Post 19 - Tough training and osteopathy

I’ve just come to the end of a tough 2-week block of training - possibly the toughest two weeks I’ve ever done. In these two weeks, training-wise, I’ve managed to do everything I wanted to, although not necessarily in the order that I wanted to do it, but I’ve had to be flexible to adapt and overcome a few challenges that came up which were out of my control. I’m at the stage where I could probably do the Ironman next week and be reasonably competitive, so I’m moving into the “diminishing returns” phase of training now, and as my fitness continues to improve, I walk an ever-narrower tightrope in terms of the risks of injury or illness. I know if I can totally control and get through the next 12 weeks without disruption to my training and eating, and without injury, I am capable of a good result at Ironman UK, so I’ll continue to keep my fingers crossed.



I am now moving into event season, so from now until the start of June, my training will be dominated by the two 100-mile bike time trials I’m doing, one on 17^th May and one on 1^st June. I’ll also follow each of these events with a run, and I’ll eat and drink the same nutrition while competing in them, to mimic race day. These events will involve an enforced “easing” of training, to taper and recover from the time trials. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, as it’s very difficult to train indefinitely at the intensity I have been training at over the past two weeks.



In the next week or two I will have to take the bike out to my formerly local bike shop in Essex for a full service, and to have some new components put onto it, to make sure it’s as fast as it can be. Although I now live in Kent, I want the bike shop in Essex to service the bike, as they do a great job and I trust them 100%. This will involve renting a car and spending a day driving, but hopefully it’ll be worth it, and I will time it so I do it during an easy weekend, to avoid disrupting my training.



I’ve also got aerodynamic clothing in my room worth about £1500 (equipment isn’t cheap), but I haven’t had time to try any of it on. There are a few different aero jerseys and aero shorts in different sizes. I recently ordered it online, and I will be trying it all on during my easy week when I have some spare time. I’ll keep one top and one pair of shorts at most, and return the rest of it. So my total spend will be nowhere near £1500.



Next week will be an easy week regardless, to allow my body to rest and recover from the tough 2-week spell that has passed, and to mentally give myself a break too. It’s during these recovery periods that the body gets stronger, so the easier weeks are an essential part of training. During next week’s easier week, I’ll still train, but I won’t do anything long or intense. When I first started training for an Ironman in 2010, while in South Korea, I used to do no training at all during my easy weeks, but then for the first few days back doing full training, I would feel awful and sluggish, so I’ve found it’s important to keep ticking over during the easier weeks.



Training done this week was as follows:



Monday 21^st April 2014: 1:30 turbo (1:20 hard), 30 minute run
Tuesday 22^nd April 2014: Rest
Wed 23^rd April 2014: 40 minute fartlek run
Thurs 24^th April 2014: 1:30 turbo (20 x 2minutes hard, 2 minutes easy), 30 minute run
Friday 25^th April 2014: 3km swim (20 x 100m in 1:29, 10 second recovery), 1:20 turbo (single leg drills: 12 x 2 minutes left, 2 minutes right, 2 minutes both)
Saturday 26^th April 2014: 4 hour turbo, 30 minute run
Sunday 27^th April 2014: 4.1km swim (16 x 250m paddle/band drills), 100 minute run

Totals: Swim 7.1km, Bike 180 miles, Run 32 miles.



My training log from the past two weeks looks like this:

I take satisfaction from marking off the days and weeks on my training log, and being able to answer “yes” at the end of each week to the question: “Given my circumstances, did I do everything possible to train as well as I could?"


One thing that disrupted me a little this week was on Thursday night, when I got a flat tyre while on the turbo. I have no idea how it's possible to get a flat tyre on a turbo trainer, but it happened. Needless to say, it was the rear tyre, which always takes longer to fix than the front tyre. It took me about 20 minutes to put it right. So I'll need to have a think about how I will deal with it if I get a flat on race day, as I can't afford to lose twenty minutes. At my level, I can't afford to lose two minutes...

One of the things I have to make sure I do is to sleep well and to sleep enough. I aim to get 8 hours per night, but sometimes during the week this slips a little. I find it difficult to get home from work, finish training, shower, eat dinner and then go straight to bed. On longer training nights during the week, my day (including training and dinner) might not finish until close to 10pm, and I should ideally be sleeping at this time. I’ve found I need a little bit of downtime after the incessant, constant go-go-go of the day, so a couple of nights during the week I might only get 7 or 7-and-a-half hours of sleep. My sleep is usually disrupted anyway during the night by needing the toilet, a consequence of heavy drinking (of water…! Or milk, or protein drinks, or electrolyte drinks…)

At the weekends, I usually sleep anything up to 12 hours, purely to rest and recover. My housemates have termed it “binge sleeping”. It’s probably not ideal – ideally I’d sleep 9 hours per night, every night – but given my circumstances, it’s the best I can do. One unfortunate downside to where I live is that my room faces onto quite a busy road. It’s not a main road, or a fast road, but it’s busy enough compared to what I’m used to.



So, good earplugs are essential. I spent about £40 in Boots buying every single type of earplug they had, and I spent about £40 online buying various types of industrial earplugs, and I’ve worked my way through them all. I’ve found that the best earplugs for dulling traffic noise are the yellow 3M ones, but they are only effective for single use. Having a new pair of earplugs every night would cost a fortune, so I use new ones at the weekend when I want to sleep in, and I re-use them during the week when I’m getting up horribly early anyway.   

Lots of earplugs...
 

