It’s been a bizarre year – euphoria one day; despair the next. And my first ‘real’ race season. It went something this….
Signed up to Ironhorse-Extreme. Hurrah! Face planted the tarmac from the road bike… Doh! And Oooowyaah! Broken jaw… liquid diet… right in the middle of the key endurance building phase in my training. First race for Ironhorse-Extreme… pairs with Rob… great fun… whistling just inches past the trees in Sherwood Pines in the dark…. Not what the Doctor ordered! Wildboar…. Wildly Boring but met some cool characters. Mountain Mayhem…. intense, funny, hairy. 10 @ Kirroughtree… fun-tastic… punishing. Sleepless in the Saddle… like Mayhem but without the danger elements… and (even) more ‘bike walking’. Married the lovely (and extraordinarily patient) Charlotte. Tropical island honeymoon… surfing… lounging... relaxing. Came home… house sank in flood. (Saved the bikes though). Back to the drawing board in so many respects.
Ideas and opportunities blossom at the strangest times. The crazy year that’s just passed has truly been one of exceptional highs and ‘out of the blue’ lows. Fortunately though, the turbulence of recent times has bucked me off a slope I was slipping down…. Doing ‘what we’ve always done’ can be a dangerous thing. Imagination can be dulled and ‘riding to become a better mountain biker’ can so easily turn into repetitive and ineffective training (and even worse it becomes plain ‘training’ rather than Riding). So I’ve started to mix things up and I’m noticing the benefits already, both mentally and physically. Some crazy ideas that have lurked at the back of my mind for a long time are now jumping up and down in front of me. This time they aint going to go away unsatisfied…. ’09 starts here.
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