A BREAK FROM TRIATHLON. HERE’S WHAT I WATCHED LAST YEAR. NEXT WEEK: WHAT I LISTENED TO.

The last time I was in a cinema was in March, just before lockdown. I say cinema but this was no ordinary cinema. It was a luxury cinema in London with chairs that reclined to form a double bed and popcorn that came in a sealed packet so that you knew it hadn’t been scraped from the floor. Very fancy – though not as tasty.

I was watching ‘1917’, a film about a soldier who is tasked with getting a message to the front line, a simple plot. Man gets message. Man try to deliver message. Man leaves card and says he’ll be back tomorrow. Or something like that. It was back in March and I can’t remember exactly what happened, it was two lockdown’s ago.

But I do remember this: just as the soldier was about to reach the front line, and we’re about to see whether he can deliver his message in time, the man in front of me picked up his jacket and walked out. He didn’t even look back when he got to the door just in case he could see whether the message was delivered. Instead, he’d watched two hours of a soldier walking and running and getting shot at and trying his hardest to deliver this one message and that man couldn’t give a monkeys.

At Star Wars he’s be like “Luke, I am your – “

“Nah, not interested.”

Or the Sixth Sense:

“Hey, Bruce Willis, you do know you are a gh—“

“Couldn’t give a toss.”

On the other hand, he’s probably never seen the last episode of Game of Thrones so he still thinks its the greatest show he’s ever seen – and he’s definitely going to call his daughter “Daenerys”.

Looking back now, I think he had the right approach. Leave it open. Keep the mystery. Always want more. A very apt attitude for 2020 where everything – work, life, the future, the present, the ending of 1917 – has been left hanging like they’re the unworn shirts in my wardrobe since I started working from home in March.

It seems appropriate then that most of what I watched this year involved continuing series: which were all great for different reasons but all had stories which continue after I finished watching them. Better Call Saul and The Expanse I’m looking at you.

So, instead I’m going to recommend a programme which could have continued but didn’t after the BBC pulled the plug on it after one series. Which was actually a perfect move because ‘Giri/Haji’ already had a perfect ending. And, before that, a perfect final ‘confrontation’ which you will either like a Strictly judge “love, love, love it” or you will get your coat faster than my London friend. In between you’ll get the tensest thriller, a Guy Ritchie villain, scenes which play like a sit-com, episodes mostly in Japanese, parts in anime, parts in black and white, and a moment when you can see two characters fall in love just by looking at each other across a table. It was brilliant. I loved it.

Runners Up

Chernobyl – bleak and horrifying but better than watching the news

Schitt’s Creek – just, well, nice. Double nice. Triple nice. Lovely.

Eurovision – see Schitt’s Creek but with catchy songs

The Vast Of Night – if you love 1950s sci-fi then this pays loving tribute to small towns and UFOs

The Lighthouse – just like growing up in the Isle of Lewis.

Race Around The World – couples race from one end of South America to the other. Broadcast in March in the middle of lockdown. I can only imagine the disconnect I felt watching people on holiday and surrounded by strangers is the same disconnect Donald Trump feels every time he switches on the news and hears he hasn’t won the US election.

The Mandalorian – “Hey Mando, what’s that protein drink you’ve got there?” “It is the whey.”. “Thanks, Mando!”

Devs – a science lesson disguised as a thriller

Avoid

I’m Thinking of Ending Things – I only wish I’d ended it a lot sooner. Like at the start. Or never switched it on at all. Avoid.

UPDATE APRIL 21 – Anyone swimming here should respect other users and the environment. Please treat the place respectfully. Do not park in the area reserved for the angling club and if its busy then swim somewhere else. There are lots of good options near Glasgow.

This looks like Summer but this photo was taken at the end of November and it was Disney movie weather – frozen! You could see frost on your hair as sweat froze on your forehead. Yet, with the blue sky, it at least looked good in the photos.

The White Loch is just outside Glasgow and you can find our previous reports here along with details on where to go and how to park.

White Loch – First Visit

White Loch – Where to Swim

For this addition I would add the following information.

What make it ideal for winter swimming? The entrance and car parking is right beside the road. This is important because as soon as you get out of the loch you can get back to your car in less than a minute. Or, if you prefer to hang around and have a cup of team while wrapped up warm, then there is a nice flat spot at the loch’s edge to set up camp.

What make it less than ideal for winter swimming? The car parking is right beside a relatively busy road. So, while you try and strip from boots, gloves, vest, wetsuit, hood and swim cap there will be plenty of people passing and looking at your papa smurf like body – bright blue. On the other hand, it does give you an incentive to get changed quickly and to duck into your car for a nice blast of the heater.

