Unforgiving minute

Rudyard Kipling's If is one of those self affirming poems.  Perfect for reflection on the year coming to an end and for considering the possibilities of the year ahead.

If you can fill the unforgiving minute with sixty seconds' worth of distance run.

That seems to be something of a lifestyle choice for me, and it's not entirely a positive one.  The negative connotations of the snuck in word unforgiving suggest it's not a totally pleasant battle we're fighting to fulfil.  I rather wish I knew how to fill that over demanding minute with sixty seconds' worth of, well, nothing.  Of peace perhaps.  There's always a quest to be doing something either useful or happy provoking.  It must, surely, be possible to balance somewhere else, to accept and acknowledge the value of gentleness.  

The year gone, somehow reminds me of Sex in the City; can you have a great job, a great apartment and a great partner?  It seems to me that at various times through the year things have gone my way, and I start 2014 with a great job.  Well, on paper it seems great, and I suspect it'll be what I make it, and how well it goes will be down to me too.  I'm hopeful of interesting times on the work front.  Not a career, I shirk the concept of having a career, in the terms of those who seek job betterment, salary increases, power, knowledge, authority or whatever it is career ladder types seek.  Interesting times would be nice.

What else might I like from 2014?  I'd like to seek out adventure, new things, new places, new people, new experiences, something fun and different and perhaps just a bit uncomfortable.  Feel fresh air, new fresh air perhaps.  It doesn't happen unless you do something about it ...

Interesting times

It's odd, these should be interesting times.  New job, new challenges, new possibilities opening up.  But somehow I feel boring.  No, not bored, but plain boring.  I have nothing of interest to say to anyone, the spark has died.

I could talk about the experience of being on a Team Sky whole team camp, and the things which struck me as amazing, the unexpected in a team I have worked parallel to since its inception.  I could animatedly express my respect for the work done, the bright people there whose intelligence almost lays you flat to the floor when they let it simply flow.

I could talk about the numerous days of riding my bike on the dry sunlit island of Mallorca, overlooking cliffs, sea, and passing ruins and amazing rock formations while interested goats graze at the side of the road.  I could talk about my plans for 2014, the hazy half made but treasured dreams for Scotland, for Italy, for me, for the bike, for the van.

I could talk about my new role with the team, the stuff I'm learning, the people I'm working with, what was said to me by a Board Member of 21st Century Fox.  I could talk wittily about the social faux pas I managed to come out with in the presence of two TdF winners.

I could, no doubt, unwittingly give away philosophies and works in progress.  Maybe that would make me interesting.  But I have a feeling that anything I could say would somehow feel forced, muted, lacklustre.

Yes, I am boring.

Human frailty

Frailty.  I never saw myself as fragile in any sense of the word.  This year, however, I seem to have recovered from a lateral meniscus cartilage tear in my left knee accompanied by a partial tear to my Achilles tendon.  I have had two or three weeks pretty much out of action with a chest infection, and recently I've had a diagnosis of Labyrinthitis.

It's been a hard decade for injuries.  It all seemed to start with IT Band damage in 2007 which still flares up from time to time, but there's also been a shoulder injury, a diagnosis of TMJ, and an episode of Trigeminal nerve disorder in recent years.  Before that, the only things which ever got damaged were broken little fingers and a broken nose. 

I'm not a patient patient.  I always want to get up and do things before I possibly should.  I'll doggedly push myself unless given clear warnings about bad consequences if I over do it.  I was really really well behaved and looking to long term future when I tore the cartilage.  Followed physio instruction to the absolute letter and made a full recovery. 

This time, though with the lovely toppling Labyrinthitis I have got it into my head that my brain simply needs to recalibrate, and the best way of doing that is to go out there and behave normally. Walk.  That kind of thing.  Which is what I did today, meandered with the gait of a squiffy drunkard along the footpaths going from home.  Pondered as I did so about how thankfully different I am to my dad.  As soon as anything went wrong with Dad he gave up.  I don't exaggerate.  His attitude was to think about what he couldn't do, not what he could do.  If he thought that in the future something would no longer be possible he simply stopped.  Then and there, said if I can't do that in the future there's no point doing it now.  He was as stubborn as I am.  But me, I like to at least try. 

So today's walk, I bimbled along, thinking about the simple experience of walking, the feeling of loss of focus, the odd sensations brought about by the lack of balance combined with my naturally bobbing gait as I walk.  And I thought, you know what, this is not so bad.  If this is the way walking is to be for the next few days or weeks I can cope with this.  If walking were always like this, would that be a game stopper?  No, I don't think it would be.  Imagine if I knew no different, if walking had always been this way, would I be concerned.  No, I'd have adapted, and that's what I can do now, accept, relax, adapt.  Could I climb Ben Nevis like this; I don't know but maybe.  Get in.

