Getting traditional.

 I've no idea how it happened, but I've suddenly felt the need to eat Marmalade for Breakfast. I guess it could be a hankering for stability, nostalgia and comfort, but it's still odd, seeing as I've never really eaten the stuff before. Got to say, though, I love it. that tightrope between bitter and sweet, the refreshing zing of citrus, the perfect wakeup routine. 

And breakfast is all about routine for me. I like to start the day in order, in a calm and steady state. I need to feel predictable, planted and prepared. Marmalade seems to give a roadmap for the day ahead. 

However, it's a roadmap which doesn't include anything outdoors, for now. the bike is still in the shed, and the trainer is still taking the strain. The Ice is subsiding, but it's cold, and miserable out there. Spring may well arrive soon, but it's not here yet. 

I need to get out.

 

It's just one of those days. The pipes are freezing again, we need a plumber. it's cold, misefable and bleak. I want, more than anything, to get on my bike and ride off into the sun. i'd like to be powering up Sa Batalla, or even Coldharbour, for that matter. I'm not fussy.

Memories

And lots of them.

Today I had one of those moments when time stops being linear. I know I've been banging on about this for a while, but my life really does seem to be cyclical - like there's no end and no beginning, but the flow of time is constantly all around me, in all directions.  I was picking milo up from school when I suddenly felt and saw all the other days I'd been there. Through the various stages of his life. The sunny afternoons, the plasters on the knees, the excited clambering up the climbing frame. And it's not just the past, but it's the potential of all the days of his life moving forward, too. It was immensely moving - quite breathtaking. One of those moments when time doesn't just slow down, it rushes outwards, like ripples in a pond. And there I am, in the middle of it all. As I slowly move around, I can see the past and the future. Life's amazing. 

Analogue blues

 I don't know where musical urges come from. I'll be gripped by a sudden need to hear something at certain points. The oddest thing, though, is that it doesn't even have to be a particular song. It can just be a genre, a sound, a feeling, or a memory. It's like grasping for something: pulling a solid shape from a shifting background. 

So today is all about sawtooth waves. SH101's. Analogue synthesisers. I feel comfortable when I hear them: I'm not sure why. It has to be nostalgia - but it's less cut and dried than wanting to hear old records. It's tied in with how they were made and the boundaries that were being pushed in their creation. A feeling of hope and possibility. A feeling that now was tomorrow. A fluttering in the stomach and a spring in one's step. Looking out at a world which was brimming with potential. All of it within reach. 

not learning lessons

 Hammered up the Galibier yesterday. Looking at my stats, I did 94% of the climb at threshold, which is just daft. I did end up with a PB but was exhausted by the end of it. 

There really is something about the Galibier for me. It's that, of all the climbs, it has that sense of dread and foreboding. As you ascend, the landscape becomes ever more empty and barren, unlike Ventoux, where it's lunar, but - post-apocalyptic. There's a sense of battle being joined: just you and the hill. That's the kind of challenge that I relish - but it always ends up being rather too gung-ho for my own good. 

Overall though, there's been a marked improvement in my cycling since I started Xert, and did my best to train properly. My FTP is up, but that's a sometimes inaccurate gauge of ability. Many of my gains can be attributed to learning to pace rides properly. I'm trying not to go off too hard, to drop my watts by about 20 or 30. that means I can sustain the effort. 

Also, a lot of the ennui and nihilistic despair I felt last week seems to have dissipated. There's a lesson: hang on it there; it will always get better. I'm very grateful for that. 

Straight out of the blocks

See that? That's basically last week's big ride. Part one of the Sella Ronda, in the Dolomites. I have this propensity to just go off, way too hard, for the first ten or fifteen minutes. That's an Xert graph, so the purple line is my MPA, or maximum power. As you can see, when you continually crank out the watts, your theoretical maximum power will drop, to the point where your effort crosses that line. That's known as a "breakthrough", but it invariably comes when you've pushed so hard that you can't do much more. All well and good - but perhaps not in the first 10% of a ride!

Thus, I've been working on getting more pacing into my rides. A little more restraint. Will it work? I'd like to hope so!

 

Rehabilitation continues.

 I have to admit, I don't feel quite as down as I did a couple of days ago. Thank goodness for that: it was seriously messing with my mind. Cycling may have taught me to listen to my body, but it's also taught me to listen to my mind, as so much of the battle is not physical but psychological. Consequently, whenever anything is awry, my radar just starts pinging like crazy.

