Cycling is glorious! It just is.

When I was in my late teens and early 20's, having dropped out of University after a year where I never settled, I first found work in a well known supermarket chain.

I went through various positions from till boy, to chief yoghurt stacker, to being in charge of all the store tech (never has someone had a job they were so patently unsuited for - I had two main jobs, unplugging and plugging back in all sorts of tech from PC's, to copiers, to printers, to the checkouts themselves in the vain hope problems would fix themselves, and my next move was a little bash or kick of said device - before ringing the help desk. I was even in charge of this network cupboard thing, a more complicated array of star wars tech you have never seen in your life, running every device in the store by patch cables between one port and another - none of which I understood. I might as well have been trying to fly the Millenium Falcon as go in that maze and fix something ; the other part of that role luckily was compiling and then printing out and explaining the previous days sales reports to the morning senior management meeting, which I was slightly better at, being numerically literate and economically knowledgeable enough to be noticed and thus made a manager myself), to being a fresh food manager - the highlight of my management career was becoming the leading promoter and distributor of Yakult in the UK (those little yeasty bio yoghurts) after ordering several thousand by mistake (we usually sold about 5 packs a week) - and plying the whole of South London with promotional offers selling the stuff.

Anyway - bear with me. During this time I lived for nothing else other than looking forward to the weekend, and playing football. To be fair I played about 3 or 4 times a week sometimes, any game that was going, for anyone short a man, but Sundays was THE day. I could earn a couple of hundred quid for a shift in the supermarket, so technically each game played cost me £205 including subs, but I didn't care. My heart and soul needed that game of football. To be with some mates. To run around like mad. Feel the joy that a good piece of control or astute pass played, or clever piece of thinking, a moment of skill, or heaven forbid a GOOOOOAAAAALLLLL would give me. A moment to feed off through the week ahead as I looked forward to the following week. I wasn't great (I did play with some people in the latter years of my sunday league 'career' who had got paid at various stages of their own footballing journey rather than always paying subs, and they were very obviously way above my level) but I wasn't entirely shit, and those moments of doing something well were enough to sustain me each week.

I gave up football long ago now. As you get older you go up through the leagues, it's ironic that you end up playing at the highest level you ever have at the same time as your ability to compete is falling off a cliff....with whipper snappers legging it down the wing past you, and when looking at other things I considered tennis (no-one I knew played), golf (takes far too long ; and the moments of achievement to dwell on are far less frequent), and eventually settled on three sports in the form of Triathlon, swim, bike, run, and cycling in particular being on a Sunday morning meant keeping my routine :-), because let's be honest - when you give that time back you are never seeing it again.

However I never looked forward all week to riding. Partly because I'd attend a lot of training sessions in other disciplines. Mostly because work was so busy, it always came first and I had my shit together. If I had to miss a ride it wasn't as big a deal, and the job I'd be missing it for was typically worth much more than £200 ;-) with other livelihoods resting upon us having it.

So in a sense I'm regressing, because I'm looking forward all week at the moment to riding my bike. In the week there is often little else but late nights, and being too tired to run and lately even, swim so much whether in the mornings or evenings. I even slept in the daytime last Saturday afternoon. That NEVER happens unless I'm ill ; which is very very rare.

Last Sunday I got a road bike out of the shed for the first time this year - having been on the gravel bike thus far this year, and even that not as much as I'd like. It's a nice bike this one, understated, the barest black coat of paint over the carbon frame and the tiniest of brand names on the top tube. The opposite of 'Sparkles' (if you know you know). Disc brakes, di2 gears, lightweight wheels, and it's also a very light frame, and stiff, but the tubes aren't all aero and racy, it flies under the radar like a bike you'd just pick up anywhere, so it's not as stiff as many bikes out there.

