It's odd being home, and wondering, even though it's not been long really, am I changing. Is this oddly quirky life I'm temporarily living changing me? It's odd for me hoping that it is, because I started out thinking I was a pretty well formed mature type person (hehehe) who was kind of solid in who she was. I still am. But accepting and embracing change.
Living out of a rucksack has been interesting. I'm a little bit scandalised by how much stuff I have at home, and how unnecessary it all seems. After six weeks on three pairs of knickers (four after the merino pair entered my life) and three pairs of socks, I can't believe I have devoted a drawer pretty much to each of these things. So I'm clearing out. Throwing away. Looking around me at all this damned stuff. I may yet open an e-bay account (although not for the used knickers). How can I possibly need all these things?
I'm feeling oddly unfit while at the same time being confident I am carrying fitness. I know it will return, and expect it will do so pretty quickly. Poor body has been shell shocked by the weekend. Saturday road ride was enjoyable and manageable and well, OK, hilly but not that final hill too far to break me.
Sunday I went out on the MTB with apprehension. Even heading out I was convinced I should be riding on my own and not in a group. Really didn't want to ride with people and feel that pressure / anxiety (all self imposed I know). I knew I could leave the group if I wanted and do my own thing anyway, so I went. I normally have long periods on the bike when my brain switches off into automatic and I start to simply dawdle. Sunday was a change for me in that I didn't glide off into space once. Proper focus all the way, and determination not to just give up and say I can't keep up but to keep trying and keep trying and keep trying. Which I did. I was aware at every incline that I wasn't just spinning, I wasn't just going through the motions but I was giving it every push I had, even past the point of legs screaming with pain. I dealt with that simply by allowing myself to cry but not by giving up. Never have I done a ride hurting so much, and deliberately forcing the hurt. Never have I done a ride where 75% of it was probably me in the red. Yet because I'm out of bike condition, it kind of makes me smile in wry fashion because I know, properly know that nobody out with me would have dreamed for one moment that I really was trying so hard.
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