28 August 2008: Yep, I’m gonna do this, so help me God - especially if there is a God of cycling. Last year’s toe-in-the-water, just doing the last day of the ride, is enough to convince me that it’s time to walk the walk, or rather, pedal the pedal. First meeting at Bullcreek, know most of the riders, comfortable talking about WHY and WHAT FOR, but inwardly terrified at the magnitude of the task. Am I up to this amount of riding? I’ve been overweight for about 10 years and always exercising, but the truth is that my fitness has been declining steadily. Fifty next year, and it feels like the right time to take on a really big physical challenge - not the least of which will be losing weight. Cycling only about 50 km per week, need to start getting this tally up very quickly and build this BASE everyone keeps hammering on about - geting my cycling “legs”.
3 September: First time up Hale Road… the last section coming from the beach, after the lights - the reverse slope sign says it’s 11% - is brutal. Toiling up this makes me feel like a fly climbing up the side of a huge beast, that with one insouciant shrug, will flick me back to the bottom again. Gasping for air, if not pride. This ain’t gonna come easily.
11 September: Laps of Bold Park, including slogging up Reabold Hill road from the city side, will be my default training run. Each lap is 9 km and includes about 1 km of hill; just what the doctor ordered! So, up I go… first little bit is steep, maybe best to stand for this - no, wait, they all say keep sitting as much as possible - but I have to stand to make any headway at all! Speed is down to 7.8 kmh, body rolling all over the shop, two real cyclists go past me chatting socially, bastards! I feel their pity and contempt as they sweep past. Cardiovascular crisis at the last bench seat, sucking in some huge ones, arrive at the top exhausted, paralysed with sweat, can barely get over the speed bump… roll down the hill on the other side, speed gets up to 56 kmh, need to break to swing onto the bike path down to the West Coast Highway lights. Bugger it, will swing onto the road instead. Do this and at the last moment see two full lanes of traffic; there actually isn’t room for a 104 kg barely-controlled projectile and two lanes. Much horn beeping, sudden slowing and I dare say, swearing, follows. Shaking, I reflect it’s funny how disaster could happen so near home, and resolve to use my brakes and stick to the bike path in the future.
18 September: doing first lap of Bold Park, a real cyclist overtakes me just outside Challenge Stadium and I realise I’m singing out aloud at full tilt (Buddy Guy’s version of John Hiatt’s Feels Like Rain in fact), enjoying myself hugely, but not concentrating on the job at all! Do second lap pushing myself a bit harder but inside, just loving the freedom, the independence, the speed… oh well, two out of three ain’t bad.
22 September: complete three laps around and up Bold park for the first time. Each lap is taking 22-23 minutes and need to drop back to very low gears even on the small hills near the Church conference centre. If I try really hard, I can almost keep my speed up Bold Park hill over 10 kmh; and up the south city beach hill, to over 20 kmh. Seems more a matter of concentration and breathing than muscle fitness.
4 October: first official training run, up backroads to Yanchep. The cycling God - I am naming him, by the way, THE MIGHTY KOG - has NOT deigned to smile on us. It’s foul: cold, windy and raining. Going there against the wind is a slog and talk is desultory. We arrive at the far point, turn, and I’m partnered with Clare. “Sorry -for - not - talking -I - can’t - get - my -breath!” she pants. All I can reply is “Same…. - …. here.” But we feel the kinship of fellow sufferers on the road.
17 October, 7 a.m.: it’s brilliant friday morning, I’m cruising up to Hillarys and back. The sea is a bed of coruscating gems, the world is awash with wonderful crisp Aussie light. I feel great and hammer it on the way back, keeping my speed up over 30kmh into a light headwind along the Wembley Downs beachfront. OK, so there’s our first ride into the hills tomorrow, but I just can’t resist giving it some welly. Besides, I have got a few clicks under the belt now, should be OK tomorrow.
