At the end of a two week ultra race last summer, I texted a fellow rider, Ro, to ask him how his recovery was going. He had fallen during the race and been to hospital for stitches. To my utter amazment, he decided to carry on racing. This was his response:
“I heard you leaving at 6. It was raining and cold.
That determination helped me take the decision to continue the race.”
Some of my clients compare themselves detrimentally to their colleagues. They assume that others must be quicker to understand, find things easier than they do, or are somehow, inexplicably, “better'“ than them. There is no factual basis for this, and yet many of them feel it often enough to hold them back. They know this, and yet the internal critic continues its nagging.
One way to address it is by finding, and (crucially) internalising evidence to the contrary. This stops us making assumptions and allows us to change the narrative and set our own standards for success. Every so often, a bit of evidence comes our way for free. And this is the moment when it is at its most valuable, and when it deserves to be inhaled, enjoyed, and shared.
Like me, Ro had experienced an eventful evening getting to Check Point 8. I simply thought I was going to become a crime statistic (spoiler, I didn’t). Ro however took a serious fall and was hospitalised.
In races, you can get emergency transport, but to continue racing you must restart from where you stopped. That is why Ro ended up in the same hostel as me near CP8. It is also why he heard me leave at 6am, the thunder and lightning providing an apt soundtrack for our individual battles.
The evening before had been traumatic. A 9km technical gravel descent led to CP8. It was day ten, and after twelve hours of riding in relentless heat, I was spent long before the gravel started. As usual, there was no other option than to grind onwards.
It is dusk. I am on my reserve light because the main beam has given up. I wasted an hour earlier taking the wrong path. I am exhausted. I have also misread the route – a descent not a climb – much harder on gravel. After an hour of sliding, stalling, swearing and skidding, I reach CP8 with only a scratched knee. Benighted and bewildered, I don’t know it, but Ro, some way ahead, has fallen and been rushed to hospital. Blissful ignorance definitely does me a favour here.
CPs are unmanned, so I am astonished to see the bright beam of a light as I turn the final corner. My spirits surge. Another rider! As I roll towards him, he spins and races ahead into the tunnel.
Rude idiot.
I forge on, climbing again. The other rider stops and turns. What the hell is he doing?
Fear surges. I am trapped in the tunnel with him.
I push past, adrenalin powering my legs. The walls illuminate brightly but briefly. He’s taking photos. Christ. He’s a freak. He’s collecting mementos before he murders me. He’s followed my dot online to find me isolated, remote, and totally vulnerable. I press down hard and sprint.
Riding through the tunnel at Canelles Reservoir, Spain. Photo credit @jordirullo
He catches up with me and pulls level. “Hola, qué tal?” I keep riding. I don’t dare look across.
“I’m a photographer. I live nearby. I’ll ride with you for a while.”
My stomach unknots, my jaw unclenches, and my outrage at him not explaining this earlier subsides. I breathe. I won’t die tonight, but I still stretch every last fibre in my legs to reach the hostel as quickly as possible. Just in case.
It is a surreal end to an extremely long day.
Riding for my life. Photo credit @jordiruillo
The following morning I wake to a violent storm. Unsurprisingly I had not slept well. I open the shutters and count between lightening and thunder. One…tw..BOOM! It’s right overhead. Too dangerous to ride. Or is it? I google “cyclist deaths lightning” and “bike wheels conduct or insulate?”
I decide to go and am soaked within 10 minutes of leaving. But also strangely alive and riding with renewed conviction. The forecast improves and the sun comes out soon enough.
It is only later that I learn about Ro’s accident and my inadvertent inspiring him to keep going. This is hard for me to believe because I am OBVIOUSLY the weaker one, the less experienced one, the “not as good” one. Except this time evidence trumps assumption. And evidence is far more useful to me than assumption.
So I’m keeping Ro’s text. I’ve squirreled it away, and now I have shared it too. It will stay with me as a reminder to set my own standards and race my own race.
Not just in the next ultra, but in life.
