FINE

Milling along the emerald countryside with a few mates on a Sunday. A nice way to spend one’s time.

Only it’s not Sunday, it’s Monday or Friday, just after bastardian rush hour. Still a pleasant pastime, however onlookers deem it necessary to grumble into themselves,

 ‘Should they not be working rather than riding those feckin’ bikes….’

Those onlookers may sometimes receive a Churchill victory salute, or on other occasions, verbal excretion may be punted at their aural toilets.

Most of the time they are ignored. As we are an elitist group. A cult of wasters rebelling in daytime/anytime labour. We have cause, we have purpose. And those onlookers aren’t part of it.

There comes certain times when intruders come upon the club. These people are, of course, welcomed, but with them comes a question, and that question sparks a mushroom cloud in my, reasonably large, partly air-filled, head…

“HOW’S TRAINING GOING?”

The query is like a virtual brick being thrown at my face. I am nearly in the ditch from the shock of this ruthless inquiry. My mind dazzles with an aurora of thoughts, experiences, figures and, most importantly, responses.

I catch myself on and start addressing the question. Where do I start?

By zoning out to November 2013…

Training’s going okay and I’m zipping along to my occasional place of work at the time: A Furniture Outlet on the Boucher Road.

My job there was to facilitate rich old people in buying expensive cushions and curtains. The job did itself, I was happy, I just had to scrub up on my Countdown knowledge.

So I’m riding along with some Ginger Culchie from Newry, and as he wonders what all these metal boxes with wheels on them are, whilst speculating where all the horses have went, we hit a pelican crossing.

The pelican crossing hit me back. I’m on the ground, splayed in front of the yellow-painted metal box offender.

My knee is damn sore. The only thought in my mind is that I have to go to work. I get to work and the only thought in my mind is I should probably go to A&E. I go to A&E and the only thought in a Consultant’s mind is I shouldn’t ride my bike for two weeks.

DILEMMA. 14 days of non-riding purgatory followed that cruel day. My method of escape had led to my imprisonment.

The best way to describe those days would be the scene in Danny Boyle’s film, ‘Trainspotting’, where Mark ‘Rent Boy’ Renton is trying to abstain from the use of the Class A drug, Heroin. Rent Boy’s parents lock him in his bedroom, which leads to some trippy scenes and a dead baby crawling along the ceiling.

My experience didn’t have the baby, but it did have a lot of the 90s rave music. And I spent a lot of time in my bed.

Basically an identical ordeal.

After November, training picked up again, but never up to the same standard. I wasn’t getting the hours in, my head was a cacophony of white noise; voices in my head bellowing me to do contradictory things, when all I wanted to do was ride my bicycle into the sunshine.

Another problem: there was no sunshine! Mother Nature’s piss was, and still is, not welcomed and did not catalyse training developments.

But then came the light at the end of the tunnel. A very bright glimmer near the equator and to the left of Africa: Gran Canaria. I high-jacked a ride on a trip there with Phoenix CC, professionally put together by John Cole, and it truly got my training back on track. Whizzing up mountains can do you the world of good, especially when you can get 3000m of climbing done in 5hours.

Now back on the homeland, Coach Cormac is finally happy to see some steady miles put into the training diary, putting weeks of head-butting the nearest object to him, while looking at my training files, to rest. The man is a genius, and the cheat code to get me past that level I couldn’t complete. With him, I have a set of targets to work towards, as well as adding a good bit of wood to my already firing ambitions. Without him, I’d still be working out what key it is to open the garage door.

So right now, I am in Cycling Zen, enlightened by my winter’s experiences, which have made me stronger for the season coming ahead. I have plenty to get my teeth stuck into once the season starts and many exciting events await me.

Zoning back to the conversation….

By now we’re at the coffee stop. I’ve been in my own world for 40minutes now, and as I bite into my raspberry and white chocolate scone, I sink my teeth into reality. The questioner in question gave up about getting a response about 39minutes ago. I give him a glance and interrupt his conversation about mudguards, blurting out the answer,

“FINE. TRAINING’S GOING FINE.”

A silence seethes into the group, like an ominous grey mist, for 5 seconds, with everyone asking the same question, ‘How spaced out can this prick get’, before they continue their conversational quest in finding the best product to keep the mud away.

Training’s going fine.

 @DanBikeStewart