The Power and impotence of a year!

Twelve months is such a long time, but it also goes by in the blink of an eye when you look back. You can do so much. You can also achieve so little. It's a long period of time over which a great deal can be done, but it's also so long you can lose yourself several times over, and it allows so many places to hide. I said once I don't do achievement. I also don't like a year as a yardstick or measurement for anything at all - as arbitrary a unit of time as it represents.

It's a big thing nowadays for these apps to tell you how you have done across a year. Like Spotify does with music, Strava highlights your distances, number of activities, top training partners (Thanks Sarah ;-) and so on - to generate loyalty to the app and motivate a commitment to register each activity. I still don't get the recording of every dog walk and abs workout though ;-) - I guess that's just me!

A year is such a long time - and is such an abstract way to think about things IMO, because whether it is to do with health and fitness, or personal emotions, time affects different aspects of our lives in different ways. I can look back and there are things I did hobby-wise that I could think of as an achievement for 2024. In reality though they were 12 years in the pot brewing - and it was that 12 year body of work that got me through. Getting through this year personally has been so hard, but that has been 50 years in the brewing - with everything I've ever gone through making me the person who has dealt with it in the ways I have - both good and bad.

So in terms of health and fitness, a year as a yardstick of anything or something to look back on or forward to is a bit irrelevant IMO. I always think the day you are in is the most powerful day of your life, which has the downside of also being the day most easily frustratingly wasted, and that really annoys me. That's because...

• TODAY is the most powerful day you'll have in terms of health and fitness and your life. It's the most under your control. It's easiest to make a commitment to be on point with a run. cycle, swim, diet, strength and conditioning TODAY. It's the first and next 24 hrs you have to build routines and habits (and we're all creatures of habit)

  
  

• TODAY also represents just a single day where you can make exceptions without a big deal. Have that night out, those drinks, enjoy the party (and being xmas time now, there is no escaping some of this) - because it is JUST a one day (for me it's three now, the day of the drinks and the two day hangover) exception, let it ride. Don't beat yourself up always. Live life.

  
  

• TODAY you are what you are. You can be unhappy about that, but there is no changing it TODAY. What you CAN do today is put a single building block down for changing your fitness somewhere down the line, but your physique, weight, happiness, is what it is today. Just accepting you for YOU is powerful, together with the knowledge that YOU could (in theory) be almost anything you wanted to a degree in a years time.

  
  

• A year is too long to stay fit. Trying to keep good habits is hard - and good habits aren't that fun! I like chocolate. I like crisps. I love a cold beer. I quite like a big night out. I like a great big dirty burger (more chicken than beef these days though) - am I not going to have these things for a year. Of course I am. I try to get fit at certain points of the year, and enjoy that process - but I couldn't stay fit all year round. I try not to go all Ricky Hatton in the winter, but I'm at my heaviest in the winter - and my bike saddle was creaking at me telling me so on Sunday.

In terms of emotions, a year is more powerful. In two ways I guess.

• Firstly I always say time is a great healer. I've not healed completely since Paul (my business partner and friend) passed away on 20th Dec last year (his birthday), and I'm still sad a lot, and I still struggle working in this same business and same building - I can't articulate how fucking hard that is. It feels like masochism just coming to work at times. But I'm better. Sometimes much better. Sometimes just marginally. But better.

  
  

  So where you CAN'T tell yourself 'in a year I'll be as fit as Lance Armstrong' - because it isn't meaningful, or helpful in the least. Anyone can SAY anything....this time next year Rodney....better to tell yourself 'I'd like to be as fit as Lance Armstrong, and TODAY this is what I'm going to do about it' - and repeat the next day. But you CAN say, in a year I'll be better emotionally about this or that issue that is affecting me a lot right now....because a year gives you that space. You CANNOT be better about something emotionally TODAY, or flick a switch, and accepting that is important.

