Scribbling fit to bust

Scribbling fit to bust.

Yesterday saw the first meeting of the year for the little poetry group that meets in our home once a month. We call ourselves Scribblers. We use the time to read whatever work we have done since the last meeting using the rest of the group as a sounding board. We all appreciate the benefits of that. We know each other well enough now to laugh without meaning or causing offence.

We have grown very nicely into our own company and so we can question things that might not sit right or that we don’t understand. A couple of meetings ago, somebody suggested, that it might be a good challenge for us if we tried to learn and poem by heart for each meeting, instead of just reading the ones that we had recently written. It may have been me, I’m not sure on that but I am happy to take the blame for the idea, since I think it is really good for us to move out of our comfort zone, good for everything I think, including the stress of life’s problems and also our mental health. We all get a little forgetful now and then and as you get older that does start to feel like something unpleasant creeping up behind us from the shadows.

Anyway, the meeting yesterday was our third attempt at standing up and trying to perform by heart the piece we had chosen. On all three occasions I have faltered to a dreadful stutter on the first line… eeek! We all fell about laughing, which is good and then the second try was slow and hesitant but then once past the first line it all starts to slide past my lips without too much pain. I do know the works completely and that is the annoying thing. I can recite them to the cat, out of the window when I am alone, and also with a little more difficulty, looking at my husband, I say them to myself when I go to bed, and aloud in the car over and over again.  Overcoming the nerves of doing something new and indeed alien to the norm is not easy. A couple of others have suffered in the same way and it seems silly because you are with friends.

On the other hand we have some true stars in our midst. My friend Anthony, who is, it has to be mentioned and actor/singer with a local Am-Dram company, turned up on the first occasion and spouted pages of Tam O’Shanter by Burns, complete with Scottish accent. We have listened to poetry in other languages, followed by translations, which is fascinating. This time another of our members gave us a poem in Arabic! Marvellous. 

 

Then we have another man, who also belongs to a public speaking group and who always has some amusing snippets and seems to already know loads of poetry by heart. The multi musically talented Deirdre for whom even a big church organ is not her master, has also come up trumps several time now with engaging performances to our group.  We can also read a bit of flash fiction which makes a change.

 So all in all the Scribblers meeting made me think that is it always a good thing to leave the comfort zone now and again; test yourself in some way. Never be afraid to try something new. Then if you find it hard at first, be comforted by the thought that practice really does make perfect. 

 

When I tried to learn front crawl thirty years ago, I thought I would never get it right and that meant that I would not have been able to take up triathlon, let alone do well in the sport. Getting the technique, is a true challenge if you have always perhaps, been a breast or back stroker like I was when I started. 

The breathing may take a long time to get right, getting over the panicky feeling of swimming with your face in the water; however once you learn to relax it gradually becomes easier. The main thing you have to learn there is, to fully exhale into the water before turning to the side to inhale again. Most beginners find that the hardest thing, even when they get to the point where they can swim a length of the pool they are too breathless to continue. What they need to get into their head is, that if you do not fully exhale, then you cannot fully inhale and that is a progression. So less and less and less air means that you have to stop. The bath is the best place to try this breathing until you can calmly breathe fully out, you cannot breath efficiently in. 

The same goes for starting to try anything new. I started to write poetry about six years ago when I was very, very bad tempered about finding myself with my arm in plaster and my foot in a hospital boot after a fall out running, when on a holiday in Italy. I knew that a fidget like me must find something to occupy themselves to get through an irritation like that.

 I had loved poetry at school and had read poetry all my adult life, so I set myself the challenge of writing a poem a day until I was back to full fitness. That meant not just until the plaster came off, because there is then a period of getting the muscles and joints working properly again.

My early poetry may not have been of great quality but it was very therapeutic.

Getting to grips with a new sport or a new hobby will be difficult at first but it will also be most gratifying in the end. Who knows where each new road will lead? Maybe not to the exact point you first thought of, but its possible that the road you do take, leads to somewhere more satisfying, a whole new life maybe.

