Stash and Sickness

It’s been almost two weeks since my last blog and on my last post I stated that I had begun spending all of my newly found free time on the bike and in the pool. Whilst this carried on into the next week, life and specifically work decided I was having too much fun and that it would bring a stop to my new freedom.

To begin with, work ramped up in both intensity and duration for the week; this was due to our staff rate dropping by 3/5ths over 7 days and the workload increasing by 50%. This meant we had literally the bare minimum staffing and we were pretty much on full gas all week. These two combined to make a pretty stressful and knackering week, meaning that after work exercise was very unappetising.

I did manage however, to keep some motivation and visited the pool a few times before work in the week, and squeezed in a longer cycle home one night to include a few hills.

I also purchased some stash from my local cycling club. For those uninitiated in sport, Stash is the real reason we play, not for medals, not for glory and not for ‘love of the game’. Stash is the reason Mr. D Beckham has travelled round the world playing for different clubs. Stash is what drives grown men to don their football boots and socks for no reason when watching their 8-year-old play Sunday football.

Stash is Club Kit.

And it took me a full 3 weeks since joining the club to invest in matching shirt and shorts. Lovely.

Despite my best intentions of racing the weekly club TT in my newly acquired stash (I even pre packed everything prior to going to work!), by the time Thursday arrived I was pretty much smashed and it only took the slightest suggestion before I found myself having a refreshing pint in the local pub garden.

The weekend following was always going to be a write off in terms of training; it was the Girlfriends birthday on the Saturday and my annual hockey reunion (read: not much hockey and lots of drinking). In order to score some brownie points, Friday’s activity involved dinner, a movie and the gifting of some birthday sunglasses resulting in permission to go out and play on the Saturday.

Needless to say, I was slightly fragile on Sunday and despite the sunshine, was barely able to walk a mile never mind balance on a bike.

The following Monday, 2 of our missing 3/5ths returned to work and inexplicably, the workload dropped by 50% (typical) meaning that finally I could get back to training.

Apart from the sickness that is.

As I am male, I would like you to know how much I was suffering. And more importantly, I want your sympathy!

It would appear that I no longer have the recuperation of a vampire/Khan from the new Star Trek Film/ my university days, and had developed a minor head cold on the Monday. Perhaps wisely I decided to skip swimming to avoid making things worse/ giving everyone else the germs. Feeling slightly better, I commuted to work on the Tuesday only to develop a tight chest.

Using the (very few) benefits of working in healthcare, I had a chat to a doctor who after a quick examination confirmed I wasn’t having a) a heart attack, b) a collapsed lung, c) a broken rib or d) a pnumeothorax and it was more likely to be a minor bug, so, I got on the bike and peddled through treacle all the way home (at least that’s what it felt like).

Clearly optimistic, I decided that a decent sleep would cure all and headed into work the next day hopeful that I would get a light jog in after work before setting the world alight with my TT abilities the next day?!

How I was wrong. And it became apparent, not with a light jog, but a Usain Bolt like sprint. To the toilet. After loosing what felt like half of the Pacific Ocean, I politely informed my boss of the events and rather quickly headed home.

The next two days were spent moping around the house with a headache resistant to all medication and a body that ached like I had lost a fight with a polar bear.

So after sleeping like a zombie/ completing Tomb Raider / sitting through Domino (terrible, terrible film) I felt slightly better and set about doing something constructive. I watched the footage of the Brighton marathon and found screen shots of myself.

That’s right. Im a TV star.

Me, centerpiece (with a white shirt)

Again, centerpiece, (white strip down the trouser leg)