Sunday, December 30, 2018

Baby food and some words rude...

Apparently I was the first of my family to be brought up on SMA baby formula. Quite a big deal at the time. Never mind breast is best, try powder as chowder! Of course it was still the sixties so I imagine that formula probably contained nicotine, iodine, creatine, caffeine and a sprinkling of milk powder infused with lead. Thankfully things have come a long way and today's baby foods are kosher. I imagine that all that blend of crazy stuff set me up nicely for adult life. My Dad candidly stated that I had a stomach like a swill-barrel. He was on target for sure.

I've been reliving my healthy appetite fiascos and favourites over the last few days as I've emptied a (quality) street and single-handedly drained an EU wine lake. Ah yes, the memories. A loaf of Quinnsworth bread and a pound of luncheon sausage every couple of days in college. You remember luncheon sausage? Pink meat with no actual meat. Abattoir floor's finest. It was rumoured to be able to walk by itself if not refrigerated. Or tinned aubergine in vinegar, my fave treat in Spain. My stomach did somersaults but my pupils dilated. And a bottle of wine with a midday meal. And now I drink coffee like a bean fiend. Indeed, none of that freeze dried Kenco nonsense in my house! And it's all slipping down into the swill barrel.

So there I am trying to go cycling over Christmas and doing the dog with my diet at the same time. But what's different is that I'm reading a mindfulness book. One that speaks my language. Don't be offended with the title or some of the concepts. It's called The Life Changing Magic of not Giving a F**k. I'm not going to go all Chi and Pilates on you. But I've learned a simple truth. I CANNOT CHANGE HOW PEOPLE THINK. How does that fit in with this blog? Well, as a cyclist I am susceptible to outside influence. Be it what training others are doing, what they post on the internet, what (when they get together in covens) they are saying. Or worst of all the racehorse that tells everyone that No, they are training like a donkey. This stuff used to bother me. But I've read some of the book and spliced it with some cycling buddy's advice and now, to paraphrase that book..." I no longer give a f**k".

And the changes don't stop there. If I can't change what people think then I can't change what they might say or feel towards me. But I can remove them from Facebook or from taking up my TIME. And time is more precious to me than an aubergine/luncheon roll sandwich washed down with dirty red wine. The book urges me to make out a 'F**k budget'. I have a finite number of f**Ks to give about people/situations/activities. If I exceed my budget then I'll be tired, caught for time or thinking about stuff that stresses me for zero gain. So I've started the budget. There are situations and people and activities that are no longer getting my attention simply because they are too complicated. Joe doesn't believe in complicated. Be straight with me or be gone. Of course there are items that I must budget for. Things too important. People that have to have a share. And there are those that don't.
Sarah Knight's book has arrived in my life just in time to watch me turn over a new leaf. I am training for myself instead of what people expect of me or assume of me. My exterior may resemble second trimester but my mind is expectant of nothing but change. Yes all that sludge of Yule tide gluttony will have to be removed but I'm not thinking of doing that for some short-ass ignoramus who would like to wheel-suck me to within sniffing distance of a finish line. I'm just going to train for Joe. I'm a good guy. After all, I may not use L'Oreal but I'm worth it. I'm not going to try harder to impress other cyclist's or clubs either. What's the point? I read a pertinent line on Facebook recently. "The grass is sometimes greener on the other side because it's fertilized with bullshit." I love that. I only need to impress myself in cycling now.
Something was broken in me in recent times. Not giving a f**k about some parts of my over-extended, candle-burning-at-both-ends life will help repair some of the scar tissue.
Of course it's not all bad. I climbed 80,000 metres last year in under 6,500 kilometres. Not bad in what was for me an exhausted car-wreck in cycling terms. I never trained hard. I feel already as though I'm turning a corner.
I'd like to skip off into the sunset; alas my rheumatoid, stretch-marked and muscle-depleted body won't allow it. But mentally I'm jumping and high-fiving every molecule of serotonin that is fuelling me at this very moment. After all it's not what I eat between Christmas day and New year's but what is consumed between New year's and Christmas day that counts. My midriff is broadening but only in line with my smile. See you on the road in 2019. I'm the one that always waves.

