Up yours, Mr Lloyd

I know she has her critics, but I think the whole Jade Goody cancer issue is very sad.

I can’t begin to imagine what it must feel like to be told you have an incurable disease from which you WILL die within months, maybe weeks. And I know there are people who feel she shouldn't publicise her plight, but I can’t see any harm in it; moreover, it is reported that the number of cervical smear tests being carried out since her contracting cancer has increased substantially, and if this is in part due to the publicity from Jade then surely that can only be good, cant it?

The big C word struck a couple of colleagues of mine with fatal consequences about 7 years ago now. David Graham and Colin Pilgrem, two very strong and successful businessmen who I worked with, were both struck with liver cancer around the same time as each other. Neither survived 6 weeks after diagnosis. Their deaths were very shocking and I often think about them.

Colin Pilgrem was an accountant for whom I carried out tax consultancy. The day he was diagnosed with cancer he called me into his office to ask that I take over his clients. Of course I agreed, but that was the last time I ever saw him. I kept in touch with his family, but eventually they moved away from the area and we haven’t spoken much for a year or so.

This weekend I have been clearing out my garage of all the papers and general household rubbish which has accumulated over the years. Amongst the papers were some out-of-date documents for Colin’s clients (when I say out of date I mean papers which are older than 6 years). I found myself sitting down with these and reading through them (nothing like a bit of light reading about the tax consequences of offshore trusts to brighten the day!). This took me back to the days when Colin and I were working together, and it all seemed like it all happened yesterday. The big C is a nasty, nasty thing.

On a lighter note, I also found papers which really, REALLY, took me back. There’s a letter I found from a girl from college named Sally (that’s the feature photo this week). I can’t remember who she is, but she obviously wasn't my girlfriend because she's going on about some boy she's met. There’s my Best Man’s speech notes from my brother’s wedding when I was a nervous 18 year old. I certainly DO remember that day. Then there's some pictures of a day I spent at Silverstone when I was an avid MG owner. Here’s me and my lovely MG Midget (circa 1987) ready for the off on the driveway at home...



It was a hard job throwing out papers which hold so many happy memories, so I ended up keeping most and hiding them away in a couple of filing cabinets. No doubt they will resurface in another 20 years or so to treat me once again to all those fantastic memories.

Garage cleared, and now it's full of gym equipment - treadmill (courtesy of Maurice from my tri club), weights bench (courtesy of Maurice from my tri club), spin bike (courtesy of Towell from tri talk), rowing machine, turbo trainer, TV, DVD, blah blah blah. All this in response to my resignation from the USELESS DAVID LLOYD GYM IN LUTON. Today I took the kids for a crash (not literally) course around it and they loved it. Maybe triathletes of the future? I should take a photo of them and file it away to uncover it in years to come to remind me of how they looked as young teenagers back in the year 2009! Now that would be worth waiting for, for sure.

Did a bit of training this week, but was still recovering from last week’s cold, so training was on a 'when I feel Ok' basis. Here you go.....

Monday – run - hill repeats - hopping, 50 press-ups and 30 sit-ups
Tuesday – rest, 50 press-ups and 31 sit-ups (can you see a pattern developing?!?!)
Wednesday – bike - gym spin (fixed wheel), run - treadmill - easy 45 minutes at 1.5 gradient
Thursday – rest, 50 press-ups and 32 sit-ups
Friday - rest, 50 press-ups and 33 sit-ups
Saturday – run - hill repeats - hopping
Sunday – run - 800 metre intervals, 50 press-ups and 34 sit-ups

Next week I am determined to make use of the gym in the garage, and also get back on track with the running plan.

In the meantime, here’s this week’s *WEBSITE OF THE WEEK* (see side bar for websites from previous weeks) - http://www.podrunner.com/. It’s a site full of House and Dance music which you can run to at specific stride rates. Downloadable to your computer or your ipod. I am trying to develop a run stride rate pattern of 180 strides per minute and so podrunner has become a valuable resource of music to me. I have a secret passion for House music, and also love running to music, so it's a bit of a double whammy for me. Try it out for yourself. Fantastic, inspirational stuff.

Until next week, happy training.

Cheers.

C

A Work in Progress

I have just returned from what must be one of the most enjoyable runs ever so I just had to start my blog early this week.

Following this, I had the idea, for this week only, to log my thoughts on a daily basis, rather like a Work in Progress, so here goes.....

Monday: club swim - a very hard 55 minute interval session. I turned up late and had to skip the warm-up, so it ended up being an all-out eye-balling session. As usual, I was hanging off the feet of the guy in front of me for most of the session.

Tuesday: run - 40 minute steady run, to include 4000 metres at 4 km/min pace. This is sub-40 minute 10K pace and well above my comfort zone. Still some way to go for sub-40 10K.

Wednesday: run/spin/run - 25 minute easy treadmill run at gradient level 1, followed by an all-out eye-balling spin session (wow...those spin sessions are great fun!), followed by another 25 minute easy treadmill run at gradient level 1.

Thursday: today, lost myself in THAT run back from the garage. Totally unstructered, which makes a very pleasant change from all the serious runs I keep find myself doing. Finding places 5 minutes from where I live which I never knew about is a very enlightening experience.



