Cambridge Open 2026

Posted on by Mark Myers Leave a comment

After nearly two decades, I can finally get back to what this blog was originally written for: posts about fencing, and more particularly, competitions.

This was my first competition in, yes, about twenty years. I was back on the piste at the Cambridge Open 2026. I was advised to do this one because it was relatively small and because it was a good way to start the year with a bang.

A lot of things have changed, and a lot of things have stayed exactly the same. The format is pretty much identical, although things do seem far better run than I remember. There were far fewer mistakes, and everything was kept up to date online, which made the whole day feel much smoother.

The competition consisted of two rounds of pools, an incomplete 128 DE, and then the normal direct eliminations. I made it into the last 32, in fact number 32 exactly, which was far better than I had hoped for. I would have sulked if I had failed to get into the 128, and satisfied with the last 64, but a 32 is genuinely brilliant.

Points-wise, everything now happens within a week rather than months, as it used to. I now actually have a ranking, which is 247th in England. This apparently already gives me a NIF of one, which surprised me, as I thought the requirements were higher than that. Either way, a fine start.

As for the fencing itself, I was weaker in the pools than I wanted to be. I am still trying to stop old bad habits from coming back, and my most common ones are overexcitement, not pointing the end of the sword at people, and instead just charging in. I am also reducing the amount of footwork I do and being more progressive, essentially just pushing forward.

I am never going to be good at footwork, so concentrate on better bladework and timing. I have realised that all I want is to get into actual sword distance; everything else just feels like a boring waiting game to me. So let’s lean into that and see how it goes.

My DE’s were average, and I was lucky on the first 2. I let a lot of hits go that I should not have done, but for a first competition back, that was not massively unexpected.

In the 128, I was one period in and ruining it in exactly the same way I always screw up these things. But in the first break, Chris Houser wandered past and said, “You do know that the point is supposed to go towards the other person? ”, and being older and far less excitable than I used to be, I groaned, “Oh, yes.” and made the correction.

From that point on, I limited myself to simple attacks and straightforward moves. That suddenly turned the fight around and transformed what was going to be a trouncing into a victory, much to my surprise.

In the next fight, I decided to do exactly the same thing. Keep it simple. No overexcitement. Just constant pressure and straight attacks. Probably more brutal than elegant, but this website is called “StickFight”, not “Conversation Between Two Blades”.

The final fight was far better than I thought it was going to be. My opponent was ranked fourth in the competition and should have destroyed me. In the end, he beat me 15–12. That is a far better result than I expected, although I stupidly thought I was getting a good grip on the fight. I was progressing well, but again got overexcited and started pushing without thinking, which made me easy to predict.

I am taking these observations back to my coach, Anna Anstal 1, who I am really enjoying working with. I specifically looked for someone who could teach me as if I were a child, and she does exactly that. She focuses on pure basics, identifies my bad habits very quickly, and actively fixes them.

Physically, I had a couple of moments where my lungs hated me and a few slightly woozy periods. I think the solution here is overnight oats, a small breakfast, then sticking to water rather than energy drinks, with small mouthfuls throughout the day. There is plenty of fat on this old body to get me through a competition, and I want to avoid upsetting my digestive system as much as possible.

As always, my swords behaved impeccably.

That is it for this one. The next competition will be the Invicta, and I will post about that too.

  1. +44 7493 205766[↩]

Spin Bike Backache: How a Tiny Adjustment Can Make a Huge Difference

Posted on by Mark Myers Leave a comment

I regularly do spin classes, typically twice a week, every week, and I’ve been consistent enough to invest in my own spin bike. Spin has become a core part of my cardio routine, but recently, I’d started experiencing persistent pain in my lower right back. Initially, I chalked it up to getting older or perhaps overdoing it.

However, during a recent consultation, my personal trainer wasn’t convinced that age alone was the culprit. After thorough examination and a series of unusual exercises, he suggested something I’d never even considered: the pedals on my spin bike might be too close together.