Saturday, December 8, 2018

Random thoughts on how to approach life.

By all means eat the meatballs in IKEA but don't kid yourself that flat pack is good craic. πŸ˜₯πŸ˜₯πŸ˜₯πŸ˜₯πŸ˜₯πŸ˜₯πŸ˜₯πŸ˜₯πŸ˜₯

Don't judge anyone by creed, colour or DNA. Judge by how comfortable they make you feel.πŸ€”πŸ€”πŸ€”πŸ€”πŸ€”πŸ€”πŸ€”πŸ€”

Understand that the past can't last. Turn the page and act your age.πŸ€“πŸ€“πŸ€“πŸ€“πŸ€“πŸ€“πŸ€“πŸ€“

Read. A lot. Don't apologise for preferring to turn pages rather than turn up.πŸ‘€πŸ‘€πŸ‘€πŸ‘€πŸ‘€πŸ‘€πŸ‘€πŸ‘€

Wearing Superdry and Hollister to stand out and be different is irony at work.πŸ™ˆπŸ™ˆπŸ™ˆπŸ™ˆπŸ™ˆπŸ™ˆπŸ™ˆπŸ™ˆ

Not walking in the rain or wind is a sin against nature. Breathe in the ozone. Feel droplets in your ears and shiver.πŸ‘©‍πŸš€πŸ‘©‍πŸš€πŸ‘©‍πŸš€πŸ‘©‍πŸš€πŸ‘©‍πŸš€πŸ‘©‍πŸš€πŸ‘©‍πŸš€πŸ‘©‍πŸš€πŸ‘©‍πŸš€

Eat cake, drink espresso. Reward yourself for some achievement unimagined yet.πŸ€—πŸ€—πŸ€—πŸ€—πŸ€—πŸ€—πŸ€—πŸ€—πŸ€—

Make mistakes. But learn from them. Don't regret but don't repeat.πŸ˜•πŸ˜•πŸ˜•πŸ˜•πŸ˜•πŸ˜•πŸ˜•πŸ˜•

Unless you've fought in a war it's gonna take a long time to realise waking up in the morning shouldn't be taken for granted. ☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠

Love, luck and losers come in threes.😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍

Terrific highs are followed by horrific lows. Try to be the tea-light, not the flare.πŸ”…πŸ”…πŸ”…πŸ”…πŸ”…πŸ”…πŸ”…πŸ”…πŸ”…

We all have faith. It could be faith in your lack of faith. It could be a sense of a god in everything around you or a faith in yourself. But none of us are truly faithless. πŸ›πŸ›πŸ›πŸ›πŸ›πŸ›πŸ›πŸ›πŸ›πŸ›πŸ›

Life levels. Hardship comes to all. Often the pauper possesses riches in their hearts that no millionaires will experience. 🏰🏰🏰🏰🏰🏑🏑🏑🏑🏑🏑🏑🏑

No one has it all. The supermodel won't like her toes, the streetsweeper will have a six-pack, the mogul might need stack-heels or the refugee's smile might light up a ship's deck.😁😁😁😁😁😁😁😁

Death is a tarot card. Sometimes its carrying a scythe, sometimes its ending something in your way to a brighter future.πŸ’€πŸ’€πŸ’€πŸ’€πŸ’€πŸ’€πŸ’€πŸ’€πŸ’€πŸ’€

Be prepared to be judged by people stupid enough not to get to know you. Expect to be accepted by the least likely of souls.😈😈😈😈😈😈😈😈😈

Trust your gut. Its never wrong. πŸ’ͺπŸ’ͺπŸ’ͺπŸ’ͺπŸ’ͺπŸ’ͺπŸ’ͺπŸ’ͺπŸ’ͺ

Three things in life bring out the truth. Alcohol. Children. Leather pants. Thankfully it's only possible to mix two of those at a time. πŸ—£πŸ—£πŸ—£πŸ—£πŸ—£πŸ—£πŸ—£πŸ—£πŸ—£πŸ—£

Manners aren't negotiable. Some people treat them like ancient runes yet to be deciphered. Others speak them fluently. 🀑🀑🀑🀑🀑🀑🀑🀑🀑🀑🀑

