TwinBikeRun
Andrew and Iain Todd write about endurance sport, football and the everyday absurdity of life. Twin brothers, occasional triathletes, and authors of six books between them.
Film Friday is a weekly recommendation of one video to watch this weekend.
If you want to compare yourself with Olymic athletes then Mark Lewis on his channel has a good series of videos as he tries to match the speed of various athletes like Steve Redgrave, Kipchoge or Bradley Wiggins.
When I look back at my Norseman training plan https://twinbikerun.com/2018/08/28/norseman-training-plan-iain/ this statement stands out.
” I couldn’t have done much more, based on the time I had available and the desire to still have a life outside of training.”
So that was my key goal for training for this race – still have a life outside training.
To remove the anxiety of knowing whether i was training enough I decided to buy a Celtman training plan. I got it from https://www.tmrcoaching.com/
I had to purchase a training peaks (TP) account to use it. It was an interesting way to train…..I will write a separate blog about it.
SWIM
The training plan advised two or three swims a week. I did one session a week. Swimming is my most time consuming exercise as it involves at least an hour round trip from my house to my pool. I didn’t want to spend my time driving too and from swimming when i could be biking/running instead.
Thankfully my swim technique is pretty good so I decided all I really needed to do was work on my swim fitness. I did one 2.2K swim a week. And that was fine for me.
I’m also pretty confident dealing with cold water so I didn’t feel the need to overly practice swimming in it. I did a couple of pre-swims just to remind myself what it would feel like. That was also fine for me.
My view of swimming in triathlons is that if you are not looking to win the race then spend your time training the parts that will actually make a significant difference to your time – biking/running.
BIKE
The key sessions for the bike were a shorter faster set on a Tuesday and a longer bike ride at the weekend.
I mostly used Zwift until about April. It was the most time efficient way to train as I could do it in my house.
From April I tried to do the longer ride outdoors BUT I mostly did it on a mountain bike. Yes – a mountain bike. I don’t really enjoy long rides on my road bike. I find it a bit boring. So instead I would head off on my mountain bike and find interesting roads and tracks to ride.
I also (maybe mistakenly) thought that these rides would be better for me as the bike is heavier and therefore it would need more effort to ride it. I hoped this would mean that when I finally did get on my road bike it would feel easy.
My longest pre-race ride was 6 hours. Which I did a couple of times to ensure that I was used to being on a bike for a long period of time.
I only rode my road bike three times before Celtman. And that was mainly to check it still worked.
Run
The running schedule was a shorter hillier run on a Thursday and a longer run at the weekend.
I enjoy running so this was easy enough to follow. It was actually slightly less than I would normally run.
The only issue was that I developed an achilles injury at the start of April. This meant I choose to only run once a week. Which was enough to keep my running fitness but not enough to make my injury worse.
I’d have liked to have done more but I think I made the correct decision to ensure that I made it to the start line of the race,
I’ve covered the White Loch before – see here – and for parking see this previous review. For 2022, I’d add that you should check which route you plan to use to drive to the White Loch. There’s a lot of road work in the south side including on the main roads at Giffnock and Newton Mearns (including access to the A77). On Saturday, there was a diversion in place which required an extra 25 minute drive so factor that into your plans before you go.
Water Quality
In previous years, I’ve mentioned that you might feel a slight sliminess after you swim. This is due to peat and nothing to be alarmed about even if you might feel like the Creature of the White Loch Lagoon when you come out of the water. Currently, the water is clear and I felt clean when I came out of the water.
Last year the loch was ‘closed’ due to a blue-green algae infestation. This can occur after a long period of warm weather. Check out the Southside Swimmers Facebook group for the latest updates to confirm if the loch is safe to swim.
Swim Quality
Excellent location for different lenghts of swims. If you just want a dip then a paddle round the entrance is nice and shallow. If you want to complete a full lap then it will be around 1000 – 1200 metres. You can aim for the opposite bank at 4, then a bright and obvious life buoy post at 2 then a wind turbine at 3 before coming back to the start.
I’m told that some people experience a slight pull in the water around the dam at 1 so keep away from it.
Other people
At least one person every time I’ve been. If it’s been sunny then I’ve seen 10 people here, including swimmers, paddle boarders, a canoe – and one dog swimming laps after it’s owner. It’s a busy place.
Overall
A great spot for a swim – but also a very well known one so expect to see other people particularly at weekends, evenings and if the weather is warm and sunny.
Celtman is my local extreme triathlon. It’s extreme because it’s colder, longer, hillier, windier and more jellyfishy than a normal triathlon.