Remembering Rhayader

I have a Wales Mountain Biking guide open in front of me.  As ever, planning.  As I searched for something perhaps North Walesish, my eyes glanced over the mid Wales section, and there it was, Rhayader, and with that came memories.

Rhayader came in the middle of a solo holiday.  My first real go it alone experience, my first attempt to fill my leisure time with solitary activity.  It's hard to describe why or how this came about or to pull the significance into words.  I had never known it was possible to be contented, or perhaps even happy in an experience which wasn't shared with other folk.  Yet somehow, in that summer, there I was, giving it a go on a very very safe and small level.  Did I choose to plunge in with an experience in a foreign place where they speak no English?  No.  Did I choose to try death defying soloing or cliff diving?  No.  It was enough of an emotional risk taking this time out, true time out of everything, alone.

I don't even remember it being a conscious decision, just something I drifted into because it seemed the natural and obvious thing to do.  Not really a woman against world train of thought involved.  Yet, somehow, with the clarity that the passing of another half decade brings, it did feel a little that way.  A small, self contained individual, armed with a car, a tent, a wetsuit, a bike, a camping chair and a box of wine.  I did feel small.  Looking back, I still see myself back then as small, but as astonishingly self contained.

I remember riding the green lanes, arriving with hesitation at an unwelcoming farm with no clear view of the ongoing bridleway.  An encounter with the farmer, whose concern was his moving herd of cattle bearing down on me from the trail.  A conversation, a wait, a sense of surreal as the cows passed me by.  Then up and up and up until the broad trail became virtually nothing and then became boulders through a stream.  Up to the road, a short spell of tarmac and off into the greenery, where there was nobody, not a soul, a whole load of nothing for miles and miles and miles.  An unexpected ford making me giggle as I desperately pedalled up to my axles in water, hoping and praying that I would make it through to the end still in the saddle.  Some kinds of wet are simply not necessary on the bike.  There were village tea rooms and there was cake and it was a wonderful day spent just being me.  And the bike.  This is us at the bewildering where did the path go moment.  It went across ...



Since the tame going it alone holiday, there  have of course been more and more times when I've gone it alone.  Suilven in Scotland, two days hiking, carrying my everything on my back and spending a night in a bothy with just the bothy mouse for company and the sounds of rutting stags throughout the night.  Six weeks in New Zealand including a 5 day hike along the coast, again my world in a huge purple pack.  There has been France, Switzerland, Germany, Belgium, Luxembourg.

I wrote about this ride here, on this blog, back in July 2011.  Memory has re-written the ride, as it re-writes so many things.  History is rounded, curved, completed by the present and by the future.  Experience paints it different colours and brings with it new meaning.  But that first moment of brave, of discovery of possibility, that yes, it can be not only done, but done with smiles and laughter.  That won't be equaled.  There'll always be Rhayader.  And certainly if 2005 felt like an ending, 2011 felt like hope.

Not so tough

Is it me or am I getting injured and getting sick a lot more than I used to?  I feel a lot more intimately acquainted with my sofa than ever before in my life.  What happened?  Am I magnifying it or imagining it.

An odd coincidence seems to be the getting injured or sick just when I'm on a tight deadline for an Open Uni assignment, thus freeing up lots of reading time.  On the sofa.  I'm not even sure I like the sofa very much any more. Or that I ever really did. 

The previous sofa was an odd one.  Bought as a sofa bed on the recommendation of my Gran.  A Jaybe I think it was.  One of those which said you could use it as a regular bed for six months, so good was the mattress.  I think I (we, I guess) did use it for a good number of weeks while the house was being turned tipsy turvy as we tried to make various rooms habitable.  My bed came with me but in pieces. 

I bought this one because, somehow the previous one made me uncomfortable.  Mentally, more than physically.  I guess I just didn't see the point.  I now live in a world of terracotta mismatch with a sofa I cannot lie on because of the size of my room.  The main selling point as far as I remember were arms that I could rest my mug of tea on.

Sometimes these things are important.  Tea, many cups of it being drunk  here.  Does that make it OK?

Today was brought to you by Billy Joel because you know you're not so tough ...

Soundtrack

If you could, Desert Island Disc style choose just six tracks to represent you, in no particular order, I wonder what they would be?  What would tell the story best, or what would mean the most to you?  Would it be organised in an orderly fashion - 45 years divided by six or simply those which speak the loudest, sing the clearest?

It's hard to narrow them down.  Like so many things in life, the first decisions are the easiest, the quickest, the ones that fall into place.  It's number 4 and 5 which are the hardest.  The grey areas sadly are those you spend 80% of your time figuring out, and only 20% on the most important stuff.