Be prepared to take your own advice eventually. You may have avoided it for decades, it may taste like ear wax... But you'll have to do it. 😝😝😝😝😝😝😝😝😝😝😝

We all turn into our parents. Or a previous generation we didn't even know. Could be a bumpy ride. Could be a pleasure boat cruise. πŸ€–πŸ€–πŸ€–πŸ€–πŸ€–πŸ€–πŸ€–πŸ€–πŸ€–πŸ€–πŸ€–πŸ€–πŸ€–

Say thanks. There's bad s##t that passed us by we didn't even know about. Thanks. Thanks some more.
πŸ‘ΌπŸ‘ΌπŸ‘ΌπŸ‘ΌπŸ‘ΌπŸ‘ΌπŸ‘ΌπŸ‘ΌπŸ‘ΌπŸ‘ΌπŸ‘Ό

Pick and choose what twee life advice you take. And from what source. Could be a well meaning cherub hoping to change the world one person at a time. Could be the random brain farts of a total melt, more in need of advice than giving it out.😎😎😎😎😎😎😎😎😎😎😎

Wednesday, October 24, 2018

Love ya back

Where to start? Why at the beginning of course!! Twenty years ago I rode up to oylegate to a five mile time trial with my best mate Adrian and won the bloody thing! It was only five miles but.... Well there's a lot of buts. But it began a sequence of local and national races that were my happy times. Today I rode the same event as a last hurrah but in the intervening years my life has been enriched beyond belief by cycling's incredible people and events. Stuff I remember in the wee hours. Up to that point two decades ago I was a drifter. Emotionally and physically I did what felt right rather than what was just right. A couple of years as a bike messenger for example, meant more than years of cycling dreams and lack of direction.

It took until three or four years ago to stop dreaming about my courier days. I wonder now will I spend midnight hours thinking over races? Maybe. But it's more the people isn't it? We've all met those that had a profound effect on us. I don't have enough space in a blog to scribe a list from my life. How about a sample?


Pat Dobbs is someone I'll always have affection for. Some may have seen us as rivals but I only remember both of us getting down to work and killing everyone around us from start line to finish line. I can't recall both of us ever contesting the sharp end of a race with many left around us. Full gas, to my mind was invented by myself and Pat. I don't think we knew that southeast cycling was taking off as we raced but I know there's a cohort of damn fine cyclists still knocking about from those times. Pat threw everything at me. He would attack anywhere. It was like he had read the manual on 'how to break your rival's'. He taught me a lot about unpredictability and the element of surprise. And that has won me races.

Mizgajski. My Polish mate is a triple espresso in life. He'll get your heart rate up through effort or laughter or a coffee stop. That Eastern European no-bullshit frame of mind is something I relate to. And the sarcasm. In the ten years we randomly trained or raced together he helped me develop as a rider. We shared awesome training rides... white outs in the snow, job-risking recon rides in far-flung counties and raids on races (with one-day licences) I'll never forget. Dominating league races or training for awesome things... Miz has the vision. And training NEVER got cancelled. Boonen said "sometimes you don't need a plan you just need big balls". He was talking about Marcin Mizgajski.


And what about that Adrian from the time trial? We used to cycle in school. Not TO school. IN school! And while the years may have come and gone Adrian has been a cycling icon. The first to have a power-meter. First to build bikes too. He is a mechanic too, with more than 30 years experience. He has taken his spannering with him to international races on road and track. Oh, and he has cycled in just about any European terrain you might dream about. He is an icon because holistically he has achieved more than any cyclist I know. If he wasn't riding in it he was mechanic at it or organising it or integral in some way. The time might be long gone when we shared his Mum's Christmas cake on Mt Leinster in the Spring or tackled the Muur in Geraardsbergen together but if there's someone in my cycling sphere that has done it all while under the radar, it's Adrian.


And there's the anonymous. Anyone that waved at me while headed the other way on lonesome country roads. Anyone that let my handlebars into spaces in races that a surgeon couldn't work with. The old people that spoke to me while they herded cattle across the road or said something nice at a shop counter instead of reverting too easily to hurling/football/ignorance mode. I have to remember the countless faces that looked disappointed in bars and restaurants, on buses and in shops when they asked me what my favourite sport happened to be. Favourite??? And I'd have to explain how my heart rate rose and my serotonin spiked when I even thought about cycling. And then I lost them.... Funny that. Countless dead conversations.And I guess I have to think of those that gave me space on the road instead of a space in a graveyard.



