Stories
This weekend was the official British Paralympic Association launch event. With less than 60 days to go until competition starts in Rio, we’re into the final leg of four years of hard work. It’s got me thinking about how I got here and why I do what I do...
It was late September 2015. Lee Craigie and I were four days into cycling the Pyrenees from west to east. It was the third peak of the day, the low-hanging clouds were refusing to let any heat through, and it was freezing cold at this altitude. It was afternoon and I was hungry and worn out...
It was getting dark but I didn’t want to break the spell by putting any light on. I was carrying two Exposure Joysticks and one Diablo that I had charged at home and had so far used only about 20 minutes worth of low light charge. I reached the edge of the plateau high above the causeway in the last of the light, and the vastness of it took my breath away.
"Oh no. No, no no, no." I frantically stabbed at buttons. The unit would raise a theatrical eyebrow then swoon again. I kept stabbing and hoping. I changed batteries, removed SD cards. Deactivated and reactivated maps and tracks in all the different orders I could think of. The Garmin initially responded as though it might deign to comply and then... nothing. I was losing time. I had to act. I got my iPhone out and switched it on. I had downloaded the GPX file to my Memory Map app as a backup but with the phone's infamous battery life and passcode to bypass, not to mention constantly having to get it in and out of my waterproof holder and pocket, I didn't foresee this as a long-term solution. I still had 285 miles to navigate to Tyndrum. If I couldn't convince my Garmin it wanted to live, I was in deep do do. My good mood imploded.
Here we go again, I thought in that long second when time slowed and the pavement came rushing up to meet me.
It had been some time since I last crashed. So long, in fact, that I was beginning to think something was wrong.
Good to know I’ve still got it...
"It's the day after the Highland Trail 550 and I feel like I have just now woken up from a dream. A four-day adventure of moving through the most elaborate of film sets, the most magical of dream worlds. While riding this trail that stretches the length of the Scottish Highlands, I feel like I've been flying with the birds who would call to me each morning or bounding like the deer that watched me quizzically from hilltops. I've been changed by this. Unquestionably, mind-alteringly changed"
This winter, I totally lost my fitness. I don’t mean, I got a bit out of shape. I mean, I did nothing that would remotely count as exercise for three months solid, while eating my own (increasing) body weight in toast and twiglets. There were reasons of course. But the reasons did nothing to change the entirely predictable and truly unsavoury end result. Something had to be done. And so, finally dragging myself off the sofa of slothdom a little after Christmas, I did the only sensible thing I could think of...
"The next time you get an email from Craigie that starts ‘I’ve got a really good idea…’, send it straight to the trash.”
It was 2am and five tired bodies were hauling their bikes along a pitch black road somewhere near Durness in the far north of Scotland, followed by a morose procession of support vehicles. I do believe that Rickie Cotter actually hated me in that dark moment, but now that those grueling 36 hours and 518 miles are over she will tell you a different story. It’s a good thing that pain and discomfort are hard to retain in memory otherwise I’d have no friends left.
We’ve all been there. That long, hard, lonely ride that feels like it’ll never end. The darkest hour of the night, where your eyelids start to droop and you don’t think you can find it in you to keep turning the pedals. The moments where there’s nothing left in you, where giving up is unthinkable, but going on feels impossible...
It was an honour and a pleasure to be interviewed by Sarah Connolly this morning. An honour because Sarah is pretty much the last word on all things to do with women's competitive cycling, and being recognised by her means we've already made it. A pleasure because she's fab to talk to, and seems almost as excited about the newborn Syndicate as we ourselves are...
