It was acceptable in the 80s- Overtraining and The FA Cup

I received a training pack through the post, from the charity in the week. This raised loads of questions in my mind especially the paragraph about overtraining.

Signs of over training

• A raised resting heart rate
• Disturbed sleep
• General Tiredness
• A lack of enthusiasm for riding

So let me recap this last couple of weeks, I have had a couple of disturbed sleeps. This is because I had been watching Big Brother, going to bed late and having to get up early for work. I have also been constantly tired and have only been on one big ride since 28th August, a 60 mile ride. So I can conclude maybe I have been overtraining? Or more to the point I have been busy with work and my friend's wedding and I like getting up early even on weekends, so have been short on sleep. This will only get better as BB has finished so I can get an early night or two.

Also it talks of training tips "work your weakness not your strengths. If you hate hill climbing, go and climb. If you hate riding on long flats, ride long flats." What about if you hate cycling? Their tip is surely to cycle lots. I had three options today:

• To go to Bristol Open Days when many of Bristol’s significant contemporary and historic buildings open their doors to the general public 
• Go to a Bristol Cycling Festival event, as there is almost 100 cycling inspired events around Bristol between 11th and 26th September.
• 3rd option came up after listening to Talksport radio, realising it was FA Cup 1st Round

So going back to a previous blog I thought I would use football as treat and combine the other two options, create my own cycling event and visit a significant site, (well I had never visited Bitton AFC's stadium, the Recreation Ground) I would therefore force myself into getting on the bike and train.
I am however not going to extend that training tip to start putting vinegar on my chips, filthy.
The handy part to getting to the Bitton ground is it is really close to a cycling route which is all off road and the whole journey only has 200 metres of road cycling. It uses the Bristol to Bath disused railway.

At this stage you are probably thinking where is the link to the 80s? Well my girlfriend has gone to Langley nr Slough and taken our digital camera with her. I thought that is okay I have a phone with a camera but I remembered my phone is broken and my temporary phone is the Nokia 1800. This is an amazing phone it even has a flash light function in the top, but no camera.

Smart Phone? No camera

Thirty years ago people wouldn't have even dreamt you would be able to be contactable anywhere by phone and take pictures on the same device. It will be funny to tell the next generation "when I was a lad... you had to remember all your friends telephone numbers off by heart!" Anyway digressing I will have to say there were some good views I couldn't capture today and if you live near Bristol or Bath it is an easy weekend ride to go with the kids. After 9 miles of the cycle path you get to Bitton Steam Railway station and the ground is 200 metres from there.

It was refreshing to go to a local match reminded me of going to see Tonbridge Angels in my 80s youth. It was £5 well spent and this thought must have been shared by about 44 other people. The game was Bitton versus Old Woodstock FA Cup 1st Qualifying Round the result was 3-2 to the away side. I was surprised the high level of standard of their passing games, it was a well fought battle. For a more comprehensive review I am sure my friend who blogs about non-league football will put a post on his blog AdventuresInTinpot when he has time and he has an IPhone so there should be pictures. 

So I will now get an early night, then tomorrow embark on another cycle ride to football and try and incorporate the passing game into Sunday morning football.

Louis

Last Couple of weeks. Last £100K to raise

So I thought I should write another post. I spent most of the last couple of months harassing people writing blog and email after another. Then nothing, it has even got to the stage where people are asking how did my cycle go?

Spot the Ball

So a little catch up. The Bank Holiday Saturday, I cycled to Nailsworth near Stroud to watch Bath City play away against Forest Green Rovers. I wrote down some directions from mapmycycle website and went on a cycle through the country lanes. Using B roads I went past where Josie Gibson from BB lives, Iron Acton where a massive illegal Vodka factory has been found and Wickwar where an amazing Brewery is based. I cycled for 30 miles to watch the game, however I got a little lost and ended up getting there 10 minutes late. I am sure I didn't miss anything as the final score was 0-0 and paid £15 for the privilege. It was good for a Blue Square Premier Game. 60 miles workout and back in time to watch an interesting play called Beanfeild.