I’m constantly on tenterhooks with regard to injury, particularly given that I’ve had two episodes of really debilitating back pain earlier this year. My left knee has always been somewhat suspect as well, and I’ve had to make sure that I manage and control these two situations as best I can. I’ve been to various physiotherapists and osteopaths, none of whom impressed me very much and none of whom were able to provide a proper diagnosis or treatment plan. I’m always quite sceptical about physios, chiropractors and osteopaths, given that they charge a lot of money and I usually don’t see too many benefits.

One of the guys I went to Flanders with is an osteopath. In Belgium, I asked him to have a look at my back. I wasn’t in any pain in Belgium, and I told him that my back wasn’t giving me any bother at the time. He had a feel, and had a prod or two, and quickly had me grunting and yelping in pain. He very quickly said I had underlying problems, but he also seemed confident that within a few months, he could do a good job on my back. He stressed that for osteopathic work, there is no “quick fix”. A fix comes about over time, with regular treatment. There were four of us in the hotel room, and after he had got me grunting and groaning, he got to work on another guy’s knee. Cue further grunting and groaning – I don’t know how far the noises carried but I’m sure there were others in the hotel wondering what on earth was going on…

I liked his approach and his confidence, and so booked in to see him in London. On the first appointment, he did a scan of my back, and some brief treatment. On the second treatment, the scan results were in, and I was shown the following picture of my back:

 My back 

I sought an explanation of what this actually means. The letters C, T, L and S represent sections of my spine. The values to the left and right of these letters represent muscle tension, measured in microvolts. Electrical impulses cause the muscles to contract, so the higher the value, the more tense the muscles. These values are colour-coded, where green is “normal”, and red is tense. The percentages show the imbalances on either side. As can be seen, my back is in a bit of a mess, with most of my muscles being really tight and tense, and with huge imbalances on either side.

 

I’ve always known that I’m quite tense and tight, and put this down to the sport(s) I do. Ideally I’d have a sports massage every night after a training session, but this would cost a fortune, and even if I decided I could afford it, I would need to find a physio to come to the house at 10pm every night. So, this isn’t really an option, and I make do by foam rolling my muscles a few times a week. But it’s difficult to foam roll your own back.

 

I was then shown an “ideal back”, which looks like this:

An ideal back...

I was told that in the three months leading up to my Ironman, I could potentially see big improvements in my back, hopefully approaching the ideal back shown above. However, it was stressed to me that I need to buy into the idea of weekly treatment at the absolute least. So, I’ve agreed to try and attend weekly sessions in an effort to improve my back. I was also told my hip movements are quite restricted, and this is something else that the osteopath will work on in the coming weeks.

I can perform to a high standard with my back as it is now, so both my osteopath and myself are hopeful that with a good improvement in my back and hips, my form will improve, and I will become less susceptible to succumbing to injury. As my running mileages increase, so does my susceptibility to injury – in the weeks before Ironman UK I picked up a niggle in my left knee and was unable to run for about 5 or 6 weeks just before the race – far from ideal. I don’t want something similar to happen again this year. As my back and legs become looser, I should feel stronger and better when I’m training and racing. So, we’ll see how it goes. I think and hope that the time sacrifice and financial sacrifice will be worth it.

The treatment isn’t fun. I lie on a table and am pulled into what could be construed as compromising positions if I was anywhere but on an osteopath’s table, while my joints and back are manipulated, pulled, pushed and stretched. Then come the words, “I’m just going to make a small adjustment,” followed immediately by a really hefty, abrupt push or twist on my back and neck, which then responds with horrible, unnatural clicking and “CRAAAAACKing” sounds.

 

Thus far my neck has become a bit freer, but my lower back is proving difficult to loosen as it’s so tight. I’m told it will loosen in time, and in July my back will be scanned again. This will be interesting to see how much it will actually have improved. I’m also told by my osteopath that I will come to enjoy my treatments. I’ve told him that I can’t see this happening, ever… Watch this space…

Post 18 - Challenges and shopping lists

Since the week commencing Monday 21^st March, my “ideal” training schedule, as outlined last week, has been “disrupted” by trips to Northern Ireland and Belgium. Admittedly, these trips were by choice, as opposed to various business trips I have been on this year. I did manage to get some good, tough training done on the hills and beaches of northern Northern Ireland, and the sole purpose of going to Belgium was to ride almost 100 miles. Both were good trips, but at the end of last week I had been “looking forward to” what I thought would be a few uninterrupted weeks of training. I also hope to resume blogging on a Sunday evening - this has been disrupted by circumstance over the past few weeks as well.

The ideal training schedule I have put together for myself is as good a balance as I can strike between tough training and adequate recovery, and between balancing tough days with easier days, while also giving myself enough time to do the essentials like working, cooking, eating, cleaning and sleeping. It really is a rigorously-managed schedule. If anything happens to disrupt this schedule, then it has a knock-on effect for days and even weeks to come. The Tour of Flanders was two weeks ago and it’s only today that I have managed to get everything back on track in the aftermath. A gel that I was carrying in my frame pouch in Flanders leaked all over my bike and dripped down onto my shoes. These gels, if they leak and get onto anything, are like superglue. My bike and shoes were a sticky mess. Steve, my housemate and an absolute hero, cleaned my bike last week when he was cleaning his, but my shoes had been sitting glued to the inside of a plastic bag for the past two weeks and it’s only this weekend that I’ve found a free half hour to clean them. I’ve also had a backlog of washing and dishes to do. It’s not an exaggeration when I say “I have no time.”