  
  

• Secondly though, the actual calendar anniversary aspect of a year can be hard. I've never functioned this way. I couldn't tell you the dates most things in my life happened. I don't remember birthdays very well, the dates people close to me passed away, I just about remember my wedding anniversary each year. But because Pauls death was so wrapped up in work, I am remembering that right now. The last thing we did together was agree xmas bonuses. This year it will be me, and a piece of paper. No debate, no-one to consult, just me. There are decisions we make at xmas, this time of year, about the business going forward. I've no-one to make those with. Just me. Arguing with myself. - When I argue with someone else on an issue, it helps me be decisive. Arguing with myself, I can win both the case for and against something (I actually like arguing for something I don't agree with, to see how powerful an argument I can make) - so I become indecisive - which is terrible for a business and terrible for me. I hate it. I've lost the person I did all those things with, and that's really evident RIGHT NOW, because it is a year ago he died, so every working practice is a reminder. I feel very lonely right now. The actual physical year is messing with my head.

Bottom line ; I don't like thinking of things over the course of a past year. This is evident by the poor way in which I'm dealing with all these reminders of a year ago - I just hate being forced to confront the past and the feelings I had (but have - obvs - that I've buried) So fuck off with your 'Year in Sport' and with Spotify Wrapped. They were yesterday. I'm going to listen to different music next year, and I'm going to do different things next year (like this bike ride). The business is going to be different next year and I'm going to be different next year. Different. And better! You are only as good as the next cup of tea you make. In events and exhibitions, you are definitely only as good as your last one and then your next one! What's gone is gone.

The only time a year is useful is when it lies in the future, and you can say 'I'm going to get to live that, hopefully, so lets use that time, and lets start that TODAY'

That was long weren't it! (bad grammar deliberately) ; every time I type it gets long.

So I rode Sunday, and no-one was fit. No-one is fit this time of year except for some friends I know who raced the 70.3 IM World Champs in New Zealand last weekend. A terrible time for a race. Imagine having to get fit for December!

We had a good group - who all stayed together, with various whinges (including from me) about when we'd stop for coffee and food (bacon and brie pannini for me), and that our legs were tired. Most of us haven't been riding much if at all. I'd had my ESM xmas night out on the Friday - where we went to the Bierkeller in Maidstone. What a night (there isn't a much better feeling than being part of a crowd, all dancing on tables with a huge Stein of lager in hand), and boy did I pay for it on Saturday where I was incapable of rational thought let alone the run I wanted to do. I still felt a bit off on Sunday morning, and hoped the miles on the bike might stir me from my torpor, but that didn't really happen.

The weather was really mild though, with blue skies, the sun peeping through. Some wet grimy roads, and some impatient shitty driving behind by cars (I prefer not to credit the idiots with being people) and again I was on the gravel bike which I'm enjoying. I think it is slower, as I'm having to work quite hard on it when riding with people on road bikes. But I enjoy that too.

I make up the route, so I get to decide where we go, and what we do in terms of terrain and climbing. I like to include a few hills, because i know what strength they build - both physical and mental. Having said that, often a bossy friend or someone who is riding might pitch in the night before with 'it needs to be not more than x hrs, and not longer than y distance, and not hillier than z metres of climbing'. That was the case this week. So I did a route with a lot of climbing, but gradual inclines for the most part, working our way up the downs (the Kent downs.....I know that doesn't read as common sense) where you have to pedal well, but not a grind. I was told 75k odd. I had to get my car from the factory afterwards, so was a bit longer for me.

So that's two weekend rides in the last month. Not enough, but we break up on Friday - off for two weeks almost. No ICE stand builds to think about with that moving to Barcelona (ICE is so dead to me, and actually with what I'm hearing about many of the new rules, that perhaps is a good thing)) and my complete failure to get anything there - but may as well make the most of it. Hope to get in a good few rides over xmas, and post about them!

Maybe not 2000 words - but bet it will be.