Well, I am. Not totally, but it’s been a difficult week. Medical issues, after 2.5 years of dithering are accelerating at a pace I am slightly uncomfortable with as some stark decisions suddenly need to be made in timeframes I am not sure of. Or rather, I am sure, but suddenly and surprisingly to me, I am also massively resentful of having to make the decisions in the first place.
It could be worse, it could be a decision neccesitated by cancer. A horrible sentence to write but one that both a consultant and the not mother-in-law have both said to me in the past week. Harsh, yes, but also true. It could be worse. But as my lovely friend Caroline points out, whether you wanted something or not, you are, at the very least, permitted to grieve a little for the option being removed entirely from you through no damn fault of your own.
Work is also a mess. A great big fat mess. £48 million in savings before April next year. I don’t currently know if I will have a job past Feb next year. It’s hard, but it also might be the rocket I needed. I do know it’s made me respect some people less, and respect other people more as I see the way some people deal with it, and the obvious toll it takes on those you’d assume it would not.
So where does biking come into this?
It saves my soul. Dramatic, but it’s been such a hard week. Tears. Tantrums. Frustration. Anger. Disbelief. I don’t cry easily, I don’t cry often, I’ve cried in the loos, at my desk, nearly in front of the entire Department this week. I’m the kind of person who has to watch soppy films deliberately in order to make myself cry. I’m just not your average girly girl. So, it’s not been easy to suddenly discover I have emotions and just like everyone else.
So, on realising the other half might need his lie in, I got my biking kit on, made a passing observation that my jersey wasn’t any tighter than the last time I wore it which was a small victory, and off up the hill I went. We live at 190 metres. I hit 290 metres in 0.75 miles. In fact, I suppose this blog is becoming a tale of very many hills, but I struggle on the uphills so very badly that it’s almost inevitable.
Except, do you know, today wasn’t so bad. Not so bad that someone commented as I rode by the local landrover/farm vehicle dealership near the top that I was proper going for it. Well, they were the same people who at the beginning of the summer were laughing at the fat bird on the Marin (they even knew it was a Marin so I’m guessing their bikers too) so, despite the fact it should mean nothing, it actually meant something. I smiled.
I’m getting the hang of gearing too. I’ve been reading a lot of Tour de France books and a lot about the smoothness of pedalling. Mine has always been about as inelegant as my climbing – clunky, off rythmn, wrong gear. Something’s changed, because it almost felt like floating up the hill, though going up on tarmac is always easier. But that fitness I didn’t have at the beginning of the summer, it’s still not perfect, it’s still not wonderful, but it’s there, because I stopped twice, very briefly, and I got to the top. Something that hitherto, I’ve not managed. Without hitting the very bottom gear. In wind and rain showers. Small victories, my friends, small victories, but important ones, nevertheless.
So at the top I went investigating off down a road/track marked Golf Club. Tarmac at first, staring off into the depths of the Bowlands in the distance, admiring the curve and angle of Pendle. Catching my breath. Onto track and that unique sand/grit/mud. Pothole dodging until I remembered it wasn’t the point, and so abandoned the dodging, instead flying. Following the little blue bridleway arrows which weren’t supposed to be there, the map didn’t say they were, across cattle grids, off into the unknown. Finally finding the singletrack, not throttling too hard because I was alone, but still laying off the brakes, still letting go a little. Come to a gate, see Rising Bridge, decide not to drop down today. Turn around, company of a scary looking dog, leave him behind looking slightly confused. Changing up gears as I go up the hill and wondering what’s happened, what’s changed, how can this be? This is not the way it goes.
Back along the track, past some golfers stopping and staring, bemusement and perhaps slight envy in the eyes of the bloke I locked eye contact with before flying past, laughing, a right mess of rainbow kit and mud splattered face. Around a corner, eyes widening in shock at the massive rainbow across the Bowland hills in the distance. Glee. Pass a dog walker, say hi, he’s laughing but it’s okay, I know I look like a wind demon.
Drop back down 100 metres, taking every track detour possible, eking the happy out, the feeling of being utterly free. Alone is where the magic happens, alone is where I choose the way and the speed, alone is where I quietly mutter to myself as the back wheel skids entirely across a track and still I hold it, still I don’t dab, still no falls. Pedalling down bridleways so boggy that the water comes above my rims, finding the weight distribution, finding the edges, loving the edges. Find such a steep drop of a hill I walk it, and even that is slightly scary, but save it, will come back when it’s dry, when it’s right to fly and it’s quiet and I wont hit anyone on the way up.
Arrive home with energy to spare. Strip the mud and damp and wet, shiver and await the inevitable temperature plummet. In front of the fire, TV on.
In a little corner of East Lancs, a little girl is finding the edges on her own. My route, my fight, my battle, my hill, my win.
Fucking hell, I needed that.
