"My Cycling For February 2009"

A snowy Peaslake car park in February 2009.


A bit late in posting I know...and still March to come. Right now (April 17th) I have not been out on my bike since March 29th when I took a tumble on my bike at the bottom of the drop-in leading into Peaslake car park! In fact, I have been bedridden and have only just started to walk without the use of crutches. I must thank my good friend Jac for coming to stay over and look after me:) My right knee took all my weight and buckled under me. Fortunately I was only yards away from my car and managed to get home without causing further damage. Nothing broke but my knee did take quite a twisting! I am in such a foul mood because of it all (and my blocked sink and broken wing mirror!) and don't even know if I will be able to cycle properly again! So, please forgive me if I keep this short and go hide in a nice hot bath.
Fuck my knee, fuck this pain and fuck having haemophilia!!!!!!!!!



Sunday 1st February 2009 @ 14:20pm, HH, PH, WW, Ian, 16.24 miles, av 6.6, max 21.6mph,
2hrs 25mins, cold and snowy and sunny. Total 155.57 miles.

Sunday 8th February 2009 @ 14:10pm, HH, PH, WW, Ian, 17.45 miles, av 6.1, max 18.8mph, 2hrs 51mins, very muddy and snowy, rain for second half of ride, temp 2, wind 10. Total 173.02 miles.

Monday 16th February 2009 @ 18:40pm, SF & CW, Ian, Andy, Gary, 9 miles, av 6.9, max 22.1 mph, 1hr 50mins, muddy but dry. Total 182.02 miles.

Friday 20th February 2009 @ 15:00, RPx2 and a third, 26.7 miles, av 12.1, max 29.7 mph, 2hrs 9mins, mild & dry. Total 208.09 miles.

Tuesday 24th February 2009 @ 21:30pm, BP, 13.27 miles, av 13.1, max 19.8mph, 1hr, mild, dry. Total 221.09 miles.

Friday 27th February 2009 @ 19.20, HH, PH, Lee, 11.31 miles, av 6.4, max 20.3 mph, cool, dry, 1hr 45mins, temp 9 down to 5, wind 6. Total 232.40 miles.



Jason








(C) JPT 2009

"Walking Trivialities"

South Bank last Sunday during my London ride...the graffiti was more fun than the ride;)


God! I'm so bored! It's raining in my head, in my ankle and it's raining outside (it was at the time of writing this sentence;)! Fuck it! Fuck it! Fuck it!
Where the sticky shit did that bastard bleed come from? Was it a bleed? I'm not really sure? It didn't swell up like a bleed, like they used to do when I was younger. Like a balloon filled with boiling blood sticking out the side of my ankle joint! More of a bone thing going on. A deep, deep down feeling right in the center of my ankle joint! As my friend Ros so perfectly described recently - Just like a poisonous bone eating worm was living in there - very nasty! Very good description Mrs C.

It all started last Wednesday night. I had been out to London to see a film. Hardly any walking at all. Just a little between trains and to and from my car from the station. Done it a thousand times with and without pain. Been caught out before but all was well again by the morning after a few thousand units of Factor VIII. But not this time!

I got off the train at Twickenham and started to walk up the stairs to the road to take the short walk across the railway bridge to Waitrose carpark where my car was and there the pain started. Nothing unusual about that. It often hurts just after I have been sitting still for a while. Got to get the joint moving a little before it sorts itself out. Ros'll tell you the same.
So I thought nothing of it and adjusted my walking style to help relieve the pain that I was feeling and continued through the ticket machines and out onto the pavement and over the bridge.
Halfway across the bridge and I was walking like I had been shot in the foot by a lone sniper atop Waitrose! Bam!! All of a sudden the remainder of the very short walk back to the car became a ten minute pain filled struggle where each step made me grimace in agony! Not long to go now, just another few hundred yards and I will be with my car, back home, back with my precious factor VIII.

