the club.

It was good to do some proper swimming training again. My first session involved a 20 minute swim. The idea was to see how many lengths you could cover during that time, which could then be used as a benchmark for the future. I did ok, swimming just short of a mile. Not bad for someone who had been away from it for a few years.

However, I needed to update my kit. I’d turned up in beach shorts. I hadn’t owned a pair of trunks, or ‘budgie smugglers’ as they are affectionately known, for years. All I knew was that tight speedo swimming trunks were not the done thing anymore. The designs had thankfully moved on to more shorts-style swimming trunks, so I went off and found a pair at my local sports shop. I also didn’t have any goggles. When I was swimming as a teenager I’d always had a specific set of Godfrey’s (you swimmers out there will know what I mean) that I bought from the swimming club gear sale. These had replaceable foam eye pads and a double strap, proper comfy as I recall. Thinking this was the place to start, I googled them only to find out that the manufacturer no longer made them. I was gutted. Like most people, I get attached to certain types of kit and goggles were all about comfort. They were also quite cool back in the day. That sounds really old doesn’t it? I am becoming my dad.

Wearing more appropriate gear for the next session, I got moved up in to the top lane. There were some seriously fast swimmers in there. I got to know them and others in the session after a few weeks and started to learn more about triathlon itself. It turned out the club was fairly informal, with weekly structured swimming sessions and a track evening at Burton-Upon-Trent. The rest was quite loose, with focus on the social side of things.
I soon got to know a group of lads that were more interested in competing and I learnt that a few were very strong triathletes. Some were Great Britain age group standard. Liking the sound of their approach I slowly got invited in to their discussions and online forums. It was nice to meet like-minded people, and on top of that they were all really nice and friendly. It shouldn’t be a surprise I guess, as most clubs I’ve been involved in are very welcoming but it’s nice to click with people on a similar level.

It’s an interesting thing in triathlon that you begin to get introduced to a new technical language. This is mainly around the bike element. Most really good triathletes I know are very strong cyclists as well as good runners. There is a saying that you can’t win a triathlon on the swim, but you can lose it. This really applies at the top end of the sport when seconds count. For novice triathletes like myself, you can lose an awful lot of time to a decent cyclist.

I began to realise that as well as having good overall fitness, you needed to have the right gear. My Giant OCR road bike suddenly seemed like a very distant cousin from the lightweight carbon frames I was starting to learn about. Realising I was woefully ill equipped from a cycling point of view I stayed away from the group rides for a long time. To be honest I thought I would be left behind within the first few minutes and was quite embarrassed about my lack of cycling ability. I know this is a bit daft, but a man has his pride. Particularly one who doesn’t like being rubbish at anything.

Most of my bike rides were therefore solo outings. I was ok with this, but clearly it means you don’t learn from others or progress as rapidly as you should. My thinking was that I would get myself in to some kind of shape before joining some of the guys from the club. For the running part I just continued to do local run loops from my home in Kings Bromley. No real structure to it, I just put my trainers on and ran out of the door. Apart from the swim then, I wasn’t really tailoring my training in any way to this multi-discipline sport. In fact I was just sticking to what I knew best and learning other stuff as I went along.

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The Ironman Journey – Cricket

I’m not going to even pretend I can play cricket. I really can’t. I think I’ve probably played it twice and I was terrible. The only time I remember playing at school was during a PE class. I was fielding and someone hit a ball high in the air. Where I was standing, I was perfectly positioned to catch it. I watched it all the way and readied myself as it came down. I completely bottled it. I jumped out of the way and watched it thud on the ground. The PE teacher went nuts, quite rightly.

My Grandma played cricket and loved watching the test matches on TV. When my brother and I were over there when she was looking after us whilst my mum was at work, we would quite often have the cricket on in the background. My brother got quite in to it, and is still a fan but I had limited interest.

I’ve been to see two live matches. The first was England v Sri Lanka at Edgbaston. I went with my mates from school (Rob, Meadie, Rosie, Nige and Jace) with the sole intention of having a fun day out. We decided to dress up as grannies. I’m not entirely sure why, but it made the day more memorable. We met up at my mate Rob’s house who lived fairly close to the ground. The day started off with some dodgy cocktail drinks and descended from there. We took a stack of cans to the ground but had to neck a few each before going in as we weren’t allowed to take them in. This was a bad start. I’m not the best drinker anyway but drinking at 10 o’clock in the morning was a recipe for disaster.

