All posts by Andy Todd

Andrew

Celtman Day 0 (Andrew)

Celtman training began today, unofficially. Officially, it will begin on Christmas Day with a jog around Stornoway – the Christmas Day Stornoway jog is the traditional start of training.

So, today’s 10 miles on a Turbo was just a warm up. A warm up to the proper training in three weeks. That’s why I checked my email, watched a couple of trailers on YouTube and generally didn’t actually do anything that resembled training. Because training hasn’t started, at least not officially.

(Which is good because I was knackered!)

Andrew

American Football Is Just Cycling With Shoulderpads (Andrew)

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American football is exactly like cycling.

I know this because I went to an American football match last week and it was exactly the same as watching the Tour De France. Don’t believe me? Here’s the evidence.

And, remember, this is based on my experience of one whole game of American Football, so this is almost scientific fact.

Evidence number one: both sports have a star man, a fast man, and a fat man who does all the heavy lifting

In American Football it’s all about the Quarterback, the leader, the main man controlling the action. His fast wide receivers are the ones who make a spring for the line. The hulking linebacks protect him from attack. In cycling it all about the GC leader, the main man controlling the action. His sprinters make the spring to the line and the hulking domestiques use their strength to protect the leader from attack.

Evidence number two: it goes on forever and nothing much happens until something happens

American Football last over three hours. Most bike races last three hours. And for most of the time, nothing happens. The peloton rides serenely on. The team has a time out and a natter in the middle of the stadium. Nothing happens!

And then something happens. And you’ve missed it because, really, who can watch any sport for three hours?!?!

Evidence number three: all supporters dress in silly costumes and get really, really drunk

In America being a mascot is pointless. Why pay someone to dress up and dance around the stadium when the whole stadium is filled with people who have dressed up and dancing around for free? Everyone dresses up. It’s would be like employing a man to shout “the Referees a wanker” at any football (proper, UK football) game? There’s no point. There’s 20,000 people already doing it.

Instead, attending an American Football game is basically Halloween meets P.E.  Muscle suits. Captain Americas. Soldiers. Gladiators. Anything except footballers.

Just like in cycling. Where muscle suits, Captain Americas, Soldiers, Gladiators and anything except cyclists dot the roads of Europe like Comic-con road-kill.

Evidence number four: the rules are completely incomprehensible

I’m not even going to try and explain American Football because, well, I don’t know how. Something to do with going forward and getting to the line first.

As for cycling. Again, no one really knows the rules. Sometimes you can grab a bottle and hang onto a car and sometimes you can’t. But what I do know is that the whole race is about going forward and getting to the line first.

Evidence number five: no one knows what’s going on

There’s faints when someone pretends to do something so the other team reacts. But they weren’t doing that, they were doing this, or not doing anything at all. Also, you can watch the leader but actually all the actions happening elsewhere and he’s not involved at all.

Basically, see number five.

Evidence number six: they’re all on drugs*

*For legal reasons I cannot substantiate this claim**

** We all know it’s true.***

*** Except for Bradley Wiggins.****

**** He definitely didn’t do anything. And not with that bag. Or those drugs. Or that week before the Tour De France. No, sir. Not him.*****

(***** He did it.)

Evidence number seven: both sports are about going a set distance

In American Football it’s all about getting 10 yards then 100 yards. In cycling it’s all about kilometres. Which, when you think about it, is all topsy turvy. Surely, in Europe, home to the classics and traditions and a century of always doings things the same way, we’d have yards, and, in America, where everything is in metric system, they’d have kilometres. It’s all mixed up. Which just goes to show both sports are nothing like alike. One is American and incomprehensible and the other is not.

Simple.

Andrew

Escape From Alcatrazman (Andrew)

Damn.

That’s all I can say to that.

Damn.

I entered three race ballots this year. The first was Norseman, which I didn’t want to race, but I did want to increase my chances in the future as every failure to be selected gives you an additional chance in the next ballot.