Driving to work

I’m not saying that its hard work driving 400-500 miles days through Europe but its tiring enough even when my husband is doing all the driving these days. I used to take a spell at the wheel of the truck so Steve could make phone calls or do admin of something to do with the job in hand or setting up the next trip. The reason I don’t drive the truck or our van any more is that the cost of insurance for an eighty year old lady driver like myself had become prohibitive. It seems unfair when I have a good record but you can see where they are coming from on that, in the commercial world and for foreign travel.

On this occasion we had a momentary scary moment when not long out of  the Channel tunnel, Steve pulled into a quiet rest stop along the motorway where we just wanted to reset the SatNav and get the audio book ready to start when there was a sudden shaking feeling to the truck. As I say we only intended to be there for a very short time, so luckily Steve had not turned off the engine, which was just as well because when Steve looked in the rear view mirror he saw immigrants attempting to open the back of the truck. As Steve turned to get out he saw one of them reaching toward the truck driver’s door. Thank God he had the presence of mind to pull away as fast as he could, shouting at me, “Hold tight- Immigrants”. This is not the first time something like that has happened. In fact Steve has discontinued his call at the last service station before Calais, on return journeys, to avoid the repetition of problems exactly like this one.

Whereas we do have sympathy with displaced people running from war torn country’s it is noticeable that most of these aggressive people, trying to break into trucks, are in fact young men, not badly dressed or hungry looking and they not family groups. So to us it seems more worrying. The fine for turning up in the UK and customs finding immigrants in your truck when you drive through after coming through the tunnel is enormous, so drivers must be vigilant.  

We have just spent three nights away from home on a work trip that took in France, Belgium, Holland, Germany and Denmark. We actually don’t even talk to each other that much until we stop for one reason or another, because we listen to Audible Books and so one must press the pause marker if we do want to comment on the story or if there is something that cannot wait to be said. Between Monday afternoon when we left home and last evening when we returned home we had devoured two very good books: Blue Moon by Lee Child which is the latest Jack Reacher story, which I hope they cast Gerard Butler in for the movie when they make it. I do like Tom Cruise in most of his films but for me he is not Jack Reacher who is 6’5” tall and hefty. It is another most excellent yarn and very entertaining even when there have been so many books in the series to date. The other book for the journey home was Robichaux, by another favourite author of ours James Lee Burke. I think this is No.21 or 22 in the series about the Louisiana Detective who one should watch their attitude when dealing with. So the plod along endless motorways passes quickly listening to a good book.

Steve and I both love traveling even when it involves loading, unloading, reloading and unloading again. Our European geography is very good. We like to go to different places, see different views and meet interesting people.  One of the people we met this time was also an older person maybe a bit younger than Steve though. He asked if we had drive through the night, but laughed when Steve said that those days were long gone. We leave that for younger folk who choose to do that to avoid the traffic hold ups. The traffic in Holland is every bit as bad as ours.

We both love maps, it is one of the many things we have in common and a lust for travel, we have loads on maps at home and look up everywhere that pops up in conversation or on TV or in books. We call ourselves Cartophiles, if there is such a work. We have a huge map of the USA on the wall of our turbo room (box room) at home and when we were first together, we lived in upstairs rooms in the original Body Shop in Brighton one of the now international chain. There, we plastered the stair well with a set of war time bombing practice maps of the UK.

Work and play with Daf and Steve Belt

 

Work and play: The photo above is of me taking a rest to admire the scenery above St Anton, Austria.

A ridged training regime is not always possible, as every athlete knows at some time or another and certainly over the thirty years that Steve and I have been enjoying the sport it has been closer to a pipe dream.

My husband Stephen in a forth generation antiques dealer and for all of his adult life a buyer transporter and shipper. Steve and I have been married for over forty years and have been sharing our lives for a few years more than that.

For twenty years or more I went everywhere with him whether that was working at our business base, buying antiques and packing them into 40’ containers to be shipped mainly to clients in the USA and Canada or many other parts of the world or otherwise travelling through Europe in the truck.

In those days I did the map reading when needed off the motorway, but more often than not Steve knew the way because of his years of experience driving. In those days on long journeys I would read to Steve as he drove until audible books came along. We worked side by side for many years until first Steve’s father died who had done all the office work which then fell to me. The final end to most of my journeys with Steve abroad came much later when his mother needed a carer for the last twenty years of her life and that fell to me totally at first but later she needed more care than I could manage on my own and professional cares came in twice a day toward the end. I had been the main care for my own parents for years but they were not so hard to look after; I just did the laundry, shopping, housework, doctor and hospital visits.