It was a really sunny day, so it was perfect for sitting in the stands. We took it in turns to go to the bar and steadily drank all day. The cricket was very much secondary to the day. To be honest I can’t remember much about the game and have no idea what the result was. A couple of the lads fell asleep later on in the afternoon. This was like a red rag to a bull. We drew all over them with lipstick. Jace in particular got covered with writing and rude pictures. he wasn’t impressed when he woke up but it was pretty standard for any one of us that fell asleep. It was a good day out. On the way home Meadie and I had a handbag fight and were told to pack it in by a Police officer who was clearly unimpressed by our drunken antics. It must have looked ridiculous.

The second time was a similar day out but this time with my Uni mates, Simeon and Closet. We also went to Edgbaston, but this time to watch England v Pakistan in a one day international. We hadn’t seen each other for a while so rather predictably we made the most of it and got fairly drunk. Each time any of us we went to the bar we got a different type of round in. I don’t know how much we drank but it was a fair amount. The atmosphere was great, and like the last match everyone that was there was in good spirits. We didn’t get dressed up this time but the were plenty of others that were. I also have no idea how that match ended either. At the end of the day we got on separate trains and headed back to our respective homes.

So, in summary, I have no interest in playing cricket as I’m no good at it, but watching it live is a great social activity. Just don’t expect to remember any of it.

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The Ironman Journey – Swedish Canoe hiking

The best time I got in a canoe was undoubtedly when I went to Sweden. As mentioned earlier on I met some friends whilst I was on my foreign exchange year in Lille, France. I ended up spending quite a lot of time with Kat, Kirsty and Emma who were all from Hull University. I got on with them all really well, we shared a very similar sense of humour.

Kat was Swedish although you would never have known from her accent. She had grown up in England and she had no hint of a Swedish twang when she spoke. We got to know each other pretty well so she knew the kinds of things I was interested in and knew I was looking for things to do when we broke up for summer at the end of the year. She suggested one day that I might like to apply to work in a summer camp she had been to a few times when she was growing up. It was called Brevik, and was a confirmation camp for children. I was clueless as to what that meant, but learnt from Kat that it’s an important coming of age event to many Swedish families. This was only one part of the camp experience. The rest involved a lot of activities designed for children to experience outdoor life, with the main attraction being an eight day canoe hike around the Swedish archipelago. Sold. It sounded amazing.

I got the details from Kat and sent a letter to the camp organiser asking if I could be one of the supervisors. I attached my CV and outlined my hobbies and relevant work experience to that point. The most appropriate one was my time working as a pool lifeguard in England. I’d worked at Wyndley Leisure Centre in Sutton Coldfield during the term breaks, and during the summer they had children’s clubs. These were designed to give kids something to do while their parents were at work during the summer holidays. There were four activity areas which the kids went to in rotation and included various sports such as rounders, basketball, badminton or whatever looked like being popular. I volunteered for the extra work because I needed the money and because it sounded like fun. It was, to a degree.

I discovered I’m not the most patient, particularly with children that didn’t want to get involved. As these clubs were sometimes seen as something to ship your kids off to whilst parents were at work, there were always some kids that didn’t want to be there. I couldn’t blame them for feeling that way. I’m sure I would have felt the same if I was dropped off to do something I didn’t enjoy every day. For me though it was hard work trying to motivate those who were clearly disinterested. I was clearly never going to follow in my brothers footsteps and become a teacher. I just wouldn’t have been able to cope.

The experience sounded perfect on paper for my application to Brevik and it clearly did the trick as the manager wrote back a few weeks later to confirm he was happy for me to join the supervisor team. It was a voluntary thing, so I had no expectation of getting paid but a three week trip to Sweden sounded good to me. Kat helped me out with the logistics of it all and I flew out to Stockholm in July. From the capital I booked a fast train down to Soderkoping where someone was waiting for me to take me to the camp.