So, I was successful. Not because I was selected. But, because I was not selected, which was the selection I wanted, if you know what I mean. I won by losing.

The second was Celtman. This one I wanted to win. And I did by winning, not losing, and being lucky enough to be selected to race in 2017.

The third was Escape From Alcatraz. This was a long shot. A ‘I’ll never get in but might as well enter cause you never know’ race. There are only 2,000 places. There are 10s of thousands of entrants. I had no hope of getting in… until I got in.

Two days ago I received this email.

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Damn.

Escape From Alcatraz is a once in a lifetime race. A chance to jump off a ferry beside Alcatraz island (they can’t start on the island because of the current) and to swim back to shore next to the Golden Gate Bridge. An 18 mile closed road bike circuit and a 8 mile run follow. All in San Fransisco – a city I’ve always wanted to visit.

But there’s a problem. A Celtman shaped problem.

Escape From Alcatraz is the week before Celtman. It would be silly to try and do both, wouldn’t it? I should be tapering, not taking part in a triathlon half across the world.

But…

… could I just take it easy. Use the swim as good practice and use the bike and run as gentle exercises?

But…

… what about jetlag? I’m just back from the States. I flew 8 hours on Monday night to London, then had a four hour wait before a connecting flight to Glasgow. I was awake for nearly 36 hours after getting up at 10am (UK time) in the States on Monday and not going to bed until 10pm on Tuesday. I can barely muster the energy to walk today, never mind swim three miles, cycle 120 and run a marathon up and over two Munros.

But…

I want to do both!

But…

Can I do both?

Should I do both?

Hence…

Damn.

Andrew

The one with jellyfish in it (Andrew)

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Some people get survival tips from a TV adventurer Bear Grylls. A man who hides his luxury caravan hidden just out of shot. Other people get their tips from Ray Mears, a man who tries to avoid being bitten by snakes but whose very name is an anagram of “Ar! My Arse!”

Me, I get my survival tips from 90s sitcom Friends.

There’s not many 90s sitcoms that you can turn to for survival tips. Frasier could help you charm a maître-d. Only Fools & Horses would warn you about the dangerous lack of support in wine bars. But only Friends could help you in the wild, and by wild, I mean beach. And, by beach, I mean tourist beach, with lifeguards and flags to warn you before you go for a swim. Also ice cream. And cocktails. And a lounger and free towels. 

In Friends, six friends, hence the title of the programme, in case you’ve not seen it, go the beach. One of the friends is stung by a jellyfish and another of the friends suggests they, ahem, relieve themselves on the spot where it stings as, ahem, urine, ahem, is a cure for jelly fish stings…

Now, you have to ask yourself how this cure was first discovered. Who’s first thought was “I know, let’s piss on it!” and, having found success in combatting jellyfish, did they try and expand?

“I have a headache, does anyone have any aspirin?”

“No need, I know what to do – let’s stand on a chair and piss on your head!”

“I’ve broken my leg, can someone call an ambulance?”

“Save yourself a phone call – I’ve got a better idea – let’s piss on it!”

In Friends that’s exactly what they do. They piss on the friend with the jellyfish sting and, lo and behold, the friend is cured. Or at least I think that’s what happens. I’ve not seen this episode in years so I can’t absolutely say that there is an episode of Friends where five friends form a circle and piss on the sixth. I can imagine that happening in Seinfeld, but somehow it doesn’t seem right for Friends. Perhaps they all did it into a cup and then it was poured on delicately.

Anyways, whether circle pished or applied from a potty pot, that episode of Friends stuck in my mind and I’ve always known what to do when a jellyfish stings. Fortunately, I’ve never had to put this into practice as I’ve never been stung by a jellyfish. Until now…

I thought I would be during Norseman. I even grew a beard to protect my face. (I say beard, it was more bum fluff with ambition). A beard stops the jellyfish from stinging. But, the beard wasn’t necessary as there was something else that stopped the jellyfish from stinging: cold fresh water. It was too cold and not salty enough for jellyfish in the fjords.

