Each week I try to review and reflect on my previous week on the bike. This allows me to see how my fitness and ability is progressing on a wider timescale than day to day. For previous weekly reviews please click here.
An interesting week, all told.
Whilst not covered (because this is only about cycling and not, allegedly, everything else in my life), Monday and Tuesday both had some physical activity by way of fell walking. I posted some pics of that on Wednesday.
The rest of the week was a fairly tired affair – possibly caused by the walking – though more mentally than physically I think. Anyway, glad to get that week over and done with, and it ended far more positively than it started.
- Wednesday – My Poor Antique Legs (Outdoors)
- Thursday – You Have To Let It Go (Outdoors)
- Friday – My Legs Say Chris, You Are Due A Rest Day (Outdoors)
- Sunday – Impromptu Jeffrey (Outdoors)
Really this week needs to be split up into before and after Thursday.
So I just said at the start of this post that I try not to keep the wider happenings of my life on these pages. But this week that’s a little difficult.
As regular readers will know, I’ve been on the job hunt for the last two to three weeks. Each week that goes by without having secured a new role leads to increasing anxiety. Last week I verbally accepted a role, but something about it didn’t feel right. There wasn’t one particular thing, it was definitely a combination of multiple factors.
Even though I’ve wanted to head up Parlick for a good long while now, when I took myself off there on Tuesday it wasn’t because I wanted the walk. It was to escape. Run away up a hill, far away from my day to day reality, and I thought (wrongly) that I’d not be able to get an internet signal up there so would be incommunicado for a few hours.
Well, turns out modern 4G works pretty good up hills. So even though I was a good few hundred meters up in the sky, my emails and voicemails were still relentless. Not helping my anxiety I can tell you.
Fortunately prior to running away on Tuesday I had an interview that morning, 9 till 10. I went immediately after. But that interview seemed to go badly on a number of questions, and even though I really wanted that job I was pretty confident I’d messed it up. They said they’d let me know by Wednesday afternoon if I was successful.
Lo-and-behold, Wednesday afternoon came and went and I didn’t hear back. By this point I’d put off signing the contract for the other job for so long they were hammering me to get that document signed off so they could … well, do whatever they needed to do.
Fortunately the recruiter for the other role suggested I wait just one more day and see how things went before I took that first offer. And so I waited, and on Thursday morning I got the good news that I’d been offered the one I really wanted. Amazing.
So like I said a few paragraphs ago, really this was a tale of two halves. The weight off my mind, the immediate release of anxiety when I got that call on Thursday morning, it’s hard to explain.
I could see how badly my sleep was affected (I’d sleep walked earlier in the week apparently, very unusual), and my physical output on the bike was really low.
Then after getting that news I perked up – not immediately, at least not physically. I still struggled on Thursday and Friday, but I think that was a lagging indicator.
Anyway, I feel soooo much better now.
Everything worked out in the end.
I’m also off now till 15th August, so have loads of free time to ride and relax without worrying about where my next gig is coming from.
All that translated into a great ride on Sunday, even coming with an unexpected but new PB setting effort up Jeffrey Hill.
The only downside I would say lately is that whenever I ramp up my Polar heart rate monitor suddenly starts dramatically misrecording my heart rate. Not sure why that is, but if I had to guess I’d say the strap may be wearing out. A small issue then, I hope.
For the week ahead then, I’d love to get in a few decent, long-ish rides. A couple of two hour rides would be nice.
Today is stupidly hot. I’m resting today – going out in 26c heat would be a terrible idea.
But the rest of this week is ~21c so really the perfect weather for riding and I can go out early anyway so not be out in the hottest parts of the day.
I’m not specifically planning anything. One thing I would like to do is another fell walk – and I have in mind to do Pendle Hill. The only downside to that is it will probably lead to blistered feet again, which sucks. However, at least this time I won’t be running away from my life.
So that’s something.