After the relative success in the midlands, I hoped to extend this run of good fortune in the Midlands League at Abingdon for the club. I'd never been to Abingdon, drove past it a few times on trips to Oxford, so it would be nice to see more than just the view from the A34. My season was focusing on the Decathlon in September as I was not going to the European Champs in OurHouse Arhus, Denmark. That meant upping the speed endurance work as the Midlands League was only likely to provide the opportunity to vault, seeing as its a senior competition not really for old gits like me. Anyway, I was coping well with sessions like 7x200m in 31 seconds and looking forwards to competing when it all went quite horribly wrong. Training was leaving me feeling a bit 'run down', despite eating vitamin pills like smarties and work was really boring the Lycra pants off me, I can only get so much enjoyment out of installing the various Oracle software packages before passing out, it's enough to turn me to drink. So Thursday 13th July, there I am riding to work on my relatively new Suzuki GSX650, minding my own business waiting for the traffic to stop hacking its way around the roundabout at junction 27 on that marvellously mind numbing stretch of tarmac known as the M4 when - Bang! Thud! and probably Crash too. A Seat Ibiza decided to 'coress' the rear of my bike sending rider and vehicle in separate directions, other than down that is. Once again, I hear someone saying 'Are you alright?', but I've not been vaulting and thankfully there's no blood this time.
Good, no damage to me but the bike is likely to be missing paint, plastic and moldings. The rather upset girl who had planted her car on my rear mudguard was not fit enough to help pick my bike up so Tarzan here tried to do it by himself. Don't you ever F*******G learn! My back went. I was due to compete on Sunday in the Pole Vault, I could barely walk let alone vault. So I spent the rest of the day icing my butt, not something I can recommend.
The weekend passed slow enough to reduce the pain levels to something more bearable, so I went to the Midlands League in Abingdon to vault, accompanied by assorted pain killers, most of them legal. The competition nearly didn't run, as the warm up progressed it became obvious the right hand upright was fu-bar'ed, a problem I could relate to somewhat. It took more than Solpadiene to fix them, but fix them they did, so we started. I did my usual trick of knocking off my opening height of 2.50m twice just to add drama, this time it was entirely down to crap vaulting, my third attempt was well clear fortunately and I was able to progress. I went on to clear 2.90m for a welcome season's best, but just as I was starting to think 'celebration time', my back reminded me of the debt it was owed.
We, that is my daughter and I, left for a barbecue with me dreaming of bottles of Cardhu and Bowmore, it was going to be a difficult decision. When I finally got home, having abandoned said daughter somewhere in England, I plumped for the golden Speyside classic. The Gold Reserve is sweet and toffee-ish, not so smokey but smooth and a bit oily. It's not a cheep buy at £45+ but the 12 year old is a tenner cheaper and almost as good (bit more caramel in that one as I remember). If you have more money than sense, then the 18 year old is one of the best I've ever tasted, more richness and chocolaty - I went to the distillery to do a tasting some time ago, so I don't have a bottle of that one.
It was a couple of weeks to my next comp, so I settled down to check my newly improved UK rankings, only to find out the cloak of invisibility that I wear on the motorbike had struck again, and I wasn't in the results. Time passed and training got a bit intense in a vain attempt to prepare for the forthcoming Decathlon, but all I seemed to achieve was asthma as my times for 200m reps stayed stubbornly fixed. I changed things around, added some shorter stuff, in the hope things might improve - they didn't - they got worse. So I wound it back down again in time for the next for the Welsh Senior League match in Swansea on the 29th where I planned another vault. I thought I couldn't go wrong, I had to be fitter, I'd vaulted well in Abingdon so surely 3.00m was on.
Athletics has a way of punishing those of us who get too cocky, and so it was. The journey down was fair enough, leaving the showers at home to meet up with the wind of Sketty Lane. The club was conspicuous by it absence, just the usual nutters so I guessed the team was not likely to win this one, meaning I could concentrate on the vault. I'll need to look up what concentration means, because I'm not convinced I made proper use of the word. As usual I knocked off my opening height taking two attempts to get over 2.60m, but what followed was somewhat worse. I took three attempts to get 2.70m but I managed to run in five times and at 2.80m I traversed the runway seven times without a clearance. All I can say is I got my money's worth out of the entrance fee by turning the vault into an endurance event. My daughter took inspiration from all my tribulations to run a PB in the 800m, which kind of made the trip worth while because the vault didn't! I resolved to do something about this as I drove home exhausted.
I squeezed a vaulting session into the crowded week's schedule, which had to be indoors due to the torrential rain that started Sunday and persisted throughout the week. It went well, up to a point. Vaulting was good, got over 3.10m - sort of, but, with the Decathlon looming, I decided to add some hurdle work. I was nearly finished when I pulled something known as the Transverse Abdominus, which is a new one on me. Its a painful member of the abdomen six pack, apparently I now only had five left to take with me to the final Midland league in Royal Sutton Coldfield on Saturday. No amount of ice and embarrassing massages could fix it but I went anyway.
