About working from home

Working from home has sunk me. I started this blog in January 2020, as a way of tracking my training and bike development from then until I did LEJOG in September 2020. Except things didn't quite work out, with COVID scuppering that plan. LEJOG got deferred for a year and whilst this had benefits in theory (longer to train, longer to fundraise) the reality is that my cycling has tanked.

Here's an ugly graph to illustrate what I mean:

It's miles up the y-axis. The week numbers along the x-axis correspond to the week numbers I've used on this blog to report my metrics; as I type, we're in week 58, so everything else counts back from there. I've gone back to when I first started commuting to work by bike, week -81 (i.e. two years and eight months ago, near as damn it). So what does the graph tell us? Well, that prior to the enforced introduction of working from home (WFH), I was averaging 50 to 60 miles a week, without really trying, often hitting 80 miles a week, and with the occasional gran fondo spike thrown in to boot (see if you can guess when I rode 142 miles in one day). And that since WFH, I've progressively cycled less and less. Sure, the weather in this latest lockdown hasn't helped, and neither has home-schooling - when I'm not working, I want to be parenting - and that doesn't leave much cycling time. Oh, and let's not forget what this graph doesn't show: that I was cycling at least five days a week, and usually six or seven, every week prior to lockdown. I was conditioned to cycle. Right now I'm conditioned to sit on the sofa until the early hours of the morning, eating biscuits.

Anyway, the bottom line is ... well, it's the dotted red trend line. I'm cycling less and less, 20-25 miles per week currently. Clearly I need to get in shape, because I seem to be ignoring the fact that LEJOG is 980 miles in nine consecutive days. In current shape, I can't do that. And I have just 213 days to turn this around...

How it started... and how it's going

2020 was going so well, right up to lockdown, as these Elevate stats show...

How it started...

...how it's going

And let's not draw attention to the fact that I clocked 1,248km in two and a half wintry months and only 1,502km more in the following nine and a half mostly clement months...

About postponement

The reason for this blog was to document the training, the bike upgrades, the sponsorship push and everything else related to my attempt to cycle from Land's End to John O'Groats, 980 miles in 9 days... in September 2020.

At the weekend, I received email confirmation that the event (the Deloitte Ride Across Britain) is being cancelled this year, as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. September sounds like a long way off, but the organisers have (correctly) realised that it's going to take a long time to get through this, and a long time afterwards for life to return to even a semblance of what was considered normal before.

My place on RAB has been rolled over to 2021, so I'll still be doing the ride, but now not for another 17 months.

I understand the reasoning behind this, it's the right decision, and of course I get that everyone has more important things to be thinking about at the moment. But at the same time, if it's alright with you, I am just a bit gutted. Delaying by a year means that my already creaky body is going to be even creakier. Nobody gets fitter or stronger as they advance through middle age; the decline might only be slight, but it'll be there. And it's not like it was going to be a doddle this year, so next year...? Plus I bought into the idea that this year's RAB dates meant that I would be celebrating a landmark birthday slap bang in the middle of the ride. Not so, next year...

I suppose there are plus sides. I suddenly have an extra twelve months in which to raise much-needed sponsorship, should anyone's thoughts return to charity at any point (I haven't attracted any sponsorship in the last month, for obvious reasons). And maybe, assuming I still have a job and there are still functioning bike shops, maybe I'll have time to save up for a super-light race bike. Maybe.

Even so, here's where I insert an appropriate visual metaphor for my current mood...

In a rut

Training has tanked lately. First of all I was away for work, with not a bike in sight, then I had a weekend away, similarly bike-free. And now I'm working from home, so haven't even been commuting on two wheels either.

The bottom line of all this is that my weekly stats have gone through the floor, which is not great. Motivation levels have followed suit, not least because I'm doing all this with the expectation of cycling from one end of the country to the other at the start of September, i.e. in five and a half short months. As things stand, I'm assuming/hoping the event will go ahead...but who knows?

Contrasts

The day started with two punctures, one in each tyre. It ended with unforecast rain on the commute ride home. Not a great day of cycling then, one way and another. And yet...

...and yet a new sponsor (thank you, Sensei), after a fallow period in which my running total had flatlined, and talk of LEJOG training rides and summer sportives have put the spring back in my step pedals. And if that isn't a thing, it ought to be.

Sort of thinking I might set up the turbo trainer (in its box since receiving it last birthday) this weekend, pop the road bike on that and commute on the veteran MTB whilst it's puncture-season... in which case, watch this space for a turbo report.