So, let's not try for the six, let's not waste 80% of our time on the 20% which are of least importance.  This one is on my soundtrack.

As is this one.

and this.

and this one

and all of these are also subject to change.


The last two of course are the most changeable because they reflect the now, the present and the recently happened which becomes coloured by the now and by the future.  I don't know what they are, I never really will.

This makes me think of France.  If I had a playlist, it would be on it.

http://vimeo.com/33878883

Winter Spring

In February 2005 Dave was diagnosed with a brain tumour.  He was operated on in Hope Hospital, Eccles.  The hospital is on the edge of a mill town, once Lancashire and now engulfed by Greater Manchester.  The ward had only small windows, high up, rectangles which made a mockery of the orientation landscape.  You couldn't sit and see out of the windows but you could lie down, as of course the patients do, and look up through them.  It was cold.  Through the windows Dave could see the scrawny upper twigs of the winter trees, and falling through those twigs were huge flakes of snow, slowly tumbling.  With a look of imploring, willing me to understand everything he wished to communicate, he said to me "I like trees" and with that phrase pleaded with me to know.  I knew.

By autumn he was really sick.  He couldn't be left.  Some afternoons we had a longer visit from a carer, an hour which gave me time to walk the mile to Morrisons and return home with essentials.  I got to go outside the house which we were both now tied to, curiously held indoors by no obvious force other than the inability to leave.  Dave had always lived as much outdoors as he could, as had I.  But I got to get out there and walk home kicking the piled up horse chestnut leaves and prickly cases.  I picked up three conkers to take home for Dave, to share with him the autumn which was taking place somehow without us.  He barely glanced at the gift.

Today I walked back from Eccles and saw the first of the season's conkers on the pavement with the first fallings of the leaves.  I let them be.

Team Kit

I was going to say I am conflicted over the issue of whether it's kind of OK or good or ludicrous or just unacceptable for the simple leisure or sports cyclist to wear replica kit.  You know, the stuff the pros wear. 

I am no longer conflicted at all.  I say, go out there, acquire the kit for the sport and the team for which you have a passion and a belief in, and wear it with pride.  Show the world that you're a cyclist, and that in this accessible to all activity you have an allegiance to something higher, or an aspiration perhaps to one day merit that kit yourself.  Above all, never feel ashamed or embarrassed to be associated with the sport and the team you support.

I am deeply disturbed by the kind of sites popping up like this one: Full Pro Kit Wankers.  I mean, where do these people get off categorising those wearing with pride their pro peleton kit on their own, possibly cheaper versions of the pros bikes as "wankers".  If your 11 year old child wanted, for example, a Team Sky jersey for Christmas, would it put you off, knowing he might be coming in for the "wanker" badge?  Isn't that just a little cruel?  Wouldn't it be good to know in the UK kids aren't mocked for being cyclists, wearing lycra and hero worshipping their role models?  Would you want that 11 year old to be known as a "wanker" for the simple sin of wearing a jersey which says s/he is proud to be a rider, proud to associate with something bigger than them, bigger than their club, looking up at the best.  Isn't it rather cool knowing that the British are indeed up there with the best in this sport.  Why shouldn't we show our pride on the street?

That kind of derogatory name calling does nothing at all for the sport.  The wearers of these figure hugging jerseys emblazoned with team names and sponsors have not taken the purchase lightly.  These things are not cheap, and where do you think the money goes?  Yes, it goes to the team, well, some of it, as well as the clothing manufacturer, retail outlet, etc. etc. etc.  It is an income stream for the team.  Those who compare cycling to sports such as football and the investments, the money, the payments to athletes would do well to think about how those sports are funded.  Merchandising plays a part.  Sponsorship plays a part.  Cycling don't do well on gaining money from spectators, although media including TV must gradually start filtering down some of the readies. 

Teams need sponsors too.  The sponsors are in it largely to get their name out and about in public.  Imagine even an out of date kit riding our roads with the sponsors' investments continuing to pay back with their name out there every sunny weekend. 

I rode around the roads of Switzerland, France, Germany and Belgium for 8 weeks.  Coming from this country where the instinct seems to be to belittle and mock those who wear the kit it was an eye opener.  Switzerland was full of people wearing not just the BMC jersey but also the shorts.  France similarly with every trade team under the sun represented, and Belgium just the same.  Amongst those were club kits, smaller team kits, people happy to make public their allegiance.  Sometimes it's just because the kit happens to be stylish.  A complimentary nod to the marketing folk who are clearly doing their job right.  It was a wonderful sight to see all shapes sizes ages and genders resplendent in their various outfits.

I felt ashamed of myself that in the UK I feel I would be mocked for getting out the Team Sky jersey which I happily wore all over France.  And I'm not a wannabe.  I'm a 45 year old woman who has had a road bike for just over a year.  I know my place in the grander scheme of things on the road.