Of course there's a cast of characters that made my time in cycle racing a truly awesome production; The protagonists [both heroes and villains alike] and the background staff that often got me ready for my role with a focussed sound bite or wardrobe change. All I know as I get older is that behind most of us that share that road-hunger lie incredible stories. Some awesome, some harrowing, some from the darkest places. All awe-inspiring. Those who shared the stories behind the race face I salute. Those that listened to mine, Chapeau! You know who you are.






























Sunday, October 7, 2018

Barney

I'm a dinosaur. I belong in the Jurassic period, 65 million years ago. Or at least I belong with hairy-nosed old men in shebeens drinking whiskey and talking about the grain of hurleys. Or maybe I'm a scab-kneed troglodyte building a stone wall up a Donegal hillside many millenia ago? That's how I felt at 7am this morning. Stepped out the front door, locked it behind me and saw frost. 1 degree on the Garmin. And out popped my inner cave dweller. I shrugged and said feckit. So I'm wearing fingerless gloves and a smile as I drop down the hill to the river. And I realise it's VERY cold. Tips of my fingers like McCain oven chips. Nether regions shrinking away. By the time I'm on the quayside you could use my nipples as coat hooks.
And that inner chimp whispered something in my ear about Stephen Roche. Our intrepid Tour de France winner used to start his winter training on January first with no gloves. It helped him "toughen up "!!!!!

In my mind some caveman set foot outside and went to kill lunch. He was probably wearing the equivalent of 3 or 4 roadkills and a beard. Cold? What cold? Must kill dinner or die.

I felt like that. To hell with gloves. So I felt a little Cold? So my butt resembles ALDI frozen turkey crown? Just get on with it!

See? A dinosaur!

But it goes further. It must have been the spin to Hook lighthouse but I thought a lot about how far I've come yet stayed in the past.

I still eat bananas out training and racing. A pocket full of them. I can't be dealing with bars that taste like squirrel and bubble gum. Likewise gels. Like licking a sweet shop counter, those things stick like gorilla glue to everything. And God forbid if you pocket the empty wrapper. They ooze into the corners of your jersey, needing a crowbar to remove the goo.

And for millions of years we've eaten what we could hunt and gather and farm. What must our colons be thinking when we pour factory-made, chemical-tasting artificiality down our gullets? Besides, Mick Finn says you should never trust yourself to pass wind after 9 gels and 100km.

Similarly with technology. I've seen too many cyclists with bikes worth ten grand but no clue about wind direction or positioning. And I've seen a few dudes this year on bikes that amount to shopping trolleys making fools of lads cycling on mortgages. Call me ancient but I've always raced on something I could replace. And as for power meters and wattage? I always admired those who used technology to advance up the ranks. But isn't there a huge number of watt-heads and power punks that can't win a point despite all their technology? I think there's a lot of snake oil out there to add to your diet but a hearty helping of road-hunger is the only sustenance you need.

Do I need blood tests and this year's supplement? Nope. Just common sense and a bike to ride.

I must be old school. I just need a slate and a stick of chalk to chart my progress. Apps and graphs just bore me.

I guess I should just shuffle off now, drag my knuckles on the ground, get a chain-stain on my calf and head off into the dusk to hunt miles. I'll be doing laps of Jurassic park if you need me.


Saturday, September 15, 2018

The circus is leaving town

Today was it. My last open race. It didn't go according to plan. A short race that I should have lit up. And I didn't. I tried to be a good team mate and do a lead-out; Nothing. I. Had. Nothing.

I've been running on fumes all year. I know because the last time I cracked a rib I rode a Sportif the following weekend. The last time I caught a virus I trained through it. The last time I had a serious dose of antibiotics I found my legs again. This year its been chasing/recovering/knock-down ad infinitum. I am retiring from racing fully equipped with the knowledge that I don't bounce like I used to.

