Celtman, Coffee, Cake and a Collie

  This much-anticipated parcel arrived this morning… The ZOE program is a research body that became well-known during Covid: they re-purposed their nutrition research program to gather, analyse and publish data on Covid infections, symptoms & impacts through the ZOE Covid App.  Millions of us downloaded and reported to it daily, including me, and much of the reported data & policy was based on their findings.  Now that the main body of the pandemic has passed in the UK, they have returned to their main purpose: nutrition research.  Their work has been based around the human microbiome, gut microbes, and the individual responses of our bodies to what we put in our mouths. They are both a research body and a commercial enterprise, headed by Professor Tim Spector, author of several books on the subject.  Nutrition research and up-to-date thinking has moved on massively in the small number of years since the human microbiome was discovered & mapped, and ...

It’s 7 months since I started on the road as a Trainee Ambulance Technician, and I love it.  It’s a strange job though, and we probably see things that most people would never wish to experience.  Most days aren’t like that, but every now and then a ‘job’ comes along that stays with you.  You wake up the next morning with tired glutes, shoulders, hands… and perhaps feel a little bit out of sorts. Something’s not right with the world. You need a means of processing, of resetting. And that’s how I felt this morning.   I desperately needed a bike ride today, to feel the sun on my face, the tarmac under my wheels, to use my legs to power me up a hill, and to share stories with a friend.  Some spring sunshine, hard effort, coffee & cake, and time spent outdoors.  Equilibrium restored, until the next time. 

I weigh 87kg, and am 5’4” tall. Or actually, it depends on which leg I stand on… I have one leg longer than the other and have worn a heel lift in my right shoe for over 20 years, so if I stand on my left leg I’m 5’4, or on my right I’m 5’3”. The medical world calls me ‘obese’, because it measures human beings by the over-simplified means of the BMI, or Body Mass Index, and apart from a few months over the last 30 years, I have been in that category for my entire adult life.  My weight goes up and down, I have probably tried every method of weight loss known to humans, and I have always struggled with body dysmorphia and disordered eating.  It doesn’t matter for the purposes of this post what the reasons for all of that are, but there are reasons, and they - and their legacy- will be with me for life.   But I’ve also completed several half marathons, ridden plenty of sportives, kayaked round Scotland, walked up half of the Munros, completed a few triathlons rece...

 We had a busy night shift last night.  12 hours is a long shift, but on nights it can be particularly knackering- and a run of nights can be rather brutal if they’re all busy.  One of the joys of working for the Ambulance Service is the lack of predictability: you never know what each shift or each moment is going to bring.  But it can also be the tiring part of it, and a ‘between nights’ day often feels energy-drained and flat.   And so it was today… after a few hours sleep but feeling weary and a little cold, I headed to Rosemarkie to meet up with my friend Jill for an open water swim.  6 degree water, 7 degree air and a stiff breeze: I didn’t think I’d last long. How wrong I was.  I’ve come to a little routine when I first get in cold water in a wetsuit, that slowly acclimatises my body & head to the cold.  It took a little longer than normal, but within a few minutes I was swimming, enjoying the feel of the salt water waves against the ba...

  Today I did A Hard Thing. It will be one of many, many hard things, in training terms, of the next few months and the next couple of years. And let’s be clear - I’m no stranger to Hard Things in training terms. But it’s been a wee while since I’ve really stepped up the suffering.  Suffering, in training terms, is an odd concept.  It’s not ‘real’ suffering, like poverty or discrimination, ill health or low mood. It’s self-inflicted, chosen for longer-term personal gain.  The very basis of fitness training, Progressive Overload, is based on the concept of short term suffering for long term improvement.  But hey, it doesn’t last - and afterwards (or during!) you can eat cake.  You might not be able to walk very easily (!) but you can bask in the glow of a hard thing completed, whilst lounging around with a sugary treat of your choice, feeling smug, and knowing you’ve pushed your fitness a tiny bit further in the right direction. I started riding on Zwift aro...

 It’s important to know what you’re aiming at, right?  Well, when I started with the Ambulance Service early in 2022 it meant I would have a regular enough work schedule that I’d be able to train for a summer event- a big change from the feast-and-famine schedule of sea kayak coaching.  So having been a volunteer on Celtman, knowing the organisers a wee bit, and having several friends that have completed it, the lure of my local XTri was very, very strong.  What’s an XTri?  It’s an ‘Iron-distance’ triathlon with more adventure involved than your average Tri.  There are mountains involved, usually.   The start line of Celtman is just over an hour from our house, and it’s an area that’s incredibly special to me.  It involves three sports I enjoy, and all the right kinds of adventure… so it’s a no-brainer of a big goal. But it is BIG. Very big.  And then last year, along came Celtman Solo Point Five.  Half the distances, but with very cool ...