Depends on my mental health tbh. I think MH is not constant, just like physical health. Sometimes we’re a bit knackered, or sick, or have a lingering cold, and physically we feel a bit shte. Sometimes everything is well, and we feel dandy!

I think, well for me, MH is similar. Sometimes my head just doesn’t feel great, I’m in a fug and lack enthusiasm. But other times I feel really good, and want to do everything!

Sorry for stating what may be the obvious.

but there is still huge stigma attached to depression in a lot of work places

100% this.

No way in the world would I tell my employers. I had my MD having a laugh/mini rant about “all these people nowadays that are on meds” and he saw a thing on panorama blagh blagh. I just smiled, and said “yeah right, I know, crazy eh!?”

@n0b0dy0ftheg0at

That’s one of the main reasons I thinking about tapering off Mirtazpine.

It solved my insomnia, and lessened my depression/anxiety. I sleep like a teenager. But you feel really groppy/doppy half the next day.

I’m using Mirtazapine now, and thinking about tapering off.

Huberman suggests NSDR (non sleep deep rest) – trying to reinvent the wheel?

I do kind of use his thing to nap. I’m not great at daytime napping, struggle to switch off. So just lay with eyes closed and chill. Sometimes I get lucky and power nap, otherwise it’s quite nice anyway to chill for 15.

I’d love somewhere at work to nap, that’s the dream!

I wear the Vivo Gobi boots in the office. Love them. Forget I’ve got them on.

For me the the main reason I like them is the foot shaped toe box. Tbh I don’t really care about the ground feel stuff, and as above, it does bloody hurt when you step on a stone on the pavement. I tried them only once walking the dog, where I am (near Salisbury) the trails are flinty/gravel and rocks. Ouch! I run mid foot, but heel first when walking.

I don’t love the look of Vivos though.

I wear Vans 1 size up when out and about doing other stuff, this gives my toes more room, not as good as vivos, but not bad.

Always looking for (and never found) “normal” shoes/boots that have a foot shaped toebox.

Painkiller (Netflix). Brilliant!

Covers the opioid crisis.

Fitness and enjoyment go hand in hand. If I’m feeling sluggish the ride is definitely less fun.

100%

When you’ll feeling good and strong, the rides are significantly more fun.

It does depend on your goals..

If it’s just to be a bit faster to keep up with the group, then riding with the group consistently will get you there. It’ll get easier. Riding with faster people always helps, as you’ll do more work than if solo, you’ll dig deeper, and if you recover well, you’ll get fitter.

On the point of turbo and structured training, I like TrainerRoad. It’s simple and smart, with a lot of cool features, such as apative training. BUT, their default plans start with sweet spot base, a lot of people find they burn out quite quickly. I used their sweetspot base, general build plans to great effect when I was racing.

TrainerRoad have now added some polarised base plans, which do look good. I’m going to run through one in the Autumn.

https://www.trainerroad.com/forum/t/polarized-plan-updates/83044

If you picked the low volume polarised base plan, it’s only 3 rides per week; two Z2 and one VO2MAX. I’d do that, and if dry, perform the z2 rides outside, making Sunday a longer cafe ride (if grim, Netflix on the turb). That leaves a couple of days spare for some strength work, and a rest day or two.

To improve, consistency is key, with some kind of progression.

Also, “to improve cycling performance” really look into on the bike hyrdation/fueling. If you’re under carbed, that’s an easy win. I stopped taking pocket snacks, and now add carbs and electrolytes to my bottles instead, adjusted appropriately for the ride I’ve planned, ie. quite a lot for a balls out club ride, just electrolytes for a Z2.

This weather has put the mind into winter mode prematurely.

Reorganised the garage, cleared clutter to make space for my power rack/weights PLUS a position for indoor training.

Reactivated TrainerRoad.

sugar is so cheap!

I’ve gone from Gels, to Jelly Babies (noted above), to Maltodexterine in my drinks bottles (again, noted above), to now using plain white sugar dissolved in my drinks bottles, along with an electrolyte tablet.

Sugar (sucrose) is 1:1 glucose:fructose, apparently a good ratio for sports drinks. SIS Beta has a ratio of 1:0.8 (pretty close) malto:fructose.

Fittng some Nano’s to the gravel bike later. The ground is so wet

Isn’t it ironic, Xwitter’s main rival being called META – When you have all the publicity (deliberate goofs?!) Elon’s created driving traffic to the website/platform where users are spending a lot of time discussing the platform itself.

The question is, is your aim to be a really effective fighter?

That’s not the main motivation, but it would be good to know something.

I guess I’m in pretty good shape for 43, regular cycling and started weight lifting Jan this year.

There are other things that middle age, middle class men seek from club activities. The particular BJJ club you’re looking at may or may not offer those.

That went over my head.

Really, just fancied trying it, for something new, that aligns with my desire to stay fit and strong.

Yep, joined to see what the fuss is all about. You cannot (as far as I can see) just search for stuff. You can search for people. But you can’t for instance search “tdf” to see what’s occuring now in the tour. That’s something I use Twitter for.

it’s been more of a journey of self-awareness

This 100%! Which is tremendously helpful (for other suffers too). When you know yourself, then you can kind of look at yourself from above and realise what you’re doing.

It’s a known issue when you start taking meds and you should have been warned about it.

Yep! It’s a very unfortunate side effect with some meds. But really worth pushing through, and knowing it’s temporary does help.

Yeah, been there.

My anxiety, which at first was quite mild, had slowly built over a few years, to point that I couldn’t switch off to sleep, poor sleep for months, which caused depression – vicous cycle, and eventually very bad.

Sought medical help. On Mirtazapine for 7 months now. They work like dream for me. Sleeping like an teenager, and anxiety way way down.