 

A successful, fun Friday night:
Food for a few nights made, dishes done

Anyway, my thoughts of a solid, uninterrupted, “ideal” block of a couple of weeks of training were ruined before the block had even started, with a seriously short-notice work trip, a hastily arranged osteopath appointment, and the swimming pools’ opening hours being curtailed by the Easter weekend. Fortunately the work trip was only a day trip to the Midlands, but it necessitated getting up 45 minutes earlier, forcing myself to take the disgusting underground (no choice really), getting home late, and still fitting in some training. When I went to the osteopath, I went through the usual London rigmarole of a 30 minute appointment taking almost 3 hours inclusive of travel and waiting time. These, combined with the swimming pool opening hours being restricted, meant there was nothing else for it but to make the best of it and rearrange my training week.

I did a tough run on Saturday, an 80 minute continuous effort, which took in 10 laps of approximately a mile in the local park. Slightly more than half a mile of this lap was uphill, and it was these uphill sections that I really pushed hard on, almost flat-out. By the end of this run, I was seriously fatigued. I had already swam a fast 4km in the pool a few hours before this run, and I knew that the following day would be a long, tough bike followed by an easy 4-5 mile run.

Usually at the weekend, I would do my long bike on the Saturday, followed by a swim and my long run on the Sunday. This is because I find it easier to recover from a long bike than a long run, and in doing the long run on Sunday, I know that I have the Monday off, with no training, which maximises my recovery time. However, the forced re-jig of my training week meant I did my long run on Saturday, followed by a long bike on the Sunday. Another osteopath appointment next Tuesday means I won’t have the Monday off either and I’ll have to train, so I am very much looking forward to my delayed rest day on Wednesday.

This week, as always, I’ve been as careful as I can to recover as well as possible, particularly in the immediate aftermath of a training session. My post-training routine involves the following: Finish training. Do a short easy jog. Lie down with legs elevated to drain the lactic acid. Eat a banana, spinach and have a milk/protein drink. Stretch gently. Take a shower with “cold water treatment”, spraying my legs alternatively with cold and hot water. Eat my dinner and dietary supplements. Go to bed. All this recovery takes effort, but it seems to work better than coming back and flopping in front of the TV in a depleted state, not eating or eating poorly, and getting cold. I believe that what you do in the 30 minutes immediately after training has a big impact on how well you recover, and therefore how well you will ultimately perform.  

The aftermath of a tough turbo session

Another couple of running-associated challenges that were evident, particularly on Saturday in the park, are as follows: one is that I try to do all my hard running on a soft surface, ideally smooth, non-bumpy grass. This is because running on grass, or even trails, take less of a toll on my body and I find it easier to recover. Running frequently on a hard surface like pavement risks injury, and I’ve done enough tough sessions on the road/pavements, and had enough injuries, to know that (for me anyway), frequent hard road running will ultimately lead to injury.

However, running off-road also has its risks. Particularly with my biomechanics, and the angle at which my foot strikes the ground, I am more prone than most to rolling my ankle if I hit a bump. In my final year at university, the week before a trip to Aberdeen to have a crack at winning the Garioch 10K for the 3^rd time in a row, I was out on a training run. I ran over an innocuous-looking section of grass and rolled my ankle. I thought I had broken it and went to hospital, my foot hanging at a horrifically unnatural angle. Following an X-ray I was told it was a bad sprain. I’d say it was worse than a bad sprain, it was a horrific sprain: my entire foot turned black and swelled up to twice its normal size. It took about a year before I could run normally again and not feel any pain.

So, for this reason, I am always reluctant to run off road, but I’m also reluctant to run on-road too as the last thing I can afford is an injury. So, without neglecting my running completely, I try to do my running training so that I’ll get maximum returns for minimal input and I only run hard once a week. I trust that cycling fitness will transfer, and I’ve learned that it does. I’ve learned to look at the bigger picture, and have realised that training for an Ironman marathon is very different to training for a standalone marathon. I also make sure that my running shoes aren’t too worn-out, to ensure they provide adequate cushioning.

Another running-related challenge is dealing with dogs that aren’t on leads. There aren’t many dogs about when I’m running on the roads/pavements, but in the parks they are seemingly in almost unlimited supply. In my opinion, any dog in a park should be on a lead, but unfortunately, more often than not, dogs in parks are running free. It scares the life out of me when I’m out running and a dog bounds after me, barking and leaping up with teeth bared. It really antagonises me when the owner shouts after the dog, or shouts to me that their barking, snarling, frantic dog won’t touch me. My strategy for dealing with this is to yell at the dog (which sometimes startles it enough to make it slink off with its tail between its legs), and tell the owner that their dog should be on a lead. More often than not, the owners get ratty, as if it’s somehow my fault that their dog is out of control. My strategy for dealing with this is not to lower myself to their level and not to get ratty, but to tell them that they are really irresponsible. Usually, one of two things happens here: either they’ll get even more ratty and I will run on, or they will be stunned into silence. Either way, I hope it makes them think.

I’m fast moving into racing season, with my first event of the year in four weeks. I’ve been thinking hard about how to find non-training gains, particularly with my equipment. However, I don’t have an infinite budget. I think two of the best ways I can improve my bike speed are to buy a proper aerodynamic, skin-tight top, and to remove all the bottle cages from the frame of my bike, relying instead on my aero bottle mounted between the aero bars, and also on my two bottle cages mounted behind my saddle. Both of these will clean up the airflow and hopefully save me some time. I’m currently deciding between the following three tops: the Adidas Adistar top, the Castelli Stealth top and the Fusion Speed top, as shown below:  

I will probably buy all three of them, in different sizes, via mail order, try them on and compare them, choose the best one, and return all the others. A full-length zip is almost essential because I don’t wear my top under my wetsuit. Instead, I put it on in the first transition area, and this is much easier to do with a full-length zip. Also, I can have the top's rear pockets filled with gels and energy bars, which wouldn’t be possible if I was swimming with it on. It’s also essential that the rear pockets are big and roomy. I prefer tops with shoulder covering and longer sleeves because it’s possible to get very sunburned or very cold when doing an Ironman in a triathlon vest.