18 October approx 7 a.m. As soon as we take off from the shops in Kalamunda, up the first negligible hillock in the main street, I know I’m in trouble. Legs feel like lead, nerves have given me a bad night’s sleep, I’m struggling to stay with the pack for even the first five or so pretty flat kilometres. We do a long descent - I seem to roll incredibly fast, keep going over the top of others - and then before us a sharp rise, that levels out but keeps rising. Immediately, I’m in trouble and now John McRoberts pulls up on his motorbike. Burning SHAME and HUMILIATION… I am towed up the hill. Clare, who I thought was at my pace, copes on her own. I can’t even seem to get the pedals to turn over, let alone spin. The hill goes on and on, turns into Paterson road, I try again but each time John drops me again, it feels like I am sliding straight back again. The ride -called the LOTUS ride by Chris H, apparently something to do with Lotus cars - continues on over “undulations” each one synonymous with more pain, suffering, and another drop behind. Finally we complete lap one. I am simultaneously cursing my folly from yesterday, chanting “A pox on Lotus”, and dreaming of calling it a day; Wiggles has already indicated he’s out for lap two, I can go have a coffee with him. But… just a little bit of form crept back in the last few Kms and OK, maybe I’ll need more towing, but it’s got to do some good, going again and I won’t get better drinking coffee. So I stay on the road and it’s slightly better, but I am still nowhere near spinning on the hills, just burning up with wall-to-wall lactate. Johnno gets me through the last five kms. He says a remarkable thing: that’s it’s GOOD I rode yesterday, that’s how I’ll improve. Somehow that helps more than anything else. I’m crawling up the last hill, saying FUCK IT in frustration, stand up to pedal and this makes Clare tip my wheel. Sorry, Clare, I can’t stop, I’m selfish when I’m tired!! I learn later that the etiquette is to yell SLOWING or STANDING; file that one away with the advice on uphill pedal technique, breathing, calorie intake… there’s a lot to learn.
25 October: I’ve done rides to Trigg and three laps of Bold Park during the week and square up to the same Kalamunda ride, now my nemesis. I went to the bike shop and discovered by largest rear cog is a 26; Johnno had suggested changing to one of these to help with my granny gear. I let the shop talk me into changing my front cogs over to a compact with a smaller, small front ring. Hell, I gotto do something! The Bold Park hill does seem a bit easier with the new gears and I realise this may help. But I’m nervous as hell for three days once I learn from Al that it’s to be the same ride again. Poor sleep, anticipate the alarm, put everything out the night before, drive up to Kalamunda in the dark and over-hydrate. As we take off though it does feel slightly better. Down the descent, here you are, you bastard! Start slow, stick to granny gear and try to get some rhythm. Chris H - the author of this torture-fest - sticks with me and I take it slow. I pull up at the crest of Paterson road, well and truly last, but realising I did it on my own and have something left afterwards. The gentle undulations still leave me behind the pack. Looks like hills are my weak spot, not that there’s any strong spots.
1 November: MIGHTY KOG gives us a gorgeous day for a country run from York to Northam. The drive up fills me with evil portents - it’s going to be the first day of the actual ride. Greenmount looks awful and then the hills just keep coming! Being able to manage a ride like that seems a fairy tale. Again, I’m nervous, arrive after a poor sleep, over-hydrated, desperately seeking loos. Off we go and it’s a dazzling day, good country, great company, pretty much flat. The words I penned for the Red Sky Rag come back to me: “Ain’t no place I’d rather be/ Than riding with my friends and me.” Hmm, last line needs work. Once again I find that around 65-70 kms, I start getting uncomfortable on the bike: not sore, but back and neck aching, I feel twitchy and need to keep standing to change posture. Coffee afterwards is a wonderful reward. Clive H is opening up more and more and he is a delightful fund of anecdotes delivered with cockney flair, I keep feeling like I’m back in London (worked at the Hammersmith Hospital for two years). The group is genuinely gelling now and the tempo of training is starting to gather speed.
8 November: another run up to Yanchep, slightly longer way back. I feel good - can start attacking some of the smaller hills. Not languishing at the rear the entire day! Al tells me I’ve done well; a first glimmer of some progress!
