Dry January – Slight Variation

With the new year now upon us, and many people embarking on their resolutions I have decided to follow the example of my good friend Gary and do dry January.

Dry January is normally where you decide not to drink anything alcoholic for the month, for Gary that will be a a challenge (sorry G!). For me however, not drinking wouldn’t really make much difference as I don’t don’t drink much so instead my dry will be no cake, chocolate or biscuits.

To be clear here, I love cake, I have a very sweet tooth and given the choice I would eat cake all day long. If anyone has ever seen my Instagram posts whenever I go climbing I post a photo of my pre-climb slice of home made cake from which ever climbing gym I am at, as they always have magnificent cakes. When it comes to chocolate bars, I am more than happy to tuck into a couple a day and as for biscuits, well a drink is simply too wet without one (or three).

Will giving up cake make any difference to my life, well honestly I don’t know but it can’t do any harm and if nothing else should shed a few pounds plus making up the calories with proper food should be healthier even if not as enjoyable.

So if you are giving up something for January or longer then good luck but in the end just remember the choice of whether to have it is yours and yours alone and should you crack it doesn’t really matter but let’s try an stick it out!

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Poor Poor Pitiful Me

I was going to write a post bemoaning the fact that I am on my second cold in about 3 weeks, that the Central Cycle Cross league is in round 7 and I haven’t raced once due to my colds, and how my colds are keeping me from training.

Then I stopped, and thought, what does it really matter? So I can’t do a few races, can’t go training it doesn’t really matter.

So instead of me moaning on, here is the late great Warren Zevon, singing Poor poor pitiful me, a much better use of your new few minutes, sit back and enjoy Warren and I will also be back with something more positive and interesting soon.

Enjoying The Light

After the last post, which if you haven’t read is available here, things have been taking a more positive direction.

It is true that I as entered into a race which I didn’t do as I didn’t feel comfortable racing with others, and yes even doing ParkRuns have proved tricky as I seem to have lost the confidence in racing with others, it is almost like an anxious feeling. I have done a couple of ParkRuns but haven’t fully enjoyed the experience, but I will go back when I can get out of bed on time!

The biggest pleasure recently has come form cycling, going out on the singlespeed mountain bike is such fun, it takes away all the excuses of the gears weren’t adjusted properly, my suspension is too hard/soft etc. It is just about you and the bike so you get out what you put in. Funnily enough I have set my fastest Strava times on a couple of the climbs.

Running on the other hand seems more of a struggle, for whatever reason I am off the pace. I have been feeling good on trail runs and have set a couple of fastest times on routes when I have gone out to push, but when I get back on the roads I just seem to not be able to do it.  However, I am trying not to let it get to me to try an keep the mind in clean and in the right place.

The mental side of life is something that I am now more than ever aware of and I do find myself constantly monitoring myself and trying to asses how I am feeling. There have been a few times where I find myself slipping and my thoughts heading into the negative. At these times I try and do something to cheer myself up, be it a listen to a song if I’m at work, go outside if possible or ride the motorbike, bicycle or anything else that has two wheels. I am also far more open to talking about it when I start to feel a bit down and this certainly helps, it might be a cliche and it certainly isn’t easy but it is the best thing to do.

I am now working towards the London Duathlon in September and my main aim is to enjoy it and re-find the fun in racing rather than the stress and anxiety that it currently brings.

As a postscript, after the last blog post I did receive some really kind messages and offers of help and support which were very much appreciated and above all it reminded me that people really are good and can provide the inspiration to do almost anything.

 

 

Out From Within The Shadows

This post have been a while in the making and is frankly one which I hesitated in writing, but ultimately it is about something which needs to be discussed in a more open forum.

In the early part of this year I lost my motivation and confidence to pretty much do anything. To start with I found some real life reasons to hide behind and call them the reasons but when I was honest with myself, yes these are possibly contributing factors but they weren’t the cause.

I don’t know if I was properly depressed, yes I was down and started to show the signs of depression, but I don’t believe I ever fully reached into the partnership with the black dog, instead I felt like I was led to cliff, walked to the edge and told to look over, and down the other side was the darkness and I was left to work out how to get back to where I wanted to be.

The way it manifested itself for me was firstly to not want to exercise, where as often exercise is a good way to improve mental health for me it was the opposite I found it a pressure and something I wanted to get away from. I pulled out of races and generally found reasons not to do anything. Yes I had days when I was able to get out, and in particular singlespeed mountain biking has helped as it was new and reintroduced me to the joys of mountain biking. Secondly I found I could have a public persona of everything is alright, I went to work did my job, and never told anyone how I felt.

How did I feel? Well basically, I just didn’t want to do anything, I felt like I couldn’t achieve, that failure was going to be the outcome no matter what I did.

To start with I thought it would pass, and then as time went on it got worse but I still felt it would pass, however, I didn’t do anything to and reverse the situation I just let it grow.

So what changed? Well I finally mentioned it to my wife, how I felt, and I know nothing revolutionary there, but just talking about it put it into some kind of perspective. The things I was hiding behind as excuses, work, deaths in the family and talking about it meant I was able to see that whilst these are things that do impact life they weren’t the actual causes.

In my life I am lucky, I have everything I need and more and so admitting that something is putting you into a depression is difficult because you can’t understand what it is. As I come to understand it doesn’t matter what you have, what you need depression can come to everyone, it seems simple to slip into it.

What have I learnt from this experience, well, that talking about it helps and there is nothing wrong with admitting that you need some help or that everything is not alright as unsurprisingly people will help you and the sooner the ask for help the sooner it can be given.

Now, I know I was lucky in that at worst I had a very mild or small level of depression but it certainly impacted my life, and having read of those who go very deep to the point of wanting to take their life it seems that if you don’t talk about it, it will escalate very quickly.

I am not sure I have managed to properly put into words my experience but just getting some down is enough as I now only want to look forward and not back at this, so if you are feeling down then talk to someone no matter how difficult it might be you have to start somewhere and once you take the first step in the right direction the rest will hopefully follow.