As soon as I got there I knew I was going to love it. It was set right on the archipelago surrounded by woods. The camp was a mini village with wooden huts for dormitories and a food hall which acted as the central point. There was also a relaxation hut full of sofas that the supervisors could chill about in at the end of the day. The piece de resistance though was the sauna. This was a few hundred metres away from the main site in a wood. It was right next to the water where there was a mini pontoon with a diving board. It was so good. We ended up there most evenings to relax with a couple of beers and a dip in the water.

I was sharing a bunk bed with a younger lad. He was a really nice guy and we got on well. He’d lived in the US for a few years with his parents and so had a think American accent. He’d been to Brevik a few times so helped me get to know the rhythm of the camp. It was well organised. The meal times were set and there was a schedule to follow every day which outlined the activities. These covered all sorts of things, mainly designed to give children life skills. There was a whole range of things planned including a first aid course, raft building, outdoor cooking, furniture making…you get the idea. As a supervisor my job was to look after one of the groups along with another senior person. It was a lot of fun and it was great being outside. The weather was good for the majority of the time, with most days being sunny and warm.

In the second week the build up to the canoe hike started. I was going to be looking after a group of eight children along with another supervisor called Lotta. The premise was simple. We had to organise rations and camping equipment for eight days out in the archipelago. We could go anywhere, the route was entirely up to us. We were given a map so we could figure out the manageable distance over the eight days and each day’s intended journey to the next suitable camping area. I couldn’t wait to go, I was like a kid in a sweet shop.

Luckily Lotta had done it before so she had a vague idea of the route we should take and where to head for. It was a good job she did because on the hike I discovered that my map reading skills are not up to much. I managed to get us lost on the first day after making a wrong turn in to a dead end stretch of water. To be fair it was pretty difficult to distinguish one island from another and match the landscape to the map.

I should have known better though as I had previous. During an end of term activity day at school I’d got a group of us lost during an orienteering exercise. On that occasion we had been dropped off in Cannock Chase in Staffordshire with a map and compass and were told to find our way to various meeting points to get back to the school minibus. It had a competitive element to it as we were up against some other teams from the school. The objective was to be first back so being the competitive soul I am, I grabbed the map and set everyone off in completely the wrong direction. We didn’t make one of the meeting points and got completely lost. Well done me.

So it wasn’t a huge surprise that Lotta took control of the map from that point on. The first night was a bit unusual in that it started to rain. We selected our location to pitch up for the night and dragged the canoes out of the water. As it was raining we decided to use the canoes as walls and dragged a tarpaulin over the top as a shelter. This was fine in principle until the mosquitoes figured out our plan. The night was spent swatting them away as they did that irritating things that mozzies do of buzzing right next to your ear just as you are about to go to sleep. It wasn’t the best night’s sleep I’d ever had and I got bitten to pieces, but it didn’t matter, I was out and about on my Swedish adventure.

Once we were up the daily ritual began of making breakfast and hot drinks with the camp stove, packing our stuff up and heading back out on to the water for that day’s journey. Every day was an experience. I’m sure it wasn’t true but every time we found a new island to stop at for a rest or spend the night it felt like we were the first ones to have ever set foot on it. Everything was so unspoilt we all felt like explorers finding new habitats.

To avoid the mosquitos we took to sleeping in the open air on rocks, even if it was drizzling a little bit. It was such a nice feeling waking up at sunrise and looking out over the water, it was so peaceful. Throughout the whole eight days we hardly ever saw any other people. It was so strange to have that feeling of detachment from the rest of the world. We had no phones or anything electronic, we were completely cut off from everyone. The days rolled into one another and far too soon we were making our way back to camp.

The canoeing itself was very leisurely due to the size of the group as well as the varying ages and abilities of everyone. It was only on the last day when we ran out of food that we needed to put on a bit of extra pace to ensure we could get to a shop on one of the islands before it shut. Apart from that it was a gentle paddle.