Arguments against it, well, the considered arguments go something like this:

• It's something which has to be earned
• It's an honour to represent a team and for others without that ability to dress the same belittles the achievement

For sure for National kit this might be the case, and perhaps for World Champion stripes.  And yes, maybe I do remain conflicted about Polka dot jerseys, but mostly that's a hangover from the horror of 2013 Tour de France King of Mountains matching shorts, an unpleasant image which will take some time to erase.

I suspect the pro riders  seeing someone wearing their kit simply smile, maybe even in a slightly approving manner, sometimes I would guess in a humbled manner, after all, that person has bought the kit because it means something to them.  The riders on the team mean something to them perhaps.  I feel one thing is for sure, they are not offended by this.  My Team Sky jersey has Wiggins down the side, not through planning, just through bulk ordering vagaries.  His wife approved.

And in general applause for those brave enough to go out there and take on the chin their mates comments, and sometimes those of strangers, here's me, resplendent,

Homewards bound.

Its curious, an odd feeling of home sickness. Not a logical thing because taken literally the house is just property. It's more a feeling of very slight wrongness. A feeling that somehow I've stopped being true to me, because 75% of home is me.

I remember nearly a year ago after dusk on a Scottish beach crying with relief at the sure and certain knowledge that it was OK to stop running. Now I want to stop again, to reconnect with me. Properly think about the Alison of now not of twelve months ago. What does this woman, this work in progress want in the here and now? Is it a nest or some kind of safety?

I am in the Alps happy and joyfully planning my next move. It may be Italy it could be the Gorge of Verdun. I won't know until tomorrow. I want water to look at and sunshine to read in. I want to stop. That may be because in an eight day period I rode the Alpe d'Huez, the Col de Lautaret, the Col de Restefond and Bonnette and the Col de Vars. Possibly.

Age and vanity.

I have a theory about vanity.  I suspect it's something which most of the folk who suffer from it do so because they've been blessed with good looks or a great body or something like that.  There are a few notable exceptions of unconventional appearance people who can't help but admire their reflection in glass or paintwork or anything as they walk or ride by.  But mostly it seems to me it's an affliction of those who fall in the upper 10-15% of the population.

Aging is weird.  The good looking folk from 20s and 30s don't always age so good.  Some do.  Others don't.  It must be a bit weird adjusting if you've been used to drawing admiration from others.  Also, think of the pressure if you're someone who cares about such things to try to maintain a body and face and hair in a conventional fashion.  Any experimentation or living must be somehow bigger decisions than for the likes of me.

I am  not bound by limitations in that way.  I can happily sport cropped hair, turning grey at the edges because it simply doesn't matter.  Similarly I can marvel in interested fashion in what firstly climbing did to my body then cycling.  It doesn't matter that for a while I couldn't walk with my arms by my side because the muscular structure of my upper body wouldn't allow it.  Not exactly what most people picture a woman looking like.  Now I  have these curious shaped bulges above my knees.  I marvel at them.  I also use the odd appearance to motivate myself.  Going up hill on the bike I'm saying you can do this, because those really ugly bulges have to be there for a purpose.  Get on with your job, muscles.  And shut up legs.

My Mio

After a suitable period of mourning after the somewhat embarrassing only myself to blame loss of the exceedingly pricey Garmin 800 or possibly 850 I found myself searching for a suitable substitute. Europe was calling and with it the need for a data charges free method of making sure I could find the van at the end of a map free bike ride. This time though I had experience. I knew what I used and what were just gimmicks. I liked to record a ride to get back to base. On a nice to have not need to know basis I liked to know how far and how high I had gone. I liked a simple way of sharing routes with mates too. Saved explaining ... and that was it. Nothing else needed.

The first must have was a device with maps. It had to be robust too and hold a good charge. Weekend loops were on the agenda.

Oddly I came up with a quiet Belgian brand, the Mio.  I have had it a month now and want to sing its praises.

For half the price of a major brand it included European maps, a robust case that actually properly covered the charger, and a simple secure bike mount. Also included but for me unnecessary were the heart rate belt and cadence sensor. It was a mighty package.

Unlike my Garmin package I just switched it on and used it. Instinctive recording that reminds you, although with no speaker to say yes to record. A touch screen red stop button that checks it heard you right, screens that tell you how far you have gone, where you are, how fast you are going, and grade the hill.

The finest thing of all though is the Surprise Me function. Hit that and after a moment's thought it shows you a clover leaf of suggestions based on your location. You can tell it if you're road riding or MTBing, how far you'd like to go and it gives three options. Red, green or purple. It gives you their distance within about 10k of your request and an indication of the hills. Click on one, press go and follow a combination of map and top left arrow which tells you how far to the next turn. First experiment and it worked. Avoided stupid roads and gave forth of suitable hills. Can't wait to see it in Alpine action ... tomorrow ...