Any tips for swimming? Stick to the edge and, if you do get cold, you’ll never be too far from an easy to access shore.

Overall: A good location for a winter swim but don’t be fooled by the photo at the top – it doesn’t look like this on every other day of winter.

This month I have climbed:

• Col de Soudet
• Cote De Revel
• Port De Bois
• Grand Colombier

And I’ve not left my house.

November is normally a wet month with few opportunities to ride outside so it was good to have a challenge to keep myself interested in spending 60 – 90 minutes sitting on a bike and not moving.

What was even better is that by not moving I don’t have to experience how tough it is to climb an actual Grand Tour mountain or “Col”, particularly when I don’t have 35 degrees of a baking sun one my back or – the biggest problem of all when climbing: no training!

Back in 2013 we climbed the Tourmalet. One of the Tour’s most famous climbs. I say climb but the best we managed about a kilometre before getting picked up in the sweeper’s van during that year’s Etape Du Tour race – a one day recreation of a Tour de France stage. We’d already climbed one mountain, albeit very slowly, and this was to be the second. But it was a failure. However I don’t look at it as failure. Failure suggests there was a chance of success. We were never going to be successful because we had no idea what we were trying to do. You might as well as your pet cat to round up sheep or ask Gerard Butler to use any accent other than his own. While technically possible, neither are ever going to work without considerable work and a whole lot more thought and planning. 

We didn’t plan and we certainly didn’t think – my sole thought was “Dougie, did this so we can do it too”.

Don’t worry if you don’t know Dougie, I didn’t really either. He was a guy I worked with on a university project when I was studied for an MBA in 2009 and 2010. He spotted me cycling into the university one day and told me that he was also a cyclist. What I didn’t know at the time was that this was the equivalent of me driving into the university in Ford Fiesta and bumping into Lewis Hamilton who said “Do you like driving? I like to drive too”.

Dougie, I found out later, used to take one way train trips to England just to jump out in the Lake District so he could cycle round the Lakes – and then cycle home. Wow.

He would cycle 50 miles or more on a mid-week night and I would think I was on the same level because I cycled 15 minutes to get home from work. 

During one class he told me that he’d taken part in a race which allowed you to ride the route as the professionals in the Tour de France. I thought it sounded brilliant and immediately checked out how to apply. What I didn’t do was check out the route or work out how high an actual Alp was. I thought it was a hill, not a mountain, and no higher than some of the hills around Glasgow. And even when I checked the elevation and saw that we would be climbing higher than Ben Nevis, I still had no idea how high that would be because I’d never climbed Ben Nevis. 

Ignorance is bliss – until you find yourself climbing an Alp for 10 minutes and expecting it to take half an hour, only to find you’ve still got two hours of climbing and you’re half a day behind everyone else. Ignorance, then, is stupidity. And the end couldn’t come fast enough on the slopes of the Tourmalet.

So, this month in preparation for the undulating roads around Applecross, I’ve been training for height by taking on various virtual climbs. I’m not keen on spending 2 – 3 hours on an indoor bike to try and get the distance needed to train for Celtman, instead, I’m swapping distance for metres climbed. Longer rides can wait for Spring.

My swim cap is cooler than yours. 🙂

The one thing no one warns you about when you buy dumbbell weights is how heavy they are when you pick them up. It might seem obvious to you. It may seem obvious to anyone but, the first time I bought a set of weights, I had not thought at all about how I was going to get them home.

I was in the final year of university and decided that it would be good to have a set of weights in my flat to use between studying. I lived on the edge of Glasgow city centre and thought I could pop into my nearest Argos, about 20 minutes walk away, and get a cheap set of weights. It was a simple plan for someone with a simple mind because…

They gave me a box. And in that box there was a set of weights and those weights weighed at least a tonne. If not two or ten. Because no one buys dumbbells in order to lift weights they can already manage. You buy weights that you can grow into and that can be increased as your biceps bulge.

Nor had I thought that the weights would be the total weights of both bars. I thought I could lift 10kg in one hand so I’d bought a 30kg weight set – 15kg for each hand. But now the set was in one box. So it wasn’t just 30kg, it was 30kg plus packaging and a large unwieldy box.

And I then had to carry this awkward package from Argos back to my flat, an easy 20 minute walk without weights. A trip through hell with weights.

Firstly, no one lifts weights for twenty minutes. You curl, you release. You put them down and have a wee break and a sip of water. Then you pick them up again. You don’t lift them for 20 minutes.

