Not my day

To be totally blunt, I was in pretty poor form last Saturday. The fact that it had been a slightly stressful week didn't help. I set of with my regular ride partner Martin for the climb of Springbrook and simply didn't climb the way I usually do. On reflection, I had probably also overeaten at the breakfast table in the morning, as I didn't need a muesli bar for the whole ride. Either way, on the long grind to Salmon's saddle where we would part company, I felt as though I was really hanging on just to complete that section.



Yet bizarrely, on the higher (and considerably steeper) slopes of the mountain, I started to feel better. Along the way I passed Wunburra Lookout, where some elitist "roadie" was resting after deciding he couldn't climb any further, despite having earlier wanted to make everyone else look stupid and inconsequential. That's when it dawned on me, I could climb higher than this guy even if I wasn't 100%. Now I was going to finish the climb regardless. A rather persistent magpie gave me something else to think about a little later, but after passing the steep pinch that follows Craft Corner, I knew I was getting back into form. I reached the summit at Best of All Lookout surprisingly quickly after that.



So what's the insight? For Saturday at least, it all seemed to be about patience with one's self, about realising that not every day will be the best day of your life. Once you accept this, you can focus on getting the maximum value from what you have. It's an important lesson, because often, the stress over whether or not you're in form will affect you considerably more than whatever is slowing you down in the first instance. That's certainly the way it happened for me on Saturday.