MUSINGS FROM MIDLIFE
My Stories
Cycling Like a Girl
"If it's both terrifying and amazing then you should definitely pursue it." Unknown
A message of congratulations from my new coach after the morning’s ride, one month of training. Little does he know I’m climbing back into bed at 11am. I’m shattered. Apparently it's an adjustment period. He’s measured and has incredible taste for a good bowl of porridge.
You’re always going to win me on food.
First week, my new power meter wasn’t working. Apparently you’re meant to calibrate it. Who would have thought?
The Journey
One day you finally knew what you had to do, and began, though the voices around you kept shouting their bad advice — though the whole house began to tremble and you felt the old tug at your ankles. “Mend my life!” each voice cried. But you did not stop. You knew what you had to do, though the wind pried with its stiff fingers at the very foundations, though their melancholy was terrible. It was already late enough, and a wild night, and the road full of fallen branches and stones. But little by little as you left their voices behind, the stars began to burn through the sheets of clouds, and there was a new voice which you slowly recognised as your own, that kept you company as you strode deeper and deeper into the world, determined to do the only thing you could do — determined to save the only life you could save.