Progress so far...

June 30th 2009 - 22 stone 4Ibs. Current weight - 17 stone 1Ib. Weight loss - 5 stone 3Ibs. Commuting miles - 3389.
Non commuting miles - 359. Mileage this week - 101 miles. Total mileage - 3748 miles.


Thursday 7 January 2010

Motivating the wimp in me...

I pedalled here to work this morning after a day at home yesterday due to the conditions. That's the only positive thing I can say about it. It was, according to our temp guage in the garage -6 that's in the bloody garage, so f*** knows what the outside air temperature is, add on to that wind chill and you can get some idea of just how cold it was on the way in.

The road conditions were crap, the roads until I hit the main Bristol Road were not gritted and covered in snow, and the cycle lane on the Bristol Road was invisible under the stuff, so I was pedalling in the car lane. Luckily at the time I pedal in the traffic is minimal.

All of this pails into insignificance compared to the battle I had with myself from about 0355hrs about actually pedalling at all. I woke up at that time for whatever reason and just lay there thinking of all the reasons why I couldn't pedal in and wouldn't it be better to just phone in and work from home again and stay in bed? For an hour and a half I had an argument with myself but eventually I beat the wimp inside me and bit the bullet and did it. Purely down to the conditions I can honestly say this was the first pedal in that I haven't enjoyed.

I consider myself lucky, my personality type is pretty laid back, my worst mood could be described as mildy irritated. Usually I'm pootling along 90% of the time in a contented state taking absolutely no notice of anything. Thinking about it that's probably why I'm fat in all fairness. But I'm digressing, the point I'm trying to make (badly) is that this pedalling thing is a trial and it would be massively easy to jack.

I'm saying all of this as one of our comrades, James of "the 22 stone cyclist" fame is having a bit of a crisis at the moment, I commented at length on his Blog yesterday about how the things I've done in the past has equipped me to be self reliant if I wanted to achieve anything difficult, and added to my personality type I feel I have the tools to be successful at this. That sounds hugely pompous I know, but it's not meant to be. I'm trying to say that folks who are on this path without the benefit of past experience at digging in, toughing it out and ignoring your demons are to be applauded and are doing a far more admirable job than me.

As I said to James yesterday on his Blog, at the end of the day the only battle you have is with your own morale, not the conditions, not a crap bike, not a temporary bout of ill health and certainly not circumstances around you that seem to conspire against you. It's all down to your own mind and nothing else.

And that Dear Reader was why I got up this morning at 0530hrs and pedalled in after 90 minutes in bed of arguing with the wimp in me about why I shouldn't.

Thanks James. :-)

7 comments:

  1. You've just motivated me to dig my thermals out, stop being a wimp and start riding to work again.

    The question is when I step outside tomorrow morning to find it's minus whatever will I still be motivated?

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  2. LOL! I can't answer that Red, it's down to you mate...probably not in all fairness, but it's how you deal with that is the key too all this. But you knew that anyway... ;-)

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  3. Another excellent post Clive. Well done for getting out. The bad Me just won over and I had a chocolate bar as I was flippin' hungry and there was one in my desk drawer.

    I'm also hugely resourceful and pretty laid back. I tend to try and look for the positive or a solution rather than whinge.

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  4. My glass is always half full Rafe, it annoys the shite out of Wifey who is one of life's, er, how shall I put it?

    Realists...

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  5. Good stuff Clive. I'm sure we'll get on extremely well when we meet up some day.

    I'm a glass half full person too but if someone convinces me it's not then I'll tell them what I'm going to do about it.

    Unfortunately it's taken me a long time to realise that fat & unfit isn't half-full. And unfortunately I'm not a full Twix person. In fact I'm not a half Twix person either as I ate both fingers.

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  6. Aaah - looks like a love-in here - I'll get my coat... And my keys... Out of the bowl...

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  7. I know what you mean about lying there and thinking about the pros and cons before setting off in the mornings, been there and got the tee-shirt. But I've not ridden my bike for 3 weeks now, because of the weather, just too dangerous with ice about, and yet you read those American and Canadian cycling blogs, they're out there no matter what the weather. I'm talking about mnbicyclecommuter, up in alaska, and many more, and there's that coastkid up in Scotland. Makes me want to buy a Pugsley, or get studded tyres etc..

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