I did a rather large bike ride at the weekend.
(To the jaw-dropping Elan Valley and back: 210km and 3,600m climbing in 28ºC heat, over 11 hours. I know, right?!)
The main reason I’m writing about it—the bit that will serve as a helpful reminder for you of how the human operating system works—I’ll get to in a minute, but firstly… I’m just really grateful that I can do these sorts of rides!
It’s a full 17 or 18 years (during my cycling journalist heydays) since I was capable of such feats—there’s been injury and upset and pretty much a decade of that time not cycling at all—so I don’t take any of this stuff for granted.
And during those times of lying fallow, ‘I’—in reality the Giles Ego Construct 📦— could not foresee, nor imagine, nor allow itself to even consider that such rides would be possible again.
But here we are!
I’m constantly amazed at the human body and I love that it’s been seemingly important enough to me, to keep on trying to reach these heights again. Go me and my unconscious programming! 😆
(Ok, so that bit was about the human operating system too, sorry. I can’t help myself.)
Good times
Anyway, on a mahoosive ride like that, there are always going to be highs and lows. (I think the fact they’re so extreme, and so condensed into such a neat little package, is one of the allures it holds for me.)
Here’s a high, the likes of which I hope to remember for many years to come: