My last update here was all the way back in May 2019 when I was excited about having just signed up to cycle Land’s End to John O’Groats in 2020.
2020? That was quite the year, eh?
For pretty obvious reasons, the plan had to change… a few times. First the ride was pushed back a year until 2021 in the hope that the pandemic would be behind us, but when that clearly wasn’t going to happen I postponed it again until August 2022.
Although the pandemic isn’t yet behind us, it looked like three vaccinations might have been enough to go ahead this year. So, come January I sat down and wrote up a tough-but-achievable training plan that would take me from the couch-potato I’d become during lockdown to somebody who could realistically take on a 1000 mile/12-day bike ride.
I started easy, just getting used to being in the saddle again. But even ten minutes of cycling was leaving me feeling exhausted, and after a couple of weeks I wasn’t getting any less exhausted. and I’d started to notice a few other things that didn’t feel right… so it was time to call the GP.
The GP sent me straight to A&E, where the triage nurse took my blood pressure, said “Oh!” and rushed out the room. Turned out I was having a hypertension crisis. Technically that’s a systolic reading (the top number) above 180 or diastolic (the bottom number) over 120. I was sitting at 228/156.
Thankfully, a fistful of pills every morning now has that (mostly) under control and I feel a thousand times better. And with the doctor’s approval (actually, encouragement) I’m back on the bike and following a sensible training plan (more on that later in the week). But where does that leave LEJOG 2022?
Well, the training plan I had to get me there is well and truly out the window and I’m under orders to be sensible about things, so the first sensible decision I made was that this year isn’t going to happen. All good things come to those who wait, so I can wait one more year.
All of which is to say that my grand Land’s End to John O’Groats trip is now going to be in 2023.
I’m going to try and be a little bit more regular at updating here than once every three years… so if you’re interested at all in how things are going on the road to this big adventure please do come back again. Who knows, maybe the writing will improve along the way!
My Left Lung 