Queen of the Mountains

The time has come to talk of many things.  OK, well, to talk about my guilty secret.  Strava.

www.strava.com

When the Strava app started building momentum amongst cycling people, I wasn't interested.  I paid attention to my first ever encounter when I was introduced to it by, oddly, the British Cycling Membership Manager.  He showed a couple of us the application, how it worked with GPS to time you on your bike rides, and on sections of roads and trails all over the country various happy or competitive souls on bikes had identified strips which they personally wanted to stand up and be counted on.  Who knows what the original motivation was, was it about a personal challenge, a measurable way of assessing your own progress.  Was it about conquering particular challenging stretches, or was it about pitting yourself against other cyclists?

It looked fun.  You could see other people who were doing the same ride as you, and you could see how  you measured up against them.  You could explore and pinpoint a stretch where you felt you'd have strengths, and target attempting to become the fastest rider, or King or Queen of Mountains on that stretch.  It could be a good challenge of gradual progression as you found something which you couldn't at that moment in time achieve.

You could see what other people were doing.  Click on them, look at their latest rides, consider whether they had a route which looked more interesting than the one you were doing.  Explore the area, get to know other cyclists in a weird cyber fashion.

People who knew me well said I should never ever sign up for it.  It's no hidden secret that I have a weirdly obsessive side.  I can be single minded in a way which I realise is possibly not altogether normal or healthy. If I was actually at a Worlds best level in any activity whatsoever I would probably be savage and particularly scary.  But seeing as I'm pretty average-normal at most things the compulsive tendency is relatively dormant.  Although don't look at my efforts at A level English or Open Uni because the grading I get in those is clear incontrovertible evidence that when I focus on something I don't veer to one side.  I can't settle for anything less than the best I can be.   This is worrying in some ways.

The second reason is that I feel that magnetic attraction towards arses in the distance, or arses that have pedaled past me.  I have changed from the person who, back in the early 90s came out of every personality test known as the least competitive person in the world.  I'll chase any piece of arse.  I hate the person ahead to not know that I'm as capable as them.  If indeed I am, and usually you can tell, and not waste time attempting to chase down the impossible.

But in spite of warnings, I was nosy, I wanted to know why so many people were raving about it, and I signed up.  I love it.  I love being able to use the software to see where the hilly bits close to home or current location are, being able to use it to plan a ride route.  I love knowing what my friends are up to.  I love being able to look at my club members and see what routes they are doing with a view to hijacking their plans.  These are the nice reasons I love it.

The guilty reasons are because actually, it's a big fish in a small pool situation.  The kind of  people who use it are, I suspect, not racing cyclists, they are club cyclists, fellow obsessives, people who just want to ride their bike, and ride it fast or faster.  The truly competitive, thankfully, steer mostly clear of it or where would the fun be for the ordinary and the average?  There aren't many women on it, and those who are on it aren't serious competitive beasts.  As a result of this, somehow I am Queen of the Mountain on over 40 segments, most of which are most definitively not mountains.  There's a pleasure to downloading and the tag coming up saying you have achievements in 14 segments because for that moment, even though you know you're not, somehow you feel just a little bit special. 

Long time

It's been a while.  I seem to have been busy.  There have been a lot of road cycling miles going into my legs which makes me chuckle on so many levels.

My sense of the ridiculous seems quite sensitive.  How did it become normal to step out of the front door wearing lycra?  I used to wear leggings in my twenties as a standard going out item, way back when there was some kind of definition between where my bum ended and my legs began.  I couldn't go out like that now, I'd feel exposed, naked and opening myself up wide to mutton dressed as lamb comments.

Yet somehow, lycra shorts are now normal.  I've even eased off my concern over those with the tighter elastic holding bands on the thighs. I  used to hate the bulge which appeared above those, making my legs look weirdly shaped and fat.  Now the bulge seems to be more below the leg bands, and I find myself mesmerised by this change in body shape which has produced this bizarre muscle formation just above my knee.  You win some, you lose some. I may have gained above knee bulk but I have also gained slimmer ankles.  Swings.  Roundabouts. 

The weird acceptance of the rear pockets on the jersey, the pockets distended, so much weight in them that they form three odd shaped packages hovering above my bum.  That doesn't do a lot for folk's perception of my figure either.  Viewed from behind, I no longer have a waist.  What I do have is a collection of cereal bars which I have refined according to experience.  I don't carry anything which could melt, so no chocolate chips.  I don't carry anything crumbly, so no baked style goods.  I don't carry much any more.  The days of "bonking" through calorie deficit seem to be a little in the past, and I come home after 70K often having eaten no more than one off the shelf non sporting chewy bar. 