Little did I imagine that it would last the entire evening, all the way through the night and all through the next two days! Christ on a bike! That first night I didn't sleep a wink, couldn't find a single pain-free spot to put my stupid foot! I downed 10 strong pain killers during the night and they had no effect whatsoever! I'm surprised I didn't do meself a mischief with that amount of PK's! Very silly looking back, but at the time I wasn't thinking straight. I can understand how people can accidentally overdose when they're in so much pain.

Besides the pain I was in, I was also rather concerned that I had a permanent injury that was just not going to go away! I had visions of crawling around on my knees to the kitchen and bathroom for the rest of eternity (one day was enough!). My knees stung when I lowered myself into a hot bath on Thursday night due to carpet burns! (first Thursday night kayaking session I have missed since I started going nearer the beginning of the year). I got Lee to come around with my Mums crutches that she used recently for a knee replacement and used those until the ankle miraculously sorted itself out on Sunday morning (today). I tried to walk on it with the aid of the crutches on Saturday night to see if it was alright to do so and it kind of felt ok.

Then on Sunday morning the bastard was all more or less back to normal. What a relief!! I was worried I had buggered it once and for all! It's bound to happen one day, I just know it! Looking back, I think it was my ankles way of telling me that I had used it too much over the last few weeks and to calm down a little. I might not have been out for many rides over the last two weeks, but the few rides that I did do were very long and hard and something was going to give right? Sunday before last I did my 100k off-road marathon thing up in North Wales and then nothing until the next Sunday (last) when I took a lonely trip into central London to be part of the "Hovis Freewheel" ride where several miles of London's most popular streets were closed to all traffic except bikes. 38,000 bikes attended the event and all I can say to describe it is that it was THE largest bicycle jam in the entire world!! The weather was good but the wind was a right fucker coming back home into Kingston along the A3. I decided to cycle the whole way (40 odd miles) from my flat to the event and back again and to be honest with you, I don't really think I had recovered properly from the marathon a week before.

Will I learn from my experience? I really do hope so! But probably not.



Jason


P.s. Way to go Amp's...SVR girl:)








(C) JPT 2007.........2945.17 miles.

Another Little Bleeder;)

Samuel treating a bleed on Wednesday


Firstly, sorry Chris...yet another image of a steel hungry vein to greet you first thing in the morning;)

Ok...what was the last post about? Oh yes...the weather. Goodness me, isn't there anything else the English talk about besides the bleeding weather? No not really. The weather rules our lives to a certain degree and our emotions and moods too. Stoopid isn't it! It's just a mixture of different elements all coming together and MAKING ME F*CKING WET WHEN I GO OUT CYCLING OR A PADDLE IN THE BLOODY THAMES!!! Ahem...ok...I'm fine now...I promise;) Please don't rain on Sunday...Please!! I got this mountain bike ride on Sunday with me mate Lee. We're just two of around a thousand mountain bikers taking part in this race across the rolling hills of the Welsh Borders in a little place called Kington (thats Kingston without the S) and it looks like rain! And we're camping the night before...in tents!

Anyway...enough about that. I shall endeavour to tell you all about it the moment I make it back (if) to London with half of June's total predicted rainfall soaked into my pants! Christ on a bike! Is it June already?
So...I'm ready and fit and me arm hurts and me ankle hurts & me head ain't quite all it should be...but I'm ready and as I said...I'm fit. I can't be any fitter and anyway, it isn't a race to the finish as such...more of an endurance race to finish the route. The long or the short route? Still haven't decided...35k or 70k? Depends on the...wait for it...the weather. And obviously how my elbow feels at the point where the route forks to long & short. I was out on Thursday afternoon for what turned out to be a 31 mile ride locally with two and a half laps of RP chucked in and a quick look at Kingston before I went home...in pain! It was sunny & warm which helped...a little. For the most part I was resting my right hand lightly on me handle bar because my elbow was so sore! I wasn't even off-road for goodness sakes. It sometimes goes like that...me arm...and me right ankle had a few words to say also on the subject of pain. But that didn't stop me going kayaking on Thursday night. Plus I am going to attend the public enquiry into contaminated blood products the very next morning after the race in London on Monday. I'm sure they won't mind if I sit at the back and have a kip on one of their comfy armchairs that I spotted the last time I was there. Also I want to sneak out one of their snazzy bottle of 'House of Commons' mineral water too;) Don't tell anyone!