As regards being a good team rider, what annoys me about failing today is that when someone needs help and they are inherently good... I will work like an ox for them. I've always just hit the afterburner button and had that extra gear. Today every light came on on my dash. Catastrophic systems failure. I've dragged team mates up the Ho Chi Minh trail (up along the gutter) in one-day races, stage races and leagues. And I can categorically say I was high on the thrill of it. And of course, if you weren't on my team then you probably had me stuck to your wheel at some point and I do apologiseπŸ˜‚. And I learned all that from brilliant clubmates that buried themselves for me in the last decade. So to get to 1500 metres from the line today and not be able to go any faster and get my mate even into contention. Makes me sick. You see, there are beautiful people in cycling...I mean nobody is perfect but some people are beautiful. And I wouldn't want to ever let them down. I failed today. Maybe I'm living off nostalgia this last year. You know how it goes...the older I get, the better I was....

I'd reckon my blood is sepia coloured by now.

Watching re-runs of the Muppet show with my kids lately taught me a lot. I am either Statler or Waldorf, either of the old cronies in the balcony box. I accept that. While racing this year I'm addled by my fellow cyclist's poor handling. I mean if you can't cycle in a straight line you endanger others and you've picked the wrong sport. Try Irish Dancing. If you can't take a corner without leaving a rubber plantation on the road and a collective skid-mark in the bunch's shorts... go back to stabilisers or buy a quad. And if you weigh less than a bag of sugar, please oh please don't come up for an arse-in-the-air, eyeballs-out sprint finish. Chances are one of us gallopers will have more meat stuck between our teeth from last night's dinner than you have on your calves. And you'll get eaten. I tried not to be an old bo##@x... you know the type... seen it all, think their decade's of cycling have more value than your's. They've had the life of Riley being pseudo alpha males, ignorant of how off-putting they've become. Blissfully unaware of their own caricatures. So I tried to stay quiet, not get upset at the lack of forethought from the dudes in front of me, the ones pedalling like wind-up mice. Like I said, who wants to be remembered as an ass. In the past the other riders scolded you into being a steady cyclist. Old but effective. Today it's an internet tutorial. Adults can no longer tell each other they are wrong. The little fella pin-balling around the bunch yesterday, will do the same next year. Meanwhile I need a Xanax to calm the nerves after his acrobatics. Isn't it remarkable that female racers are by far the steadiest? An ability to learn perhaps?

But today was cool for a lot of reasons. I raced for years in Meath. My wife and parents-in-law hail from the heart of all the good circuits up there. I've done hill repeats on Christmas day past the church we were married in, placed in races all over that neighbourhood, annoyed the bejesus out of commissaires by showing up in Cipollini's zebra kit and getting up for the sprint. And cycled to the local garage to buy 2 bottles of wine on payday, placed in the bottle cages to share with my Father in law. See? Rose-tinted glasses. Meath is my Valhalla.

Isn't there the Chinese proverb about everyone having a certain amount of heartbeats? When it's reached it's reached. Isn't it the same for pedal revs turned in anger? Hundreds of thousands of mindless pedal revolutions turned. The pain. The sacrifices. The time.
The selfishness.
For a slim chance that the Gods will smile down. Pardon the pun but I've gone full cycle. I don't feel I need to beat anyone anymore. Especially not me.

What do I take from the craziness? A few unbelievable mates. A body slapped around like a Mafia informer, a few bigoted acquaintances. A ship-load of memories to make me smile in odd places at odd times. And the reality that in a promontory such as Ireland, I'm an oddity. I race bicycles. I don't understand parochial. No comprende 'insular'. I feel part of something bigger. I was never one for golf. Or cycling clubs run like golf clubs. I take an honesty from road racing. I will work like hell if you work like hell and while we're at it lets put on a show. 🏍πŸ”₯

So all that's left is the James Butler time trial, the traditional season-ender for roadies around these parts. I can't wait to ride it. It's the longest running event in the southeast. A final chance to high five your idols before the still winter settles upon us like a quieting quilt. The only difference this year will be that when the whirlpool of rushing wheels and whomping tubulars, torque-churning chainsets and focussed stares has been packed away afterwards, I'll be putting the bike in the shed with no specific plan for taking it out to race again. Instead I'll venture out in the musty leafed dawns and chestnut strewn lanes as it's my favourite time... A time to bury the past and wait for the new.πŸ’™