Following his advice, I purchased two pedal spacers to widen the stance on my bike. These simple 16 mm spacers cost only £23 and took me just five minutes to install. During my next spin session, the impact of this small adjustment was incredible.

Like many people, I have a dominant side that’s significantly stronger, especially pronounced because of my fencing activities. Due to my pedals being too close together, my feet were slightly angled inward rather than aligned vertically. This misalignment caused my stronger leg to dominate, forcing the weaker leg into awkward compensations, ultimately contributing to my back pain.

Since installing the pedal spacers, my back pain has vanished entirely. Even during intense sessions, I no longer experience cramps, and my overall pain during workouts has dramatically decreased.

If you’re experiencing similar back pain and discomfort from your spin bike workouts, especially if you’re larger or taller than the typical spin enthusiast, consider checking the spacing of your pedals. A minor adjustment could lead to substantial relief, transforming your spin experience and keeping you pain-free.

2023 in review and goals for 2024 : Fitness edition

Posted on by Mark Myers Leave a comment
This year has been an excellent year fitness wise, firstly we continue the never ending grizzle with the Sarcoidosis. and I was invited to participate in a long study on it, as apparently it has a very high suicide rate, 1. I was then subjected to a mass battery of tests, far more than I’d had previously and ended up in a meeting room with four consultants in which they said you’ve still got Sarcoidosis, We can still see all your lymph nodes inflamed and going for the burn, but all your scar tissue has gone from your Lungs and you are no longer showing any of the debilitating symptoms that are normal. And I said, Yes, that’s because I cough it all up, I have an amazing PT and Spin teacher who run me into the floor for 8 hours a week.
Then for the first time, the NHS sat down and asked me what I was doing and how I was doing it. After explaining the weekly schedule, the targeted exercises and the mental support I get from so many people, they went “Oh, do you want to swap chairs? You can sit where we are.” We all laughed and they said, “Just keep doing what you’re doing, your are an outlier on the study and don’t need the help, We’ll see you in four years.” So the way we are handling it seems to be just right 2, But it does, however, require constant maintenance. And as my weekly lung test shows I would be a fool to ever take anything for granted.
But moving on to less serious updates:
  1) I am now actively using a 40kg kettlebell and my arms have not been ripped out of their sockets, and I can strict press a 36kg 3 2) Thanks to the house move and a bill that made me squeak, I have purchased an I.C.G. home bike, which means, thanks to Louise I do spin twice a week at a level now that is topping at 1,200 calories per 55-minute session. Really good progress. 3) I’m back to fencing. Again, thanks to the house move I have run out of excuses and am now back to Haverstock fencing club, it is still as amazing as ever and alas my old bad habits are still there, but I am determined to get there each week and have fun while my knees last.

Goals

1) Lose some sodding weight. While both Sam and Louise constantly try to steer me to a realm of healthy eating, I still eat garbage, but its a bit silly now. I’m currently at 114 kilos; I need to get that down to 100 kilos. Thankfully,  Louise herself is changing diets this new year so we can be miserable together while I finally listen to what I have been told. 2) Get to at least 1 fencing competition. I have been told that its a serious game now and not the fun we used to have and to take part in the seniors instead, but I don’t care, I’m just going to go and have a fight. 3) Get the heat problems under control. one downside I discovered this year is I have been controlling the heat of my exercises a little bit too much, as I personally overheat easily as well as the lung thing does not like heat much, this resulted in me thinking I was better than I am in a real world situation both in fencing and when on a spin bike in a real class. To solve this I will be artificially jacking up the heat at home spin to rediscover what it’s like to actually do it in a class. as well as in general P.T., the simplest solution is to wear my fencing jacket for none fencing fitness, I did that on the last spin before Christmas and it took my watts per kilo from a slightly unbelievable 3.0 to a far more sane 2.8 which makes a lot more sense. 4) Get back to Turkish get ups. They were something I really liked as a challenge, but because my elbow hated me 4. We had to stop doing it, I really want to get that back and get to a solid 36kg.
  1. The no cure nature of it plus daily fatigue and the fecking cough can get a certain type of person down after a while[↩]
  2. and for that, I can never thank Sam and Louise enough [↩]
  3. Only once each side, but I don’t care, up is up[↩]
  4. ,I popped a nerve out and am not looking after it enough to fix it properly[↩]

