When We Was Fast

Getting sprayed with cheap fizzy wine is one of many moments I will always cherish from my running days with Hounslow Athletics Club. When it’s your team mates doing the spraying, after a fine victory and there is a wild evening out approaching with them, then it’s probably the one of the memories I recall the fondest. Racing for a club with such a really unique group of individuals, bonded though training, drinking and pulling, framed my running days to perfection and it was all sound tracked by 90s Britpop.

We did spend far too much energy on the evening after an event rather than the racing and training but the aggression, passion, belief and balls really shone through. I personally always raced seemingly beyond my ability when placed with this madly enthusiastic team at a road relay or cross county event. Initially it was a buzz to instantly progress into the club’s A-team when I first joined. I was surprised to be adorned with respect and very quickly learnt to stop at nothing to help, impress and be a part of the group. We started to dominate road relays in the south; Cranford, Reigate, TVH and of course the all-important regionals, played out either with 6 or 12 stages. Morale was always sky high and exciting, often controversial events, littered our season. I was taught the club’s social code by the still extremely unwise and only slightly older elders. A few years later it was my turn to pass on the does and don’ts of the Hounslow ethos to the new recruits. What a team and we loved the music, I was in my mid-twenties and was still putting band posters on my walls, the beats mesmerised us, the lyrics inspired us.

''You won't know how well you're made,
until you're down and all you have is gone.
The good will come out’’

The injuries that decimated my latter running days were not yet on the horizon, and the carrot of the fastest leg and team glory inspired me no end. Some of my team mates went on to far loftier heights, (Mo Farah), some were lost (Sam Haughian) but the rest of us flew the nest and were forced into real life, with its mortgages, vasectomies and numerous (mostly futile) attempts at staying fit. Those running days in the 90s are a painfully long time ago now, but we all met up recently (in Richmond of course, the scene of many a debauched evening in the past). There was about 20 of us, seeing some again the first time in 20 years. But guess what, they are all still a really good-looking bunch x. Getting home that night, drunk, was a mission but gone was the ‘waking up somewhere odd’ or ‘all crashing round at Hugh Brasher’s pad’ eventualities that nights out used to end up.

 Nowadays I can’t run but cycling has given me the equivalent adrenaline rush and racing satisfaction. However, they say that you are not a real cyclist until you have either broken your collarbone or ridden around Mallorca. Well last week I ticked one of those off the list (thankfully just one). I’d avoided Mallorca for many years as I have always preferred places away from the numbers. But a chance find of a swanky spa hotel by Davina, near the island’s cycling epicentre of Pollenca, looked too good an opportunity to miss. I had feared the overcrowded nature of the roads on the island, as it’s such a popular destination, it was also half term, so the queue at passport control took a painful two hours! So much delay that our bags had been removed from the carousel to make way for the next incoming batch. Our flight number wasn’t even any longer on the arrivals board to see which carousel to go to! Luckily my daughter is so observant and alert. She spotted my bike box being wheeled away in the opposite direction by airport staff. I rely heavily on my Girls, especially when it comes to spelling and grammar checking these stories I write! Although I’m sure Davina will immediately say the title of this blog is appalling grammar. It is of course, a nod to a George Martin song title.

The rides were shorter on this family trip. Just five rides, trying to include all the classics;

Ride 1-Port de Pollenca coast

Ride 2-Batalla Climb

Ride 3-Cap Formentor lighthouse

Ride 4-Puig Major Climb

Ride 5-Sa Calobra Climb

 Unfortunately, the island is very overrun with cars, in the middle of the day a lot of the routes are awash with cyclists, cars and buses. I’d seen YouTube clips of queues of both vehicles and riders fighting for the same piece of tarmac. To avoid this, I rode the classic sections very early. I managed to get all the way out to the famous Formentor lighthouse without seeing any other cyclists. Similarly, the day I rode Sa Calobra I was early enough (after getting up at 5am) to have the entire descent to the bay to myself and only saw another cyclist descending down when I was halfway back up. That meant I avoided any cars and buses that shuttle people up and down this iconic stretch of road. The only down side was I probably wasn’t able to give it a full beans effort up that early as it was before I’d had any breakfast. These roads are glorious, really special.

The crippling disappointment I once had of the end of the Hounslow days is now gone but that reunion early this year tiggered so many memories that had been locked away, so many crazy stories. Of course, I still miss not being able to run, I would love to do the 3 Peaks Cyclocross race but I am really struggling with the state of my knees. I celebrate what’s gone right in life and not worry about what I can no longer do. I made the right decision to settle down. I need the back up around me, as I seem to be getting more forgetful and clumsier these days; For example, I realised after an hour of one of the rides last week that I had ridden off wearing my reading glasses rather than my sunglasses! And how’s this for stupidity, while in the villa’s huge bathroom jacuzzi, I drain some of the water out, (as I’d made it far too hot), just enough so that the water jets were still covered. Not remembering Archimedes principle, when I sat up the water level went below the jet level and (for some reason they were pointed up), the water splurted violently out of the bath and started drenching the opposite bedroom wall and shelves. The shock left me floundering and struggling to press the correct button to turn it off! Again, I needed rescuing by my Girls.

I do unfortunately struggle to sleep at night, there is always something on my mind to worry about. Mostly about my daughter, anyone with a child knows, anyone with a daughter really knows. Her intellect is fast overtaking mine, certainly her wits already have. Listening to her talk during these lovely sunny afternoons and evenings on holiday, I am again blown away by how her personality has developed. I start to well up during one of our chats, luckily the blazing sun means I have an excuse to quickly put on my sunglasses, so she doesn’t see my tears.

‘When she is sad, I’m her clown.
When she is scared, I’m always around’.

The balance is right, crowbarring some cool shorter rides into a family holiday is perfect. Giving plenty of time to relax and write these thoughts down. I find writing very relaxing and just as fellow cyclo-crosser Dave Haygarth mentioned in his latest write up, although ’’my readership is already painfully low’’, I’m happy it’s really just my friends reading this rather than the masses of trolls out there who are only out to criticise. I did have one more ride planned but stupidly I forgot my Etap charger, so half an hour into the last ride I had to turn back as my batteries for my gears ran out. Not that I was disappointed it meant more time back with my Girls; a beautiful bike ride or time with my Girls, either is a win win win for me.

As a throwback reference back to the first paragraph, (if you show a gun in the first act, always fire it in the finale) - that cheap fizzy wine has been replaced this week with some half descent rose and a few cocktails. To steal some words from James's fine new album (their 18th since 1986!);

‘'If we love life, life loves reciprocal.
Raise your glass; life's a fucking miracle.''