I haven't accepted cloppy shoes.  I'm still wearing touring style shoes with mountain bike style clip ins.  I like to not look like a muppet walking into M&S Simply food. 

I confess, I wear black socks.  Deal with it.

Non breeders

I occasionally take long weekends away with a gaggle of women. We were in our thirties when we started. Now 40s might be more honest although two have yet to achieve that giddy height. Tongue in cheek we call ourselves the non breeders. We found ourselves having a drift in commonality with our motherly friends. Some who envied us our untied nature and others who couldn't comprehend life without kids and some who wistfully wanted both worlds. Circumstances had led us this way. Two may yet breed. One decided quite definitively it was not for her. Two, perhaps with some sadness have accepted a child free fate. The fourth it's a subject too sore too raw to talk about even ten years on. I fall into the acceptance bracket.

I am in a cottage with three generations of my family. Three siblings over 40. One child. Sadly our genes are not well represented.

They seem good genes. My dad before multiple sclerosis was a county level hockey player. My mother along with her three brothers passed mensa level tests. She was a Rambert school of ballet graduate. We are intellectually and physically blessed.

I look at us as three siblings in our 40s and we may not have bred but we're still kind of good. My sister now a hockey player at masters international level. My brother fighting fit, a focused dad. Me, the disappointment in a sporting sense. Well I don't do so bad.

It feels like a waste of genes though. Funny eh?

Right Round

I discovered something new. Life is all about new discoveries after all.  It’s an extraordinary thing, life, never static, not even when we wish it was.

Trail centre with a motley crew of Talent Team coaches, one of whom is a local to the area. We hit the Clayton Vale trails.  These have been gently developed over some time but had an official that’s it, we’re open kind of an event in May.  Finally a mix of sections through woodlands have been connected up into a cohesive comprehensive trail which you can follow.  There are many loops too, you can repeat and repeat and repeat. 

That was new for me, going back time and again over the same loop.  It was surprising.  First time down tentative involving some short cuts, breaking, even, dare I say it, walking.  By the fifth time fear had departed and the narrow, tight, downhill hairpin was just achieved with ease, and I’d worked out what gear to get into for some of the uphill bits as well as figuring out which bits were short enough to just give it some welly out of saddle.

Surprisingly, too, I enjoyed it.  Enjoyed the process of being a hamster in a wheel, going back time and time again over old ground.  I grew in confidence with every attempt, although hopefully not in cockiness. Having done the ride in cool company I now know I can just get out there after work on my own.  Because I can see the trail start from the window of the office. It’s nothing if not convenient.

It’s also lovely doing a ride with people I’ve never ridden with before.  I’ve known Stuart for a decade, Rik for less time and Monica for a matter of months.  They are coaches, they have a history of competitive participation in cycling, and I have respect and deference to their advanced knowledge, skills and fitness.  But as a person, I still contribute to the group.  I like that I can, having come to a standstill on a very minor bit of up, stand and chat to Rik who has a moment of despair at his lack of fitness and  his Roc d’Azur sign up for October and say it’s fine to be where he is, it’s understandable and now he knows that, he knows the direction to take. It’s OK to have limitations, really it is.

I have worked in this world too long.  Met my ex boss in the corridor and in non arse licking way (that’s really not my style) I note he’s looking trim and tell him so. He’s not feeling it, he feels in a place where he’s been off the bike for a week or so and it’s all gone to pot. I smile and say Ahh, you’re doing that thing where you’ve had one or two bad weeks, bike wise, and suddenly you feel the months of hard work you did before have all been lost.  That thing.  He smiles and agrees, because he’s heard it all before, and normally he’s the one dishing it out. He knows I’m right.

And we're going retro of course with Dead or Alive ...

 

The Light

Today has been brought to you by a kiss from a rose on the gray.

"the light that you shine can be seen" Such a Quaker concept.  I'm feeling quite quakerish today it would seem.  It's funny, decades of living life as member of the Society as Friends and I simultaneously grow away from it as I grow towards it.  Elements even now are being discarded while others are simply a part of who I am.  It's good to know I'm not yet a fully formed Me, even in my 40s. 

I still see a revised version of that of god in everyone.  I see that of good in everyone instead. It's annoying and hard to break, but I cannot, cannot write anyone off.  I can't see anyone as a "waste of time", it still feels to me that all that's needed is to understand someone properly, to keep trying, and an outcome of a simple encounter can be so much more rewarding.  I find people rewarding on the whole.  I cannot give up on folk.  I have gently put to one side associations which I realised are not really friendships, but I know deep down that I'd still be there for the person, and if they knocked on my door tomorrow I would still know how they took their tea / coffee.  And I'd still smile with genuine welcome and pleasure at seeing them.  But I won't make the first move because somehow as things are, that seems to cause damage.

