Yes, I’m still alive. No, I haven’t forgotten how to write.
It’s been a while. A long while. Long enough that some of you probably assumed I’d finally been claimed by a Bosnian mountain dog or a rogue Croatian truck driver. Good news: neither. Bad news: I have to explain where I’ve been and why the blog went dark, and the honest answer is “I had a rough few months and my motivation did a better disappearing act than my phone at Istria300.” But we’ll get to that.
Let’s catch up properly, shall we?
July: The art of doing almost nothing
After 1900 kilometres from the Baltic to the Adriatic, I declared July my official recovery month. 500 kilometres for the entire month. That’s roughly what I’d do in two and a half days during the big trip. My legs were thrilled. My cycling ego was not.
But honestly? Needed it. Sometimes the bravest thing you can do is sit on the couch and watch other people suffer on YouTube.
August: Training for Istria300, or: The motivation heist
Here’s where things get spicy.
August was supposed to be training month for Istria300, a 300-kilometre race in one of cycling’s most beautiful, and brutally hilly, corners of the world. And where was I? Denmark. Flat, wind-swept, resolutely un-hilly Denmark. Which, for a race with this much climbing, is roughly like preparing for a swimming competition by doing yoga.
There was… stuff going on. Personal stuff. The kind of stuff that makes you stare at your bike like it’s a stranger and think “why would I voluntarily go outside right now?” I won’t bore you with the details because this is a cycling blog, not a therapy session (my therapist’s rates are much higher than your subscription here). The motivation tank was running on fumes.
September: Istria300 — An absolutely spectacular way to not finish a race
September was supposed to be race prep. I headed to the island of Brač, Croatia, one of the most perfect climbing training locations imaginable. Sun, hills, quiet roads, stunning scenery. Ideal preparation for a brutal hilly race.
Did I train properly? Reader, I did not.
Gorgeous, hilly, perfect Brač couldn’t fix what was going on in my head. I knew I wasn’t ready. My legs knew I wasn’t ready. My bike probably knew too but kept quiet about it.
I started anyway.
Let me paint the scene: Poreč, Istria. Incredible atmosphere. Beautiful route. Me, at the start line, feeling roughly like someone who signed up for a marathon while having a mild existential crisis.
The early kilometres were fine, actually. I even started a bit hot because I wanted to catch a faster group, the classic “bank time early so I can suffer later with company” strategy. Solid plan. Executed reasonably well.
Then came the climbs.
Short, steep, savage climbs. We’re talking gradients where your bike basically becomes a ladder. I am, it turns out, absolutely terrible at these. Long, grinding climbs? I’ll suffer through them all day. But these sharp little walls? My legs look at them, laugh, and clock out. I was getting dropped faster than my dignity on day two of the Baltic trip.
There was also a descent so steep and gravel-covered that the air smelled like burning brake pads from an entire group simultaneously reconsidering their life choices. I’m not great at descents at the best of times. This was not the best of times.
Then: the crash.
Apparently a dog, because of course it was a dog, dogs are my nemesis, they’ve been trying to take me out for years, jumped in front of a rider ahead of me. To avoid turning him into a human accordion, I swerved into the tall grass on the side of the road. No serious injuries, some scratches, a bent derailleur, a chain that had opinions about continuing, and my pride lying somewhere in the grass.
A genuinely wonderful rider stopped to help me, one of those moments that restore your faith in humanity and competitive sport simultaneously. He helped me get sorted, told me to draft him, and we caught a group. Good. Crisis averted.
Then I reached into my back pocket.
No phone.
No. Phone.
Somewhere in that grass, 40 kilometres behind me, was my phone. My navigation. My race tracker. My entire digital existence. And because the universe has a sense of humour, I could see exactly where it was online, through a friend, just not retrieve it without going back 40 kilometres in the wrong direction.
I tried to get volunteers to help. I lost time. I lost the group. I pushed on because what else do you do?
And I pushed, and pushed, and climbed, and walked (yes, walked, up a 25% gradient, and you know what? I was faster than cycling and I refuse to be embarrassed about that), and reached 230 kilometres with my dignity reduced to a small, damp pile.
