Firstly I have to get something off my chest. The claim made on the 26th January was genuine at the time but the Allen Carr books didn't work for me. I think this was mostly due to my transient lifestyle and the fact that through the week I didn't have the support of my wife and got very bored while staying in hotels. I could manage four days without a cigarette and to be honest did on several occasions, however then boredom and cravings would set in and I would be back at square one.
This reduced me to tears on several occasions as I viewed myself as being too weak to quit.
I debated long and hard on whether to try the counselling provided by Allen Carr in Yorkshire or try try the NHS, but persevered with the books but alas to no avail, I still couldn't quit for longer than 4 days
Finally after my third successive failed attempt to kick the evil weed, I contacted the Smokefree service in Doncaster and went to their one to one counselling. I decided to take Champix rather than NRT as some of the "brainwashing" of Allen Carr obviously had some lasting effect and I completely agree that prescribing a poison to defeat an addiction to said poison is ludicrous.
Anyway I'm three weeks into my six week long counselling to stop smoking and have now been a happy non-smoker since Friday. Champix is marvellous. No cravings at all, the odd weird dream but other than me forgetting to take them at regular intervals I can't complain. The support I'm getting from Smokefree is wonderful. Even though I've seen three different counsellors, they all seem really amazed by my quest.
Right now thats off my chest I can update you on other things that have been going on this week.
My new stem arrived during the week and I fitted this on Friday night. I think I've got it about right now but am still contemplating paying for a professional bike fit. It's lowered my bars by about an inch and a half which is lessening the effects that wind will have on me.
As discussed yesterday I decided to really push myself on the bike in a turbo training session. There is no way I could maintain the speeds I did for any length of time until I am a lot fitter but it was still an achievement.
This morning I got up with a hangover (thanks to all my friends for an amazing day) and after faffing for England I decided to make the most of the nice weather and really push myself on the bike. I was aiming to complete about 30km in as quick a time as I feasibly could. I had breakfast, loaded my body with caffeine and set off.
All was going well and I felt really good up until about 12.7km into my ride when much to my alarm I hit a sunken gully cover which was lower than the road by about an inch and a half. With the speed I was going (47km/h or 29mph) this caused me to have an instantaneous blow out of my front tyre. This scared the life out of me and it wasn't until I started to turn slowly but carried on in a straight line that I realised I had a major problem. I slammed on and then had to walk the best part of a mile home. At least I escaped ok as had I fallen off at that speed I dread to think what the consequences would have been.
When I got home I changed my front tyre's inner tube. I was going to repair the punctures but there were four of them in total and it seemed silly to try running on a tyre with that many repaired punctures.
For a map of my ride please see below.
With this sort of pace I should be able to complete my bike leg in well under two hours which is better than I was aiming for.
Please take some time out of your lives to sponsor me using Justgiving, it is for an amazing cause. Who knows some day you may need the services of Cancer Research.
Thanks for reading. 25 weeks to go. BRING IT ON.
Michael
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