doing the same difficult thing again and again

January 27th, 2010 by Tristan

i train for cycling pretty much every day. its difficult. i motivate myself by sometimes not motivating myself at all - just going training because its what i’m supposed to do. it’s “filling the time up”.

i’m finding the most amazing beauty in my bike riding - the feel of the bike frame, a very stiff carbon framed bike - its a really interesting communication of what the road is doing, how my body is weighing it down.

there’s the sound of the tyres, the wind, the people around me, the danger, the safety, the blurring landscape.

last night i was cycling alone on the kyalami motor racetrack. as i went, there was the challenge and thrill of the level of the workout, the really really fast downhill corner, the amazing feeling of the wind, the 2 horses grazing next to office blocks and then the sky, the sky, the sky.

huge clouds all the way up to space, bright coloured with bright sun and great light, up over a darkened twilit course. there was wind. plovers were on the track. i nearly ran over a mongoose, running along the same way i was.

the sky, dark with storm and thunder behind me as a turned at the top of the track, looking down onto a bright window of rolling hills and houses in late afternoon sunlight.

ah.