Rest Week, MSG Round 2: Cobham 21/04/13 and Training Phase 2.

I've been training my body to be able to exercise on consecutive days recently. After training on both Sunday and Monday, it was safe to say I was definitely experiencing muscle fatigue and decided to take the rest of the week off in preparation for Sunday's race. All of a sudden, I had a little time on my hands. So I decided to use it "constructively" to play FIFA Ultimate Team. Scroll down now to the bit about cycling if you have no interest in computer games! After selling all of my players, I had around 30,000 coins to build a team. Not a lot when you consider that Wayne Rooney is about 80,000 coins. I opted to build a Brazil pace team. The only stats I cared about were pace (cheesy I know) and work rate. This is what I came up with.

Not a bad way to spend 30,000 coins hey?

I did originally have Fulipe Luis in the LB position but my mate Andy was kind enough to buy me a Marcelo. To date, I'm 32wins, 0 draws and 0 loses and am on the way to a second devision one title. I've played all sorts of teams along the way including a couple of teams with team of the year players and better versions of my teams (with Neymar etc). I'm not doing anything special, just playing defensively with counter attack with the odd Tesco goal! Pace abuse works like a charm.

Jay has repeatedly complained that I mentioned in my blog a few posts ago that he was riding around Asia that on a mopped. He isn't riding around Asia on a mopped, he is in fact riding around Asia on a "mans bike" (motor bike). Not only has he complained that I made the initial mistake, he isn't happy that I haven't corrected it. So now I'm making a point out of it complete with photographic evidence just to shut him up!

Here's a photo of Jay with his "Mans Bike" that is absolutely not a mopped

Now onto cycling. Had a very eventful race today. I really wanted to push for a top ten finish and for the first half of the first lap. It was on the cards. I had a really good start and was flying! Unfortunately half way up one of the switch back climbs, someone went into the back of me at knocked me off. For once my pedals didn't unclip and I was basically laying in the middle of the track hoping no one hit me. Eventually I got back up, only for someone else repeat the trick trying to overtake me, I was able to hold on to it this time (just). Very frustrating. The rest of the lap was a write off for me. My confidence was shot, and I was riding badly. On top of that, my stomach felt awful after consuming half a bottle of Nuun, half a bottle of High5, a Torq Sun-Dried Banana energy bar and a Torq Blackcherry Yoghurt gel. Needless to say, I need to work on my pre-race nutrition.

The calm before there storm..

Mid way through the second lap I managed to get my head back into the game, even after having to stop when my Oakleys fell out of my back pocket half way up a climb. On the last lap I had a little micro-battle with a lad who I was eventually able to drop. I was then able to gain another place when a rider crashed in front of me (sustained pressure me thinks). In the end finished 28th out of around 80 riders. My team mate Tony finished 20th, which was a great result. I felt if things had gone my way, I would of been right up there with him. I was disappointed with the way things had panned out, but felt I'd made the best of a bad situation. There would always be other races.

Brining it home

Will had a much better race, he won his race by over 9 minutes! He was lapping at around 20 minutes a lap, which is fast. I've got a lot to do before I catch him. Ollie was absent as he was road racing, he had an awful race after his team mate crashed in front of him causing a bit of a pile up. Should of stuck to your MTB mate. Would have been interesting to see him and Will going at it.

Will was enjoying a quite Sunday afternoon ride with nothing but his thoughts

Round three is coming up in around four weeks or so. I've decided to knuckle down a bit. I'm going to be following a structured training plan and really clamping down on my diet. 100% solid healthy eating for the next month. This isn't going to be easy. Let's see if it helps me break into the top 20 in Thetford! It will be interesting to see Will vs Ollie in the Junior category, both of them are on great form at the moment and will be racing for the Eastern Champion title. Game on!

And now to blog about something other than cycling.... JK! (just kidding)

So I did say that I would be blogging about a variety of subjects, and thus far it's all been all about bikes. So though I'd post an overview as to where I am. But first... Bikes!