I still hold people up to the light.  Or indeed hold them in my thoughts, gently.  If I know a friend is in trouble I put them to the front of my mind, in the stream of things which flow across my conscious I let their problems enter the stream.  Sometimes flashes of inspiration happen and I find something practical I can do, other times it's enough just to remember them, and not treat as a time limited incident something which they are living through.

Plain speech - well, I try.  Sometimes it comes across as brutal sometimes it's just too hard to find the words, sometimes I replace it with silence.  But I try.

Simplicity - I feel I've lost this.  I've lost the back to basics approach. I live surrounded by stuff, lots of it unnecessary, lots of it acquired in the quest for enjoyment.  Not at all the Quaker way.  I do find joy in watching blue tits in the garden, busy raising their young. I do find joy in just sitting in the garden, and in thinning the tiny apples on the tree.  I find joy in simple cooking, basic ingredients, cooked without gadgets above and beyond the cooker and pans, knives, spoons.  But I have a house scattered with bicycle parts, tent accessories, awnings, books, kindle, netbook, phone, charger.  I have a lot of stuff and only minimal inclination to do something about it.

Conscience - my conscience is my guide.  Call it God if you will.  I like to believe I don't do anything to go against my conscience, my morals, my principles. I think that's a route to unhappiness as the decisions taken will jar with you and make you ultimately miserable.  Actions which seemingly head against principles are thoughtfully made, considered, consequences taken into account.  Doubt and questioning is comfortable.  Because principles are personal only I can know what I truly deeply believe and where the boundaries lie, and no, there's no need to write these down in stone either, things change, I change. It's just part of me.

This pretty much sums me up ... http://www.bbc.co.uk/quakerism

Funnily enough, I set out to write about trail centres, repeating sections and riding with fit folk ... but I went where the spirit moved me.

Her laughter

I’ve been too busy to write.  This is, naturally, a good thing.

It’s been a bit of a time of discovery.  I have discovered:

My recovery time from injury is pretty good (this time) and I have come out the other side changed.   I am, as ever, thankful, truly so because although I never take good health for granted, and never take life itself for granted, but a set back serves as a reminder of this.  I always rejoice in good health, but never more than a post illness or injury period when I am truly grateful for the gifts I have been given.  I know this sounds edging dangerously close to religious speak, but I guess although maybe not religious, I do have a spiritual being, and if moved to that feeling of fullness in my chest by life happening, it feels natural to want to express appreciation of that somehow, to someone.  I get round this sometimes by simply turning to the person I’m with in that moment and telling them thank you, thank  you for your part in this wonderful experience of living that I’m feeling right now.

This injury has given me a sense of urgency, a feeling that I’m playing catch up.  I’m chasing something, chasing someone, and I think it’s me.  I’m chasing the person I would have been had I not hurt myself.  I can see her ahead of me on the hills, making a Froome-esque come along movement with her arm, puzzled because I’m falling behind and wondering why I’m not up there with her.  

Riding has become an autotelic activity for me.  I know this sounds a bit like a swallowed dictionary, but for me, this simple concept has somehow distilled it for me.  It’s not about anything else except for riding, and I owe no explanation or ability to put this into words and feelings to anyone, myself included.  

 Oh, and this amuses me ... http://www.urbanrabbits.net/autotelic.html In a way which makes me wince, I guess I identify with it to an extent.  To say that makes me feel somewhat uncomfortable; it feels like I'm bragging or making myself out to be special.  I'm not.

I question my whys too often. Sometimes we just need to be, and to rejoice in the splendour.

And a song from someone who I think is pretty special in a self publicizing kind of a way ...

Live it ...

I'm loving this blog entry Dispossessed poets largely for the line:

"Live your life with such pure ferocity and rollicking panache that people beg you to tell them your secret."

I just love the words, which reflect something of what I aspire to do.  I've always been a bit of a one for a handy mantra.  They inspire and sustain me, but only if they are something genuine to the core of me. It's not about wallpapering, it's about building with bricks, proper solid bricks.

As this one has clear potential to be embraced and embedded into my structure, let's review other past mantras.

One of the earliest I can remember is the "Take no Shit" one.  That's kind of a paraphrase for what it meant to me, but that seems to be the way I operate best.  After all, these are things which speak to me deep down, not something I'm fussed about making sense to the world outside.  This one as I remember was about building my own internal strength, making conscious decisions and carrying them out. It wasn't about treading on other people or shouldering my way through crowds, it was about quietly and internally remembering my direction and remembering that paths should meander in the general way I wanted to go, not be propelled by another force. I was force enough to carry me forward. "Suck it up Princess" kind of fits in with this but that suggests something more along the lines of "Shit Happens".  There are just so many ...

