Col de Covid

I once took my bike to the foot of a mountain , a Col , I stopped at the timing station at the beginning of the official ‘start and gazed up at the summit.

The feeling for any human being asking themselves to take on a seemingly impossible challenge is , I guess , similar.

If you haven’t felt it then you haven’t truly experienced being alive ... so it is said.

The Fear is a chemical rushing through your body causing nausea and sometimes actual physical pain , somehow your body fights it producing it’s own antidote that drives the fear back and allows you to push down on the pedals and move forward .... that’s the key , find yourself in this position and you have choices , forward or backwards , one simply can’t go backwards so it’s the choice to progress and even if we don’t succeed, in many ways that is irrelevant , it’s the choice itself that matters now.

The next rotation of the pedals is vital , my body settles , I am moving , faster now , stay steady control your breathing and push on.

Everything hurts but to face up to the physical and physcological suffering is cycling imitating life , shut up legs , my Col our COVID.

The end is in view and my mountain will soon be behind me as hopefully in life ours will be too as we all crest the summit and throw ourselves down the other side into the sunny lands that are our future , older and wiser for our shared experiences and with the great hope that this time we live , and we have truly learnt.

Connected , humanity , together.