Celtman is a different story. There are thousands of jellyfish in the swim section and all race reports talk about swimming through them.

Luckily, unfortunately, in my first sea swim since entering Celtman I had a chance to experience a jellyfish sting. I was swimming off South Beach in Miami (which, with its loungers, cocktails, warm water and dusky heat is ideal training for the cold sharp Scottish water of Celtman) when I felt small electric shocks along my arm. I knew I was stung but I wasn’t sure by what. I could feel an itchiness and knew I had to swim back to shore and speak to the lifeguard but all I could think was “Is he going to piss on it?”

I’d seen Friends, I knew what happened next.

I climbed the lifeguards’ tower, showed him my arm, now turning blotchy red, and said “I think I’ve been stung.”

He said “It’s a jellyfish, let me get something for that.”

And he grabbed a bottle.

While part of me thought how good it was that he prepared for this emergency by bottling himself in advance, another part of me thought “Please let it be something else, please let it be anything else”.

“It’s vinegar,” he said, spraying the liquid on my outstretched arm.

I sniffed.

I smelt chips.

I realized I was the chips.

It was vinegar.

Vinegar is a cure for jellyfish.

Thank you, Jesus!

Now I can tell Iain he doesn’t need a special water bottle to help at transition or that the only place he can go to the toilet is my left arm. Instead, along with the gels, energy bards and high energy drinks, he just needs a bottle of Saxo vinegar – filled with pish.

Andrew

Celtman 2017 (Andrew)

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I’d entered the ballot for Norseman and Celtman but only wanted one to succeed. I want to do Norseman again, but not next year. It’s too soon. But, because it’s a ballot, and I won’t get to choose if I’m lucky enough to enter it again, I entered anyway, to build up my chances in future years. Luckily, I didn’t get in.

However, Celtman was the race I wanted to enter. I’d seen the very first race on BBC Scotland’s The Adventure Show and I’ve always wanted to do it. After Norseman I didn’t fancy another race abroad so Celtman was my first choice. I just had to hope I’d be lucky in the ballot.

I got the email mid-afternoon. I read it. It said “You are in the race!.” and I thought: “Why has it got a full stop after the exclamation mark?”. Then it said “Please read the whole of this message very carefully”. And I thought: “I have and, really, why has it got a full stop after the exclamation mark?”.

It’s strange the things you think of when dream come true. Neil Armstrong probably thought: “Have I switched the oven off?” when he landed on the moon.

It takes a second or two for the reality to hit. I was in.

Ironically, and just like last year when I heard about Norseman, I’m injured at the moment. A twinge. A dodgy right hip. A few weeks of rest to take care of it. This week I started running and cycling again. A run through some trails north of Aviemore and 10 miles on the turbo, which have now become the first run and the first ride towards Celtman 2017!

Andrew

OMG! OMG! OMG!

Read the next entry from Iain. Look at the pictures. Nice bike. Nice set-up. It looks like a nice place to train but… wait a minute.. what’s wrong with that picture…

Just like meeting Donald Trump the only thought in my head right now is…

DON’T TOUCH THE RUG!!!!!!

Where’s the wipe clean mat? What’s been soaking into that rug? Euggghhh! Gross! Unclean! Burn it! Get rid of it before it soaks into the floor and causes sweat damp (the word kind of damp, just like normal damp but leaves yellow patches) throughout the entire house!

Oh, wait a minute.

It’s okay.

Panic over.

Iain doesn’t sweat when he trains. He doesn’t go faster than 5mph. At least he doesn’t when he’s out on the road, so I can’t imagine he’s any better on the turbo…

Caledonian Etape 2017 – bring it on! Challenge me, indeed!

