I’ve ridden quite a bit in the last year. Last October I rode more than 600 km as part of the Great Cycle Challenge (which I will probably do again this year). I rode over 4,500 km in 2018. I climbed more than 41,000 metres. 263 hours in the saddle.
This isn’t a lot for some people, and that’s exactly what I want to write about: Challenging People.
I don’t mean people who are difficult to deal with. I mean people who challenge you to do more/better/faster/longer. I’m surrounded by people who climb hills faster, descend faster, ride further, ride longer. To the extent where when I’ve been for a 90 km ride, or been for a ride where I’ve climbed 1,000 metres, and I tell people about it (which I do like doing because it’s a good source of praise), I don’t really feel like I’ve done anything special. The achievement, something which many would consider to be big (or even impossible), has been completely normalised/trivialised.
I don’t think this is a bad thing – it’s helping me push myself to ride further and faster.
This all came to me when I was listening to a podcast by Adam Spencer (I was riding up the Patrick Joncker Veloway at the time). He was interviewing an ultra-marathoner, Michael Hull, who fell into being an ultra-marathoner partly by accident/serendipity, because he was surrounded by endurance athletes in his teens, and it was the norm. The details might be a bit fuzzy beacuse it’s a long time since I listened to the podcast, but I think it went something like that. There’s a link to the podcast at the bottom of the page.
I didn’t surround myself with challenging people intentionally. It just happened, and I’m really glad it did. I’ve challenged myself significantly in the last 12 months, both mentally and physically, and I don’t think I would have had I not had these challenging people in my life.
Now – this has covered the adjective definition of challenging, but there’s also the verb definition. I hope that I’m also challenging people when I talk about what I’ve done. I’m hoping that while I’m telling people about my achievements (and getting a bunch of praise for it), it’s also pushing someone to try something new. Try to ride further than normal. Up a steeper hill than normal.
I think if everyone had challenging people in their life, and spent time challenging people, we’d all achieve more. And achieving feels good.
A hundred metres or so from the beach at Port Willunga is the shipwreck of the Star of Greece. She sunk in 1888 after 20 years of service. 18 crew perished, and 16,000 bags of wheat destined for Great Britain were lost.
If the tide is way out you can see one of the masts sticking out of the water, which makes it easier to find from the beach. You can see the approximate area of the wreck if you look for the small dark patch of water north of the reef (very large patch of dark water) in amongst the sand. If you have a look at Google Maps beforehand you can get a feel for where you should look.
I went out there yesterday and visibility wasn’t perfect, but it was definitely worth a visit. I brought our little GoPro Hero Session with me, and took a couple of snaps of the wildlife.
I’d like to dive the wreck-site next time, and spend some time piecing together what’s left, and what’s what. In the meantime, please enjoy the vague descriptions of the photos below.
The mast, nearly breaking the surfaceFish near the mastMore fish
I wonder how many thousand posts have been written in the last week about what changes people implement in their lives in 2019. They seem to be quite widely derided on Twitter, which I guess shouldn’t surprise me. It’s Twitter after all. A place mostly filled with grumpy, shouty people who complain about everything. But I think it’s a logical time of year to try to implement a major change – especially weight and health related. We’re 357 days away from Christmas, which is traditionally a food and drink heavy time of year. Easter is 15-ish weeks away, which also has some pretty delicious foods. So starting afresh in the new year seems like a good idea, because of the temporal distance to difficult times, and not just because it’s an arbitrary “we’re now in this spot in our orbit around the sun so I’m going to change…this time for sure”.
I have a few plans for this year, and I’m going to try to give them until Christmas 2019 before I re-evaluate how it’s going. No quick fixes. No shortcuts. No unrealistic expectations. My plan, beyond the immovable foci of work and (extended) family, is to focus on my fitness (mental and physical), my weight, and creativity.
Fitness
For fitness, I think I’m going to keep doing what I’m doing, with a few tweaks. I love cycling and it helps my mental wellbeing as well as my physical, so I’m going to keep riding my bikes. Last year I managed a bit over 4,000 km of cycling. I’d like to crack the 5,000 km mark in 2019.
Cycling is gloriously meditative for me and it gives me time to process a lot of things, but it’s not as quick as the mental clean and sweep that I get from going for a run. I’m not going to set myself a target for running distance for 2019 because I should probably get rid of a few kilos before running, but for 2020 I’m going to aim for at least 365 km.