And it meant I could train again with a sense of purpose and direction. As you can see from my Xert profile wheel above, my overall range of abilities is being extended relatively evenly now. I aim to boost my performance in as many disciplines as possible - except for Power Sprinter because I'm hopeless at sprinting. Plus, the effort required to boost my sprinting would require immense amounts of application for only marginal gains.

Today, I rode the Sella Ronda, which was just spectacular. Just check out the views!

All sparks burn out

And that's what's happening to me.

I'm not sure why, but I'm burning out. Like I can't carry the weight of responsibility. Like I need to sleep. I'll be fine in a few days, don't worry - but I just feel very empty right now. I don't think the funeral helped much: the emotional toll is vast. 

I was out on a bike ride today, and even though Strava tells me my Relative effort was huge (historic, even), it just felt like I was riding the whole time badly. No energy, no speed, no power. So it's all very odd.  

But, if there's a silver lining, it's that cycling has taught me to respect my body, to listen to the internal voice and respect the signs it's sending out. It's shouting at me - "relax, take some time to get back to yourself."

So that's what I'm going to have to do. 

Signing off for a day

Got a funeral to go to, tomorrow. Life sucks, sometimes.  

A soundtrack for that planning

Just the perfect piece of music. I love the contemplative, wistful feeling it always evokes. There's a sense of melancholy - for the loss of childhood innocence, with all of its sense of promise and potential. But also, there's the glimmer of hope: that all of this can be remembered and revitalised. 

There's the perfect song for this first week of a brand new year. 

 

Blogging again.

 It's a simple process that I've done many, many times before. Here I am, back in front of a computer, blogging. But what gives me pause is the sheer number of times I've done this, the different locations, the times, the situations, and the years. 

Blogging is a mirror for life, it seems to me. Whereas social media; that's been a mirror for oneself. Or should that be one's self? Anyway, it quickly ended up as something altogether more narcissistic than its original potential. Which, to me, has always been a source of immense anguish. It's a missed opportunity, isn't it? All that guff about being an "influencer". When blogs started, there were pages and pages of lists - people's blogs, their lives. I can recall choosing a few randomly, and each one was glorious: a window into another life. 

Now - you have to follow people's insta. While you're doing that, they sell you things: items, food, clothes, and themselves. It all seems so dreary to me; I just can't abide it. 

I don't really want to sell; I just want to tell. Dumb shit about my life, what it feels like to be me. Or, at the very least, what I think it feels like. 

As I sit in front of this laptop, typing away, I can feel all the other keys of all the other computers. Sitting in my flat in Shepherds Bush or on a table in Queen's Park. At an old wooden bench, in my place in Brighton. Fragments of my journey, all playing instantly, simultaneously, in my head. 

Some of what I've written has been dull. Some of it was done while I was absolutely drunk out of my mind. Some more still, while I was in the throes of a divorce, some whilst I was falling in love. 

I like the fact that there is no "narrative arc" beyond that chaotic arc which bisects all our lives: a messy, undignified scrawl across the sky. Here's to more of that.

And a vow.

A new year means a new start, obviously. But it means a lot more to me. It means I  can rationalise my thoughts, energies, and direction. Little steps to change the way you walk. I'm not sure what these steps will be, but I'd like to continue the path which led me to do things such as stopping drinking for good, or getting fit. Looking at life a different way and reacting accordingly. 

I get stuck sometimes. The same old paths, patterns, and behaviours. It's time to reevaluate once again.

Back to it.

 It's the start of a new year, so it's a good time to be back blogging. Especially so after a rollercoaster year in social media. I didn't tweet much anyway (on my personal account), but since the Musk takeover of Twitter, the site has become quite toxic. Not only that, it just feels...disappointing. Twitter was a place with so much potential and so much value. Little by little, you can feel all of that draining away, to be replaced with conspiracism, misinformation and bile. Ugh.

So - could blogging make a spirited return? I'm not sure, but I'd like to think there's a remote possibility. If a community has been cast adrift by the slow death of Twitter, then that community will be actively searching for a home. Again, I'm curious to see if Blogs can

Represent that home (after all, they are a remnant of the past), but let's be hopeful. It is the beginning of another year, after all. 

It's been a crappy '22, if I'm honest: fragmented, full of lost hopes. It's been another year of riding my bike, though: that's been a constant. 

As I look towards a new year, I'm going to vow to do some things: write more, blog more, ride more, care more, and love more. Keep my eyes and my heart open. Be aware of the power and beauty of the lifeline surrounding and enriching me. Here's to you, 2023. Don't let me down.