I’m also looking at buying a Garmin cycle computer with a heart rate monitor, which will remove the airflow-spoiling sensors from my front fork and wheel, and will also give me some good heart rate data to work with for Ironman race day. It’ll also allow me to go and do some of the climbs in Kent, Surrey, Northern Ireland and hopefully the French Alps as well, and upload my data to Strava, so I’ll get an idea of where my bike performance is relative to others. I gather that Strava gets quite competitive...

To get me through to race day in July I also need two new pairs of swimming goggles, a new pair of swimming shorts, new cycling shorts, new swimming earplugs, new tyres, two new chains, an endless supply of energy gels, bars and electrolyte tablets, lots of earplugs for sleeping, and three new pairs of running shoes. Ideally I’d also like to buy a disc wheel, a power meter, a new aero helmet, new pedals and a new wetsuit, but lines have to be drawn somewhere…

Despite the challenges of this week, I’m pleased to have adapted and I have got through it. I’ve managed to get the training done, and I’ve recorded some of my biggest mileages so far.

Training done this week was as follows:

Monday 14^th April 2014: 1:10 turbo (1 hour hard), 25 minute run
Tuesday 15^th April 2014: 30 minute fartlek run
Wed 16^th April 2014: 1:30 turbo (15 x 3 mins easy, 3 mins hard), 25 minute run
Thurs 17^th April 2014: Swim 3.1km (300m normal, 600m paddles x 3), 1:10 turbo (single leg drills: 20 x 1min left, 1 min right, 1 min both)
Friday 18^th April 2014: Rest
Saturday 19^th April 2014: Swim 4.1km (16:40/km), 80 minute run (with 10 x 900m uphill: 3:05, 3:04, 3:00, 3:01, 3:01, 2:59, 3:01, 3:01, 2:58, 2:56)
Sunday 20^th April 2014: 3:30 turbo, 30 min run

Totals: Swim 7.2km, Bike 160 miles, Run 28 miles

Post 17 - Air pollution

This post is intended to be my own experience and opinions on London’s air pollution, no more and no less.

Recently, winds which originated in Saharan Africa blew over the UK, bringing with them copious amounts of dust and sand particles, as well as picking up European pollution en route to the UK. This unusual weather system, combined with the higher-than-usual particulate levels in the air, resulted in spiralling pollution levels and extremely poor visibility. So evident was the poor air quality, particularly in London, that it was headline news for a few days, accompanied by images such as the ones below:

 

I’m not a great fan of London, but fortunately I know that I will not be here for anywhere near a lifetime. My main gripe is the poor air quality, and I didn’t need an episode of unprecedentedly high air pollution to indicate to me that London has air quality problems. I figured this out for myself within the first couple of weeks I spent here. It’s immediately obvious that the air in London stinks: a horrible, unnatural, industrial smell. It’s gritty air too, and you can feel particles in your eyes and grime on your skin. You can see clouds of pollution coming from exhaust pipes. London exists in a perpetual harmful haze of pollution, both above ground and on the underground transport system.

I very quickly decided that I was not going to put myself through the torture of taking the tube every day. The crush on the tube is literally inhumane. It’s illegal to transport animals in such a manner. But what really rankles is the revolting experience of getting off the tube, blowing my nose, and blowing out black snot. The air underground is disgusting, and I can’t imagine sitting on a tube for an hour a day, for 20-30 years. The damage to the lungs and respiratory system does not bear thinking about. “You’ll get used to it,” people told me. “Getting used to it” means deciding that having black snot is something that’s OK, acceptable or normal. It means deciding that is acceptable to breathe this terrible air and blacken and poison your lungs. Needless to say, I haven’t yet got used to it, and I never will.

London is also grossly overcrowded, hideously overpriced, inefficient, stressful, frustrating, noisy, lonely, and the worst place I have ever ridden a bike or been for a run. All of these things I can deal with, with the exception of the poor air quality. This is something that is impossible to escape, and seemingly something that people are very unaware of. Also, worryingly, it’s something that the city authorities don’t seem to be taking much action over, given that everything these days seems to come with a health and safety warning: “Don’t eat too much sugar.” “Don’t eat too much fat.” “Mind the gap.” “Hold the handrail when on the stairs.” “Smoking kills.” “Don’t drink more than 3 units of alcohol per day.” “Fasten your seatbelt.” “Don’t drive at more than 30mph.” Or my own favourite example of health and safety gone mad: "Caution, sharp plant, please do not eat."

 

Some of the above examples are good advice, but if a health and safety warning exists instructing people not to eat a plant because it is sharp, then surely there should be a health and safety warning for the more serious and damaging issue of the dreadful London air? It’s a silent, invisible killer, according to the London Evening Standard newspaper:

 

 Where are the warnings that tell us of the risks of breathing the London air? Or do the authorities not want us to know of the extent of the problems? Cigarette packages nowadays feature graphic images of black lungs, tumours and diseased gums. As well as explicitly telling us that smoking is harmful, or that smoking kills, or that it harms kids. A health and safety warning implies that there is a problem, something dangerous, something to be avoided. Generally, it’s possible to choose to do something, or to choose not to do something, in order not to expose oneself to something dangerous or harmful. However, when living or working in London, it’s impossible to choose not to breathe. So fundamental is the problem of air pollution, affecting 100% of the population, that it seems an “ignorance is best” policy has been adopted.

