I’m writing to you from my desk at home. We’ve currently got beautiful weather here in the UK, however, as everyone knows, there’s a very dark cloud that is cast over all of us right now. I don’t need to mention it, but those of you who know will realise of course I’m talking about the current lockdown.

It’s a very strange feeling, being stuck at home, and kept indoors against our will (for the initial part of the lockdown anyway), however, I’ve rather enjoyed and embraced the experience; let me explain.

2020 has gone. Any plans that we have made for this year, will most likely be cancelled or postponed until 2021, this includes all of my races; but that’s okay. Why? Well, this is 1 year of my life, and (I hope) I will have plenty more years in the future. There was no point to get bogged down in all the uncertainty and sadness that this virus has caused. Of course, it is awful what people have had to endure, and I dedicate this first post to all the key and essential workers out there doing a fantastic job, and taking the burden of all this proudly on their shoulders! You’re the real heroes!

But why am I not bogged down by all this?

To give some background context, I live at home with my parents, and work as a contractor. This means , any holiday I take I don’t get paid for, so I’m very reluctant to take any time off work. When I was in real need of going on holiday, I was preparing for the European Powerman Championships in Alsdorf on the 19th April, obviously cancelled. I was really looking forward to it, but mostly the time off from work. A long awaited break from what I do. Then I got the dreaded email, just as things started to ramp up in Europe, the race had been cancelled….DAMMIT! I’m not going to say “all that hard training for nothing”, and I’ll explain why later.

Late March was when the country went into lockdown (24th March to be precise), and so, I was off work…a very very unique opportunity for athletes in the UK (and indeed the world). For those fortunate to be furloughed, you’re now being paid to train…RESULT! This is why I have embraced the lockdown, it has given the opportunity to have a very prolonged period of time off work, to get some high quality training in; that’s exactly what I’ve done.

Now averaging about 11 hours a week of hard graft (was around 8 hours during work…my commute killed me and time), my fitness, strength, and FTP (function threshold power – lockup on google, plenty of good explanations on what this is) has sky rocketed, and I’m in the best shape I have ever been in! This is why I’ve started this blog, as over the past 8 weeks or so, I have looked into my training schedule – my strengths, weaknesses, and things I have completely neglected. After getting my act together, I’ve researched all the part of my training I have paid very little attention to, and now, I have a plan, and everything is falling into place.

This is why I’m not bogged down about the entire thing, and why this is the pilot blog post. This is the beginning of a brand new chapter in my fitness life, and I want people to join me on it! The initial blog posts will be about what I’ve learned and relearned over the course of the lockdown – the first being nutrition (this was a real eye opener for me). For now, all I will say is this, everyone to keep plugging away, stay strong and stay safe, and we’ll finally be back to some sense of normality (the world won’t be the same after this). That’s why all that training WASN’T for nothing, it’s because I’m still here, healthy and happy; and 2021, 2022, and so on, still exist. Not all is lost, certainly not my form anyway….