The following week I was writing a Best Man speech, which was recorded, I think they hoped it would go terribly wrong and they could redeem £250 from You've Been Framed. However I went down a storm and it is now going on sale to the highest bidder. So if you know anyone called Yannick and Ruth that are getting married then I have the speech for you. The day went well, the sunshine was blazing it was really good.

Best Men Speech

Then Sunday, my football team had its first game of the season. We were playing a team new to the league so there was no idea of what standard they were. I cycled to the game it was pouring with rain. It was at this stage the amount of time on the saddle in my challenge coming up sunk in. I am hoping that we do have an Indian Summer and the fact I am unprepared for the challenge ahead, so I will need to get some waterproofs. We lost 3-1, for a review of the game Google 'Shadwell Rovers' however I felt Cameron Currie should have got a 7 for the effort he put in during the game.

Cycle and Funraising

Now, with regards to the cycle and the fundraising I am with 36 other riders. I know names and a few are on the AboveandBeyond facebook page. One even posted the elevation data inputted into mapmyride.com the other day. Hopefully if you follow the link and then click in the box that says 'elevation data' it will show you the hills.....nice.

Here is Bristol to Barnstaple:
http://www.mapmyride.com/ride/united-kingdom/bristol/355128025528636883

Barnstaple to St Austell:
http://www.mapmyride.com/ride/united-kingdom/barnstaple/167128026368739732

St Austell to Lands End:

http://www.mapmyride.com/ride/united-kingdom/-/904128026663243377

There is only £100,000 left to raise of the £1.6M for the CaRE appeal so dig deep and sponsor you can make a difference

Cycle to Football

Shadwell Rovers versus Stoke Bishop

Before today I had only clocked up about 140 miles, not including Bike Polo on Thursday night. Yes I went back to give it another go. I turned up and only three other people were there so it a little more obvious that I was a beginner although it meant I had more touches of the ball. I am really getting the hang of it. Since the previous week I have found that it is not going to be in the 2012 Olympics, it was two years ago when I saw a BBC Sport VT with Mike Bushell, he was trying out the sport at a time when people were campaigning for it to be re-introduced. Oh well it makes me feel better that I would not have been good enough for an Olympic squad.

So last night I made a decision to cycle to football and back. It was in Keynsham at the Cadbury's Chocolate factory so I picked up a friend in Southville and another in Whitchurch in a sort of cycling bus. This is the factory non-locals may have seen on the Television as it is due to close February 2011, so this may be my last chance to smell the Chocolate whilst playing football. I think that would be my favourite past time.

The good thing was my friend had an i-Phone with GPS signal which meant we could follow a route and have a map to follow which was handy as I didn't know the route we were going to take. This reminds me of normal journeys to football where I just sit in the back of the car and not really take much notice of the journey. Although after playing football in and around Bristol helped me realise there is much more to Bristol than Park Street, Gloucester Road and The Centre. The ride was going well, or I thought, we had got to a massive roundabout and even given someone directions. We cycled for another 15 minutes and ended up doing a massive loop ending up at the same roundabout. Ironically my friend worked out on his phone that we needed to take the road we had directed the lost pedestrian. I couldn't blame my friend as I hadn't take much notice of the signpost as I thought he had it under control.

We continued on the right road and met up with another team-mate and made it along to the Chocolate Factory playing fields. On arrival the sweet smell of chocolate hit my nostrils, I nearly started dribbling. Only 10 players turned up, usual pre-season friendly so the other team loaned us a goalkeeper and our goalkeeper played out on pitch. Yurka, a Czech the 1st one to play for the club. We played really well considering we had loads of players out and we hadn't played since the 1st week of May. To only lose 2-0 was a good result I think my fitness showed as I was running about for the full 90 when most others were struggling.

The journey back was tiring I saw it as a warm down, just taking it easy. I stopped off at the supermarket to get an Apple Juice and Pasty, Sportsman's snack you may think.

I managed to get out of taking the kit, perhaps I should cycle to every game, hmmm...

A very tired Louis