I'm really enjoying being apart of VC Revolution, I've made loads of new friends and I know it sounds silly, but I really enjoy wearing the team colours! I've been training really hard for round 2, I can feel myself getting faster and faster. It's funny, a friend of mine said that once I started racing, I'd feel more motivated to train and he was right. I really want to get as close to the top 10 as possible. I think I worked out that I had trained five days out of the last seven, which might be normal for some people, but it's a first for me. A lot of people at work had commented on how much weight I've lost as well, which is really nice, and kinda reassures me that I'm doing something right.

I look pretty fetching in VCR colours don't you think?

I've managed to fix my Egg Beaters which had a horrible amount of play in them, and the one on the drive side was singing like hell. Rather than wasting £20 on a rebuild kit, I just brought two bearings off of ebay for like £5. I'm sooooooo MoneySuperMarket.com, and I know it!

A much happier Egg Beater :)

So, real life goals. I said I wanted to develop as a person and as a man. This is a little bit cheesy, but once you've gotten over that. it's really quite deep. I've been pretty stressed lately, I feel exhausted. Not just because I'm training on the bike a lot, but I seem to be fighting on all fronts at the moment. It's a busy time for me at the moment, but I know if I keep working at it, if I really push myself, I can accomplish my goals.

The first thing I did was send off my provisional driving license to have it updated. Yes, that's right. Provisional. I've also started to study for my theory test which I'm going to book next month. I really need to get my license out of the way, but right now I have slightly more pressing financial commitments.

I've also started to really try and push my career forward. I've spent the last week completely re-writing my CV (thanks to those of you who've helped) that I haven't updated since I joined Monitise nearly three years ago! People always say you should keep it up to date, and always keep your options open, but I've never felt the need to look for another job. I seem to be one of those weird people that actually enjoy their job. That said, I do want to progress my career, so I've applied for the Infrastructure PM role at Monitise. I'm not likely to get it, but I want to show my intent and put my name out there. I'm hearing you say "You shouldn't be blogging about this" I've got nothing to hide, it's no secret that I want to progress. But I want to do it the right way. I do not believe it stabbing people in the back and treading on other peoples corpses to get where you want to be. That might be very naive of me, but I'd rather fail and do things the right way, than be really successful and do things the wrong way. When writing my CV I had to decide whether to put links to my blog, Twitter and Facebook accounts. In the end I thought, why the hell not? Everyone seems to know everyone nowadays, so you might as well be open about who you are. At least people/employers know what they're getting. I'm an avid cyclist who likes to play with Lego, and what? I think I might have just done my first rant...

Diet. My diet is ever improving. I still have the odd wobble from time to time. Easter hasn't helped. My fridge is full of chocolate which me and my misses are slowly working our way through, we have given a lot of it away also. Other than that though, oh and the Dominoes I had last weekend; I've been eating pretty well. Like I said above, a lot of people have commented on how much weight I've lost. That's gotta count for something.

Get better with money. This I think I am doing. Or should I say we? (me and Kirsty). For example, in the old days, I would have just brought new pedals. Instead, I stripped them down, worked out what was wrong and then brought the relevant part and saved myself a bit of money!

Where's my brother? (Jay) The answer is; riding around Vietnam on a mopped. On the day his iPhone was stolen, his Nexus 7 tablet bricked it self for no apparent reason. I asked the Android developers at work if there was anything that could be done, and they all concluded that he would need to perform a full recovery, losing all the data in the process. This is why I hate Android, because it's rubbish and does this! Can't remember the last time my iPad bricked it self, or even crashed for that matter. If only Google would just concentrate on finishing one version of their OS rather than rushing it and moving on to the so called "latest and greatest" one! The lesson you can all take away from this is, if you buy Apple - it will probably get stolen. If you buy Android - it will probably brick it self. So buy a Lumia. On a serious note though, I really am missing my broski, can't wait for him to come home. I just hope I've got something to show for the last 5 months when he does get back. Won't be long before we're geeking off playing games and stuffing our faces with junk food, much more interesting than wasting time running around Asia huh? The good life!

Jay and I back in 2009, I miss my old hair, Kirsty doesn't though!

Also, one final note. I'm aware that both my blog and my Twitter are pretty bare. Am working on some cool designs which I'll hopefully implement soon! I'm also going to add some widgets and stuff also.