Month: December 2017

Climbing Mt. Teide: Patience and precision

On By theacademicathleteblogLeave a comment

So yesterday I went on a “little adventure” on my bike. Uh eh, we all know what the kind of ilk of Charlie’s little adventures take on. So, I went up Europe’s longest climb, Mt Teide (+2000 metres), in actual sunshine and jersey and shorts. A most welcome break from the current UK weather where I usually go dressed for the Artic.

I was a little apprehensive to start with as many things could ruin a grand day out here. e.g. the weather could distort the view going up, the rental bike could disappoint or not fit correctly, the spd cleats I’d chosen to ride could have killed my feet (still don’t know why I decided that) and last but not definitely least, I’m not really a climber. Such is its length and altitude, the volcano has been one of Wiggo’s and Froome’s key factors in training for big tours.

I went as part of a group with a rental company who organise rides. In the early morning we were garnered from various parts of the island in a mini bus. En route to the shop to collect our bikes everyone seemed to be doing that endurance athlete initiation thing of testing out what the other riders might be like before they even got on their bike. What kind of body shape do they have, are they a triathlete, do they live in the hills, do they live in warmer climes and have actually ridden their bike outside in the past 6 weeks?

We collected our bikes from the shop which were then loaded on top of the minibus and clambered in our cleats ready to get to the bottom of Teide. As we drove I couldn’t help but think “the more we go up in the minibus, the less I am dragging up on my bike”. My fantasising was rudely disrupted by the mini bus stopping at what seemed to me pretty steep. “Uh oh, I’m riding up, from NOW?” Yep.

Then it began, we gently rolled out on undulating roads for 15km before a coffee stop. I say undulating, there was one very steep bit (the 2nd steepest bit of the whole route) where I prayed it wouldn’t be like that the whole way. Cycling in Europe means espresso only allowed. Thankfully that arrangement works for me. An Italian guy riding a time trial bike (!) paid for us all and then promptly headed off upwards. I didn’t see him again.

For the next few hours (no accurate data as didn’t have Garmin holder) I rode upwards only, in the granny gear. The gradient ranged from 6-11% the whole way. Relentless. The views were breathtaking but I don’t have many pictures because if I had stopped I would have dismounted onto a cliff edge. About a tenth of the way up the guide said to me “be patient”. These were words of wisdom, this guy rides this route every week and knew the beast.

And that was how I tackled it. With patience. The whole way. Just sit, suffer and enjoy. I only stopped once for a bar and some salts, otherwise I plodded it out. I’m not used to climbing of any sort really and so made the decision to try and avoid blowing up at any point because I was worried I wouldn’t make it to the top if I bonked. I’m not used to riding my bike with much patience, but it was so the right approach for this one.

I often joke as a cyclist/triathlete that rides, and certainly races, can be defined by a number of words beginning with ‘p’: pee, poo, puke and the worst, p-u-n-c-t-u-r-e (notice how I can’t write it in full?). Sorry for the less than savoury topic. Yesterday, however, I learnt to add a new positive swing to this vocabulary with “patience” and “precision”.

So whilst I had patiently sat it out to the top, feeling (and enjoying) the decrease in oxygen which would give my base miles for the year a big boost, I succeeded with patience and a little precision. The latter needed for handling the bike around the sometimes tight bends. On the way down, however, that duo was reversed: lots of precision and less patience.

Descending was a ball, and one I had waited for ages for. Hours in fact. Some of the group were a little worried, it is pretty high up! I didn’t suffer and enjoyed the thrills, riding down the Black Mountain during the Tour of Wales in very bleak conditions with much more technical sections has taught me well. It was poetry in motion, as I peddled occasionally but mainly just steered and the bike pretty much followed, humming on the tarmac and the mechanics whirring away. Whilst it had been 20 degrees most of the way up, it felt freezing on the way down and I’d forgotten arm warmers or a jacket. A kind lass lent me her arms, an example of cycling camaraderie that had been in full force all day as we adventured together.

As I sit here writing this post ride the morning after I can already feel my heart occasionally skipping a beat. Sounds strange but thats a good indicator of my fitness because that usually means my resting heart rate is somewhere around 41bpm. Usually I notice the beat skipping starting in April/May time as I start putting longer miles in but it seems Teide has served me and my pre-season very well.

If you are a cyclist of any guise, give it a go. It’s definitely one for the list. The views, alpine smells, clean air and descent all make the suffering well worth while. Oh and the rental bike, a Look 765 was the comfiest bike I have ever ridden. It’s not that expensive (relatively for a cyclist) and so this mornings coffee break may find me on Ebay.

Off for a steep hill run now around Los Gigantes. Ride and live well comrades.

 

Gifts for cyclists? Or rather, the gift of cycling?

On By theacademicathleteblogLeave a comment

bikes xmas

It’s that calendar month of the year that seems to offer a magical opportunity to don fairy wings and “let it all go”, “blow out”. A license for several thousand (extra) calories, an option to skip workouts, consume extra alcohol and freedom to reign and create a snowstorm of any of our existing routines. At the same time, there is also the myth “Oh, you are an athlete, you will burn it off very quickly”. Alas not. What I pile on my frame now wont contain the necessary macros for successful endeavors up hills in Spring. I’ll warn you now, the rest of this post will be full of cheese and scrooge.

