Cue hyperventilation as I enter the last two working weeks with British Cycling. Suddenly there is substantial knee quivering, gut gurgling terror, and I'm starting to worry about things which are just gremlins and goblins. Some of this I can clearly do something about so I'm trying to put the irrational in its place behind me, and facing up to the things which I'm hiding from. There's a clean page in front of me if I can only sweep aside the dust and cobwebs, and of course it's one of those times where anything worth doing is going to take proper proactive action, not a passive crossed fingers approach.
It seems to be a time to re-focus, pause, breathe, look down, look up, breathe again and make a thoughtful forwards movement just as I do every single time I come off the mountain bike. I know this from much weekend experience. It's become a really odd ritual for me whenever the bike or the hills beat me. Back in the saddle, look down, breathe, look up, breathe, plan and enact. Ever watched a rider prepare to ride the Kilometre time trial on the track; it has that feel of bringing in calm focus where once was frenetic brain activity. Cycling and life, maybe they work the same?
I've ridden with other people and groups a lot over the last couple of weeks, and can't remember any more the last time I rode alone other than the work commute. I need to ride solo again, need to dance to the beat of my own drum on the bike, my pace, returning a sense of me, of confidence, of grinning joy. I need to slow it down, even if briefly. Cycling and life, maybe they work the same?
And in the words of Michael Jackson:
"You try to scream but terror takes the sound before you make it
You start to freeze as horror looks you right between the eyes
You're paralyzed"
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