Wednesday 4 February 2015

Silly Targets

I have just returned from a 4 week holiday in Denia, Spain, where I went intending to do some winter cycling. The trouble is that out of 27 cycling days, I managed to ride on only 12 of them. The rest of the time I was ill with a severe cold and a feverish chest infection – even on some of my 12 cycling days I was too ill to ride far. All in all, it was a fairly hopeless trip.

I wasn't alone, almost everyone in the hotel was ill to some extent. Every part of the place resounded to the sound of coughing for the whole time I was there, like a constant drone of background noise. I kept thinking I was in a hospital, but I would imagine that in a hospital hygiene would have been exemplary; in the hotel, there were opportunities for contagion everywhere, particularly in the buffet-style food hall.

I knew almost as soon as I arrived that my chances of escaping infection were slim. Of around 59 people in my cycling group, at least 50 of us were ill. Of the other guests, almost all of them elderly, illness seemed to be so common as to be acceptable; I was astonished and appalled in equal measure by the attitude of the Saga holiday representatives by the considerable efforts they made to distance themselves from any responsibility whatsoever for blame, despite the fact that many mitigating procedures could have been, but were not, introduced.

It's given me cause to think about my little targets. I was born without the competitive gene, though setting targets for myself seems to be in my blood. It's a trait which can motivate me to exercise when I don't feel like it, and that can be a good thing. But it's also a trait I can use to beat myself up when things don't go according to plan. After this holiday, during which I cycled just over a third of the miles I planned, I am struggling to find anything positive about my time away on which to base a “good” memory, though the wonderful friendship of quite a few new friends is an obvious highlight.

I will go again to Spain, after all it is not the country that I blame for my rotten holiday and it is a beautiful country. The Costa Blanca region has to be one of the best locations in Europe for winter cycling (the many professional teams that base their winter camps there bear witness to this) and the mild weather provides crystal clear light to emphasise the drama of the mountainous scenery. I just need to find a different place to stay, and a way to avoid illness.

Now that I am back in the UK, meanwhile, I need to get some miles in to prepare myself for my summer cycling calendar – too bad I will need to do this in bad weather!

Paul takes me for tea on one of my 15 non-cycling days!