Saturday was wet, really wet, even but Welsh Standards and we know rain! The ducks were struggling to stay afloat as I parked up, it was difficult to see which was lake and which was track. Surely the vault would be cancelled in this? Nope!
So with the tide going out and a severe pain in the gut I was bound to be on a certain looser, yep - no-heighted again despite starting 20cm lower than the previous week. I skulked off to the long jump in total disbelief, where, surprisingly I jumped well just missing my season's best by a centimetre. Where on earth did that come from? So the event I trained for was a disaster and the one I didn't even bother to warm up for went well. I need a holiday!
Fortunately, we had one booked in the Algarve, so time for some warm weather training, as long as the injury recovers with the application of litres of Sangria and the odd bottle of Talisker that appears to have magically made its way to our apartment. I'll let you know how it went. . . . . . .
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| Suzi missing her bits after being kissed in the rear |
The weekend passed slow enough to reduce the pain levels to something more bearable, so I went to the Midlands League in Abingdon to vault, accompanied by assorted pain killers, most of them legal. The competition nearly didn't run, as the warm up progressed it became obvious the right hand upright was fu-bar'ed, a problem I could relate to somewhat. It took more than Solpadiene to fix them, but fix them they did, so we started. I did my usual trick of knocking off my opening height of 2.50m twice just to add drama, this time it was entirely down to crap vaulting, my third attempt was well clear fortunately and I was able to progress. I went on to clear 2.90m for a welcome season's best, but just as I was starting to think 'celebration time', my back reminded me of the debt it was owed.
We, that is my daughter and I, left for a barbecue with me dreaming of bottles of Cardhu and Bowmore, it was going to be a difficult decision. When I finally got home, having abandoned said daughter somewhere in England, I plumped for the golden Speyside classic. The Gold Reserve is sweet and toffee-ish, not so smokey but smooth and a bit oily. It's not a cheep buy at £45+ but the 12 year old is a tenner cheaper and almost as good (bit more caramel in that one as I remember). If you have more money than sense, then the 18 year old is one of the best I've ever tasted, more richness and chocolaty - I went to the distillery to do a tasting some time ago, so I don't have a bottle of that one.
It was a couple of weeks to my next comp, so I settled down to check my newly improved UK rankings, only to find out the cloak of invisibility that I wear on the motorbike had struck again, and I wasn't in the results. Time passed and training got a bit intense in a vain attempt to prepare for the forthcoming Decathlon, but all I seemed to achieve was asthma as my times for 200m reps stayed stubbornly fixed. I changed things around, added some shorter stuff, in the hope things might improve - they didn't - they got worse. So I wound it back down again in time for the next for the Welsh Senior League match in Swansea on the 29th where I planned another vault. I thought I couldn't go wrong, I had to be fitter, I'd vaulted well in Abingdon so surely 3.00m was on.
Athletics has a way of punishing those of us who get too cocky, and so it was. The journey down was fair enough, leaving the showers at home to meet up with the wind of Sketty Lane. The club was conspicuous by it absence, just the usual nutters so I guessed the team was not likely to win this one, meaning I could concentrate on the vault. I'll need to look up what concentration means, because I'm not convinced I made proper use of the word. As usual I knocked off my opening height taking two attempts to get over 2.60m, but what followed was somewhat worse. I took three attempts to get 2.70m but I managed to run in five times and at 2.80m I traversed the runway seven times without a clearance. All I can say is I got my money's worth out of the entrance fee by turning the vault into an endurance event. My daughter took inspiration from all my tribulations to run a PB in the 800m, which kind of made the trip worth while because the vault didn't! I resolved to do something about this as I drove home exhausted.
I squeezed a vaulting session into the crowded week's schedule, which had to be indoors due to the torrential rain that started Sunday and persisted throughout the week. It went well, up to a point. Vaulting was good, got over 3.10m - sort of, but, with the Decathlon looming, I decided to add some hurdle work. I was nearly finished when I pulled something known as the Transverse Abdominus, which is a new one on me. Its a painful member of the abdomen six pack, apparently I now only had five left to take with me to the final Midland league in Royal Sutton Coldfield on Saturday. No amount of ice and embarrassing massages could fix it but I went anyway.
Saturday was wet, really wet, even but Welsh Standards and we know rain! The ducks were struggling to stay afloat as I parked up, it was difficult to see which was lake and which was track. Surely the vault would be cancelled in this? Nope!
 |
| And the tide starts to go out in Royal Sutton Coldfield. |
Fortunately, we had one booked in the Algarve, so time for some warm weather training, as long as the injury recovers with the application of litres of Sangria and the odd bottle of Talisker that appears to have magically made its way to our apartment. I'll let you know how it went. . . . . . .
