Day 33 - Bath RC & Catch up!
So today was day 33. I was supposed to be scheduled a rest day, but because of the deluge, a couple of days ago I found myself being about 20 km down and I'm still down from the day last week where I had that day through the mountains. The day where I only managed to do 30km, so I'm still making up that plus now Ive got this bit to make up as well. I do completely agree with the decision to stop it was definitely the best thing to do for safety.
On my last day off we had Gloucester RC, in the morning and then having a few other bits to do in the afternoon, we decided that today would be the best day to make that time up, so that meant quite an early start. Neil kindly got up and made us bacon rolls, which he always does when we're in self catering places, and they're really, really lovely. It's Definitely the highlight of my week.
Neil made a lovely supper last night as well. He made us all sweet & sour chicken again, which is the best one I've ever had thats gluten free. In the morning we had an hour and 45 minute drive first thing in the morning to get to Bath RC. Which was a very long drive and not particularly what you want to be doing on a day off, so I really feel feel for Neil driving me, and coming there with me. It was great that he did that. To be honest, the Rugby club visits have not always gone to plan our side. The clubs have been amazing. But the lack of enthusiasm at the clubs, coupled with not delivering what was promised, has not looked good.
Whilst Neil & I went to Bath, Pam and Sharon had some down time, which they seemed to be happy about.
So we arrived in Bath and I had a message from Catherine, who's the girl that quite often meets me in Exmouth when I'm training, and we chat for 2-5km. She said she'd made the trip to Bath and was going to be there, which was lovely and very unexpected. Quite a nice surprise. Shes very positive, which is exactly what i needed. To be around people wh were positive and happy!
When we got to Bath I wheeled through the tunnel and all the girls were there. I think there was probably about 9 or 10 of them and they were absolutely wonderful! It was an amazing welcome, they were stood by the side of the tunnel and I wheeled through them and they clapped, which was just a really surreal moment. I never know how to handle things like that. Its that good old imposter syndrome! Basically I feel like I don't deserve it. To me, I'm just wheeling my chair, so when these things happen, I don't know quite what to do and I don't know quite what to say or how to handle it. But it was really, really lovely and they were really nice girls again. Everywhere we go the players and staff are absolutely wonderful, really fun to speak to. They asked quite a lot of questions which was nice, and they really took an interest and in what I'm doing and why! I did get the usual comments of 'are you mad' and 'your completely bonkers,' which I'm getting used to, and I think, actually, they are right!
It was really good fun doing the ball handover, and the team seemed really happy to receive the ball from Gloucester hartpury, which I'm not surprised about, it's got some amazing signatures on there. To be honest I would love to be able to keep all the balls for myself if I could because I've loved every single one of them, and it doesnt matter weather they were grassroots or premiership clubs, it was just so lovely to see everybody's signature in the balls. Some of the clubs had really young players, and it was the first time theyd ever been asked for their autograph before. They were so excited, especially when they found out where their balm was going. Im sure it wont be the last time ill see some of these sugnatures. You could tell, by talking to them just how much love some of them had for the game.
So Bath ladies all kindly followed me on Instagram, so they could keep an eye on my progress, which was so kind. I wish that they were playing a game that we could watch. But this is one of the big problems with most of the women's games, they're never televised, so you can't see them anywhere, which is just ridiculous, because the men's games always are. This is something that could really do with being sorted out and I think it would help the women's game if that would happen. Its all that usual roundabout type thing. One thing doesn't happen for another or another doesn't happen for another and it's just ridiculous!
So following Bath RC we had a bit of a tricky ride back a bit with alot of traffic. Lots of tractors on country lanes, so that made things a little bit slower, and we had to get back as quickly as possible because I needed to make up that a bit of time and I was hoping to do at least 25 km if I could.
We were hoping to get back for 3 o'clock and no later, but it took a little bit longer than that because we realised that the car was running a bit low and juice and we had to charge it for a little while So we sat in there travel lodge for about half an hour and charged the car for a little bit. I'm not sure what Neil did actually. I kind of sat in the car and dozed off. I was so tired, it was ridiculous and struggling to stay awake again, which seems to be a regular thing at the moment, I stop, I start falling asleep! But I havnt been sleeping that well at night, and not going to sleep until around midnight or later, anf then im up at around 5-6am. We have been starting much later in the morning. Not what i wanted at all. Id rather get up early and get on with it, but the support crew wanted to start later. I had learnt by this point that I couldn't question anything, or my head would not still be attached!
