“Nothing is permanent. Everything is temporary. Every moment gives you a new ending and a new beginning. You literally get a second chance every second. Once you understand this, you can do almost anything, or go almost anywhere, because you’re not holding on to everything anymore.” Marcadangel

Camping last Christmas, I serendipitously bump into an old friend. Sitting under the canopy of a luscious tree in the stinking summer heat she tells me about a book called The Surrender Experiment.

I immediately order it. I like a bit of a challenge.

"Someone asked me what's the most difficult thing about owing a dog? I replied, the goodbye.”Unknown

On my hands and knees in the dirt digging out a grave for our dog Summer I hit clay, and Google says it needs to be one metre deep. The shovel with my arms now can’t reach the bottom. I have taken to using a saucepan to finish.

Damn Google. F*** life.

One of my daughters is coming in and out of the backyard to see if I’m done. Everything in me wants to cry out, to sob uncontrollably, not wanting to adult anymore. This is hard, it hurts. Crying for a week now as I watched our girl deteriorate. She could barely move.

If we find ourselves in what seems like a rotten or painful situation and we think, “well, how is this enlightenment?” We can just remember this notion of the path, that what seems undesirable in our lives doesn’t have to put us to sleep. What seems undesirable in our lives doesn’t have to trigger our habitual reactions.

We can let it show us where we’re at and let it remind us that the teachings encourage precision and gentleness, with loving-kindness toward every moment. When we live this way, we feel frequently-maybe continuously-at crossroads, never knowing what’s ahead.” Pema Chrodon. When Things Fall Apart.

Well Pema, in the spirit of never knowing what’s ahead, here goes.

Dragging myself up a mountain in Lake Annecy five months into my cycling, I was riding with a woman who was noticeably sturdy as she paced herself up the climb. Me on the other hand, well eyebrows were raised.

Later, over a croissant she told me she trained with The Hurt Box. Ouch.

Seed planted. Really, she had me at croissant. I left France to hike 235kms solo in the Swiss mountains. A fan of distance shall we say.

On my return home I found a remote endurance coach. I ticked off Three Peaks and grand fondos. Training weeks tallied 450kms and serious climbing. I was fit, and tired.

"What we don't need in the midst of struggle is shame for being human." Brene Brown

Cycling some 45kms to climb the infamous Mt Baw Baw I'm 4kms from the top. I stop. I’m having a mental breakdown training for Three Peaks Challenge. I did both Three Peaks and climbed Mt Baw Baw last year.

Crying, well a few primal sobs, the words tumble out of my mouth. I’m not doing Peaks. On my own, the others up before me, there is no one to hear except that ruthless mountain.

Last year, training was going well.

"Just where you are - that's the place to start." Pema Chodron

Five am and the rooster crows. My alarm clock. Usually I love it, prone to making me chuckle whilst climbing out of bed. This morning I hate it. The usual up and go is not there. I lie still. Fuck this. Full of anguish. My heart caving in. Can I even launch myself out of bed? I am exhausted, bordering on broken.

A training morning. I need to get my kit on and go. The world seems like a black and white slow-motion movie, with no sound. I do not know how but I get dressed. I pedal twenty-five minutes to the velodrome.

“He walks like it’s the start of the world and nothing needs to be done.” My 10 year old daughter observing her 12 year old brother.

My youngest of four children just turned 13 and I’m both relieved and grief stricken. How did that happen so fast, and thank goodness they're all getting older. I’m happy to see the young adults they are becoming, yet heart broken for the little children they used to be.

Each milestone is met with emotional contradictions, much celebration and yet a sadness we will never pass this way again.

I feel myself letting go against the back drop of wanting to hang on.

"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?

"Discomfort is the currency of success." Brooke Castillo

Wet weather and an early work shift means no riding for me today. Apparently it's called a rest day. Somehow that is meant to make me feel better about not spinning my legs. Well that and I've got to work. I have to pay for bike expenses. They just keep coming.

You know you buy a bike and think yep, all set. Not true. Next comes the lycra, lights, Garmin. Thrown in an upgrade to a 32 cog so you an climb mountains, like real mountains. New tyres, a few times already as apparently I ride a lot. And winter kit, who would have thought I'd get up in freezing temperatures to ride.

"You can say that climbers suffer the same as other riders, but they suffer in a different way. You feel the pain, but you're glad to be there." Richard Virenque

Think brutal. Thirteen hours to cycle 235kms with 4,600m climbing. All for a jersey. If not, you don’t get one. Harsh and fair.

Hello Three Peaks Challenge.

Gifted with unrelenting nausea, I'm constantly pushing self-doubt away. Not helped by arriving at the lodge to riders talking tactics for a sub 8-hour finish.

Did I mention wanting to throw up?

"Please do no feed the fears." Unknown.

Recovery week in my monthly training I have a prescribed day off the bike. Damn. If I can’t ride, why not climb a tree? Makes sense, so I find myself standing on a ledge 15m high harnessed into a rope challenge course.