It was very odd making it back to camp and back to civilisation. We hadn’t had any luxuries whilst we were away, so simple things like sitting on a chair felt weird. Having not had a shower or a shave the whole time, most of us made a beeline for the shower block. I managed to get in to the largest shower room I could find, stripped myself naked and got myself ready for the best shave of my life. Just as I was lathering up my patchy ginger beard the door of the shower room opened and one of the female supervisors started to walk in. We both froze as we realised I was standing there starkers and I’d accidentally forgotten to lock the door. She made a hasty retreat and I quickly slammed the door shut, locking it behind her. Liberal as the Swedes are, I’m sure she really didn’t want to see a pasty naked English bloke with a dodgy ginger beard standing in front of her. I would say I was mortally embarrassed but to be honest I was more interested in getting in to the shower. We muttered apologies to each other when we bumped into one another later on that day as the rest of the camp took the mick out of me relentlessly.

It took a few days to adjust to being back at the camp, but after a couple of great night’s sleep in a proper bed everything returned to normal. I didn’t always sleep brilliantly whilst I was there. Nice as my roommate was, he tended to need music to fall asleep. Every night he would put his Walkman on to drift off. Being used to living in the country side at my parent’s house in Whittington, I struggled to get to sleep if it wasn’t quiet. It was particularly bad in this case as his choice of music was the soundtrack to Pocahontas, the Disney movie. Much as I like films, having power ballads played to you on loop night after night was a bit annoying. It was either get to sleep before him, or stick the pillows over my head to block out Pocahontas’s dramatic warbling.

I’d also made good friends with Kat’s sister, A-C, who was also staying at the camp. She had a very similar sense of humour, so we got on like a house on fire. She was also game for a laugh which came in useful for the camp talent show that was planned for one of the nights. I introduced her to ‘The Dribble Twins’.

This was something that my school mate Meadie and I had come up with on a school camping holiday to Guernsey. These were annual summer trips organised by our school art teacher after the term had finished. It was ten days away with school mates and was very cheap. Ideal for skint teenagers growing up. Although it was a school organised trip, it was fairly relaxed. The teachers who went also wanted to enjoy themselves so there weren’t too many rules, particularly when you were in sixth form or if you had actually left school. Most evenings we would join the responsible adults in the teacher’s tent for drinks and stories. It was a good laugh.

The Dribble Twins arose from Meadie and I mucking about one day whilst in the beer tent. I can’t exactly remember how it started but it probably stemmed from having a mouth full of beer and laughing. That soon progressed to having a big swill of beer and then having your arm pumped to spit the beer out, showering the other person. Not that dissimilar to Scott Mills’ Innuendo Bingo game on Radio One. Expanding this concept in to some kind of routine, we did it at the camp’s talent show to music. There were lots of variations on the dribbling, from leg pumps, nose twists and ear prodding. It seemed to go down well, which was a bit of a surprise because we thought we were the only ones who found it funny.

So with no other discernible talent to lean on, A-C and I decided to do the same at the Brevik talent show. It went down like a lead balloon. I don’t think the joke translated to a bunch of Swedish kids. But A-C and I had fun.

The rest of the time at Brevik went far too quickly and before I knew it I was back in Stockholm getting ready for the flight home. Kat’s brother, Patrik, lived in the capital, and he kindly offered to put me up in his flat for the night as I had an early flight home the next day. I turned up on his doorstep and within minutes we were going out for drinks. As with his sisters, he was a good laugh. He introduced me to a few of his mates and we sunk a few beers before going to the local theme park. I can’t remember how many rides we went on but there were rollercoasters involved. Not the best of rides after a few drinks. If I wasn’t drunk before going on them, I definitely was when I got off. We got back to the flat very late. I probably managed 2 hours sleep before stumbling down to the taxi taking me to the airport the next morning. The flight home was a blur and I must have stank of beer. I felt sorry for the lady and her daughter who were sat next to me, but they got their own back by eating my food whilst I was fast asleep.
It was the end of a great few weeks in Sweden.

I haven’t been in a canoe since, but to be honest I’m not sure I could have topped that experience anyway, so it’s probably for the best.

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The Ironman Journey – Canoeing & Camping

Another water based sport. I can sense your trepidation already after my foray in to windsurfing. Don’t worry, I didn’t make the leap to purchasing my own canoe after getting a bonus. This was more of a sporadic involvement over the years.