Haven't got a name for this one.......black, understated and lovely1

To be honest, the gravel bike is pretty light and I've been loving it, but this was much easier in terms of maintaining speed and holding onto a group of other riders on road bikes. I even got on the front a bit. I've said it a lot of times, but the feeling of riding a bike, pedalling, and everything working in harmony whilst the surrounding countryside glides by in relative silence.....some effort but nothing you can't maintain, it is just so gloriously serene and lovely. Doing that with some mates to chat to when you want a break from your own thoughts makes it even better.

We met up at 9am, and I left home at 8am to spin up to the meet point the long way. It was so misty and eerie when I left home, I had a light on the back to save my life, but maybe I should have had one on the front! The mist was also holding the cold air tight in its grasp to be felt by the fingers, face and lungs as I rode. I couldn't feel my hands, and the air was so wet that moisture was dripping off me like sweat - which for sure it was not. I had just started and was freezing. I prayed for sun.

Sun is breaking through, and we're chilling whilst someone changes a puncture!

By 9am it was clear the sun was going to break through. I met a group big enough to break into two by way of pace, and we were both riding the same route, my route from Bredhurst to Marden which is a lovely country village surrounded by flat roads, small streams and rivers, and with a lovely stop at a cafe called the Post Office. The roads around Marden were flat, getting there, and especially getting back definitely wasn't. After the week before when I died a bit across a flat-ish 70km, this was going to be 100km for me up and down with 1000m of climbing - definitely a step up.

Anyway, no drama's - legs felt OK throughout. Suffered a bit up bluebell hill, which goes on and on and I was tiring by then, but I recovered straight after - it wasn't like the week before where my legs went (all bonked out) - it was just a long hill and steep in places that did me for a brief moment. I'm not little, and though I'm not bad on hills now, (short ones I attack a bit, long ones I try to set a pace and not dwell in misery, they are all in the head) certain gradients still send me backwards a little, and I have to back off and spin (turn the legs over quickly and easily in the lowest gear focusing on pedalling technique).

The whole ride I just enjoyed. I felt free. From work. From life. From being me. I have days where I feel invigorated, but little stresses sit deeper in my consciousness than they ever have before, when they were water off a ducks back. Now I wear any responsibilities I have a bit heavier than ever before. I don't want to but I haven't found a way for them not to just yet.

I can't not worry about the smallest things. There are scars in my psyche now that I never had before different things that have happened in recent years, and aggravating factors around me are often pushing all sorts of feelings around like pigswill in a bucket being carried across rough ground and spilling out left right and centre. I hold this all together at work, which is my 'professional' space, but in the background my mind is always moving at 100mph, pulling in different directions, and settling nowhere. The emotions spill over in strange ways.

I had a fight with a bag of Salt and Vinegar lentil crisps the other day - and lost. Well - they got eaten, but they got their revenge by being crumbs by the time I'd opened the horrifically stubborn bag they were in that nearly got launched at a wall. So childish. But I know this, and any other time I lose my shit with something minor, it is me externalising feelings that were partly about something else, albeit when emotions spill out you should never trivialise them. There is always something that you aren't happy with that you build upon - like a fault line - it's there already, but a movement or trigger can cause an earthquake. I can't get happy. Except for the space I find to be with family and friends IF I can stop my mind racing (rare) or if I'm pedalling on a Sunday it seems. It was lovely this Sunday to have such a big group out, all meeting at the same stop.

Medway Tri Posse!!!!

So I'm looking forward to this coming Sunday. Not sure where I'll go. Kent is my oyster, it'll be more than 100km as we've broken that barrier this year now, and my mind will be free and chilled for a brief period of respite. Pray for some nice weather, pray for a good group, and off we go! Cycling is glorious. It just IS!!!!

PS. Two rides since I wrote this, both of 120kmish, neither were easy, but I've got that distance in me now, just need to somehow find time to train in the week! A couple of evenings inc one hard effort would go a long way to improving my strength, at the moment I'm sooo weak compared to how I can ride!!! Note to self, sort it out!!!! Oh, and I have to work a few weekends soon. Doh!!!!! Best laid plans.