Then the rain started.
Then came the thunder.
Then, from the top of a mountain, I looked ahead and saw a sky that looked like it was auditioning for the final scene of a disaster movie. I stopped in a village, borrowed a stranger’s phone, called the support van, and watched the rain become a full-on biblical event from the warm, dry interior of said van.
We drove the rest of the route picking up other riders, every one of them dripping like they’d swum there. Turns out the weather had been absolutely apocalyptic. Turns out I had made the correct call. Turns out DNF doesn’t always mean “Did Not Finish”, sometimes it means “Did Not Drown.”
I was sad. I was relieved. I was mostly very, very tired.
The next day I drove home and did a chill 40-kilometre ride at my usual pace. It felt absurd. It also felt exactly right.
October-November: Back to being a normal human
October was the transitional month, too cold for comfortable outdoor riding, too early to fully commit to the indoor trainer dungeon. So I did a bit of both and felt mediocre about all of it, which is honestly very on-brand for October.
November was indoor training mode. I got back to my usual self, hit the distances I wanted, and, bonus plot twist, finally got my bike frame replaced under warranty. The paint had been chipping (manufacturing issue, not crash-related, for those keeping score). They didn’t have my original colour in stock, so I ended up with a nicer one. Classic situation: complain about something, accidentally upgrade. I’ll take it.
December: I went slightly unhinged
My 2025 goal was 12000 kilometres. Up from 10000 the year before. One thousand kilometres a month, on average.
Averages, as we know, are a beautiful lie we tell ourselves. I didn’t average anything. I had months where I barely touched the bike, and then December happened.
1450 kilometres. On an indoor trainer. In one month.
One thousand, four hundred and fifty kilometres. On a stationary bike. Going nowhere. Watching the same wall. For what I can only describe as a concerning number of hours.
I hit 12000 for the year. I also hit a level of fatigue that January firmly punished me for: under 250 kilometres for the entire month. My body basically filed a formal complaint and went on strike.
Fair enough, honestly.
February-Now: The comeback arc begins
Which brings us to now. February has been a proper step back up from January’s catastrophe, because I have to get moving. Not just because I want to, but because the race is coming.
Mallorca 312. My favourite. The big one.
Last year: 13.5 hours. This year’s goal: 11 hours. Ambitious? Yes. Stupid? Possibly. But I’ve got almost 10 weeks of structured, targeted training planned out, which I am, of course, already not fully following, because starting a new job right when you want to do peak training is a scheduling choice that only makes sense if you’re a professional cyclist (I am not).
The plan also includes a week in Mallorca, 4 weeks before the race, for altitude training. Well, not altitude, there’s no altitude, but hill training, sunshine training, not-Denmark training. My legs are already grateful in advance.
What I’ve learned (Or: Things I now know about myself that I probably already knew)
- If you don’t want to race, maybe don’t race. Revolutionary concept. Still working on applying it.
- Short steep climbs are my kryptonite. Long grinding climbs: fine. 20% walls: absolutely not.
- Keep your phone in a zipped pocket. Always. No exceptions. Tattoo it on your hand if necessary.
- 1450 kilometres on an indoor trainer in December is too many. There is no version of this that is healthy behaviour.
- DNF is not the end of the world. It felt like it in September. Five months later, it really, truly does not.
What’s next
Mallorca 312 in April. A lot of training between now and then. Hopefully more regular blog posts, I’d love to get back to something resembling monthly, but I’m not making promises I’ll just have to apologise for later.
The past few months were a reminder that sometimes you need to listen to yourself, rest when you need to rest, and understand that cycling is, at the end of the day, a hobby. A hobby I love. One that occasionally involves near-death experiences, lost phones, and dogs with personal vendettas. But a hobby.
I don’t lose anything by not doing it. I gain a lot by doing it when it actually feels good.
See you on the road. Or the indoor trainer. Hopefully mostly the road.
Still pedalling, somehow
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