Following the festive period where we celebrated the arrival our own little bundle of joy (Rory) it’s been a time of focusing on family whilst trying to tick over the legs. I haven’t really stressed about the inevitable dip in fitness as there are more important things than pedaling push bikes now.
If I’m honest so far it’s not been too difficult to fit things in so long as you are prepared for your carefully scheduled training to take place a bit more haphazardly and creatively (think squats whilst winding and stretching whilst bottle feeding). It’s been quite fun getting inventive. Although doing longer rides has been off the menu, Jon at e3 coaching has slipped in a few more turbo sessions (which I actually like coz I’m weird). The big question for me was going to be what the energy levels would be like with the inevitable sleep deprivation when I tried pushing the pedals harder. Although many new parents will hate me for saying this I have to say I think we’re coping quite well so far all things considered. I think sometimes when people ask you how things are going they are seemingly begging for blood and horror stories so are somewhat disappointed when you look in one piece and not like you’re about to have a meltdown at any second. Of course I’m not naive enough to think this couldn’t change at any moment – babies being somewhat unpredictable!
We had such a busy back end of the year in 2017. I was spending every hour not at work sorting the house out for the impending arrival or squeezing in some riding. There were times when I got cold sores which is my indicator of over doing it. So as planned when the boy landed (or rose from the depths of the birthing pool as it turned out) we downed tools and made sure we weren’t tempted to carry on smashing through house renovations. We wanted to save our energies for the little one so we could make the most of that time. We ran out of money anyway which conveniently aligned with the DIY sabbatical.
So I guess what I’m saying is that actually I’ve found that (so far fingers crossed) I must be pretty adapted to functioning on high levels of fatigue. Even before the DIY fest, training a lot with a full time job and other life stuff makes you accustomed to feeling a bit wrecked a lot I suppose. Clearly I’m not going to have the same amount of time for the push bike stuff but actually I’ve got more important adventures going on. The test I think is whether or not I’ll still want to race and compete at 80%. Well as I’ve loved racing for a few years now and not just when I’ve more recently been at the sharp end, there’s still lots for me in that world even if it doesn’t mean podiums.
Wow so after a long life update intro which is sort of relevant… I dragged my sleep deprived self along to a local short XC race down Somerset way at Stourhead Woods estate run by Gillingham Wheelers. It’s super small scale and it ended up being a just a handful of us (come on guys get supporting local races!!). Normally you’d therefore fancy your chances but with rapido Kim Little of Swift world beating fame and my fast endurance buddy Chris Noble being the other two keen looking ones it wasn’t exactly a slow bunch. We’d taken Rory along to get his first taste of UK mountain bike racing so muddy woods in freezing conditions seemed a good inauguration as any!
Off we set on a lap that took just over 10 minutes. Which was mainly rocky narrowish muddy fireroad but with the odd little cut through. Although no singletrack heaven it’s enough for an hour in winter and better than a crappy muddy field where they make you run sections on purpose?!
After a friendly warm up Kim pretty quickly disappeared as expected to leave me and Chris to race it out for 2nd. Early on I stopped to nurse a young lad back to the fireroad after he’d come a cropper in a bomb hole bit. Chris caught me up at that point and we swapped places on course for a couple of laps in between dodging out of control horses! I seemed to have the edge on the climbs and was able to pull away and hold a decent but visible gap. We were both on the final hill climb expecting another lap as we were approaching the summit just within the hour but the organisers said Kim was well through and had gone out to pick up some signs so that was the chequered flag. We went round again for a warm down lap and to help collect some signs with Kim.
Chris pedalled home and we went to the pub for a roast dinner before I swapped bikes and pedalled the 25 miles home, just because.
So it turns out you can pedal hard as a new daddy (for now). Just need to get those midnight strength sessions dialed in with the help of the increasingly weighty little one.