My first experience was during a primary school overnight stay to Shugborough Hall in Staffordshire. This was my first night away from home on my own so was a very big deal for me, my mates and all our parents. As every other kid in the same position though I was really excited to be doing ‘grown up’ stuff. We were camping onsite at the Hall and the two days involved a combination of classroom ‘lessons’ (these were actually more an overview of the two days with some nature stuff thrown in) and outdoor activities.

I remember the weather was really good, which was a bonus for any camping type activities held in the UK. I had been on camping trips before with my parents. I think this is a rites of passage for any child growing up. You can’t say you’ve been on a proper holiday if you haven’t experienced the lottery of British weather.

I remember two holidays in particular. The first was in the Forest of Dean. I’m sure there was some good weather involved but my overriding memory is waking up in the middle of the night in a soaking wet sleeping bag. The rain was hammering it down on the outside of the tent and a mini stream had started to come through the tent compartment that I was sharing with my brother. There’s not much you can do at times like that so the whole night was spent trying to curl up in whatever dry patch was left and attempt to get back to sleep.

We woke up in the morning (early of course, because you always do when you’re camping. You go to sleep freezing and wake up roasting as soon as the sun comes up. It’s just the way it is) in a damp, smelly tent. The rain was still pouring down and in true camping style dad was standing at the entrance in his shorts making toast on the camping grill. This was quite an achievement in itself as Dad cannot cook. His limit was toast and custard. For some reason it was major excitement when he made us custard. I’m not entirely sure why, but I know Dad milked it as much as possible.

The second one was a holiday we had in Bude, Cornwall. Again, my memory could be a bit selective here but I’m pretty sure it rained every single day for two weeks. Given how much I cherish holidays these days I’m sure this was deeply stressful for my parents who would have been hoping for a relaxing break. Given it was raining so much my brother and I took to playing in the steam that ran through the middle of the campsite. We had our wellies on and a raincoat but we always ended up getting drenched. I’m not entirely sure how my parents got our clothes dry every day, maybe they didn’t and we just put on the damp ones again the next day.

So it was nice to get a couple of days nice weather at Shugborough this time. We did lots of activities but canoeing was definitely the highlight. We were shown the basics on land before we got assigned our canoes and headed to the river that ran through the estate. It was great fun, particularly when we got to practicing capsizing. Some of the others weren’t too keen but my mates and I loved it. Nothing like getting drenched for fun as this gave us free licence to splash each other afterwards. We practiced paddling up and down the river the whole afternoon and came out of the water with big smiles on our faces at the end of the day. Not a bad first experience of staying away from home.

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The Ironman Journey – Crossfit

I’d had a niggling injury that had prevented me from running. It was a flare up of my tendonitis that I’d had at the back of my right knee following the saddle height adjustment on my bike. I was struggling to get it right even after numerous trips to the physiotherapist.

The guy that I had seen about it had tried a number of different approaches including massage, ultrasound and acupuncture. The trips to see him in his little clinic in Lichfield were always quite amusing (in spite of the pain he was often inflicting on me). He was clearly one of those guys that was in competition with his older brother. He was obviously successful in his own way but his brother had a huge private physiotherapy clinic in Birmingham, clients that included Olympic athletes and had competed for Great Britain athletics at the Moscow Olympics. Quite a large thing to try and emulate, but difficult to live up to. He had me in stitches most of the time as he went through his life story. Really nice guy and a great story teller.

As I was at a bit of a loss as to what to do fitness wise, my mate Rosie suggested I give Crossfit a go. I must admit I’d never heard of it but Rosie seemed to think it would be right up my street as it incorporated a number of different sports and involved quite intensive physical exercise. Sounded good to me so I looked online to find more about it. It turned out that there was a Crossfit Centre very close to my office on Loughborough, and also not far from I was now living in the nearby village of Quorn. I found the contact details of the guy running it and he suggested I come down to have a look at the facilties. So I did.