It seems to me that one of the worst air pollution problems is that the roads are congested and so the air is choked with fumes from vehicles, particularly diesel engines. These fumes are a lethal cocktail of harmful carcinogenic substances including benzene, carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, nitrogen dioxide and other oxides of nitrogen, sulphur dioxide and the "PMs": PM10 and PM2.5 (Particulate Matter up to 10 micrometers in size, and Particulate Matter up to 2.5 micrometers in size).

 

Buses and taxis seem to be the worst offenders. The stop-start nature of the roads enhances the problem, with traffic stopping, sitting idling, then accelerating. Then stopping, idling and accelerating. Then stopping, idling and accelerating again and again, over and over. At Kings Cross in London, there was a sign saying, “DIESEL FUMES KILL”, in an effort to educate drivers to drive sensibly and switch off engines while idling. I used to pass this sign and be horrified. Who do diesel fumes kill? People like me, that’s who… I’m not sure if the sign is still there.

I love to exercise and keep fit, I love to be outdoors, and I love to cycle. I have exercised, kept fit and cycled on every continent bar Antarctica. Without doubt, London is the worst place I have ever been on a bike, and I have made the decision that I will never again ride a bike on London’s overcrowded, polluted roads. Statistics exist that tell us how many cyclists are killed by traffic on London’s roads every year (an average of around 15 per year over the last 20 years), but it is impossible to quantify the effects of air pollution on cyclists, and indeed on pedestrians and members of the public. It is possible for cyclists to take steps to protect themselves from the dangers associated with traffic by riding assertively, visibly, and with common sense. But, for cyclists, pedestrians and members of the public, it’s more difficult to protect against air pollution, as it is inescapable.

Before I made the decision to stop cycling in London, I used to commute to work by bike. Each way, the trip took about 45 minutes, perhaps a distance of around 10 miles. Cycling to work, for me, is a complete no-brainer. It’s free, and in theory I should get some fresh air, exercise, enjoy a few miles on the road, “me time”, busting stress, getting the endorphins and adrenalin flowing, and feeling good. In theory I would arrive to work feeling on top of the world, and that I’d achieved something and in some small way had escaped the rat race. I’d happily cycle 20-30 miles to work in lashing rain and cold. But it turned out that despite what the authorities would have you believe, cycling in London is horrible, dangerous and stressful, as well as damaging.

There is a bike rental scheme in London, and I have seen the following poster advertise it:

 

I can’t say that cycling in London feels like “freedom”…

Within a week of cycling to work, I was coughing and spluttering alarmingly, and my throat was permanently irritated. "You'll get used to it", people said. But I haven't, and I won't. I live a healthy lifestyle and I would never dream of smoking or doing anything detrimental to my health. The act of cycling is one of the best ways to exercise and be healthy, yet cycling in London has been detrimental to my health. I absolutely couldn’t stand for this, so I got on the internet and did some research. I read up on anti-pollution masks, and it appeared that the best and most effective face mask for cycling was a Totobobo mask, as shown and modelled below:

 

I’ve never seen a pedestrian or a runner or a tube passenger wearing a face mask in London, but I have seen some cyclists wearing them. I would say that of all cyclists in London, less than 10% wear any sort of anti-pollution mask. It’s reasonable to assume that the mask-wearers know a little bit about the harm that air pollution can do. Of the 90% that don’t, it’s also probably reasonable to assume that they don’t know much if anything about the harmful effects of air pollution, or they choose to ignore them. I have seen cyclists wearing a few different kinds of face masks, but I had never seen a Totobobo mask before. These Totobobo masks come with changeable particulate filters, which are designed to trap harmful particulates before they get into the lungs.

So I started cycling with my Totobobo mask, drawing funny looks from drivers and pedestrians alike. Perhaps they thought I was a crazed surgeon running late for an operation. The mask was sweaty and uncomfortable to wear, and didn’t seal perfectly around my face, so not all of the air was being filtered. It also made breathing difficult, but I took solace in the fact that I was doing something proactive to protect myself from the harmful air.

Cycling home in my Totobobo mask on the second day I used it, I happened to be at a junction waiting for the traffic lights to turn green. Buses growled and taxis chugged behind me. A fellow cyclist pulled up alongside. He was unmasked and maybe about 40 years old. He asked me if I thought my mask was any good. I replied that it wasn’t bad, but didn’t seal perfectly. I asked him if he was a regular cyclist. He said that he was, and that he commuted 14 miles each way by bike. He had been doing this for “years”, he said. I was somewhat incredulous that someone could cycle in such a filthy environment for so long, and I asked him if the pollution bothered him. He said, “Not now mate, but I’m going to be in trouble when I’m older!” And with that, the lights turned green and off we pedalled.

It would be interesting to do some detailed research into respiratory system disease rates in London when compared with other parts of Britain. I would speculate that the London air contributes to higher disease rates, poorer quality of life, shortening of life expectancies, and longer, more painful deaths. I’m keen to live into my 90s in good health, not to be coughing, spluttering and dying a slow death in my 60s and 70s.

A new Totobobo filter is pristine white, and looks like this:

After only three days of wearing the Totobobo mask to commute to work, for a total distance of about 60 miles and a total riding time of around four and a half hours, the filters looked like this:

 

Needless to say, I find this absolutely and thoroughly appalling. If this is what a filter looks like after three days of cycling on London’s roads, what does a lung look like after three days? Or worse, after a year? Or ten years? Based on how quickly these filters turned black, it’s difficult to argue that the London air doesn’t cause damage. Clearly, significant and life-shortening harm is being done, and so many people are totally unaware of this.


Note that these filters were not blackened by an episode of high air pollution, but during a period of "normal" air quality. I say "normal" in inverted commas because I cannot accept that London's air is "normal."