What I would say, there’s a lot more people than you’d realsie that are struggling, or in recovery.

Suicide is the biggest cause of death in men under the age of 50. Take this seriously, and don’t be ashamed to take medication, it’s literally a life saver.

Not sure if anyone’s recommended it further back on this long thread.. but

DEVS

Very excellent indeed. It’s on iPlayer.

Not sure how I missed it before, I love Alex Garland stuff. I didn’t think I was a sci-fi person, but this had me.

You know it’s good when you don’t touch your phone for several episodes at a time.

It’s all complete bs, I regret every minute spent on it, but it is addictive (as are the other platforms). I tried to bin it off, but the cycle club INSIST on using that only to organise rides etc. despite saying they were going to use Strava.

Maybe I should bin them both off, club and FB! Quiet life

You need to do an r-stroke

I do this also, but couldn’t workout how to describe it! Only needs a very light draw

I tend to switch sides every 5/6 strokes anyway, don’t want one massive shoulder 😂

But try to keep the paddle as verticle as possible, which mean leaning over the paddle more.

swans on the river = crossing field with cows

Song of the paddle is more useful than the FB group. It’s an old school forum, like this.

Had to Google what a bough is. Never heard that word before.

“No time to stand beneath the boughs

And stare as long as sheep or cows.”

What is life, eh..

We have 2 years left on a 5 year fix. So a little bit of breathing space, not that I epxect it to get better in those 2 years.

Only slight saving grace was, when we moved I was quite cautious and borrowed a lot less than offered at the time. We moved to a 3 bed in 2020 (funtimes in a pandemic), so had some equity from the older house sale. I could have borrowed another 50k or more (can’t remeber the exact details), but had a niggle in the back of mind, what if rates go up. So my monthly payments look like going up £300ish, but could have been double that.

It is depressing. Just hit with one thing after another. You feel like you try and do the right thing, provide a home for the family, work hard and keep getting kicked. Such is life eh…

Yep, completed it. Love it.

I thought they captured the excitment of the tour really well.

Don’t we all watch the ITV4 hightlights for the crashes, and the finishes anyway?!

It’s ridiculous, petty.

Let’s do more damage, because well fk, we’re already doing it. Burn it all.

Air-con to keep cool seems to me to be as daft as building more roads to relieve traffic. It’s an environmental nightmare.

This. 100% It’s utter madness!! It really is.

“National Grid has broken a 46-day run in which coal has not been used to generate electricity in Britain in order to meet extra demand for air conditioning as the country swelters in hot weather.”

“Air conditioning accounts for about a fifth of the total electricity used in buildings around the world.”

World gets hotter, we burn more, world gets hotter, we burn more….

I did hill reps, got extremely hot and sweaty. Then once home and showered, the heat was comparatively cool.

Go ride.

It keeps the plebs like us poor and in our place, that’s all you need to know..

That’s it I think. Bring on the AI and destruction of it all 😂

👍

Can I ask, how you got on with the access/red flags etc @jon_n

Thinking of doing it again this weekend.

Had one in my garage year before last. It was the size of a tennis ball too.

I didn’t want to harm them, but also, I use my garage all the time as a gym space and working on bikes. So I cleary didn’t want to share the space with the bastds!

I opened the garage door wide, and we also have a side door which I usually use. Doors open wide for quick exit.

Fishing pole in hand.

Wife on hand to observe and provide welcome instructions! 😂

Gave it a quick whack with the fishing pole. Out comes what I assume is the queen, big and bloody angry! Then just ran away like a massive girl. All fine. Apart from detroying the nest, nothing killed.

SM definitely makes it seem worse. I don’t believe it to be true though.

Weirdly, the quiet country lanes are the worst. In town/city there’s so much going on, so many vehicles, cyclists and other distractions, it all kind of blurs and generally people get on with it.

On a quite, single, back country lane – driver has been floating along quite fast, then suddenly progress is now the speed of which ever cyclist they happen to be stuck behind. Normal humans will be patient, and probably wait for an opportunity to pass. The minority will see red and take it out on you. But they are the small minority.

If I’m having a lovely casual solo ride, I will pull right over and wave cars on, and often get a wave or toot back. It costs me nothing, and might leave people thinking…nice guy that cyclist…maybe it isn’t as hostile them/us as the media portrays.

Majority of people are alright.

VERY annoying

Also sitting. A a long term sufferer I know what you mean. My back gets cranky if I’m ill/have a cold and don’t do much for a week apart from lots of sitting around. I try and get up and walk around the office every 30 mins, any excuse just to change position.

Maybe don’t stop riding, but cut down to something like twice a week, and then some weight training on 3 or 4 of the days your aren’t riding (I never weight train and ride on the same day).

I bet after a few weeks you’ll start to notice feeling better overall.

Barbell squats are great, and quite easy. I started light and am steady increasing. Only up to 65kg now. I need to give deadlifts a go. I have to admit I am wary of deadlifts after being living with chronic back pain. But squats don’t seem to have the same percieved risk (to me).

Also, bent over barbell rows really work, all of the back including the erectors, but start with light weights!

Like I said, I do a pretty basic push day (chest, shoulders and tricepts), pull day (arms and back) and a leg day (squats). And days between them are club rides etc. After leg day is a good day to have a proper rest day!

I’ve suffered with chronic back pain also.

Strength traning has made a huge difference. Since start of year I’ve been trying to tie in some resistance days between the days I ride my bike; push/pull/legs (leg day is only some barebell back squats) . If I wasn’t riding I would have made much better progress. But my I don’t get back niggles, and my posture is so much better, on and off the bike.

Find it very hard to actually gain much muscle, but overall I feel much better for it. I think the mechanics of the body, the way you walk, and stand up etc all function better with some strength training.