Tapering..

1 week to go before the MTB Himalaya event and things aren’t quite going to plan. A broken shifter, confusion over what tapering means, a new diet and a freshly discovered appetite for post training rum and coke has me struggling a bit. If I tackle each issue one by one like some sort of confession to you all it might get me back on track.

 

Singalila Ridge Darjeeling

Broken shifter.  50k through the 120km training and the arse fell out of it so reduced to two gears not ideal on 1000m climbs. So either spin like a deranged hamster or grind it out like the kids overtaking me on the single speed clunkers.

 Tapering. Must be too late to get any fitter now and when I do wind things down I tend to get increasingly knackered so no fan of the day off.  Trying to put a bit of effort in to make each ride worthwhile but not drain myself too much. Leaves my neither here or there but in a limbo land of tapering-shapering. (To use the Hindi linguistical tick of adding a nonsense rhyming word to everything)

Appetite. I have not had meat, onion or garlic for 7 days now and I am shrunken man (kamzor in Hindi) Have been staying at my work mate and best pal Pankaj Danu’s house where his mum makes us all an excellent 3 meals a day. I thought everything tasted as usual of onions and was only into day 7 that we started talking about the eternal Indian election winner/loser “onion prices” which have soared due to rapacious hoarding and the secret was revealed. Sadly for the Danu household, onions have been off the ingredients list for the last 4 months due to a death in the family. So no meat, onions or Garlic for a year. I have lost weight=onions make you fat.

Singalila Ridge, Darjeeling.

Rum and Coke. For the past 5 days I have been riding from Khausani a small village on a ridge populated by a few hotels and even fewer guests. Everyday involves a descent down to somewhere and then a big 14km road climb back. The only beer shops in the area are in the village at the bottom of the climb so it means if I want to enjoy my evening tipple I have got to ride back the 50 minutes and near 1000m climb back up the hill with a couple of 660ml glass bottles of the “not above 8% by vol” beer stuffed in Osprey pack. So some days, reaching peaks of previously unknown self-denial I ride back beerless.

 On one such day while reflecting on the folly of my actions a man walked into the hotel with a bottle of rum. An ex-military man with a rum ration selling off his massively discounted supplies to the hoteliers in town at a handy profit. So here I am typing away with lovely rum and coke in the sunshine, while a warm glow flickers over the mighty peaks of the Himalaya in the distance…