Pre-op quarantine. A 2000m time trial. 1 year ago today.
The impending anniversary of my operation has prompted me to finally get into publishable form some of the notes and diaries I took. Setting up a new Instagram account for this purpose has been a helpful prompt.
Ok, but not bad, a 2km piece precisely a year ago
This was 1 year ago today. A 2km test to see where I’d got to after about six weeks sporadic steady state sessions. And a bookend to my quarantine. I’d joined Lea Rowing Club over the summer and got an ergo: the machine I spent a large proportion of my teenage years on 😊.
Masters rowing was quite good fun, and the squad posted a suggested training regime weekly. My main routine was just sit on it and do 20-30 minutes at rate 20, 60% effort. I’ll do a post on the joys of steady state at some point. Steady state feels like you’re doing nothing, but the gains compound. The 2km distance is a different affair: pretty much all out for 7-8 minutes.
Anyway, this was as I was coming toward the end of a quarantine stint at Nic’s parents, a 14 day period which proved useful for getting my head round a few things (specifically being told “ok-so-you’ve-a-cancer-tumour-and-you’ve-a-massive-operation-asap”) and mentally preparing- in so far as you can - for the op. I got my diagnosis on 28 nov, was booked in for a CT scan the following Thursday (to check for ‘spread’😬) then booked in for a liver resection on the 13 December.
I had to quarantine and my op slot was contingent on not picking up covid. My sister had the day off, and very kindly picked me up from home, took me to Newham hospital where I had the CT scan, then we drove up to the in-laws. I’d said bye to the kids and Nicola and wouldn’t see them til whenever I got to come home after my op (about 3 and a half weeks later).
I’d have almost two weeks to myself, and to not get covid. That time turned out to be pretty useful. I did a lot of running and (indoor) rowing and went into the operation quite strong (quitting booze in June had made me up my running mileage a lot — I need some way of getting out of my head).
I discovered the David Goggins audio book and was doing my best to Get Mentally Strong. My go-to method for this is exercise. Since the summer I’d been trying to lose weight and had got reasonably lean, dropping down to about 83kg. Goggins book is very inspiring, and I really like his 40% theory, and emphasis on physical gains being made possible by the mind becoming tough.
(An aside: one of the recurring puzzles as I try and recover and ‘ununreconstruct’ myself is how to balance setting oneself high standards and also showing oneself compassion + care.). Anyway, one of my fears on getting my diagnosis was of being too mentally ‘soft’ to cope with whatever was thrown at me. I remember speaking to Nick while walking down the strand and asking him to make sure ‘I didn’t give up’. I also found myself thinking a lot about rowing teammates of my schooldays, friends like Garry who ‘get’ training and gravitating to sport and the language and methods of training.
The 2k is a standard race for rowing and on the ergo it’s pretty nasty. The time is quite far off my personal best (19 years ago 🤷♂️) but respectable nonetheless. Faithless’ Insomnia got me thru the first 1700 or so metres 😅.
This was a Thursday, and the op was planned for Monday. After this, I had one very hard - and transcendental — run on the Friday and then rested up. I also started increasing what I ate in the last few days before the operation, and I’m glad I did. Post-op catabolism is real and frightening.
Left: Just after the 2km. Right: a few weeks later, you can see the cut mark. Post-op catabolism is real. I lost quite a bit of muscle in a very short period
That aspect made me think of how livestock would be walked from the countryside to the city to be sold, then a few days prior to reaching the market, would be rested for a few days to pasture, and get fattened up again, to recover from their tiring journey.
I haven’t been on an ergo since, aside from sitting on it in July to check whether there was any point not selling it (there wasn’t, and I needed the cash). I think my core might now be up to it. I was then, and remain immensely and eternally grateful to Mr Parker of St Leonard’s RC Comp Boat Club and others and my crew as a teenager, all of whom helped me learn what it is to train.