So on to the photo...It is of my 14yr old Nephew Samuel. He's my eldest Sisters Son down from Donny (Doncaster) for the week and on Wednesday he rang me up and asked if I could lend him some of my Factor VIII (he too has severe Haemophilia 'A') and thank f*ck without all the trimmings!...which I was only too pleased to do. I'm not sure why he didn't bring any of his own down...I was 14 once and the last thing on my mind was Haemophilia...so there is the reason;) We are on the same stuff and therefore was not a problem. He started to treat himself in the last year or so and was all too happy to allow me to shoot him shooting up so to speak. Before I knew it he was all done and dusted and on the road to recovery. Like Uncle like Nephew:) And on Thursday Samuel, Daisy, Lee & I all went for a blast around Ealing Pool in our kayaks. Samuel had never been before and thoroughly enjoyed himself and even perforemed a rescue on me and saved me from drowing a rather horrible and somewhat terminally breath missing death (all staged of course;) Lee was rolling like know ones business and I just paddled around like a looney again keeping my eye on Samuel & Daisy until Lee asked me if I was going to do some rolls. I had all but given up since last weeks metal block and was quite happy to be the 'Fool in the Pool'...but then thought sod it and with half an hour left of pool time tried again. I capsized meself and just sat there upside down looking at me paddle...all the while running out of air and just couldn't think what to do! I didn't even try and signalled to Lee to right me. He did and then suggested I try a slightly different method...a 'C to C' roll...Lee's been reading up on the different rolls and is fast becoming an egg-spurt on the matter;) I had been attempting the 'Sweep' roll before and successfully too up until last Thursday when for some reason all me brain cells decided to abseil out from my ears and run off into the sunset...with each and every one of the little bastards giving me the middle finger as he did so!! Anyway, I tried one using this new technique and did it first go...then another and another. Much bloody easier! Why didn't I start with this one? So that's the one for me then...the 'C to C' roll. Tune in next week to see if I have gone mental again and lost that one too;)



Jason


P.s. Be sure to check out my other two posts right below this one that I also posted...they're just me cycling & kayaking for May is all...but you might like to see them...See ya when I get back from my race... www.roughride.co.uk Jx






(C) JPT 2007.........1578.42 miles

The Glass Elbow

The Train Window, London, 2004

For years & years i had been highly embarrassed of the way my right arm looked! It would look more at home on a 9 year old boy! It has had so many bleeds in the elbow joint from having Haemophilia, i could probably have filled an olympic sized swimming pool. As a teenager i hardly ever took my t-shirt off in public as i thought people were staring at my "skinny arm". Of course, everyone i knew would and still do tell me they don't even notice it. I am still self-conscious of the little extremity. But i wish it had a tad more strength in it.
Today i was out with a friend. His name is Lee and i have known him for 26 years. He has been married to my twin sister Nicola for ten years. He is a good mountain bike companion, as he never falls off or crashes and isn't afraid of steep descents & getting muddy and frozen in Winter. And he knows all about me and would know what to do if i came a cropper down at the bottom of "Deliverance".
This afternoon we completed a 3 hour ride from Holmbury Hill to Pitch Hill and back again, via a downhill single track called "Barry Knows Best". Only God knows where the name of that one came from! It was the first time we had done it. Nice and fast, twists & berms and a few jumps too. We Loved it, but my elbow did not! Lee was complaining about his legs though, which made me feel a bit better:) We carried on anyway and had a great time. And those familiar eels (roots) were out in force again today, but there backs were dry and thus ripe for rubber.
He, like the rest of my friends and family have put up with quite a lot over the years, what with my moods just before and during a bad bleed. I suffer from physical pain on a daily basis and it must be hard for people around me, at times unbearably so. And more recently with my anger frustrations being on Ribavirin. They don't tell me, but sometimes they must feel like punching me in the face!
As for my elbow. I wish it was made of glass. At least then it would be invisible.
Ok, maybe not glass, but Pyrex instead.

Jason