I think I should also work on overall strength and flexibility, so I’m going to ease myself into a calisthenics routine for overall strength, and as we live near one of the very good yoga schools in Adelaide, I should probably make use of that, too.
Weight and Food
I’m too heavy. This morning when I weighed myself I weighed 108.5 kg. A couple of years ago I was under 100 kg (I’d go as far as saying “mid 90’s”, even), and it was wonderful. I’d got there from my starting point of ~113 kg using Duromine, which I would recommend if you’ve tried everything else. I’d try it again, but I think it triggered some migraines for me, so I’m steering clear.
Weightloss and gain since November 2016
My climb back to 108.5 kg has been relatively slow, and considering how I’ve eaten the last 6 to 12 months isn’t surprising. Stress-levels have been high, and this has lead to some very poor chocolate-related diet decisions.
My goal is to be in the 80s, or low 90s, and the plan for 2019 is to use intermittent fasting to restrict my calories to get there. I’ve done it a bit in the last month or two and if nothing else, I enjoy the process. I’m not going for the popular 5 and 2 intermittent fasting, but opting for alternate day 24 hour fasts instead. Every second day (ish) I’ll skip breakfast and lunch and aim for a normal dinner. I’m hoping to do this at least 3 days a week. It’s said to be very good to combat insulin resistance, too, which couldn’t hurt.
I find this type of eating good from a social point of view, because that’s where it feels like my previous diets have come crashing down. Keto/LCHF makes it difficult to eat out, and I actually feel a bit ick eating like that. Generic calorie restriction makes it difficult to eat in general. With the alternate day 24h fasts, I can have dinner with people any night of the week, so ticks the “still works in a social group” box, and if I need to have lunch with people, I can shuffle my days around.
Creativity
I like being creative, and this year, I think, is the year for me to take it up a level. I have three main ways for being creative. The first is writing, and I’d really like to try my hand at some fiction writing. The second is Making, and I have some ideas for electronics projects to do for myself and with the kids. The third is music, and I think this is the year when I start playing with a group of people (I’ll avoid the word “band” for now), and give writing a song a proper crack.
I know it’s still a long way away. I know. 4.5-ish years. The kids will be 13 and 15. Me nearly 45. But I’m finding it tough to keep my mind away from planning this trip. What bike(s)? What time of year? What sort of food will we eat? Will we camp every night on the way through or hotels and caravan parks?
It would seem that the rest of the family are also quite enthusiastic about the trip. They went to the library today, and brought back a book by Joshua Cunningham called Escape By Bike. In a very-not-me fashion (I’m a frustratingly (for myself) slow reader), I just finished reading it.
The photographs in the book are stunning and inspiring. And my enthusiasm for this ride is at an all time high, and the tips and hints in the book are adding to my confidence that this is something we’ll be able to do.
Maybe I should do a solo-trip somewhere in Australia first. Maybe up to the Riverland and back…
I found this draft sitting around several days ago, and I thought “that’s a good idea!”. Just like I did when I first started the draft, which I have no recollection of. It’d be fun to write something snarky about lucky hits amongst rubbish song-writing.
I had This Love by Maroon 5 in the list. Building Steam with a Grain of Salt by DJ Shadow. This Train Will Be Taking No More Passengers by Augie March. Some track by Phoenix.
So there were only four tracks in my Top 5. It was a draft. I’ll forgive myself.
But then I thought I should listen to the other songs by those bands. Properly listen to them.
So now I’m stuck.
Really stuck.
Those bands all have some other great songs.
Journey have good songs other than Don’t Stop Believin’.
A-ha have many songs better than Take on Me.
Chumbawamba, it turns out, is some anarchist group of…well…anarchists who have a bunch of punk songs. (Their first album was released on Crass Records!)
So, I guess, what I hadn’t done before, was give those bands enough time to appreciate the time, effort, and dedication that they had put in to every song. Which is probably a good lesson for everything in life. Don’t dismiss too quickly. Don’t assume something is bad. Pay attention. Listen. Look.
![[Enthusiasm rising]](https://bitterswede.com/wp-content/uploads/EscapeByBike.png)