Air pollution doesn’t just affect cyclists. It affects everyone, whatever they are doing. Oxford Street is London’s most famous shopping street, and it is one of the UK’s most polluted roads. It’s obvious really, given that it is permanently clogged with buses and taxis (like so many of London’s other roads). I’ve no doubt that wearing a Totobobo mask for a few hours on Oxford Street (or any other main thoroughfare in London) would turn the filters from white to black. Simply walking down Oxford Street should come with a health warning.

We’re only touching the tip of the iceberg here. What about all the schools within a stone’s throw of a busy road? What about the flats, houses and businesses situated on busy roads? Or situated close to polluting factories? What about waiting for a bus on a polluted street? What about taking a bus down a polluted street? What about people living with asthma? What about babies and children? What about people who work in shops with their doors 3 metres from the roads? What about bus and taxi drivers forced to drive on these roads for 40 hours a week?

So, after having turned my Totobobo filters black after a mere four-and-a-half hours of cycling, I decided that there would be no more cycling for me on busy London roads. Wearing the mask was better than nothing, but it didn’t seal perfectly and given the extent of the air pollution, I concluded that stopping cycling was the only effective way to protect myself. How ridiculous it is that the dirty air has forced me off my bike.

I resorted to taking the bus for a few weeks, which meant my commute went from a free 40-minute cycle to an 80-minute bus ride costing about £14 per week.  This in itself was bad enough but I was still going along the same horrible polluted roads, so I decided that taking the bus wasn’t really an option either. Cycling was out, the tube was out, walking was certainly out, so this left the train. Fortunately there was a National Rail line close by, and I started taking it. However, although the route started above ground, it finished underground, and the black snot problem started again.

To try to eliminate this problem, I debated wearing my Totobobo mask on the underground section of the train journey. In Asia, people wouldn’t give this a second glance, as many people wear face masks on public transport. I decided that in the UK, people would wonder if I had an infectious disease, or if I was a total crackpot. So I bought a snood/neckwarmer-type garment, and wore it over the face mask. In winter this didn’t look too out of place, but as winter turned to summer it became completely ludicrous, especially on a hot underground train. But the only other option was the black snot and dirty lungs. The image below shows a clean Totobobo mask filter on the left, and on the right is the filter after three days of cycling to work. In the middle is the filter after a week spent commuting to work on the underground train. Each day, I spent maybe 20 minutes underground. 

Again, look at how black this filter is, indicating how bad the underground air is. Again, if this is what happens to a filter within a week, what must happen to the lungs after years spent commuting by tube? Again, they must end up black and poisoned. What damage is being done to health? What about tube drivers? Should they be informed that they are working in a hazardous area? Should they be issued with protective respirators? What about the young and elderly? Should commuters not be informed of the dangers? Warned off the tube? Warned off cycling? Or is it cheaper to pay an expert to do a study which “proves” that there is no risk? Can we sue the authorities for negligence or misinformation if/when we contract a respiratory disease? What sort of precedent would this set? I find it impossible to look at a photograph of a blackened Totobobo mask filter and believe that the air quality is acceptable.

I have read that the authorities spray the worst roads with adhesives in an effort to trap the exhaust particulates and mask the scale of the problem, particularly in areas close to pollution monitoring sensors. I have read that London’s air quality is so bad that it is actually illegal, and fails EU requirements. I’ll repeat that: London’s air is so dangerous that it’s illegal. I have read that the EU is taking legal action against London because of this.

I ultimately ended up moving out of central London, and one day I will leave London for good, forever. I now am forced to pay a fortune on train fares and endure a horrible commute. When I get into central London, I still have a couple of miles to get to work, and rather than use the tubes or buses, I walk and sometimes cycle on the back streets, which have less traffic than the main thoroughfares.

I use SouthEastern Railways, who recently came bottom of a UK-wide rail customer satisfaction survey. They explained this low customer satisfaction by saying it was “because we charge people money they don’t want to pay, to travel on trains they don’t want to be on, to take them somewhere they don’t want to be.” Unbelievable. The customer relations department at SouthEastern Railways have clearly been dubiously trained (pun not intended). (OK, maybe slightly intended).

But this is the price I pay for being able to take an overground train the whole way into London. Although far from ideal, this is the best I can do to minimise the dangerous “silent killer” air that I am exposed to. This is also why I do most of my cycling on a turbo trainer in my room, rather than out on the roads in busy traffic. (Admittedly the turbo trainer is a more time-efficient method of training, and between working long hours and enduring a total commuting time of about 2 hours and 20 minutes per day, I need to be as time-efficient as possible).

Clearly London has got problems, and clearly radical, urgent action needs to be taken. If everyone was aware of the extent of the problem, and if everyone demanded change, and demanded the fundamental right to breathe clean, safe air, then perhaps action would be taken faster.

For this reason, I dislike London immensely. End of rant.

Training this week was as follows:

Monday 7^th April 2014: Rest
Tuesday 8^th April 2014: Swim 3km (12 x 250m, pull buoy, paddles, band drills)
Wed 9^th April 2014: 90 minute run
Thurs 10^th April 2014: 30 minute turbo, 20 minute run
Friday 11^th April 2014: Swim 3.6km
Sat 12^th April 2014: Rest
Sunday 13^th April 2014: Rest

Totals: Swim 6.6km, Bike 10 miles, Run 16 miles

The last few weeks have been a bit “disrupted” because of travelling to Northern Ireland and Flanders, and it has been difficult to keep to my regular, consistent training routine. As of next week I’m hoping to get back into my normal training routine until mid-May when I will ride in the North Norfolk 100 mile time trial. An ideal, normal, disruption-free training week looks like this:

Monday: Rest/cook for the week
Tuesday: Hard tempo ride (1 hour), 4 mile run
Wednesday: Fartlek run
Thursday: Hard bike intervals, 4 mile run
Friday: Swim intervals, Single leg bike drills, cook for the weekend
Saturday: Long bike, 5 mile run
Sunday: Swim drills, long run/interval run

This training plan is built around 4 bikes per week, 2 key runs per week (Wednesday and Sunday), and 2 key swims per week. This is in addition to my regular core strength work, stretching and weights. I’m also hoping to start seeing a good osteopath once every week or two, to ensure that my joints and back are as free and loose as they can be. I’m just over three months out from race day and from now, I will be “tightening the screw”, the training intensity will go up, the diet will become even more meticulous and everything will become even more tightly controlled. It’s going to be “challenging” to be diplomatic about it (i.e. damn hard to be blunt) but it has to be done to achieve what I want to achieve. No regrets...

