Hindsights

As I begin to separate out the many strands of this past week (The Pyrenees cycling tour – https://www.actcyclingtours.co.uk/tour/pyrenees-2023/) I am drawn to doing exactly that – identifying and separating the strands.

In my search for identifying, I’m beginning to read my journal entries for the tour period. Day 0, the travel day, started well, based on the opening lines of my journal:

Exhilaration seems to be a more suitable word than simply excitement.

There’s more depth and more complexity to this.

Alan, private journal, 17th June 2023

Much of my journal entry that day is in the conversational Q&A form which I use to probe myself at times. As I read, I find lines which indicate the true state of me:

You don’t sound convincing …..

I was not convincing myself.

Many voices, many discordants, many challenges rattling around me.

Alan, private journal, 17th June 2023

How did you deal with this?

Step by step was the most important thing for me, staying focused enough.

Alan, private journal, 17th June 2023

………………………………..

By the morning of Day 1, Sunday 18th June, I was nervous and emotional and anxious, despite sleeping well enough. Waking late, I was prompted by Robert’s degree to preparation to realise it was late – later than I expected to wake, for sure.

Down for breakfast, and I didn’t know what to eat. Seems incomprehensible now, a week on, yet I looked around and could not see what to eat, what I could eat.

Sitting with a little bread and fruit and coffee and juice, I began to see what others were eating – ah, a big bowl of cereal for one, yoghurt for others, fruit and jam and honey and bread. I smiled, went about my task with greater assurance, filled a plate and settled, just a little.

…………………………

Out on the road, Day 1 proceeded supremely well initially, on the surface. The hindsight of a week later is that I burned a huge amount of energy on unnecessary stuff in the opening leg to the van. Hitting the climbs, they clubbed me and battered me before I could raise anything.

Not ready, and what a learning.

Bent over saddle, HR skywards and unable to understand what was happening, falling out of cleats and failing to get back in, being blown by wind, falling, failing.

……………………………………………..

And, I settled. Again. Wisdom, and then space, from John. A track to follow, and a growing realisation of the need to do it my way.

Later, I’m recording my first majestic landscape video of the tour, for me, for everyone.

Atop the ascent, there sits Ed, calm and easy, hugely reassuring.

Claustrophobia from crowded roads on initial climb has dissipated, and with this has gone fears and horrors and anxieties.

…………………………………….

Closing out my journal on Sunday night, I wrote:

What legs I need tomorrow, on Col d’Aubisque, is easy.

What I need of myself is calm, assurance and perseverance.

Alan, private journal, 18th June 2023