Andrew

Hip, hip, no way! (Andrew)

Are some races cursed? For over 10 years I consider the last race of my ‘season’ to be the Fort William half marathon in November.

Some ‘seasons’ it might be the only race, rather than the last depending on what I’ve been doing (or not doing) that year but, each September, I pay my entry fee and book a bed & breakfast in Fort William for what I know will be a straightforward race.

The Fort William Half Marathon leaves from a football pitch next to the Nevis Centre and bowling alley. You run six miles around the bay, through Corpach, out of town, along the coast until you get to a cone and turn round and come back the exact same way you ran out.

The Fort William Marathon runs along the same route. The only difference is the cone’s six and a half miles further away.

It’s a nice race. A few hundred runners and a flat route that barely rises or falls as you run to Loch Eil and back with Ben Nevis looming behind you and over you as you turn.

It’s a good race. There’s only one problem: I always quit before it starts.

Usually it’s the weather. Fort William is wet, November is wild, and a Sunday race in November in Fort William can see horizontal rain and strong winds batter the coast.

Many a morning has started with me opening the curtains of the bed & breakfast only to think: “not today!”

Some times it’s injuries. By November I could be nursing some knocks and niggling pains that make me think it’s a good idea to take a few weeks off while the weather is bad and there’s no real incentive to be outside. Last year, it was tweak in my back that meant I couldn’t run for six weeks. Before that it’s been an ankle or a knee injury that a few weeks rest has helped heal.

It’s a race I wanted to run again this year – but you can probably guess where this is going.

I’m injured. A slight niggle in my right hip that’s telling me to use this time to recover rather than run in Fort William. Take a few weeks off, don’t do anything and start again in November with some easy sessions – and definitely don’t run a half-marathon.

So, next Sunday will join my other unsuccessful attempts to race in Fort William to make it: Andrew 4 Fort William Half Marathon 8.

Andrew

No bikey, no lighty (Andrew)

The day the clocks go back is the worst day of the year if you work night shift. I worked night shift as a hospital porter in Stornoway. At 1am I would have to walk round the hospital and change all the clocks. By 1:20am it was 12:20am and I still had another seven hours and forty minutes of my shift to go because, while the clocks went back, the time my shift ended stayed the same. A nine hour shift became 10 hours. I wouldn’t have minded if I was paid for the extra hour but the hospital couldn’t distinguish one shift from another so, as far as they were concerned, I’d only worked 11pm to 8am even if I’d had an extra hour in the middle.

(Of course, when the clocks wend forward, a nine hour shift became an eight hour shift but there was no guarantee that you’d be working that shift to make up for the extra hour! It really was unfair!)

I mention this because it’s almost time for the clocks to go back; a time that also reminds me of another time: the time for the lights to go back too. It’s time to attach lights to my bike so that (a) I can see; and (b) more importantly, cars can see me as (a) I don’t want to get run over; and (b) I really, really don’t want to get run over.

Yet, even though not getting run over is definitely one of my top goals when out on my bike, I’m always reluctant to get the lights out. I know they’re safe, they help me see and be seen, but I can’t help thinking how much nicer my bike looks without lights.

(Don’t get me started on mudguards. They’re the bike equivalent of making Eva Green/Ryan Gosling/whoever floats your boat* wear a Donald Trump mask before going out on a date.)

I just don’t like lights. They’re like zits for bikes. You know there’s beauty underneath but why do they always have to be right in your face so you can’t avoid seeing them all day. Car lights are hidden. No one notices car lights. Yet we stick lights on the front of our bikes like we’re attaching a rocket launcher to a tank.

Then there’s the ‘modes’. It’s not enough that every light shines white with a strong unbroken beam. We also need them to pulse, to flicker, to swing left and right and to flash so strong and so fast the man in the moon will have an epileptic fit.

If you’re thinking of opening a nightclub don’t hire an expensive light system just hang a bike from the ceiling. That’s all you need.