You can see what I mean by watching this video
I was supposed to do the race back in 2020 but it was understandably cancelled as the jelly fish refused to socially distance from the swimmers. My place was deffered to 2021 but due to a family bereavement I didn’t have the time or motivation to go through with the race.
The organizers then announced a new Celtman race called Zero Point Five. A shorter less colder, less longer, less hillier, less windier but with the same amount of jellyfish than the big race. Lets call it baby Celtman.
It sounded great so I entered it. Then a few week later I won a place at big Celtman. I hadn’t planned on doing the big race, I had only entered to increase my chances of getting in at a later date.
The races were scheduled to be one week apart. How difficult could it be to do an extreme triathlon and then do another tough race a week later?
The fact the celtman zero point five number is tattered and broken is a visual spoiler of what happened…
Every fortnight we cover the best and worst football songs from every club in the UK from our book ‘The Sound Of Football: Every Club, Every Song’. You can buy it here
Bristol City
Nickname: The Robins
Ground: Ashton Gate
Stadium Capacity: 21,804
Song: One For The Bristol City
Most teams have just one song. Bristol City has two: one that celebrates the club and one that celebrates the fan’s favourite drink – cider.
Bristol City is one of two football league clubs in Bristol; the other is Bristol Rovers. Although the clubs are rivals, they have rarely played each other as they’ve seldom played in the same division. The last time they played each other in the league was in 2001 – and the less said about the last time they met in a cup, the better. That was in 2013 in the first round of the Johnston’s Paint Trophy. The match was overshadowed by a pitch invasion that left 50 arrested, many police officers injured, and a result that no one remembers as every supporter has, your honour, a cast-iron alibi that they were somewhere else that day…
Bristol’s the sixth biggest city in England, but the two sides have always underachieved. During seven years from 2006, there wasn’t a single weekend in which both football teams and the city’s only other team (a rugby side) all won a game. It should not be a surprise that when City do win a match, they like to celebrate with a drink and a drinking song – ‘Drink Up Thee Zyder’ by the Wurzels.
The Wurzels were originally known as Adge Cutler and The Wurzels until Adge was killed in a car crash. The other band members recorded under their shortened name and had several hits. Their songs have a unique style because they’re all sung in an exaggerated West Country accent, even though one of the Wurzels was Scottish.
The club plays in red shirts, giving them their original nickname ‘The Garabaldians’, on account of the red shirts worn by the followers of the Italian revolutionary Garibaldi. This makes them the second club linked to Italian revolutionaries after Nottingham Forrest.
With a red shirt on the player’s chests, Bristol City is now known as The Robins, and you can hear ‘When the Red, Red Robin (Comes Bob, Bob, Bobbin’ Along)’ at Ashton Gate.
The club’s second song is ‘One For The Bristol City’ (described on the single sleeve as ‘the official Bristol City FC song’).
‘One For The Bristol City’ was also recorded by The Wurzels and was released in 1977, the year after Bristol City had been promoted to the first division. The song is based on the Wurzel’s 1976 single ‘Morning Glory’.
The song was re-recorded by the Wurzels and re-issued to celebrate The Robins’ promotion from the First Division to the Championship in 2007. It charted at number 66. Although it didn’t crack the Top 40, it was a huge achievement for the band as it was the first time they had two songs in the charts in the same year since 1976. Earlier in the year, they also charted with ‘I Am A Cider Drinker’, which they had re-recorded with DJ Tony Blackburn to raise money for charity.
Buy the Sound of Football from Amazon.
“Hey, Manuel, why don’t you strap a firework to your hammer and see what happens?”
“Si, amigo!”
BOOOM!!!!!!!!
“Now, let’s all do it!”
BOOOOM!!!!!
BOOOOOOOM!!!!
WTB (what the blimey!) have I just watched?
Film Friday is a weekly recommendation of one video to watch this weekend.
As I am an unfit middle aged man who tried to survive a Tour De France stage then this video resonated with me.
We’ve reviewed Bayble Beach before. You can find the reviews here and here so this review is more a warning than a review.
The beach is beside a working pier and when I arrived there was a tractor pulling a boat out into the surf. I waited a few minutes while the boat was floated and the fishermen (a grandfather, father and young son) left before I waded out into the water. The board quickly skirted the pier and left my sight. I thought I had the water to myself and started to swim only to find, a few minutes later, the boat came back.
“Well that was rubbish!” I heard the sound son say over the unmistakeable sound of something mechanical broken.