We eventually managed to make it back to our self catering place, whuch was lovely but very old fashioned. It feels a bit like staying in my grandmother's house with very loud wallpaper, very old furniture and fixtures and fittings. Some of it wasquite lovely, and it's warm and cosy, but yeah, very, very funny.
In the middle of nowhere, completely in utterly in middle of nowhere we went through Wales. I didn't expect to be doing that so that was amazing. We went over the 7 bridge, which I've never been over and it was so huge that it blew my mind. I had a lovely chat with Neil in the car too. I'm always blown away by how much he's done and how much the life experience he has and I could send listen to him all day. I havnt had the chance to speak to him much for the whole event really. In fact, most of the team, i dont get to speak to. Im wheeling in front all day, and then after that im kind of isolated from them all. They have something in common. Theyre all doing the dame thing, but im the only one wheeling so they cant identify with what im going through, and as i keep being told, if i even mention being tired the reply is always 'yer we all are!' followed by 'you decided to do this!' Unfortunately this was not too helpful and made me very upset and feel very isolated. But its just another part of the challenge. To be honest, its the hardest part for me.
We made it back and it was a very, very quick turnaround. I'd already got my stuff ready, so I literally just chucked off my clothes, chucked on my wheeling clothes. Sharon already got the car ready so we just left the chair in the car and crawled through and crawled back out to the car and off to the starting point. Which was where I finished the other day in the horrible rain, so the start was good straight into a downhill, which is great, but then into a quite a big uphill, followed by a few ups and Downs. I had in my head that I was going to try and get my fastest 5K yet and I think I possibly did do that, but the trouble is when you stop, it includes the aggregate time so it doesn't register what the actual time you did do, that in so order to het that, I would have had to not stop at all, but we had a build up of traffic and I had to wait there for about 10 minutes, so it cleared, which was a bit of a shame.
Strangely, there was plenty of room for the traffic to go around, but sometimes they just don't do it. There's nothing you can do about it is their choice, so we had to stop and wait for that, but I actually did the 5 km in 20 minutes, or potentially less than that, and then I was hoping to do the full 10km in under 45 minutes. I managed to do that in 46 minutes. Unfortunately, I hit some really, really big long hills, which went on forever, but I was happy that I managed to keep wheeling at above 10 km an hour up the hills until I reached the last hill. This one was very similar to the hill that I did in the deluge the other day but actually probably a bit steeper and longer. It was one of those hills that just seemed to go on forever, the camber was unbelievable too. It is from one side to the next to the next, and it was an absolute killer. One good thing with the deluge is the fact that my foot was wet, so having to put my foot on the front wheel to help with the camber meant that it's slipped, and there was no not as much friction. Today it was dry, which was lovely, so it meant that my hands didn't slip on the push rims, but then my foot on the and front hich was pushing rubber against rubber, which obviously act acts like a break, so you're basically going up the hill with a super strong break. All whilst using one arm, So that was really, really tough and I've found that very difficult, but I did manage to get to the top and stop just after I got there. So in the very short space of time that we had, I managed to do the 20 km in an hour and 45 minutes ish, which if it wasn't for that hill I'm definitely convinced that I would have got the half marathon in about an hour and 30-35 minutes potentially, which is definitely what I want to be doing so that's really reassuring.
I got back to the room and it was straight then into having my horrible medication, which by now you realised that I really don't like it, because it makes feel very poorly, very dehydrated. It's very difficult to have after wheeling, but I had no choice but to having that straight away. Then laying in the room for quite a few hours while it was working, sometimes it works very fast. Sometimes it takes longer. It made me feel very sick as usual and also makes my leg hurt quite a bit more. It's very strange, but I think it's something to do with the sugar, but it always does it. Sometimes it can cause a massive flair, and other times it's not so bad, and luckily today it wasn't as bad. I was waiting for that to work and eventually it did, but it was past 8 o'clock when it did so I didn't actually managed to eat anything until about 9:30, which is a bit late for me very late. In fact, and obviously, because the medication didn't work till quite late. It's still working now and so that could mean that I have interrupted sleep tonight and am likely to suffer tomorrow. If you're quite depleted and very dehydrated, it makes everything much harder. So when you've got 44 km or 45 or potentially more to do tomorrow, it's going to be quite tough again and but that's just the nature of the conditions and what I have to live with, so there's no point in overly focusing on it, it doesn't do it any good at the end of the day, so I just get on with it.
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Lexi Chambers