So, with the clocks going back, I find myself putting the lights back on my bike too and I realise why we have the extra hour. It’s not for farmers, it’s not for early morning commuters, or school children wanting to avoid walking to school in the dark, it’s to give cyclists an extra hour to complain about how their bike doesn’t look as cool it used to.

*Except Donald Trump (but, if it is Donald Trump, then we hope you mean that he floats your boat in that he’s full of hot air and will quickly blow up your dinghy).

Andrew

Welcome to my PAIN CAVE!!!! (Andrew)

Do you know what I love? Pain!

First thing in the morning, I just can’t wait to get me some of that old pain. At breakfast, I have pain with my cornflakes, pain with my toast, and, sometime, I even have pain with my yogurt – or youHURT as I call it.

At lunch, more pain. Go for a run. Bring my shorts, my shoes, bring my fruit based music device  but, most of all, bring the pain!

Then, when I go home, I like nothing better than putting my feet up with a nice relaxing mug of PAIN!

Pain, I love it.

Of course not. This is silly. No one likes pain. It’s, well, painful. And it hurts. And it’s sore. And do you know what I really, really love – not being in pain, that’s what I love.

Yet, as triathletes and cyclists you hear people calling their turbo set-ups their “Pain cave”.  Just going to “pain cave”, they’ll say. “Big session in the pain cave” last night.

(Twats)

I, on the other hand, don’t want to retreat to my pain cave, instead I want to give it a name that will make me want to go back on the Turbo again and again. That’s why I’d like to introduce you to my cuddle closet. It’s a small room, it has a computer, a desk, a bookcase, and a bike set up on a turbo. It’s where I go when I want to feel warm and happy like a cuddle. It’s my cuddle closet and it’s definitely not my pain cave.

If cuddle closet doesn’t suit you, other names are available. May I also suggest:

  • Fungeon aka fun dungeon;
  • The Ghetto Way For An Hour;
  • The Happy Place;
  • The Sweat Suite;
  • Or, if you really must bring the pain, the I’m Pushing Myself But This Is Just Mild Discomfort Cave.
Andrew, Race Report

Trossachs 10K (Andrew)

Processed with Snapseed.
Processed with Snapseed.

Every race needs a starter. If you don’t have a starter then you don’t have a race, you just have a lot people in lyrca standing politely and looking at each other to see if anyone else is going to move first. That’s not a race, that’s a queue.

You need a starter. Someone to fire the pistol, sound the horn, drop the flag, or fire a smoke cannon and let off a hundred fireworks (Long Course Weekend, I’m looking at you and your extravagant start!).

The Trossachs 10K however did things a litle different. It was started by a local chef from the Forth Inn.

“Good luck,” he said, dressed in chef’s whites and still wearing his apron like he’d just wandered out of his kitchen, which he had, because the kitchen was only 20 metres from the start line.

“Why is the chef starting the race?” I asked Iain.

We couldn’t figure it out. He didn’t mention a running club, so we assume he wasn’t one of the organisers, he didn’t mention a charity, so he wasn’t one of the beneficiaries, and he didn’t plug his restaurant, so he wasn’t even looking for publicity.

We can only assume that there was a misunderstanding. Someone must have said they needed a starter and someone else thought they’d best get a chef because, if there’s one thing chefs know, then it’s starters…

It’s apt that the race was started by a chef as the only reason we were racing the Trossachs 10K was that there was a cracking butchers in town and we fancied a run then lunch from the butchers (sausage roll and a macaroni pie for me, delicious).

The race itself is run through the Queen Elizabeth forest and is mostly on trail paths. It’s a great route with some ups and downs through the forest. It was raining but not too heavily to make it uncomfortable to be out running.

I ran round with Iain, we weren’t competing against each other or looking for a time, but, at the end, I felt comfortable and sprinted the final few hundred metres. Sadly, the chef wasn’t at the finish, but, you know, no one finishes with a starter.

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