Hardcore

 

At 8pm last night I watched Survivor at Alex. Maybe familiarity is contempt, but the South Africans always seem so unsophisticated (does that mean they're grounded or just simpletons) in comparison to the US survivors. That said, I am comparing the way people present themselves. I'm not saying anyone should aspire to the patented American showbizzy pretentiousness.

One American whom I admire immensely is Lance Armstrong. I quickly browsed through a book (about Lance's psychology) and was just very positively inspired. Lance is a helluva positive guy.

He has a CLEAR idea of what he wants.
He has a SINGLEMINDEDNESS in achieving it.
He has UNCONDITIONAL POSITIVE REGARD for the world with himself in it.

That means if it's raining, you just put on a rain jacket, and go out. Weather has zero impact on decisions.
So this morning at 4:30am I woke up and thought:
- if you feel sleepy drink coffee
- if you're cold dress warmly
- if it's dark take a torch

So just before 5am the unthinkable happened. I emerged under my small glowing window floating in a dark city sky. And in the morning quiet, my mining lamp light illuminating the dark road in front of my wheel, I began to move forward around the house and over the speedbumps, into the cold dip and then up the long steep climb to Alex's place. Incredibly I spotted another rider, a black guy on a rickety bicycle, also out trying to get somewhere at this ungodly hour.

Reached Alex just before 5 and then we headed out quite quick to Illovo. We were bang on time, because as we turned the corner they were just coming up the road. It was a small group of about 8 riders, all warmly dressed, red lights flashing in the dark, blue-white torchlight spooling weakly into the road in front of them.

We felt like a squadrom in Battlestar Galactica. Lots of ruby diamonds burning warm holes into the darkness. As if cycling isn't dangerous enough, here we were cruising through sleeping suburbia, feeling our way through pock marked roads.

Some of the riding - for me - was teeth gritting maximal effort climbs. The climbs here are frequent, and long, and they conventionally go on 3 or 4 or 5 or 6 times longer than the little steps you find in the Free State.

Distance: 33.3km
Time: 1:23
Calories: 1372

Got to work at 7am and received some training from Eldridge on loading content.

I had a thought while riding though: when you work all day, facing computer screens, emailing, sms-ing you really start to lose your grip on what life is really about - or what it ought to be about for human beings. You reconnect to yourself when you're out in nature for any length of time. But when you break your routine, and especially when you exercise at a high intensity, you come to a much closer and invigorating understanding of reality. Because you're experiencing reality. You're propelling yourself through it. It's real because you feel it, see it, smell it, and it's impacting on your muscles, your heart, your lungs, your blood.

It's a good feeling.