Not that it was 20 minutes. On the way in it was a 20 minute carefree, arms swinging, song in my heart kind of walk. On the way back, I couldn’t walk one minute without nearly dropping the box on my toes as I struggled to lift it across a street. Within two minutes my arms felt stretched like home made pasta. Everything ached. I couldn’t find a comfortable position to carry the box. I tried both hands, I tried under one arm. I even tried carrying it on my head like an Italian grandmother bent back from the fields of Tuscany. Nothing worked. I’d bought more weights than I could lift.

And what was worse was that the weights were in a box. To any passerby it looked like I was struggling with an ordinary box. There was nothing to indicate that I was trying to carry home an elephant wrapped in cardboard. Instead, I look like the very guy that someone would come up to and say “I think you need to work out!”

I did. But I couldn’t cause I couldn’t get the flipping’ box home with me!

Eventually, I decided to risk splitting the box. I took out the weights and, hiding behind a bin so no one saw me, I put the weights together and hid one in a bush and carried the other home. I then had a not so wee break and a gallon of water before going back and bringing the other home. Luckilly, it was still there but that was probably because no one could lift it.

And, once I got them both home I put both them under my bed and never touched them again for six months because my arms were as weak as a plastic bag handle when you’re trying to get a big shop home from the supermarket.

So, let my lesson be your lesson if you’re thinking of getting a lockdown weights set to avoid going to the gum. If you’re going to buy weights make sure you know how to get them home.

I’m invisible!

Through lockdown I’ve tried to keep to Windfarm Wednesday. This is a ride out to Eaglesham wind farm on the Southside of Glasgow on a Wednesday. Unless it’s raining in which case it’s wind farm Thursday. Or, because it’s Scotland in the summer, Windfarm Maybe Next Week When The Rain Finally Stops.

Now that the clocks are going back I will need to pause Windfarm Wednesday until the Spring, assuming that we’ll still be working from home, which, given current conditions, is a safe an assumption as Donald Trump will lie when he opens his mouth.

I will miss Windfarm Wednesday because it’s been the first time in six years that I’ve had the chance to consistently ride outside during the week. Normally I’d be commuting to and from Larbert and would only get the occasional chance to head out between arriving home and dinner and dog walking and all the other things we need to do at night. Instead, I would try and grab 45 minutes on an indoor bike before the evening overtakes me.

Having the chance to spend at least one night a week outside has been fantastic and has provided a good break from lockdown life as it allowed me to not become too insular by living and working from home 24 hours a day. Instead, it’s an escape to flee the city and, most importantly, to find new places and visit parts of Scotland I’ve never been before, even if only an hours distance from my house.

Over the last six months I’ve tried to explore new routes but to always pass the windfarm on the way out or the way back. It’s good to have a target – the Windfarm – but the journey changes every week.

Over the winter I hope to flip this approach to the long nights and not fall into an easy routine on the indoor bike as the journey doesn’t change: the bike doesn’t even move.

Instead I’m going to try various simulated climbs and try a new one each week through Zwift and other apps so while my journey may not change each week then at least I’ll always have a different target.

Last week I shared a few tips and handy links about winter swimming. You can find it here: Introduction to winter swimming.

This week I share one tip to help you acclimatise and train to love the cold. If you want to know what swimming in winter is like then just do this – headbutt a tub of ice cream. Easy!

If you want to know the first signs of hypothermia then here’s a video of me trying to eat a Twix after 90 minutes of cycling in zero degrees in just a short sleeved t-shirt. I’m wearing three layers of clothes to warm up and I still look like this:

Now, try to imagine swimming when you can’t control your body. Grim – and dangerous.

I normally stop swimming in October, once the water temperature falls below 12 degrees, and will only try a few quick dips until April. While I like the ‘shock’ of cold water I don’t like the ‘reward to travel’ ratio as it shrinks considerably in winter months. Why do I want to travel for an hour or more just to spend five minutes in the water? Instead I could walk to my bath and sit on some icecubes for five minutes and still have time to read a good book by an open fire?!?!

For anyone considering longer swims in winter than I thought it would be helpful to share a few links on how to prepare, what to expect and what to do if you get too cold – or, worse, get hypothermia and can’t eat a Twix. The links are below but if I had any tips to share these would be them:

• Never swim alone
• Swim for less time than you think you would comfortably manage
• Never swim alone
• Keep to the edge, the water will be much colder the deeper you get
• Never swim alone
• If in doubt, don’t get in or, if you are in, get out.
• Never swim alone

And for more on hypothermia.

Hypothermia and winter swimming recovery…