Use Dioralyte for Leg cramps after biking/spin

Posted on by Mark Myers Leave a comment

This is apparently a common issue but one I hadn’t experienced before now. If you’re like me, and getting on a little bit in life, and you do anything with a huge amount of hard cardio in it, then you will shed a lot of water. Judging by the weight of my kit after a session, I can shed a litre of water in an hour and even with proper stretches, that means I am going to cramp up hugely if I don’t deal with it, and while thrashing around on the floor in shrieking pain is a life choice. It’s no way to spend an evening. Obviously people talk about posh sports drinks to restore your electrolytes, but my PT said to just have a Dioralyte 1, and ill be dammed it worked like a charm, no more cramps, That’s it, just thought I would pass the tip on

  1. In addition to replacing the liquid as normal[↩]

Sharp Elbow Pain No swelling : Solved

Posted on by Mark Myers Leave a comment

This is just a reference blog for other people because I couldn’t find what I wanted out on the internet.

In another post I started to get a very sharp pain in my elbow, which was initially diagnosed as bursitis, by both my PT and by a very good physio, it had all the symptoms, apart from the fact that it had no swelling, the symptoms were:

  1. No issue with movement or restriction.
  2. No loss of strength.
  3. An incredibly sharp and sudden pain when my elbow was touched on the bone (just the slightest brush was enough to trigger it), no other pain experienced.

This persisted to the point where it reached probably an 8 out of 10 on the jump up and down in pain scale. To the point where I decided that a trip to accident and emergency was in order. I went and was initially diagnosed with bursitis by the GP in attendance, I said that was what had been diagnosed before but none of the normal treatments had made any difference, he allowed me to go for an x-ray to confirm one way or another, when the x-ray came back it was determined what was actually happening was that the soft tissues in my elbow were being aggravated and inflamed and were in turn then pushing out my Ulnar nerve so that it was resting on the outside of my elbow. explaining the tenderness and pain.

He prescribed some really powerful painkillers, that ice was better for it than heat and advising me to use an elbow splint to sleep in 1. The painkillers didn’t do what I hoped, as my guts hated them more than my elbow liked them and the arm splint hurt like hell when I rolled over on it in the night. However now that I knew what it was and what it wasn’t, I could have a good check on what had changed in my life, Although it seemed the obvious culprit, I discounted the fitness I do, my PT is fanatical about keeping my activities even on both sides and this was very definitely effecting only one side.

Then I realised that one of the main changes recently was that I’d moved desks. And as someone that uses a trackball, I previously rested my elbow on an ordinary mouse wrist rest, just to keep my elbow off the table. however in my new desk, I didn’t do that as the mouse was much closer to the front of the desk. So I went and purchased one of those strange elbow arm things to rest my elbow on,

and while I was waiting, I found a very good make of gel pack that was soft after freezing, and took to putting that in the bottom of a bowl of water, letting the water chill to near freezing, then suspending my elbow in it without touching anything for 10 To 15 minutes.

This gave me amazing relief. The pain would completely recede, stay away for nearly three hours and then only very slowly start to come back. when the arm rest arrive I started using it. And now the pain stopped getting worse.

I’m not a doctor but I feel its a reasonable conclusion that as I was doing 60 hours a week with my elbow raised and no support using a trackball, I was rubbing a very small part of my elbow joint and inflaming it.

So if you are getting the same thing try:

  • Resting the joint so its not constantly in use in on what seems low impact work.
  • Proper Ice baths for that joint.
  1. ,the same that is used with repetitive strain injury in your elbow[↩]