Friday: today, a thoroughly enjoyable 25 mile road bike with Jev. To the tea rooms in Stewkley than back again. The back again bit was a bit slower because of the king size lasagne I gobbled down, preceded by a queen size soup and prince size coffee. Single gear.



Saturday: no training today. Two reasons - have come down with a cold and also was out on the beer the previous night. A heavy session which has wiped me out for the day completely.

Sunday: no training today again. Still got the cold.

Another Work in Progress is a website I recently discovered from tritalk -http://www.turbotraining.co.uk/. Very much in its its early stages but I think it has a lot of potential for those lonely nights on the turbo trainer. So, there you go, this week's *WEBSITE OF THE WEEK*!!! Might make this a regular feature, so watch this space.

Finally, an amusing story following last weeks TCR show which I picked up from 220 online (reference the picture up top). I am amazed that such shananigans go on in this sport. A similar thing happened to my mate Simon a few years ago at The Big Half where he had the dubious pleasure of having his custom fit Snugg wetsuit nicked from transition. Simon will be the first to admit that he doesn't share the same physique as the stereotypical triathlete so it would have been interesting seeing the thief trying to offload the wetsuit down his local pub....

More next week. Have a good one.

C

Mr Angry from Northall...

Do you remember the BBC Radio 2 show 'Steve Wright in the Afternoon'?

I was an avid listener, and of constant amusement for me were his characters who regularly 'phoned in' to the show. There was Linda Lust, Sid the Manager, Mr Paranoid and, of course, Mr Angry who was, for me, the most memorable. This guy would phone in and just spout off angry moan after angry moan. He would always end with the line "it makes me so angry I could throw the phone down".

I felt like throwing the phone down this week during a telephone conversation I had with the hopelessly hopeless membership department with my gym - David Lloyd in Luton. I shall repeat that - the hopelessly hopeless David Lloyd gym in Luton.

I won't bore you with all the details, but I currently have a dual adult membership and wanted to change one of those adults to a child membership (for my daughter Emily who is really keen to start at the gym). The only way of doing this, "apparently", is for the adult to resign and the child to join.

And therein lies the issue. There is a 3 month notice period for the adult resignation, and also a joining on fee for the new child member. So, I asked if they wouldn't mind simply changing the adult to the child membership with immediate effect, without the need to resign and re-join as a child. OK, I know that would mean bending the rules, but in these times of recession and high competition between gyms, I figured that if they valued my business they would agree to my request. I have been a member for around 10 years and I thought this would be a nice way of repaying my loyalty.

But oh how wrong I was. Apparently, this wouldn't be "fair" for the other members who resign and who have to go through the 3 month notice period. They couldn't see that I wasn't resigning and so they weren't comparing like for like. Neither could they see that they stood the risk of losing me as a member entirely if they couldn't end the rules slightly - something which I did explain to them.

So, in one single telephone conversation they turned one very happy member into a resigning member, and now I am seeing out my 3 month notice period whilst currently looking at joining a new gym, of which there are plenty locally and also all are less expensive.

The cost to David Lloyd will be substantial - I spend at least £200.00 per month (in membership fees and in the cafe) and, as a very active person, was fully intending to be a permanent member. Add that to the fact that I now have a personal goal of warning everyone I talk to off of joining their gyms, then the cost to them could be tens of thousands of pounds over the years. Ah well, their loss and my gain - with the saving I shall be subscribing to Sky+ HD, so the kids are very happy with the result (except Emily, but I shall be joining her up to the new gym).

Another source of great frustration this week was the continuing arctic weather. Cycling and running is impossible, and so all I have managed to get done is a couple of gym sessions. As a result of this, I have decided to stretch last week's running schedule over to the coming week, instead of trying to catch up and cram two weeks training into one, thus running the risk of injury with over-training. Having said that, a quick peak out the window and I see it is snowing again. Doh!

On the plus side, I attended a very beneficial TCR show on Saturday. I didn't get any shopping done because I spent most of the day listening to some very worthwhile seminars. The first was a presentation by the great Joe Friel who spoke about perdiodisation. This came at a very appropriate time of my training and so I think I am going to brush down my copy of Joe's book 'The Triathlete's Training Bible' and have a read.

Then there was a talk by Steve Trew on the mind of a triathlete. Some very, very useful tips by one of the UK's most experienced and respected coaches, and I can see how many of those can be incorporated into my training and racing.

Next there was the highlight of my day - a Q and A session with Chrissie Wellington. There I sat, no more than 7 feet away from Queen Chrissie, starry eyed and totally absorbed by her amazing attitude towards the sport and to life in general. She is a born winner. So tremendously focussed, and it is easy to see why she is the world's greatest female athlete IMHO.

Back in the pool for some concentrated swim sessions this week. I have neglected the swimming a bit recently, in favour of running and cycling (in that order), so I think I need to get in the pool more often. This starts with a hard club session Monday evening. If I don't put on the trunks more often than I have done recently I will end up like Boutros Boutros Boutros Boutros. If you don't know who he was, or what was his claim to fame, then Google him. You'll see what I mean.

Until next week, C