My 14-year-old daughter has already scrambled across the swinging rope wall quite a few metres wide. Fear is pumping through my veins. I feel frozen. I shout to her that I’m flipping out. She laughs, and yells “just start, if you fall the harness will catch you.”

Yeah great.

Words that accidently fell out of my mouth around the 100km mark of ride recently. My two cycling buddies were not helpful when I asked them for motivational words to finish the final 50kms. Admittedly, they might have been literally eating cake. Ravished. Not caring about chatter. They left me no choice than to spit this directive out.

Laughing, they dared me to use this as the title of my next blog.

Challenge accepted.

If you read my blogs, you’ll know I have an endurance coach, and now a sports dietician. See cake. I was pretty damn hungry. The dietician put me on Gatorade for my long-distance rides. I know, I know.

"Five types of people you want to surround yourself with: the inspired, the passionate, the motivated, the grateful and the open minded." Unknown.....And the sixth, the cyclists.

I leave home thirty minutes earlier to meet the bunch. Some would call this crazy considering I could start closer to home. And yet in spite of the extra time and kilometers, joining this exceptional club has been my foundation into cycling this year.

Easing into this sport gently would be a gross understatement of how my approach has unfolded.

Some of my co-workers, endowed with psychological and behavioral degrees, have jokingly used the word obsessive.

"And though all the things I love may pass away and the great family of things and people I have made around me will see me go, I feel them living in me like a great gathering ready to reach a greater home. When one thing dies all things die together, and must live again in a different way, when one thing is missing everything is missing, and must be found again in a new whole and everything wants to be complete, everything wants to go home.

And the geese travelling south are like the shadow of my breath flying into darkness on great-beats to an unknown and where I belong." David Whyte.

One of my closest friends has gone to India. Her entire bucket list, the last wish standing. I am so happy she is there.

"She realised she had this one. This big, bold and beautiful life. And she realised she didn't want to live it chasing and crying and apologising. Starving and fearing and regretting. She realised she wanted to live it proudly and freely and creatively. Lovingly and fully and sweetly. She realised she could choose. And so, she chose." Unknown.

The guide leads the ride out of town, yelling in his heavy Italian accent and broken English, “holes”, “this way”, and my favorite, “bumpy.” His arms are flying to communicate signals of where to go. I have no problem understanding given the terrific hand show.

I laugh and shout to him, “I love listening to your accent.”

I have learned someone can love you with their whole heart, and still break yours.

And that hurt they carry has nothing to do with you, but everything about the relationship they have with themselves.

I have learned no amount of love can heal another’s pain.

They have to love themselves enough to find their own way. I can only walk calmly beside them in their distress.

I have learned that is enough.

And that, this is love.

"Let go of certainty. The opposite isn't uncertainty. It's openness, curiosity and a willingness to embrace paradox, rather than choose up sides. The ultimate challenge is to accept ourselves exactly as we are, but never stop trying to learn and grow." Tony Schwartz

In the days leading up to my departure to Europe, I started this blog to capture the time before the beginning of my hike.

Of course, I had these writing ideas but it never turns out to be what you think. Read on.

I’ve finished work for the next five weeks, all nicely negotiated into my contract. I’m down to the smaller logistics before I fly out.

"She has been feeling it for awhile now -- that sense of awakening. There is a gentle rage simmering inside her, and it is getting stronger by the day.

She will hold it close to her -- she will nurture it and let it grow. She won't let anyone else take it away from her. It is her rocket fuel and finally, she is going places. She can feel it down to her very core -- this is her time. She will not only climb mountains -- she will move them too." Lang Leav

You know that mother who sacrifices her own wellbeing for the sake of all others? The one who is tirelessly (but is really tired) giving of her time to the family and community.

"You have seen my descent, now watch my rising." Rumi.

My 11-year old daughter swings the car door open, leaps in and greets me with “hello adventure Mum!” She makes me laugh. She has been at her Dad’s house all weekend and we catch up on what’s been happening for her.

She asks after my weekend, I tell her about my 7-hour solo hike across the Cathedral Ranges, the 60kms of riding in the hills and a 30km recovery ride afterwards. And then there’s a work day thrown in, and before picking her up I smashed out 100kms on the bike.

Just because it was my day off. Who wants to do housework right?

"They won't tell you fairytales of how girls can be dangerous and still win. They will only tell you stories where girls are sweet and kind and reject all sin.

I guess to them it's a terrifying thought, a red riding hood who knew exactly what she was doing when she invited the wild in." Nikita Gill - Girls of the Wild

With my inherent love for the mountains, how could I say no to our friends asking us to leave town a week before Christmas and camp. Get away from the lead up and the madness? Hell yes. The alternative of staying in the city felt untenable for many reasons. And who could knock back days of swimming in the lake? I was enormously grateful for the invitation as we packed up and left.