I stayed next to the pier while they grounded the boat and the father jumped out to get the tractor to pull it up to the beach.
And all I could think was “I should have worn a tow float!”
I’d started swimming in a spot I knew well, one that I knew was safe as it was near high tide on a calm day and I didn’t think to wear a two float. I was wrong. Even in the safest spots, something can change. An empty ocean can suddenly be filled by an anguished shout and next you see, a broken boat is bearing down on you.
So, for this review, I repeat everything Iain said about how great a location this is for a swim and I only add what should be an obvious plea: always wear a tow float when swimming outdoors!
Every fortnight we cover the best and worst football songs from every club in the UK from our book ‘The Sound Of Football: Every Club, Every Song’. You can buy it here
Brighton & Hove Albion
Nickname: The Seagulls
Ground: American Express Community Stadium
Stadium Capacity: 27,500
Song: Where Seagulls Fly
In 1983, Brighton met Manchester United in the final of the FA Cup. Both United and Brighton played in the First Division. However, while United finished third, Brighton had already been relegated when the teams met in the final.
With only a couple of minutes left to play, the score was 2 – 2. Brighton attacked. Its Scottish striker, Gordon Smith, found himself one on one with United’s keeper. Gordon took a touch to steady himself – and it seemed inevitable that he’d smash it home – but he scuffed his shot, and the keeper saved it.
Before Smith shot, the BBC commentator Peter Jones said the now immortal line: “…and Smith must score!”.
Which was unfair. It was late in the game, Gordon Smith was tired, and it wasn’t the easiest opportunity. Yet it proved to be Brighton’s final chance, and the game finished 2 – 2. The match was replayed, and United won 4 – 0.
The FA Cup final inspired local Brighton songwriter Johnny Wakelin to write ‘Where Seagulls Fly’.
Brighton got its nickname ‘The Seagulls’ after a match against its rivals Crystal Palace. The Crystal Palace supporters started chanting, ‘Eagles, Eagles’ (Crystal Palace’s nickname). A group of Brighton & Hove Albion fans responded with a chant of ‘Seagulls, Seagulls’. The name stuck, and, in 1977, the club crest was changed to a white seagull.
‘Where Seagulls Fly’ was not Wakelin’s first sporting song. He’d had a minor hit in the ’70s with a homage to boxer Muhammad Ali. His song ‘Black Superman (Muhammad Ali)’ reached number seven in the UK Singles Chart and spent six months in the U.S. Billboard Hot 100. Muhammed Ali, however, disapproved of the song and shunned it completely.
The B-Side to ‘Where Eagles Fly’ has an unusual honour: it was, we believe, the first football rap, five years before Liverpool, John Barnes and ‘The Anfield Rap’. It was ‘The Goldstone Rap’, and we recommend checking it out on YouTube. While it can’t in any way be called a good song, it can at least be described as a non-racist song, unlike the Anfield Rap.
If you go on a bus tour of Liverpool, you will visit the city’s modernist Catholic Cathedral. A tee-pee-shaped building also makes an excellent impression of Dumbledore’s hat. And if you listen to the recorded bus tour, just after you are informed that the four bells on the Cathedral are named John, Paul, George and Ringo, the tour guide will tell you that the Cathedral is known locally as ‘Paddy’s Wigwam’. But if you think that reference is racist, you can rest assured, it is not. If it were racist, would Liverpool FC use it in the lyrics of the Anfield Rap when they sing?
“Don’t forget us Paddies
And me the Great Dane
And I’m from London mate so watch your game“
(Source: Gainford, Johnston, Derek B and Byker)
But that’s not their only crime against race. Quite clearly, the songwriter had never met an Irishman. As the squad later sing:
“We’re Ireland lads
Och-aye the noo“
(Source: Gainford, Johnston, Derek B and Byker)
Och-aye the noo?! The only ‘Irishman’ to ever say “och-aye the noo” was former James Bond and Edinburgh born milkman Sean ‘I don’t do accents’ Connery in mawkish leprechaun fantasy Darby O’Gill & The Little People. Awful – except for John Barnes.
But if lyrics in football songs can be challenging, Brighton has a supporter who can help them. If Brighton ever reach the FA Cup final again, it could ask local supporter and superstar DJ Norman’ Fatboy Slim’ Cook to record a new song. Although Norman Cook has said he hates football records, he does mix football and music. In October 2004, the FA permitted him to change Brighton’s stadium’s name to Palookaville Stadium for one match only to publicise the release of his album Palookaville.
Buy the Sound of Football from Amazon.