I still go with him sometimes and if he is working, say in France at the main Antiques fairs I still go along and ride my bike or run while he is working with clients. That is a real treat to go cycling where there is so little traffic compared to West Sussex.

So it is often difficult to keep to any kind of rigid training schedule. When we are both home we can manage a timetable. We swim at 6.30 am three times and week and our club Swim session is early on Saturday evening. Saturday morning we ride our bikes, in summer riding out on the roads but during winter rather than getting an old bird like me soaked to the skin we mainly ride on our turbo trainers doing a long session Saturday and a couple for shorter workouts when we can fit them in during the week. Our main run is on Sunday morning and other times we do a shorter run straight after swimming in the mornings.

As to other training…. Steve lifts furniture on and off trucks and into containers. That is enough weight lifting for any triathlete. I did lifting until it was not possible with home life.

I do some stretching and have an exercise ball and some small weights. I still do all the office work for our business.

As sample of our life on the road; Last September the week after the Brighton and Hove triathlon on September 15^th, I went with Steve on an extended work schedule.  The next day we sorted out our journey in the office before we left for the Chanel Shuttle and the rest of that days drive to Reims where we stayed over night.

The next day we drove as far as St Anton in Austria and took a day off there. So it was a two night stay with a day in the middle when we walked our legs off which was a close to training as we were going to get. The next morning we got another much shorter brisk walk in before driving to an overnight stop a few hours west of Venice.

The next day was Thursday and we drove the rest of the way to Venice. Venice is a challenge for truck drivers to make deliveries to, for obvious reasons. We have to park the truck up at a place called the Tronchetto where we had arranged for a barge to meet us to unload and go by the waterways as near as possible to the delivery point. That all takes hours and then you have to load to goods a few pieces at a time on to a large trolley to the door of the building in the centre. 

We arrived to fine that everything had to be carried to the third floor. I counted a different amount of steps each on each ascent to help me not think about how hard this was. I made it between 87 and 93 wide worn stone steps each time. It was interesting though and of course we were getting paid to spend the day in probably the most amazing city in the world so looking at it like that… Perk! In actuality hard work but a mind expanding important educational experience.

At the end of our work, we had to return to the truck on the public water bus, also astonishing.

Once back to the truck we drove to our next over night stay.

I hope Venice is on everybody's bucket list. Don't waste your time waiting, Venice is in danger.

New year day Run

2020 Wishing and Hoping or Thinking and Doing

2020 Wishing and Hoping or Thinking and Doing

 

Although I am sitting here wishing everybody a Happy New Year, I know in my heart that it is not going to happen for a lot of people. What I would like to give as advice is this. Do not allow anybody to tell you or make you feel that you are less than you are. Search inside yourself for who you are, if somebody is hanging you out to dry for their own purposes. Remember that the hardest step is the first one out of the door, at the very least avoid the company of people who don’t work as hard as you do to achieve goals and definitely keep clear of anybody who attempts to put you down or who does not appreciate what you are capable of, and simply judging other by theirs own lack of conviction.

What gives me the right to say this? I know it to be true from my own experiences in my past.

These days I am fortunate to have family and friends who support me every inch of the way.

My husband Stephen is also my coach and best friend for that matter as well. Last evening just after dinner, knowing that I like to mark special occasions with a special training session, Steve asked me if I had anything in mind for our New Years Day training. He said that He thought we might do a slightly longer run than is usual for our mid week run. I turned that over in my head for less than a minute before saying, “What about doing the Tuff Fitty Tuff Ten run course”. It is an event we thought up donkeys years ago in our early days in triathlon not long after we had established the Tuff Fitty Triathlon Club and taken a handful of coaching courses.

It is a hard ten miles course over the downs a few miles from our home. It takes in stretches of The Monarchs Way through Houghton Forest, some of Stane Street which is a well known Roman road and also some of The Southdown's Way. It is all off road and on the South Downs that means that what is underfoot is Chalk and Flint. In the middle of winter it has some squelchy patches that are very slippery.