There have been a myriad others.  I  have a mug (gift from a friend) which advises me to "Live Life with Fire and Passion".  The picture on it is me rock climbing, and the words came from my heart.  An existence of drifting doesn't work for me. Well, actually, it does, but it has to be bloody interesting drifting.

I like "in a hundred years we'll all be dead", and "what would a grown up do in this situation?".  The second one is kind of telling, mostly because I suspect that it's the way a fair few adults operate.  I like it because it re-focuses me, makes me think, but I know I can still operate in a childish playful fashion if that's what I choose.

I remember a phase of changing thinking towards a "because he lived not because he died" attitude which gave me a subtle change in approach.  The difference between running away from something and running towards something.  Or indeed "Chasing the Happy Cheese" instead of avoiding the cat.  When I remember, I try to chase the happy cheese, to look towards things rather than spend hideous squishing of head in a vice time figuring out how to get away from uncomfortable things.  Chasing the happy cheese gives you permission to run, to leap, to pirouette in search of the pac man style cartoonesque smiling yellow leerdamer.  Running away is a far more stumbling blind, frantic kind of a thing with dementor style things with wings always lurking.

And there should be background music to these musings.  There's not.

Good Feeling

The sounds of summer are here!

No really, summer is on its way and I've such a good feeling.  This week I've been back on my bike and I've managed to do enough rock climbing that my arms, my back, my hips and interesting my abdominals are all zinging with muscle stiffness and aching.  It's such a good feeling.

And now, this delicious long weekend I have such lovely plans.  Tomorrow I ride one of my favourite trails with a friend who I haven't caught up with in ages.  Then there's a meeting up with a woman I haven't seen for years and years.  Then on Sunday there's a ride over Ruthin with me, just me, time on my side and the glory of the bicycle.  Fab.

Work is going tremendously well.  It's really interesting, being treated as some kind of harddrive.  We're basically extracting information from my head, and at the same time I'm reorganising folders on the PC and it's all logical and sensible.  Flatteringly, my opinions are being asked and I'm being asked to be thoughful, analytical and give on the spot conclusions which I hadn't even thought about. It's odd because I'm not just feeling valued for the past, but I'm realising that it's recognised that I have a brain.  I've been asked to use it.  That's properly fascinating.

And hey, I'm chosing happiness.  Nothing can stop me ...

Distant Thunder

I went out to eat with friends this week, a 41^st birthday celebration out in the Peak District.  I was about to refer to them as old friends because that’s how they feel, established.  In reality though I realise none of them were in my life while I was married.

On a tangent here, when did I get unmarried?  It certainly wasn’t something which ended on 15^th November 2005 somehow, more a gradual process.

Anyway, established friends.  One of them was with his wife, who I have met before, but oddly not with him, I met her while I was giving a lift to his son.  It’s a funny time of life (tangent again ...) when you find you can have separate friendships with father and son.  I’m no longer quite sure who I met first.  So I’ve met Mrs J once before, and she seems really nice.  But Mr J started a conversation about what I was up to, and odd words came up to describe me.  He referred to me as free spirit and hippy.  I was perplexed.

I have odd standards against which I measure various things in life.  I measure cycling passions against the standards of training and preparation of Olympians.  I measure transient lifestyles against equally high and extreme standards.

My formative years saw me being brought up in the Quaker religion.  My mum was an Aldermaston Marcher in the 1950s, my dad successfully negotiated his National Service to work instead with the Friends Ambulance  Service.  They stood by their beliefs.  As I grew older in the Quaker religion, I mixed constantly with people who believed in living witness, those who lived in sustainable communities, those who lived in treehouses and squats and all kinds of things to protest against and to hinder efforts of road builders.  People who believed strongly in standing up for what they felt was right.  Hell, my friends had dreadlocks, piercings, tie dyed clothing, and indeed memorably one of them had changed his name by deed poll to Tree. No firstname, no surname, just Tree.  Some earned their livings busking, doing fire eating acts, playing the fiddle, some lived in ancient home converted wagon style vans.  Others fostered for a living.   And it was always obvious to me who were the hanger oners with the “in crowd”.  Those who had pretensions and became weekend hippies with their DMs and tassle fringed skirts.  But for me, acceptance didn’t need me to dress up in any affected manner, and it was fine that I was the square one because like them, I believed in being true to me and not painting a picture of something I wasn’t.  

I knew then and I know now I am not a free spirit, and I am not a hippy.  I have my feet too firmly on the ground, and I have direction too, not an ephemeral blow with the wind drifting.  These are not labels I aspire to.

And we have a finishing word from the Levellers ...