I am a cyclist, in the right mood, I can give anyone a run for their money eating and on occasions (e.g. post Ironman) eat my body weight in cake. I have a very sweet tooth. I could eat at least half a Christmas pudding in one go, with a good load of trifle on the side, drowning in cream. That would also be after about 25 Celebration or Roses chocolates for breakfast, and a full Christmas lunch containing in the region of 5 yorkshire puddings. This off season thus far I have managed to continue bracing the cold much longer than I would normally and given my current fitness and body fat I am deserving of a little treat and rest. Perhaps sadly the somewhat less eccentric notion of moderation still needs to be applied. Getting myself into a food coma with a festive belly bloat helps no one in the Christmas survival exercise, because that is what it is for me. Like a lot of people, I genuinely struggle with the idea of Christmas, particularly because I am not religious. I struggle with its  commercialization, waste and equally with the forced happiness, there’s 364 other days of the year when I can be happy, no need for extra pressure for this one to work out.

Before you tarnish me with the scrooge hat, let me offer a little more festive cheer.

I have learnt to enjoy it in my own way and make some of my own fun whilst also spending time with those closest. We often hear of professional footballers training on Christmas day ready for their boxing day match, but I’m an amateur triathlete without such pressing needs for performance, and I still train on Christmas day. Every year. This is not some obsessive feat, but rather something I do out of love and it gives me the utmost of pleasure. It puts some grounding to the day as it’s my normal. Training is my pleasure all year round, so why should it be banished out of my life at a time when we are supposed to be enjoying ourselves?

Throughout the Christmas week (because let’s face it, that’s what it is these days), I train a bit harder and a bit more often. Not so much to cause lasting damage or injury, but enough to make a difference. Enough to know I may have knocked a few of the competition off the perch too. I also train more because it gives me the space to be exceptional within my normal routine and the routine in itself is my savior during otherwise unstructured days. I have a very managed approach to carbohydrates given my body shape and type and a few short sharp efforts are a good way to burn off any excess before it settles as fat, or before I ride sugar roller coasters from too many sweets.

And then there’s the gift giving. Buying for a triathlete/cyclist is pretty easy, they almost never have enough kit, on most websites there are gifts for under £10, under £50, under £100 over £2000. Basically, covering every price range possible from a pair of socks, to a box of gels, to a new set of carbon wheels and if you are very well behaved a new bike.

Of course, I find it hard not to buy cycling goodies when they are things I genuinely need all year round and are at a good price, but my best and most precious gift comes at Easter. When the clocks change and I’ve cracked the deal with the sunlight and I’ve sweated buckets indoors for months on end, pushed myself past boundaries I didn’t even know existed, increased my FTP significantly and I head outside with a new and better level of fitness. Boom. It’s perpetually hard during the winter and especially at Christmas, but for me, with a little bit of patience, that is true reward. Some Spring times I have raised a glass (non-alcoholic) in celebration of what is to come, knowing I am heading into racing season far better than I started the last and in the best fitness I could be. Providing no injuries, great things should come. This year the signs are good, by the time you read this on Christmas day I will have ridden my 6500th mile towards the end of my morning ride. The most I have ever done in a year but also with the highest wattage outed.

Festive best. Enjoy doing whatever you choose to do. Make at least a little bit of it your day if you can. If you are an athlete, you are an athlete 365 days of the year.

festive

Being Allegro: Riding the waves of being an academic athlete with music and tattoos

On By theacademicathleteblog3 Comments

I already have tattoos, my first an M-Dot Ironman emblem on my left wrist, the second a self-designed initial of Bradley Wiggins on my right wrist. I got my third three weeks ago. Of course, I am proud of being an Ironman that has held a world ranking, and I’ll never stop admiring Wiggo. However, this latest piece of ink is more about me, being Charlie, day in day out. It represents the interdependencies and interconnections between being an academic and an athlete via the medium of music, a very large part of my life. Whilst the design took months to decide upon, the idea and what it resembles travels back to my teenage years: when I became academically minded and began to grow athletically.

You may know I operate on two categories of noise: deafening silence to work, or ear bleeding music when I am not. Whilst I train to music often (a separate story for another day), when I am not working I will have my headphones on. I own at least ten different pairs and I go everywhere with them, including the 6-minute walk from the car park to my desk in the mornings, to make a coffee, or to walk to a meeting two minutes away (I am not kidding). Sometimes I am trying to take myself to a different (probably happier!) place but often I am thinking and reflecting in the short and long term, finding my energy and rhythm. That energy then seeps into my academic work when I return to my desk and sit quietly. Perhaps I am thinking about something I wrote that I was pleased with, perhaps a perfectly nailed set of intervals performed cycling or running before work. I also look forward, sometimes a paper I am thinking of writing for instance, my listening therefore becomes the space where the dots are connected and the final part of the jigsaw falls into place producing a coherent argument. Perhaps I just feel ropey and want to be in someone else’s world.

Here it is:

tatt3

What do the various parts mean?

