In Short...

After years of abject denial, turning 60 has somewhat rudely awoken me to the inevitable side effects of growing old. It sucks!! It’s also resurfaced self directed bitterness regarding wasted time and missed/lost opportunities.

The broken (both mental health and physical) is a little more complicated and although I’ll get into both in more detail at some point, a key contributor to the afore-mentioned ‘bitterness’ is a constant battle with performance anxiety and impostor syndrome, both of which I rarely, if ever, win.

The path obviously has a destination or goal and I have two— the first to complete a full, smooth run down Fort William’s downhill track and the second, to race (for the first time) in the 2025 Scottish Downhill Series and not embarrass myself, hence the ‘ Fit and Fast ’.

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An old, sedentary, soft round the edges bloke with zero will power (when it comes to health and exercise) and a couple of health issues, mental and physical — on a quest for lifelong (or the bit I have left) fitness, strength, speed and a Scottish DH race number!

It’s not going to be a makeover of an existing program, not one I’ve ever seen anyway. It also won’t be laying claim to any previous training experience(s) and/or expertise, nor make any promises or predictions regarding future outcomes.

I’m simply going to document both my journey and ongoing progress, the good, the bad and the ugly (yes, I am that old!)

Should you keep reading please feel free to -

• Pinch the bits you like
• Pass on any thoughts/ideas for improvements
• Take the piss out of anything I’m doing wrong, and
• If you like the whole blog thing, please Like, Share, Follow, Send Biltong… and if you like any of the products featured in the blog or in store please buy them here/there. As mentioned under the intro pic, you will be helping to both fund my journey to racing in the Scottish Downhill Series (my first race ever) by the time I turn 62 — AND — help both myself and hopefully lots of others enjoy a fitter, healthier, and as a result safer and happier old age!

For obvious reasons this is going to have to be as fun and/or engaging as possible off bike, focused (on the ‘fit and fast’) and effective. It also needs to support a happy, healthy and injury free(ish?) old age without the need for a gym membership or a spare room…

I am going to need help with my riding. It’s been a while and tracks have changed dramatically — in quite a scary way, for someone who doesn’t bounce any where near as well as he used to!

Googling ‘home workout plan’ returned over 420 million results, ‘mountain bike fitness plan’ 29 million so how do you choose one?

Welcome to the stage, mental health! Whilst it‘s been debilitating it’s also responsible for at least one positive trait — an aptitude for, and a love of research and ‘connecting dots’, the more disparate the better. As such I’m searching for a range of existing, complimentary physical activities that I trust will work for me both short, medium and long term. If they appeal to and work for anyone else then that will be a bonus…

I’m currently in the process of collecting dots and things have started to fall in to place. So far a couple are conventional (though are likely to be replaced), the others less so and likely to be as fun as they are performance enhancing, whatever your age. One may even make for an interesting party game with a trip to A&E as the booby-prize !?

All, bar stretching, require a piece of equipment. They’ll take up minimal space and collectively should cost less than 6 months decent gym membership.

The non-conventional exercises are based on 3D movement (or range-of-motion) building stability, balance and strength, both core and global. They will also improve coordination, agility and reflexes so should prove beneficial to both this journey and healthy living thereafter.

Warm-up’s and cool-downs are focused on breathing, flexibility and body control — for starters…

Here’s a wee teaser of what the dots are looking like at the moment -