Tales From a Sore Spot

I picked up the rear during this mornings fast and not so furious ride and it reminded me of when I first started on the bike. On my first 180k outing to PD I was totally dropped and needed a GPS to get home. Those days are long gone I hope but it reminded me of a little piece I wrote 4 weeks before Ironman Langkawi. I wanted to submit it to a mag for publishing but although I want to write about sports it seems I have been tied to interior design and food! Anyway, reading it again made me realise how quickly things can change and you never know, "Tales from a Sore Spot" could become a regular fixture on the blog - there's plenty of material upstairs in this noggin of mine, (huge groans from everyone).

Enjoy.

It is a fact that the seats on road bikes are in place to do no other job than create pain. Now I have yet to check out the guys problem areas but the pain for women and our, ahem, delicate bits is not solely down to my being a rookie rider. I have done the research and the seasoned girls I ride with all suffer. One would have thought with technology; the level of comfort derived from the seat would have improved to a level that stopped the onset of sore spots. Instead, the seats seem smaller and the words “Women’s Specific” I personally think are just thrown around to make us girls spend extra pennies, I mean money, but they do also seem to induce the amount of pennies spent on long rides. I have tried two seats so far, one regular and one woman’s specific, the result? Sore spots from both, thank you very much

What am I going on about? Well a few short months ago after screwing up my shoulder from years of abuse with racket sports I started down the path of cycling with the target of getting into triathlons once the injury healed. There was a duathlon around the corner and having never ridden a road bike I borrowed one, did a handful of rides (it did help that I was already a regular runner) and went to Lumut for my first competition. To cut a long story short because this isn’t the real story – I did pretty ok, for a rookie.

A few thousand Ringget later I had my first baby. I have yet to name her but the black, white and silver carbon is sexier than a Victoria Secret catalogue (okay probably exaggerating now). After Lumut the shoulder was given the all clear and I finally got back in the pool with the foresight of improving my swim and being ready for the upcoming seasons triathlons with the Singapore half Ironman in September 2008 being a sensible, reasonable, achievable, BIG goal. During this time my seasoned training buddies were full steam ahead preparing for a December IronMan in Perth, Australia. After following their progress, getting jealous and feeling left out I rescheduled my 2008 race calendar, threw caution to the wind and decided what the heck if they can, I can. And so my first ever triathlon will be Ironman Langkawi in February. Silly, naïve and stupid are words many people have thrown my way – but what the heck – I’m British for Christ’s sake.

So here I am with 4weeks left of training to go. The body is getting rather tired with the 20plus hour training weeks and 5am rises. And mentally, this is what I wasn’t prepared for; mentally I am exhausted. So why put myself through it? The funny thing is I enjoy it, the sweat, the pain, the exhaustion, the sore spots, the chaffing and above all else the family. I am not talking about ma and pa here. I am talking about the other Silly Billie’s’ who follow the same unsociable hours. A mixed bunch of locals and expats, it is the camaraderie, banter and obsession to excel that make setting your alarm for ungodly hours acceptable.

Ok now for some of the pluses-: when training for a 3.8kswim, 180kcycle and 42krun you can eat what the hell you want. I mean there has to be some pay off and for me the food is it. Basically my life over the past few weeks could resemble that of a hamster. I exercise while everyone is sleeping; eat whatever I can lay my hands on and as often as possible and sleep like a good girl, at a lets say, a reasonable hour. Quite how I am going to adjust to reducing the food intake after Langkawi I don’t know, but for now I am enjoying the freedom of chocolate without guilt.

And if you ever see a group of riders out on a Saturday morning I will probably be the one picking up the rear or getting lost. But never fear, I won’t go hungry, because you know the great thing about cycling shirts? It’s those huge pockets on the back. Wonderful how much food you can stuff in there, it’s almost worth putting up with the sore spots so you can exercise and eat at the same time. What a great sport this is – why on earth I didn’t take it up sooner I will never know.