We thoroughly enjoyed our run even though visibility was not great; the mist was kind of magical dipping in behind the hills and trees. Garmin Forerunner facts are that we covered 1350 feet of elevation and the there and back route took 2 hours 46, very slightly faster on the return section. That is not very fast for ten miles compared to younger runners but Steve is rising 70 and I am 80, so fast enough, all things considered.

We had not taken that route for at least ten years, apart from walking it with the dog but now we think we will include it into our 2020 training schedule. We are already entered for Ironman70.3 Graz, Austria in May, to name but a few. Maybe another 70.3 later in the year too who knows what fate may have in store for us. What we do know is that we want to do events where we can both compete in the same event. Not one for him and one for me. Togetherness.

To go back to the theme I started with today and this may not seem like they are in any way similar but Steve sprang a surprise trip to London last Monday to the British Museum to see the Troy Exhibition- Myth and Reality. One of the exhibits was sculpture depicting Thelis, Achilles mother, holding her baby by the ankle to dip him in the River Styx to make him invulnerable. Because she did not immerse his foot this became his weak point. The famous Achilles Heel. It was great display of ancient artifacts with many sculptures of Gods and warriors, very well presented indeed.

But, adding this bluntly into what I am on about today, concerning our training and motivation, this is my repeated point; don’t let anybody hang you out to dry or play on any weakness that you might have. Stay strong.

 

Brighton and Hove Triathlon Sept 15th 2019

Brighton and Hove Triathlon was a qualifier for the European Standard distance Triathlon in Tartu, Estonia 2020 and that alone was a good reason to do it. I had already qualified for the European Sprint Distance triathlon in Malmö, Sweden 2020 earlier in the year, so that would start to make 2020 look interesting.

The main reason to take part in this race is another reason entirely. The race director John Lunt is my oldest friend in the sport of triathlon. My first multi discipline event, was one of the earliest events that he put on, it was also my first swim run event ever. That was the Damp Dash at Kingston about thirty years ago. I had entered the half distance race 400 swim/5km run but it was cancelled due to a very low entry.

John rang to tell me that, I tried my best the chicken out of the whole thing but John talked me gently into doing the full distance event 800 swim and 10km run, after I told him that I had only just learned to swim front crawl and that I had not been running very long either, just a few months. He didn’t say goodbye to me until I agreed that I would see him in the morning on poolside.
Photo here was at Johns Run2Music Brighton run. I got conned into going dressed as Madonna, ridiculous I know.

I had a wonderful time at that race and was hooked straight away. He was nice, His chief aide, now wife of many years Nicola, was so helpful and all the young athletes told me that I was doing well as they passed me on the run. It was all so friendly and such fun. Since then I have lost count of how many of John’s races I have enjoyed but his races alone must amount to well over a hundred. Of course John Lunt is so well known in the sport internationally, now having also masterminded the 2012 London Olympics triathlon and the Commonwealth Games blah-de-blah-de blah.

Brighton and Hove is a fairly new event; I think only four years old. I have done three of those four anyway. Why, because I know that it will be a professionally run event. The whole team are brilliant. It has a sea swim twelve miles from my home just along the south coast and I love the sea. The bike ride is dead flat, and in laps of Hove Kingsway, a big wide road with lots of crowd support and the run is along the classic promenade, all of which also makes it a perfect event for beginners and old hand alike. It is a fun race but it is also very strictly controlled and that is comforting to beginners, particularly young women and the children in the races put on to encourage new triathletes into the sport. There is even a scoot-a-thon the day before for the teeny weenies.

 

Last September I was not even the oldest competitor because my friend Geoff Geering was doing the sprint distance in the 85-89 age group, whilst I did the full standard distance in 80+. There was an even older man at 87, who I think did the super sprint distance though I am not totally sure, but certainly showing triathlon to be a sport for all ages and categories and leanings. All triathletes.

 Geoff and I were both interviewed the day before for BBC TV that added to the fun. I think my finish time was 3.45.20 and my husband Steve, was a couple of minutes slower…. which was not altogether popular. We were not racing together, because we were in different wave starts. All told though, such a fun event in marvellous situation. Brighton and Hove seafront is picture postcard impressive. I was born in Brighton. Little old Brightonian me, pre-war by a couple of weeks.

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