Post 16 - Ronde van Vlaanderen

This week I had the opportunity to go to Belgium to ride in the Tour of Flanders, a one-day classic cycling race infamous for its cobblestoned sections and steep hills. My housemate and a group of his friends were all entered and had the trip planned and booked, and had one free space. It was something of a difficult decision to go to Flanders, as I could also have been competing in the Titanic Quarter 10K road running race in Belfast, or I could have been supporting a friend at the Manchester marathon, so I was spoilt for choice. I was also worried about crashing and damaging either myself or my bike on the cobblestoned sections in Flanders, particularly if it was wet.

Flanders cobblestones

In the end, I decided that the opportunity to go to Flanders was too good to turn down. I told myself I would simply not ride the cobbles if I deemed it too dangerous, and I would walk them instead. So off we set, 4 of us, 4 bikes, 8 wheels and goodness knows how much extra gear, all squeezed into one car. And the same set-up in a second car. After negotiating the Channel Tunnel, being misled by dodgy SatNav directions, and getting lost on French and Belgian roads, we arrived in Flanders, the centre of the cycling world for this weekend.

Dodgy SatNav, confusing two grown men

The professional race was on the Sunday, with a Sportive event for amateur riders on the Saturday, following the same course as the professionals would race. Something like 20,000 riders were expected to participate on the Saturday, the bulk of whom would line the roads to watch the professional race on Sunday. We registered and made a few purchases at the expo (aerodynamic shoe covers and yet another pair of sunglasses for me), found our hotel in Ghent, got some dinner, and got to bed.

On the Saturday we were up bright and early, and a quick check of the weather forecast confirmed that there was mercifully no rain forecast. After driving to a cow field masquerading as an official car park, assembling the bikes, debating what clothing to wear, having a last “toilet” pit stop in an adjacent cow field, and cycling a few kilometres to the official start, we finally got going. There were cyclists everywhere.  

Cowfield carpark

The first part of the route followed a decidedly narrow cycle path along a river, and with 20,000 cyclists starting the event, space was at a premium. Within the first few kilometres I had already witnessed a couple of crashes. I had decided against wearing a jacket, but at 9am it was still cold, and the combination of nervousness, cold, slight peloton claustrophobia, and general twitchy mood amongst the riders left me gritting my teeth, cursing the cold, constantly on edge and wondering what the heck I was doing in Flanders on a stupidly narrow cycle path in a tidal wave of cyclists with nowhere to move. Little did I know what was ahead…

Finally we hit the open road, the peloton thinned a bit and temperatures started to creep up. I began to feel better and was spinning along at around 20mph beginning to think, “This is more like it.” Then, like some sort of hideous gauntlet of destruction, the first cobblestone section loomed ahead, and I had about 5 seconds of frantic contemplation between seeing it for the first time and riding onto it. Every instinct was screaming not to ride on it. It looked horrifying, like it would destroy bike, wheels and rider. Not something that any sane or sensible person would ride an expensive carbon fibre bike across. But the Tour of Flanders is neither sane nor sensible, it’s an unashamedly rough, tough ride. To win in Flanders is a huge thing in cycling, and is proof of being the strongest of the strong.

I braked and slowed a bit, and hit the cobbles. I had no idea how it would feel. “FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK!” Or rather, “F-UU-UUU-UU-U-UUU-UUU-UU-U-U-UUU-CK”, was my reaction as the cobbles jackhammered me and my bike like a rag doll in a hurricane. It felt terrible. “Welcome to the cobbles,” laughed a voice somewhere in the vicinity. The noise was horrible, as my bike clattered over the cobbled surface. My precious bike… Ahead of me people were cycling even more tentatively than I, and bike accessories were being shaken loose left, right and centre. Bottles, bottle cages, pumps, speedometers, computers. A fortune in equipment being claimed by the cobbled roads of Flanders. Anything coming loose from a bike and falling to the road was as good as lost, because the roads were so narrow and the tidal wave of cyclists so unrelenting that stopping to retrieve anything was dangerous and nigh on impossible.

After an eternity, but in reality probably only 5 minutes later, the first cobbled section ended, and I had survived it. Nothing had fallen off the bike, I hadn’t crashed, or punctured, and the flat road felt like heaven. Another cobbled section followed shortly after, which I again endured through gritted teeth, grunts and curses, and I slowly gained a bit of confidence in riding on the cobbles. I hadn’t seen any shattered bikes, and I told myself there was no reason mine would shatter either. I was keeping my fingers crossed that my drinks bottle wouldn’t be shaken loose. I thought, “Surely it can’t get any worse…”

How wrong I was. A sharp left turn led into a 6-foot wide cobbled uphill road, at maybe 10-15% gradient. It reared up, a wall of slow-moving cyclists, many of whom had to get off and walk, pushing their bikes. Guttural, angry shouts in various European languages berated the walkers who were in the way and had nowhere to go. It was insane. Nowhere to go. Nothing to do except grit the teeth, churn the pedals, ignore the pain, and shout at the walkers ahead in an effort to make some space.