The centre was set up on an industrial site in a warehouse unit. I met up with the owner and he explained a bit about what Crossfit was all about as well as showing me around the facility. He explained that Crossfit was about high intensity fitness using a variety of different sports and workouts. He used the term WODs which were ‘Workouts of the Day’. These were a set of exercises which changed regularly and incorporated a number of elements which were a combination of aerobic, anaerobic and weight training.

The equipment that he had in the facility covered this wide variety of exercise including free weights, pull up bars, medicine balls, kettle bells and a rowing machine as well as other stuff. He also explained that Crossfit had its own tournaments, so there was a heavy competition element to it as well. This was all new to me, and made it more appealing than just getting fit for the sake of it.

I’ve been a member of a number of gyms through the years but I struggle with the concept of just doing weights or indoor exercise with no goal. That just doesn’t motivate me. I need something to aim at so the exercise has some kind of purpose, whether it’s a 10k running race or something else.

While I was at school a few of us in the rugby team used to go down to the gym at the local leisure centre to do some extra fitness work as well as some weights. Mainly it was low weights but high reps, just to help with conditioning and in line with our training programme, so it made sense.

Whilst we were in there we used to see three older guys come in to do their own weights session. They strolled in in their gym vests and long hair, and made a beeline for the bench press. Before getting started they would walk around the gym slapping their arms and psyching themselves up. Then one of them would jump on to the bench press whilst the other two would stand at either end to help if they were struggling with the weight. After much puffing and panting from the guy about to start lifting the weights, the real performance would begin. The guy lifting would start wailing like a banshee as he pushed the weight up off his chest whilst the other two screamed encouragement like some possessed chimps. It was hilarious. Once one was done, they swapped over and the next one would go through the same routine after high fiving each other and telling each other how awesome they were. We christened them the ‘Pump it up brothers’ and it became a bit of a highlight to our sessions.

Back to Crossfit. After the introductory session I decided to give it a go so I signed up to the induction programme. Any newcomers weren’t allowed to use the equipment or join in the workout sessions without doing this. It involved four separate lessons which the centre owner ran. He was quite a character. He was very sociable and was really friendly to everyone down there. He was also clearly a full on Crossfit ambassador and very thorough in his induction programme. I was in a group with five other newbies and we went through an introduction to all of the various bits of equipment and exercises before we finished with a thirty minute WOD.

It was actually useful to get some proper coaching on weight lifting techniques as I’d never really had any up until that point. I’d done some basic weight stuff at rowing, but here we were learning about dead lifts, clean and jerks etc where good technique was important to avoid injury. I’d also never used kettle bells before and these seemed to feature quite prominently in the WODs along with pull ups. The facility had a metal frame at the back that you could do various exercises on including pull up work with rubber bands. These seemed to be a particular favourite of the owner who seemed to be able to do endless reps of these, he was on it all the time. He was a very strong guy which wasn’t surprising given his devotion to it. I think he did two or three workouts a day which was clearly paying off for him.

The bit I enjoyed the most though was the WOD at the end. This could be a combination of anything but generally involved kettle bells, pull ups and weights as a core element plus a variety of other things. Apparently this mirrored the format of the Crossfit tournaments. The combination of exercise was different each time so the outcome was dependent on the strengths and preferences of those taking part. The WODs were pretty exhausting due to the high intensity nature of them and rep element. The winner of the WOD was the one that completed it in the fastest time, so a pretty simple format. I definitely felt I was getting a good workout each time.

Once you’d completed the induction programme you were then free to sign up to the classes to join in on the WOD session or could also come down and use the equipment. I went down a few times after completing the classes and did enjoy it. However, I couldn’t really get in to the whole philosophy of it the way the hardcore members did. You could see there was good banter between them and they really had a competitive thing around winning the WODs. They would talk about some of the Crossfit stars and point the rest of us to You Tube clips of them in competition. But for me it just didn’t hit the mark. I had no interest in competing in a tournament, possibly because it was so niche and a bit random. I think you had to really buy in to the concept of this as a sport, and I didn’t. It definitely wasn’t in ‘the pump it up brothers’ league but it had that gym bunny feel to it that I couldn’t relate to.

So worth a try and served a purpose for a very short time but I needed to get back to racing in more conventional sports that had a wider appeal.