Intervention DRAFT

Bizarre - thought it would be either the wine or the curly wurlies, but no, it was exercise.
Closely followed by an evening of too much wine and curly wurlies.

But exercise IS important.  (Explain why)

Anyway, bizarrely ended up with doing MORE exercise as a result of the intervention.
Also played poker, but appear to have lost my edge.  I guess you need to train hard for that too....

Poker night turned into Swim then Poker night, which turned into a Swim, get tired, turn up late to Poker, accidentally knock CS out by mistake, go home at 3am night.

Progress..... of sorts (DRAFT)

Managed the bike course - gels every 45 minutes, chips every 45km.  Perfect blood sugar - go figure.

Last week pain and misery set in after 60km.  This week the pain and misery set in after 65km.  

Managed to walk 100m to the cafe afterwards.  Still not a half marathon though.

Next week's plan;

Same bike course.  Aiming for the pain and misery to start after 70km.  Jog 100m to the cafe afterwards.

No, wait.  The Ikea catalogue is out next week.  There goes the training....

Diabetes Tubthumping.

OK, so now I've got the big one out of the way , there's another one I need to concentrate on - the REALLY big one.  Yes, Kurt's Half-Iron at the end of the season.

I now have the following information tattooed into my soul - Swim 1.9km.  Bike 90km.  Run 21km.  It's all I can think about now, apart from curly wurlies of course.  Thinking about it doesn't count though.  I actually have to train for it.

So, what have I done so far?  Well, I swam 1.9km last year, once.  I biked 90km last year, once.  I ran** 21km this year, twice.  Unfortunately that doesn't count, as, according to some stupid rules that some stupid person thought up, you have to do them all in the same day, one after the other.  What were they thinking?  What was I thinking when I said yes?

I know that I can do the swim bit followed by the bike bit - I did it last year .  But I also know that the only thing I could do after the bike bit was lie down and be fed curly wurlies - I didn't even have the strength to eat them myself.

But the end of the season is ages away, isn't it?  Except it's not.  I realised that I now have 8 weeks to get myself up to scratch.  That means being able to cycle 90k comfortably enough to then run a half marathon before I get to lie down and be fed curly wurlies.

So, first things first.  Cycle the 90k course and see how it feels.

I decided that I was going to take it nice and easy.  I invited the lovely Unnnngggghhhh to join me for the first lap, and planned to complete the second lap by myself.   I was even going to stop every 45 minutes for a quick blood sugar test, like a good diabetic should.

The plan fell apart pretty much straight away.  I managed to get to the start point, Carats cafe (the one with the strangely placed apostrophes) on time, but my testing kit hadn't - it was still in bed.  Oh well, no worries, I'm sure I'll be fine.

To be fair, I was for the first 45k.  We stopped at this point to drop Unnnngggghhhh off and I took the chance to scoff a curly wurly.  I was back on the bike after 5 minutes or so, feeling rested and confident.  I began to feel a bit sore after 60k, but you don't cycle this far without having a sore arse, neck niggle and maybe a bit of lower back pain.  However by 80k I was feeling a lot worse.  On top of the expected soreness, my arms were hurting, I had pins and needles in my fingers, my back was going into spasm, and I developed shooting pains in my feet.  In short I was not having fun.  I had also run out of gels.

The devil on my shoulder said "Stop now, get a cab home.  No-one will know".  The angel on my shoulder said "You know, Devil's got a point, better safe than sorry and all that.  Oh wait, you forgot your purse too, you dingbat."

I managed 89.1km before I accepted that I had to stop as I couldn't even see properly.  I forgot to decleat*** and promptly fell over.  I suddenly realised that I was in heavy traffic in the middle of Preston Circus, a junction where five roads meet.  I picked myself up and tried to walk across the rest of the road, but my legs had turned to jelly.  It took me a few minutes to stagger across, and I stopped a lot of traffic in the process.  Eventually I sat down on the pavement outside Barclays bank, unable to even think straight, let alone anything else.  I then realised that I was sitting just a few feet away from where I was knocked off my bike by a truck almost three years earlier.  I was scared and unable to move then.  I was scared and unable to move now too.  I'm ashamed to say that I started crying a little bit.

However, after a few minutes I remembered that I had some emergency curly wurlies in my bag.  Nothing cheers me up like an unexpected curly wurly.  After a few more minutes I had the strength to open one of them.  A few minutes later I remembered that I was a Premier account holder with Barclays.  I couldn't quite remember what any of the benefits of having a Premier account were, but I decided right there and then that one of them should be the right to come inside, sit on a chair and eat curly wurlies without being hassled by assistant managers.  I struggled into the bank, found a chair, half sat, half slumped, half collapsed into it and started eating curly wurlies.

Turns out that sitting in a chair and eating curly wurlies without being hassled by an assistant manager is not one of the perks of a Barclays Premier bank account.  However, they will make an international payment for you if you so wish.  This involves a lot of paperwork, and whilst they process the paperwork, as a Premier customer you are invited to sit down.  I paid 100 Indian Rupees to my friend in India.  It cost me £1.10. Outsmarting the assistant manager into allowing me to sit down and eat curly wurlies?  Priceless.

About half an hour later I started feeling a bit better.  It took Barclays a few more minutes to complete the paperwork, and then I was on my way again.  I only had about a mile to go, and I managed it without crying. I then slept for a week.



I've called this post Diabetes Tubthumping but I haven't explained why yet.  Well, before I forget, do you remember that cheesy song from the 90's, which has the lyrics "I get knocked down, but I get up again.  You're never going to keep me down"?  It's called Tubthumping, whatever that is. Today I dedicated that song to my diabetes.  This was a temporary setback, and I've got a whole 8 weeks to work on getting the bike part right.  It's just a bit of a shame I still have to follow it up immediately with that pesky half-marathon.

** Technically I haven't actually run any half marathons yet.  I have part run, part walk, part stagger, part complain loudly about chocolate though.  Does that count?

*** I think I just made up that word.

My new BFF DRAFT

Went to see Chrissie Wellington up in London
Actually had a conversation with her
Training tips
Running one lap of the course
Setting a record for 1 mile