Me loving the cobbles...

And so the kilometres passed and my bike held together and the jackhammering effect of the cobbles shook my hands and arms and feet and legs and backside until they were numb. Many cyclists used double or triple layers of handlebar tape, and two pairs of gel gloves, and fatter, softer tyres than normal in an effort to mitigate the effects. I had none of these things, and my hands gradually lost the ability to function properly.

At a feed station

Shortly after the second feed stop came the steepest climb of the day, the Koppenberg. On the insanity scale, it was way off the chart. Hitting gradients of over 20%, on cobblestones, on a road no wider than the width of a car, this climb is hellish. I can’t imagine what it would be like in the wet. It was so crowded with people that none of the road was visible. Most riders were pushing their bikes up. Peloton etiquette dictated that riders should walk/push their bikes on the right hand side of the road, but this went totally out the window. Riders were swerving wildly, crunching their gears, shouting and screaming for space, grinding to a halt, keeling over into other riders, and ultimately falling off and blocking the road for those behind. It was carnage. A chain reaction of total carnage.  

This is what happens to the pros on the Koppenberg.
If one falters, all falter. What chance for amateurs?!

When I’m going up a hill, I have a deep-rooted instinct that screams at me from within: “You’re damned if you’re getting off and walking.” That instinct kicked in big-time on the Koppenberg. It’s not that the hill was too steep to ride. For some, yes, the gradient was too steep but for me, this wasn’t the problem. The problem was getting the walkers out of the way and having a few vital feet of road ahead of me so that I could keep going.

I went up that hill screaming and shouting, “STAY IN, STAY IN, STAY IN,” the whole way up, non-stop. It wasn’t pretty, and the tone varied from anger to pure desperation, but it just about worked. One big German who had been forced to resort to walking took exception and gave me a shove and a few indecipherable Germanic barks as I passed, but I was too preoccupied with pushing the pedals and shouting, “STAY IN” to spit a few words back at him. Steve tailed me to the top, and we made it, just about managing to keep those precious few feet of road in front of us, just enough to keep us going. We crested the hill and looked at each other in total disbelief. There can’t have been many cyclists who managed to cycle up the entire length of the Koppenberg. 

"STAY IN, STAY IN!"

The Kwaremont is another famed climb, close to the end. It’s not very steep, but it’s one of the longer climbs, and it’s cobbled. I can’t remember anything about the Kwaremont. I can recall being strong on flats and on the gradual inclines, and passing lots of people. I can recall opening up and going full gas on a few occasions, and hammering past literally hundreds of people. I can recall the final short, sharp climb, the Paterberg. I can recall the wonderful, wide, flat, smooth 10K run into the finish line. I can recall hammering into the finish line and sprinting flat out for the final 200m and feeling the legs burning. I can recall finishing the race and being thankful for having survived it, and I can recall thinking, “What an epic experience.” But for some reason I can’t recall the Kwaremont, possible the most famous climb on the whole course.

Having crossed the finish line, all the riders were then directed a further few kilometres into the central square in the town of Oudenaarde. The square was lined on all four sides with restaurants and bars. The sun was out, it was over 20 degrees and the square was heaving with cyclists drinking beer, eating frites, and debriefing, no doubt debating which was worse, the Paterberg or the Koppenberg, and recounting what a brutal yet fantastic day it had been. It was a brilliant hour or two in the square, then it was back to Ghent for dinner and bed. 

The square in Oudenaarde, after the finish

The following day we had a quick look around Ghent before going to watch the pro race. It’s a really picturesque town, quaint and medieval, with wonderful old buildings lining the river and streets. The centre was largely traffic-free, except for people getting around on their bikes. A short rain shower made the cobbled streets very slippery, and I struggled to comprehend how a peloton of professional cyclists could race at 30mph along the narrow, winding cobbled roads we had cycled yesterday. Flanders takes no prisoners.  

Ghent by night, and by day

We drove out to the Kwaremont, and watched the races (male and female) unfolding on a big screen in yet another cowfield, eating frites and drinking beer, along with thousands of others. As the riders approached the Kwaremont, everyone decamped onto the verges, banks and ditches lining the thin cobbled ribbon of a road. Even being on the Kwaremont didn’t jog my memory and I still couldn’t remember it.

The pros were to ride up the Kwaremont twice. They hammered past with faces contorted in pain, no more than a foot or two from the spectators. Surely there’s no other sport where it’s possible to get so close to the action. Fabian Cancellara, a Swiss beast of a cyclist nicknamed Spartacus, was chasing hard, and by the time they reached the 10km finishing straight, he was leading a group of four. Eventually, in a cagey sprint finish, he was crowned the King of Flanders. The strong man of Flanders.

Getting close to the action on the Kwaremont.
Fabian Cancellera is in black in the second photo.

What a weekend. What an experience.

Other training this week was as follows:

Monday 31^st March 2014: Bike 2 hours 30 minutes, run 20 minutes
Tuesday 1^st April 2014: 30 minute fartlek run
Wed 2^nd April 2014: 65 minute turbo (6 x 5 minutes easy, 5 minutes hard), 20 minute run
Thurs 3^rd April 2014: Swim 1.6km (1500m time trial in 23:23), 65 minute turbo – single leg drills (4 x 5 minutes left, 5 right, 5 both)
Friday 4^th April 2014: Rest
Saturday 5^th April 2014: Bike 100 miles (Tour of Flanders)
Sunday 6^th April 2014: Rest

Totals: Swim 0 km, Bike 180 miles, Run 11 miles