It feels like years since I’ve been in the Fatboy, though it was only October. I feel bad that I haven’t given it the commitment I think it probably deserves. I would like to give another go of it (otherwise I wouldn’t be writing this blog) and I’m determined to enter the 10k I always said I would in May. My biggest problem at the moment is training outside in the cold, which was part of the reason I stopped last year – my feet really suffer in the cold. Driving home from work last night it was -5C, and we’re probably in for snow over the weekend. I think I need to give it a maximum of one month, and then get back in the chair regardless, I’m going to need those 2 months just to get ready for the race.

Other than that I’ve actually been quite good at keeping up at the gym, and the odd weekend of basketball has been keeping me in training. It’s looking like my end of month scores are going to be fair – hopefully under 40% anyway. I’ve re-started the 100 Pushups Challenge, something I tried twice before but have had to stop due to a recurring problem with my left shoulder, possibly the rotator cuff. This time I’m going to throw in some rotator cuff exercises in an attempt to hold off any injuries, and repeat the week’s programme instead of pushing to get it done too quickly.

When I started to look into the possibility of racing I borrowed a book from Ally called Wheelchair Sport by Vicky Goosey-Tolfrey. It’s fairly new and therefore reasonably up to date with our understanding of the human body as well as the technology of various sports chairs. I’ve only just finished reading it and thought it was worth a mention as it’s really quite an interesting read. It covers racing, basketball, tennis, hand cycling and rugby, but with a large section on general exercise and training for people with disabilities.

Last but not least, I thought I’d just post a link to an article on the England Athletics website about our Wednesday night track meets. Despite me not making many of them, I still feel part of it, and I think it’s great that it’s turning into a real little club! From Percolators to Propulsion.

To add insult to injury, my ‘rest day’ percentage from last month was 44%, which means it’s increasing every month since I started keeping track. I’m wondering if my plan to motivate myself by keeping a record of it is actually still working. This month I’m determined to make sure my rest days are under 40%.

Still no date for the 10k I’m planning on entering next year, but it’s still early. I like to have a date to count down to, something I discovered when I was running road races, as it helps me motivate myself a bit more. In the mean time, more time at the gym, and try to get to the local track on my own.

To keep warm on the track I pretty much just kept going, throwing in as many slow laps between the organised reps as I could. I probably did about 17 or so laps in the 100 minutes or so we were there. Works out at 6.8km, though bear in mind a lot of the time I was in lane 3 or 4, so possibly a little more. It doesn’t really sound like much, but some of them were sprints and others were very slow.

I’m feeling good about it, and motivated to put some more work in on the track. I’m still aiming to do the Silverstone 10k next spring, which is going to take a little bit of work, even if it’s just maintenance work, over the winter. This is great because yesterday was the 2nd ‘anniversary’ of my last run. As my condition creeped in very gradually I don’t really have a date that it started. I kept running right up the last moment, even though I probably should have stopped when I started having problems in the June. Instead my last run was on 27/10/09. In leiu of a date my condition started, I have this one, which is only 24 months ago but feels like a lifetime. I hope I can run again some day, but until then I have basketball and that ever ellusive marathon.

Last week was the first time that I’ve had the opportunity to train and decided against it. It’s cold, dark, wet, and a 40 minute drive each way. I’ve never had a great fondness for track work but it’s pretty much all I can do at the moment, seeing as I’m not quite strong enough to do any great distance, and not confident enough to tackle a raod or path.

I’m realising that wheelchair racing is not the alternative to running that I thought it might be. Running gave me the freedom to go anywhere at any time. Racing is limiting – the surface, the equipment, safety aspects… I’m worried that I’m going to lose my motivation before I’ve even completed a 10k.

Looking back at last month I only counted between the 1st and 19th, with the 20th – 30th written off as ‘holiday’. In those first 19 days I also did quite badly with regards to training, only 2 sessions at the track, though 4 at basketball tranining, another 4 at the gym, and 1 at the pool (start of the basketball season is taking priority at the moment). This still left a massive 42% as rest days, a long way off from my planned 25%!

As of the 1st October I am back at it, with the first basketball game for the first team on that day. We played in Maidstone and lost, but it was a big lesson for us and I only hope that other people recognise it enough to learn from it.

A few things to sort out, and back into shift work, so I haven’t had the time I would have liked to hit the gym. I finally got there today and could really notice the difference a few weeks off makes! I’m going to struggle to get to any of the Wednesday track sessions in the forseeable future due to work, but I’ll try to get to the local track at some point in the next few weeks. I have another weekend of basketball this week, with a game on Saturday, and then a game and a demo on the Sunday, which should shock me back into shape!

I work shifts, which means that I can only make 2 or 3 track sessions a month. There’s another session on a Sunday but there’s also a second basketball training session on most Sundays and basketball still comes first. I have a session that I do at the local track by myself, though that is largely dependant on a) it not raining too much, b) the track being free, and c) it being daytime (I’m often up during the night due to shifts).

So far this month I’ve only been to the track once, and for someone who is still learning the sport it really isn’t enough. I can’t really expect to get involved, get excited, get inspired, get past the 1st mile, if I’m hardly ever in the racer. Yes, the 10k I’m planning on doing first isn’t until May (Silverstone) but I’m bound to push less in the winter – it’s time to commit.

In early July I decided that this method wasn’t particularly great, and started to write down what I did each day on a post-it note. The idea was that I would see just how many days off I was taking and push myself to exercise more. This worked, for a while at least, though I also found myself ensuring that I wasn’t doing the same sort of workout on consecutive days. Somewhat related to that, I noticed that I was spending a large percentage of my days doing weights workouts (possibly linked to the fact we were between basketball seasons) and made a concerted effort to swim and go to the track.

Because I’m a bit of a geek, below is a chart showing the breakdown of the last 60 days. In case you can’t see it, the biggest blue chunk is my rest days, red is weights, green is track, and purple and light blue are swimming and basketball.

I now intend to create a monthly summary of my workouts to ensure that I’m keeping to what I’ve started – having less rest days, a wider range of workouts, and ensuring that I’m not doing the same workout on consecutive days.

When I was running the only thing I needed to keep an eye on was the temperature. I learnt fairly early on that if it was going to be below about 12 degrees I was going to struggle with my asthma. Sun, rain, snow; it didn’t really matter, it was all about the temperature. Being in the chair makes things slightly different. When I left home last night it was 19 degrees and overcast but dry. When I arrived 45 minutes later the temperature was down to 14 degrees and we had torrential rain.

I sat in the car for 15 minutes and eventually the rain stopped. Thankfully I’d grabbed my old windproof running jacket and squeezed into that for the duration of the session. Puddles, spray, slippery pushrims, wet and cold toes, jacket rubbing on the tyres, and getting in and out the chair in different trousers are all things that will need some getting used to – even in the middle of August.

If I intend to tackle some of the longer races I’m going to have to get used to the idea of training in the cold and wet (or investing in some rollers). The last thing I need is some fair weather training and then a downpour on race day.