is this and yes

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In spite of what some pundits are saying, its not really 22 years.  Its 21 years, 2 months and some days.  Lazy maths says 1991 to 2013 is 22 years but ‘Loveless came out in late 1991 and its only February.

That’s not the point though.  The point is that, somehow, it actually happened.  A new My Bloody Valentine album.  Did anyone really think we’d ever see it?

There were stories of various abandoned works, of Glider being the remains of a lost album that should have happened between ‘Isn’t Anything’ and ‘Loveless’, an unfinished follow-up to Loveless (aka my second favourite MBV album….) and then there was Shields foray into the studio to record tracks for ‘Lost in Translation’.

There was the work with Primal Scream, a trickle of remix work for Mogwai, Curve, The Pastels and more in the 1990′s.  Legends of chinchilla’s, the 33 1/3 book about the making of ‘Loveless’ and both the debunking of myths (the cost of that album) and the revelation of the sad truth about Kevin and Bilinda’s split during the making of ‘Loveless’, kept secret at the time.

Its 2013, a long time since the original release date Island Records dropped into the music media back in the 1990′s (April 1994 IIRC, but I could be wrong – it was definitely April though….).  In the meantime, some bands have done a good job of imitating them, Fleeting Joys doing an uncanny job of it, others, so many others, have missed the point.

So…21 years, two months and some days after some skinny, floppy fringed streak of indie-kid-student piss stood in Groucho’s records in Dundee waiting for the bloke behind the counter top open the box of new deliveries so he could get his hands on ‘Loveless’, the older, wider, shorter haired version of that same kid sat over his laptop refreshing the page   and being one of the thousands of people who crashed the band website.  Then, after an excited, fitful night of sleep, rushed back to the site, paid his cash and with the same excitement as all those years before and devoured the new MBV album.

I’m on the third listen now and its hard to describe.  Its not ‘Loveless’ part 2, thank god.  Its not ‘Isn’t Anything’ either.  Its not even the earlier work through the filter of the other, which was my initial thought as I deafened myself on the ride this morning.

At this moment in time, its My Bloody Valentine and that’s all that matters.

Development. (A dull training blog entry….)

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With two events now entered, training has properly kicked in. I’m sorting out training loops as per a plan I’ve cobbled together from various sources.

Based on four rides a week rather than the five I usually try to squeeze in, it allows me some leeway to be slightly slack and have a guilt free extra rest day some weeks, so that’s quite good. It also allows a gradual build up to race distances over a couple of months and revolves around two key ideas:

- An endurance ride that is based on gradually building up to the event distance at approx race speed

- A faster paced ride (110% effort…ish) over 40-50% of the length of the endurance ride.

So far it seems to be okay and easy enough to fit Real Life ™ about it. I’ve also put together a nice training loop for the longer day too, which ties in with The Plan.

Pootle

Its a mix of stuff – a big climb, 10 miles of sprints, intervals and accellerations (after slowing down to pass walkers) then more climbing and some tech descending for fun to finish. Its easy enough to adapt. I view much of the local riding as modular and tend to link short things together to make bigger so I can alter stuff as the year progresses or my mood/inclination changes.

Of course, there’s been a slight hicup over the last few days….

More white

Lets call it ‘resistence training’, okay? :-)

Benchmark.

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I’m making an effort to get off my back side and get race entries sorted out sooner rather than later this year.

My Glentress 7 entry is in and an entry for the Selkirk MTB Marathon should be in as soon as entries open. Another organiser has taken on the event, so it is happening this year after all. 19th of May IIRC. I’m also toying with the Cathkin Braes SXC round but I’m open to ideas for other things through the year.

The fact that the first entry is in means that training should really kick off ASAP, so now that the XC bike is sorted (the saga of which will be told in another post….) I can get that going. Along with some plans for base miles, I’m getting in some benchmark rides around various local loops at the moment, establishing the starting points for this endeavour and giving me something to track performance.

So, the first benchmark loop is below. A sub hour lap should be easy enough, aye? :-)

Benchmark #1

23:00 5/1/2013 addition

The second…. Not a great ride to be honest, which makes improvement easy. :-)

Benchmark #2

Self indulgent retrospective tosh.

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Well, that’s 2012 done. Highs, lows, Some final goodbyes to friends, family, bikes and (the kids would say) youth. Hello to new toys, goodbye to 26″ wheels. Finding a challenge with my name all over it then getting smacked in the face by it. Twice. Never mind, the rematch is due in a few months….

A couple of events done. 34th in my category at the 12 hrs of Exposure. Would have been better but my back played silly sods again so I jacked it in at 8 hrs. On the bright side, people at work are impressed by 34th place in the european 12 hr championships. :-) Selkirk again and 27th (out of 107) in the middle marathon, which was exactly what I was aiming for. :-)

Rain, wind, mud…and that was the summer. Winter has turned out pretty similar, just colder. I’m hoping that this means we’re well into credit with the weather gods and 2013 sees a heatwave hit.

2013 – I’d love to say what I have planned, but I have no idea. There’s no Selkirk CRC marathon in 2013 and the 12/24 hrs of Exposure has moved to a venue near Reading. The logistics and travel costs of going to the SXC defeat me. There’s always 10utB [though I didn't enjoy it when I've done it before....], Relentless 24 and the Glentress 7 but other than them?

I think the year will end up being about doing big stupid things. The rematch mentioned above for one plus some other stuff TBC. I might post a list of possibilities later…then we can look it a year from now and examine why I didn’t do them. :-)

That’s me for now then. I’ll see the three of you that read this on the other side.

2012 in pictures……..


Created with Admarket’s flickrSLiDR.

Sorry.

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Yes, an apology to all three people that read this poor excuse for a blog.

I’m not sure what the problem has been. Maybe I’ve just done even less of note than normal, but that will change shortly. Next week, big ride shenanegans for the solstice. BOOM.

Until then, a picture.

Dawn raid