Sunday, September 9, 2018

Outsiderz

This is pure bloody madness. You couldn't make it up. I headed out this morning to train my ass off in the back roads and as my surfer friends would say, I was 'stoked'. I swallowed Lavazza, granola and vitamin D, pulled on my gear and tootled down the driveway before 7.15am. There must be something wrong with me. I failed (yes failed, as in an exam) to train yesterday as there was stuff to do. All day I wondered could I steal just 40 minutes for a sprint session but alas... inconsequential chores defeated me. And now that Catholic guilt is biting. This is nuts. I had a few glasses of wine last night. The happy devil on my right shoulder at 10pm whispered lover's breathy words of want and Shiraz. I listened intently. This morning's devil was a nasty, laying-on-the-guilt mesomorph, killing me with anxst and regret like the drill sergeant in Full Metal Jacket. And for what exactly? I mean I'm just a cyclist. I admire any sporting person. But surely there's more to life? I have a job, a family, responsibilities.... Sport really doesn't matter does it?

Don't be daft.

I'll go race next weekend and be hung up on it the whole week in advance. Picturing the course, planning and plotting. Thinking of the craziest nutters in the world trying to knock me off in the name of sport. Ah sure tis a bit of craic. They don't mean it. I blame the Celtic Tiger. They cycle like Banks; headless and unaware of consequences. And there'll be a crash.

The training is going spectacularly well. I've been out with Mick who happens to be juiced to the gills at the moment. On bacon and cabbage. Today we cycled towards cake with the sun behind us. We compared his silhouette... Tayto and IPA nurtured... with my Dorito and wine cultivated shadow... And came to the conclusion that climbing hills will not feature in our immediate future. We tried tucked-down, time trial positions but my gut slapped my legs.

In preparation for next week's race I've decided to use a finish bottle. All the pros are doing it. They might mix Tramadol and coke for a little edge. In my case I'll probably just put merlot in it as finishing a bottle has never been a problem. In fact it's the only race I've won this year convincingly. ( I can't count the Time trial I won in the spring because I was the only entrant).

Tomorrow I'll train in the rain. Because training indoors when its not December is for soft, squishy cyclists. I've argued with my psycho-analyst about this, so I must be right. And I've pointed out that 45 therapy sessions (indoors) with a man who has 'anal' in his title is just wrong.

By mid-week I'll be watching my weight. It's humiliating when the bell sounds on the scales like a fairground test-of-strength and a little voice utters "You've won a prize!!". I'll cut down on the pasta
. A few midnight packets of Tuc crackers will be a good replacement.

But I'm not completely beyond help. I don't tell people I'm "doing nothing" on the bike yet seem to be sighted out training 9 days a week at odd hours and wearing a burkha to avoid identification. Every spin I do is in the public domain, every slow, sweaty, slow kilometre. I don't pretend I'm a clean cyclist either. You should have seen the inside of my shorts that time the truck got too close! And I don't do drugs unless you count industrial quantities of caffeine, wine and Goji berries. And bacon. I certainly don't have a tab in Holland and Barrett or miss the start of races coz I couldn't swallow all the tablets. I'm a kid of the nineties so the only pills lying around are the ones mentioned in biographies I have of dead music icons.

Yes, cycling is a mad-cap world of potions, personalities and loneliness. I think I'm fairly sane. Throwing a leg over a bike keeps my mind clear even though the world of cycling is at best an odds-bodkin's realm of insanity! The best cyclists are the ones that can isolate themselves, train to absolute exhaustion, sleep a lot, shun society, abstain from alcohol or eating much and revel in pain. Crazy! So I'm sane because I don't tick six out of seven of those. And you're a little unstable because you've gone back to look at the list!

Come on. Join me for a spin in the rain tomorrow and I'll introduce you to the wacky racers! I'll throw in an oily espresso and if the sun comes out we can look at my silhouette....


