First difficulties

Last week's riding was wonderful but it was straight back to work on Monday morning and a week which was filled with office drama.  I tried to keep out of it as much as I could but got dragged into meetings when I could have been doing something more productive and had threats that my most successful and exciting project in years could be killed on the whim of some bureaucrat economist in Munich.

Mostly though, I raised above it, got on with my work and managed to ride three times and yoga twice and oh my! how those yoga sessions were needed.

My rides have been on the new bike (good) but not long (bad).  On Wednesday I felt like riding to Buxton to see the Adventure Syndicate but in the end we took the car and ate dinner out in a relaxed fashion and then got home near to midnight buzzing with excitement so resting wasn't great anyway.

There was a lot of talk of the dark places we go when we're riding long distances and through the night and how badly we may behave and how we're all sharing it.  Having the mental strength to deal with it.  I know everyone suffers it and it's how we deal with it that counts but I've never heard it so openly spoken about - and so individually too.

I think I've got better at managing melt downs.  Still I have the occasional moment when I plough on regardless and make things worse but increasingly I'm finding the will to step back, consider, stop and let things go before trying to proceed with more caution.

I still don't fail very often.  I'm too stubborn and maybe I just don't push myself far enough so I stay in my comfort zone or at least wobbling along the thin line on the edge of it.  I think TAW will challenge that for sure.  If not the race itself then some of the events leading up to it.

After listening to Lee Craigie and Emily Chappel on Wednesday I feel slightly more confident that I can complete but mainly, far less concerned if I don't.  While I have every intention of finishing, the start of my journey - plotting new routes around my same old backyard has already taken me down lanes I've never ridden on before and at times of day I wouldn't normally ride and I've had chats and conversations with people that have been more satisfying and more uplifting than anything I have ever experienced before.

After Wednesday's motivation, of course I rode to work both Thursday and Friday, taking the hilly ride home both days because it felt right and the hilly route in on Friday because I had to go to the post office.  The post man brought me my new tent which was so excitingly light, I spent the day at work picking it up out of my bag to appreciate its lightness.

I finished the week exhausted, staring down the barrel of 122 miles of riding to make up the week's miles (I won't make that) and bursting for more, as well as a rest week.  I reminded myself I get a rest week starting on Monday and got on with planning my Saturday ride.