Primarily it is based on Blink 182 because they are my favourite band (since a teenager), for those not familiar, fast pop punk music. The roman numerals in the middle obviously (hopefully?!) total one hundred and eighty-two (a bit late now if not). The blue and pink colours have also been mixed to match the official colours of the band. The words “A new hope” represent the title to one of the oldest Blink songs that contains one of my favourite (albeit short) bits of guitar. But, the words in themselves are also significant, you’ll see why in a moment. It is located on my right bicep, directly opposite my heart, also not insignificant as the right side is where the heart pumps blood to the lungs to pick up oxygen and function.

The aspect that connects it all together is the wave on the left side with a music note at the bottom. To some extent, it reflects the ups and downs of my character, in Blink 182 terms: “I’m a little shy. A bit strange and a little bit manic”. I wouldn’t say I am manic in the medical and strictest sense of the word but I do live my life with many roller coasters, those are a bit fun, and the troughs and quieter bits create the energy for the ups. If we deconstruct a wave then, it is something we usually understand as form of disturbance, predominantly has a moving ridge, an urge and a rush of feeling. It can move more freely and gently, back and forth or it can move as more of a sudden occurrence.

In creating that rush of feeling, another important point of the wave is the Crescendo – the crest – akin to peak performance and the euphoric moments when riding my bike. One does not do the athletic things I do without being an endorphin junkie. I can get my fixes in many ways but some examples might include a personal best of some form or winning a race, for example. So, the crest is the peak, it gradually gets louder, creates excitement, and its petering or crashing out does not have to be bad. The point is that it is a cycle, it picks up again with its rhythm.  It’s “A New Hope” but that hope does not have to derive from something gone wrong.

wave

Moving on, if we think of the composition of music broadly, beyond the single note etched on my arm, there are several elements: rhythm, dynamics, melody, harmony, tone colour, texture and form.

Lyrics are often the part that touch most people in an emotive sense, but for me, the defining aspect is the rhythm – the element of “time” in music, when you tap your foot, you are keeping time, in time with the pulse of the music. In Greek, rhythm (rhythmos) means any regular recurring motion, some form of symmetry that is marked by the regulated succession of strong and weak elements, but also of opposite or different conditions. Not too dissimilar to the peaks and troughs of the wave described above.

The rhythm is divided into two parts: how long the beat lasts, and the tempo: the speed of the beat. It is the tempo of the music that emotively affects my thinking and feeling, and I think about both academic and athletic things listening to the same tempo of music. Tempos are not specific and relative to each other but they do have some broad categories:

tempo

And they are described in the following ways:

  • Largo = Labored
  • Adagio = Slow
  • Andante = Steady walking
  • Moderato = moderate
  • Allegro = fast/happy
  • Presto = Very fast

So, how does this tempo play out in what I listen to?

I own around 700 full albums, which is a fair bit of music, but even with a few examples below and what I have explained already about Blink 182 whom predominantly sit around 125 beats per minute (BPM), there is a pattern emerging here. I nearly always listen to a specific speed of music, none of that slow and sad stuff, never, not on even the darkest of days. I’m into “Allegro”, music that is relatively “fast” and “happy”.

  • Blink 182: After midnight (167BPM)
  • Up all night (156BPM)
  • Always (158BPM)
  • Goo Goo Dolls: “Over and over” (123BPM)
  • Avicii: “Wake me up” (124BPM)
  • Train: “Working girl” (124BPM)
  • Ed Sheeran: “Castle on the hill” (135BPM)

It is also not insignificant that the BPM of the music I listen to are relatively close to the Revolutions Per Minute (RPM) riding my bike. For instance, a standard British Cycling warm up starts at 90RPM and progresses to 110+ RPM. When I am racing full pelt I’d expect to see 120RPM at least. For most of the time then when I am not training I will be listening to music at 120BPM which is not far away from an effort level of 8 out of 10 when doing my sport.

Adding these rhythms and waves together it represents a series of cycles and daily patterns that bring my worlds together and create moments of pure elation in my otherwise normal day. It is extremely telling that I listen primarily to music that is labelled “happy” and use and embrace it as a form of energising my worlds. I know our ups and downs can be caused by the chemicals in our brains, but I know for a fact that I can use music to fundamentally alter the way I think, feel and embrace the rhythms of my life. It is the space where I garner some confidence and above all else, believe. It’s also my medium of energy. Had a mediocre – ‘meh’ – day – spruce it up on the way home. Had some good news? Whack up the volume, celebrate and dream. Had a terrible day? Bad enough that you just can’t think of anything else? Put a song on repeat, lose yourself in the beat, let it carry you along.

There is so much more I can say on music in relation to both of my worlds, and if we add driving and travel to the mix it shows even more, but it’s beyond the scope of my ever-growing post here and my multiplying to-do list for a Monday night. I’ll save it for a chapter in the book. In case you are wondering, I have considered what the new ink will be like when I am 70 years old and it simply is no issue. This is me, this is it for the rest of my days, it’s my love, my drug and where I find authentic happiness. For now, I’ll sign off with my favourite race philosophy: “Let’s pick up the pace and the volume”.