15 November: group ride around the river with a Mt Pleasant loop. Manage to fall off after unclipping at a dunny stop and leaning the wrong way. Discover another nemesis provided by MIGHT KOG: the hill next to Mead’s at Mosman Park. I die a thousand deaths and again fall way back. Still needs more work on the hills. Tackle this hill on my own a few days later, no better.
6 December, approx 9 a.m. Halfway up Brookton Highway hill. Sweating, crawling, limping up 9 kms of uphill. There’s no oomph in the legs, and soon there may be no contents in the stomach, as regurgitation feels imminent. Heart Rate is peaking at a new high over 176 bpm. What’s the line about exercise using up one’s allocated heart beats? Johnno and Santa are beside me: “Breathe deep!” “Dig your heels in!” “Nearly there now!” The latter was a blatant lie, but I savour the brief flat before the real final summit. “How do you feel DJ?” All I can reply is “Throw up!” with the wrong syntax… but I DO GET THERE, again slower than the rest, but recovery is quicker and I’m happier with the rest of the ride. I am still crap on hills and can’t work out what to do. I’ve changed the gear ratios, been up Bold Park umpteen times but seem to be in a different post code to the other riders after every hill. All I can do is hope for improvement.
12 December, 11 pm, Perth Airport: Leaving with my girls for a family holiday ski-ing in Japan. There’s no doubt I need the holiday. Work has been frantic all year, and the death of my father on November 3rd has engendered a lot of stress and work dealing with the funeral and the estate. But I’m worried that I am missing some key weeks of training and resolve to work on my stretching and trunk exercises as well as ski-ing cautiously. My plan to try and get 100kms done, in the days before leaving, only got half way.
22 December, Tokyo flea-pit, 4 a.m. Wake up shaken after a dreadful dream, details vague but the sense of fear all-pervading. The worries flood in as my mind turns to home. Have I regained some or all of the 4 kg I’ve lost so far? Will the others be streets ahead by now? Will this knee pain the ski-ing gave me get worse on the bike? What can I do to improve the hill-climbing? I formulate some plans - ride 5 days a week, do 100kms on weekdays, plus whatever is thrown at us on the weekend. Contact Clare about the King’s Park wed 6 a.m. training group. Avoid christmas excess. Maybe even think about an occasional jog to help weight loss.
23 December, 12 noon: got back after overnight flight, lovely to be back on God’s own earth, and out on the bike. Decide to do a flat first ride back, down to Freo for 15 kms and back. Hit a headwind like a charging rhino but press on. You can’t let conditions change your plans! And actually… I realise I haven’t lost it, still feeling like I’m a better rider than mid-year.
24 December, 2 p.m.: Christmas Eve, and it’s a sweltering afternoon. Plan is four laps of King’s Park, going anticlockwise so I’m tackling cardiac hill each time. Remember I used to run up during luchtime, 28 minutes from the hospital, but that was back in the day. Then I remember Peter O’Connell’s mate who fatally arrested one friday afternoon here as well. Can’t think about that, have to trust my training and I have to GET BETTER at this hill thing. Completely stuff the gears up second and third times, “blow up” big time, back to a crawl up to the Pioneer’s Women’s memorial. On the bike though the hill seems shorter and I notice that I do recover pretty well after 10 minutes spinning. Working on trying to develop a new pedal style much more pulling back and up than just pushing down.
28 December: didn’t ride yesterday as the group didn’t go and was still sore from wednesday’s debacle in King’s Park, despite a recovery ride the next day. So, much to be done. Decide to go up King’s park then do the Freeway run, should be over 100kms. It’s torrid and hot, especially the long open sections near the turnaround at the shop, but I notice that I can avoid changing gear on the small hills by using my new pedalling technique - it feels like a whole spare gear! Too hot though and get tired and sore, don’t do the King’s Park hill on the return. How will I be next group ride?
31 December: more hill work, Bold Park thrice yesterday, feels easier if not faster. Worked on windtrainer today (thanks real santa) on this new pedalling technique. Easy ride tomorrow before joining the group for the first time since the holiday away for a “hard ride” up Albany Highway, then Araluen hill. If even Iceman says hard, I’m convinced… let’s hope, O MIGHTY KOG, that in 2009 I’m able to keep with the group up the damn hills!