The start of the London - Edinburgh - London blogs and a bike ban.

As I have a brief minute to write something.

Quick notes:

  1. Yes, I am going to be riding LEL  (eh??)   Payments made, signed up, the whole lot so all should be going according to plan. 
  2. Yes.   Mrs Stav does know.  Riding LEL, PBP, TransConti etc arn't really things that you can casually drop into conversation and sneak out and do - "Honey, just popping out on my bike!  Don't worry if I'm missing for 5 days or so and walk funny after........"   This ain't a casual game of football, 90 minutes, hide your boots and try not to smell from a post match pub pint.
  3. Things will be different.   Last year I learnt a lot on and off the bike.  I made mistakes, I had moods, it was tough and my focus was different.  This year I'm going to manage differently.
  4. That health question.........more comment later.
  5. Vlog?   At some point I'll get around to it.  I'm 35 so by internet technology standards, I'm a PSION Revo 8 - obsolete.  I want to have richer blog content, and vlogging would probably be quicker then my typing speed, but editing is a yuff's game.   I'll get there at some point.

Plans:

I'm going to take on LEL in a different way to last years trip.   2016 I wanted speed.   2017 I want some speed but distance is more important so time to top up on diesel power.   I'm going twice the distance therefore I'll be looking at a lower average speed to make sure I get the whole distance.   For the time being, I'm going to be seated on my Brooks and Genesis as the weather is still cold and crap.  I'm willing to sacrifice some speed for comfort - the heavier steel frame has a weight penalty but the dampening, durability, lights, mudguards and so on will aid in the spring training campaign.   One thing that I will be looking at is swapping my trusty everyday Carradice and support for a more streamlined and lightweight bikepacking seat pack, the rest of the bike will be pretty much as it has been for around 13,000 miles now [EDIT:  Took the plunge, Apidura ordered!!]

Physically, I have a health issue which is kicking me - more to be found out soon.   This will have a factor in 2017 and I should know more in the coming days to weeks [See edit below]

Mentally, 2016 was a very high and low year.   Edinburgh-London was a massive undertaking which I'm extremely glad I did.  But the home life price was high with my moods, food habits and tiredness.  2017 is going to have twice the challenge distance and I'll need to listen to Mrs Stav to even more to make sure I don't burn bridges and piss off anyone.

My training calendar is a work in progress.  I have rides I want to do, rides I can do, weekends I can't do, and weekends I won't want to do.  This weekend I should start to get a feeling again - first over  250km ride of the year - to see where I am. [See edit below]

But for now, the year is starting.  the Facebook page is getting more exciting and my feelings switch between "I can't believe I'm going to be doing this!" to "oh shit! 900 miles is a hell of a long way!  can I do it?!?!?"

[Edit - What is "normal?"]

Between drafting this blog post and hitting publish, I 've seen the Doctor.   At the moment, there's a question over my liver function which is a slight worry.  Some things have been ruled out, others are still in the fray.   The biggest kicker is finding out what is "normal."

To me, "normal" is 34 miles per week day on commutes, then on Wednesday night swap the commute for a 70 mile training ride home or several hours on Zwift/Sufferfest.  A usual week will be 200 - 240 miles.   Going into EdLon training and my predicted LEL plan, this will be less commutes but more long weekend rides.    As such, my body takes a hell of a beating - relatively, I think??  It's become fairly normal behaviour to me so it doesn't feel like a beating, it's just "what I do."  The flip side to this is when a medical professional want to find out what's wrong with me, metabolic indicators of inflammation show up.  Every time you train and muscles fatigue and adapt, you'll produce inflammation indicators.   So when you do a liver function test, are the indicators of overtraining, normal riding or an unidentified disorder?  

And this is where it sucks.   To find out what "normal" is, I'm going to be bike banned.  Just for 10 days, but long enough for any muscular stress to go and then get a blood profile.  The real kicker is that this ban will be over 2x 160 mile rides that I had planned.

My ambition and passion wants to do these rides.   It's to areas I haven't ridden before!!!   I've got kit I want to test!!  I love just riding!  My wife, the sensible side of me and the frustration of whatever is causing me pain wants to get this resolved and thinks being off the bike will be a good thing - even though I'm going to miss not riding.




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