Ok, excuses in first, this was the coldest January on record in Scotland, it snowed and didn’t get above freezing for 2 weeks. Despite the weather, I managed to start base training and fit in a lot of shorter rides. Not going to break any records but its a start.
The weather has picked up a bit this week but it’s still hovering around freezing in the mornings, when I do most of my training. I’m going to start ramping the miles up and February so far is looking pretty good…
Posted in Cycling | Comments Off
First Gig of the year is OCS at the Barrowlands, Glasgow. Brilliant band and brilliant venue = brilliant gig. Here are some photos to prove it – best viewed full screen!
Posted in Music | Comments Off
Not much to say really, this is the plan for the next 4 months. It will be tough to fit in all the base miles with the weather we’ve been having but where I can’t fit them in i’ll up the intensity and aim to at least improve on the previous week. That’s the plan – lets see if I can stick to it!
Posted in Cycling | Comments Off
From the inside of a Rapha rain jacket – as worny by aTerence from the Ivy CC in Glasgow and many others – pretty cool!
Posted in Cycling | Comments Off
It’s been a year almost to the day since I started road cycling. I’d stop short of sounding unoriginal or cliched and saying cycling has “changed my life”, but it’s clearly had a big impact. Cycling now consumes a large part of my day, most days of the week, from my early morning commute or Sunday ride, planning what food to eat and when, washing my bike, analysing my Garmin ride data, recovering, then going to sleep and planning a new route for the next day to fit in with whatever the training plan sets out for that day; recovery ride, base miles, intervals, sprints or hill efforts. There’s also the time spent creating training plans, reading about training plans, looking at the latest bikes, reading cycling magazines, blogs and tweets from pro cyclists and watching cycling on tv. It is fair to say I have caught the bug.
But, more than all that, cycling has made me do something I have put off for more than 10 years now. Last week, I met with a Neurologist about possible treatments for my Cerebral Palsy. The one thing that has made me finally make the effort to investigate treating my Cerebral Palsy is cycling.
In cycling terms I am still fairly new to the sport – 3 years of training is a realistic time for a cyclist to get up to speed. However, having rode with other cyclists, going on a club ride last year and looking at my cycling stats, it’s clear I am a long way off the pace. If there is a chance my CP is affecting the power I can generate on the bike, and there is no doubt this is true, then I want to try anything to eliminate or more likely reduce the impact this has. It’s that simple. I will start a course of treatment, Botulinum Toxin injections to my right calf, in March, possibly followed by surgery to lengthen my Achillies Tendon.
On top of that, I plan on training much harder this year. I recorded* a very modest 2000 miles last year at an average speed of 15 mph but I missed a lot of riding while in the US, on holiday and being injured for the best part of a month. I plan to do a lot more this year and record it all. *(I didn’t record every year on my bike computer)
I’ll post my training plan soon and put down my cycling goals for 2010.
Posted in Cycling | Leave a Comment »
I read this article and took a lot of inspiration from it. Chances are most of us will only ever cycle for pleasure and most of us would be happy if this pleasure lasted as long as it has for these guys…
http://www.heraldscotland.com/life-style/real-lives/old-boy-racers-get-on-their-bikes-1.931134
Posted in Cycling | Leave a Comment »
