Thoughts.

I’m sitting on the train back home from London and the realisation of what I’ve achieved finally sinks in. I smile to myself as I glance out of the window at the houses rushing past and then again as I look at my bike resting against the inside of the train.
What an amazing piece of machinery. Not as flash or expensive as other bikes on the trip but special to me in it’s own way. Each mark, scratch, dollop of dried on energy gel it’s own story.
The lady sitting across from me looks at me quizzically, wondering why I’m so smug. I want to tell her, hell, I want to tell everybody sitting on the train about what I’ve done but it’s satisfying to let her wonder and wallow in my own happiness.
Three days previously, I am on the same train, just in the opposite direction. My bike gleaming and a million worries rotating inside my head. Full of self doubt, nervousness, but excitement at the prospect that lay ahead.
I’d arrived at the hostel/prison for young men to meet the others with a feeling not too dissimilar to that of a first date. I had a picture of the people from chatting on the forum, some I’d even met on other rides but it was still a great unknown and I stood quietly for a while as last minute preparations were finished.
I won’t bore you with details of the route, a breakdown of the 302 miles or what I ate on any particular day because I don’t think you need to know and likewise there are some things that happened that I don’t want to share because those memories belong to me and nobody else.
I’m not an arrogant or big headed person so please don’t take this statement as such but I found the ride easier than I thought it would be. I am not saying it was a breeze because three rides of that distance will never be easy but I assume that the training I did made it easier for myself.
When embarking on the trip, I expected pain, suffering, misery and a challenge that I would struggle on. It sounds strange but I feel cheated that it didn’t hurt more. That’s not to say that I didn’t enjoy the trip, quite the opposite in fact but when I arrived at the Eiffel Tower, there was an anticlimax to the whole event, more a release rather than a chequered flag.
I thought I would be emotional. Writing my final blog last week, I felt choked and I assumed that those feelings would stay with me until I reached Paris. I don’t really know what I was expecting but what I felt wasn’t what I thought I would. I suppose the easiest way to express it would be to say that I ticked the box, job done.
I couldn’t have asked for a better group of people to go away with. Each individual had their own story and I think I shared some moments that will lodge in everyone’s memory for a lifetime.
I think we all shared a reality check when we visited the War Grave Cemetary at Etaples. Here we are, riding across France when in the not too distant past men of my age were fighting for their country. It was touching to watch as my friends walked around the graves paying respect to those who gave so much for so little.

Apologies, if you’re reading this and thinking that I’m depressed. I’m not, it’s just I’ve had a lot of time to think about things and realise that I am a lot more fortunate than some.
I achieved what I set out to do. Prepare for a trip and follow something through for the first time in my life. The problem is that I am left with more questions than answers and a hunger for bigger, better things. I thought it would close a chapter but it’s opened a door and given me a taste of things that I can do with my life.

The trip brought an abundance of highlights, the long, hair-pinned descent on day two, the steady climb on day three. Cobbles, the Champs Elysees. Riding in the tyre marks of my heroes. Not just the professional ones or the casualties of war but the other 21 who did something amazing in their own way.

Redemption

I feel like a cliff diver standing on the edge looking at the white water below as it crashes against the rocks. I know what it will feel like if I jump, that moment of freefall as my mind goes blank and the air around me goes silent.
The whistle of the wind as my senses overload and my heartbeat quickens. The adrenaline pumps as the fragile body plummets, placing all faith in destiny and the outcome of life and death with chance.
Like a poker player, you plan, plot, scheme and prepare as best you can but in the end it all comes down to fate. As the dealer flips the final cards, will it be a triumphant punch in the air, like the diver returning to the surface or will it be that one gamble too far, the soul destroying sink to the ocean floor?

7 months of training have come to this. Tomorrow, my grand depart on my own Tour de France. I know now that I have done all I can and I feel ready, stronger. I still feel like I’m standing on the edge, on the brink of something special, something defining. A challenge.

To some, a challenge that may not seem that mean a feat. I’ve had it all over the last few months. The supporters, the disbelievers, the questioners, the mocking. 300 miles? That’s easy… oh I did that last year. Not much of a challenge is it?

I am not doing this for anyone else. Not for a charity. Not for a group of people less fortunate than myself. Not for a jolly. Not for a laugh or because it’s there. I’m doing this for me. I find that for some people this is the hardest thing that they fail to understand. The selfishness of it all.

I don’t care about anything else. I need to do this to prove it to myself that I can. That for once, I follow through with something that I set out to do. For once, I don’t take the easy option. For once, I train and I put in the hard work and I deserve every bit of goodness that comes out of that hard work.

For the times when I’ve said no to the alcohol, no to the chocolate bar, for the double training sessions when all I want to do is rest. The early starts, the look on my girlfriend and children’s faces when for the umpteenth weekend in a row I’ve put on my cycling gear and said, “I’ll see you this evening.”

Cold, wet, hot, dry miles. Miles on my own, miles with friends, miles with strangers. Miles when the wind is blowing in my face and the rain is clinging and dripping in equal measures. When it’s so hot that you just can’t take any more and question, “Why did I agree to this?” Days when I’ve felt like I can’t turn the pedal one more time, when my lungs hurt so much on that final climb that they feel like they must be filling with blood. The days when I’m flying, invincible and that hill that I walked up last year felt effortless this year. The days when I could take on the world and days when I want to curl up in a ball and sob so that the world can forget about me.

These are the days that make me stronger, the days that define a person, the days that I must go through to better myself and become the person I want to be. The days when I can puff out my chest and scream at the top of my voice, “THE REASON I AM HERE TODAY IS BECAUSE OF ME”

Me, 300 miles, 3 days and the start of the rest of my life.

Let’s finish the game.