Monday, August 27, 2018

Hogwart's

Teaching is an odd game. It's natural for quite a few young men to sit in front of you and not want to be there. Its the norm for either you or your subject to be disliked. Obviously many kids do like your style or are fascinated by the subject matter too.
In the coming days they'll filter back and it'll be funereal. And that's ok 'coz you were once that kid. Remember? The teacher that lectured rather than listen? The one that made the banal into something brilliant? Or the one that smelled of drink and ciggies and signed your journal with a bookies pencil? Personally I remember three teachers. And though I came to be an 'educationalist' late on, it was those three that were in my heart when I did teacher training.

The first was a Christian Brother who recognised a waywardness in me and allowed me access to the school on winter evenings. My family trusted him and trusted me. I'd knock on the door of the CBS monastery after tea and he'd give me the key to the huge 6th class room. There I'd feed the hamsters and budgies that were kept as pets by the class. Or fill the moulds with plaster to make nativity figurines. Or paint the ones that were ready. And I'd wash out the jars and brushes, or clean out a cage or two. In retrospect I felt lost at that age and heading back to school for an hour once or twice a week kept me busy and away from bad stuff that was available if I so desired. But the Christian Brother gave me the key and the space to grow. I'd think nothing of knocking on the door of the monastery in the lashing rain and he'd think nothing of opening the school for me.

A couple of years later I faced a middle aged man who could not, would not, break down what was for me a tough subject into something manageable. Made fun of my inability. And then he would boast of how caring and Christian he was compared to others.

And finally came the one that left an indelible mark on me. English and History. Time and patience to listen. A sense of humour. Indulgent of teen flights of fancy. I wrote and flourished.

But its all three that stuck in my mind as I struggled through college. I wanted to SEE kids that were struggling coz I should know what one looked like. I wanted to leave the door open for anyone who needed it. I didn't ever want to be the arrogant and aloof man looking down while pretending to look up. And History and English were going to be my tools, used while listening and encouraging.

Of course the world isn't as straightforward as that. I've met students for whom the only use for literature would be as toilet paper. I've walked into classes where friendliness was a sign of weakness. I've faced circuses filled with Neanderthal monkeys that were supposed to be pupils.

And yet I've had a table thrown at me by a student who's sister had cancer and not put it in the discipline system. I've had a pupil walk out of the middle of a soccer game just to talk to me. Tried to make an 800 year old church come to life for 30 thirteen year olds. I've shared my biggest fears and terrible sense of humour with thousands of kids and lived to tell the tale.

Now, the end of August. Nobody cares. It is true that no other profession allows 2-3 months of a complete switch off. But whats little known is the effect a teacher may or may not have on a young life. For good or for bad we can leave impressions that are carried like scars or remembered with rose-tinted glasses. Ask yourself whom you admired or hated when in school. Thats it. You remember. Can you remember how they spoke or how they treated you? Of course you do. Good or bad they taught you something.

Wish me luck!

Sunday, August 26, 2018

Bottled


I tried to get in touch with my feminine side once but she hung up. So, at the tender age of twenty, I began drinking large bottles of Guinness in an attempt to grow hair on my chest and to be manly in general. I got good at it too. I could drink a few bottles and still drive my motorbike home from Graignamanagh. Sure if you met the Guards back then you could switch off your lights, turn around, and disappear down a lane. I could drink 8 bottles over a night and cycle home high as a kite. But drink more than 8 and, like drinking chocolate, you'd suffer from a drowsiness akin to a sedative. So you'd either run down the main street in Graig on the bonnets/roofs/boots of the parked cars... or fall off your bike at the top of High street and get collected off the ground by your friend Daryl and brought home safely.

Why on earth am I telling you this?!! You see, today, at the ungodly hour of 6am I got up to go training. I had switched off the alarm while questioning my sanity. The rain outside seemed to be laying it down hard. Harder than a Gypsy's driveway anyway. But I consoled myself with the truth; training isn't a choice. So its raining hard? I am mentally driven to go out and nail my training. Its not a choice. You can miss the gym, miss Pilates, or aerobics, or the treadmill. I won't miss training.

So I killed my coffee and granola, dragged on enough layers to just about hide my identity, took a deep breath as I locked the front door behind me, and headed for the hills.

My real problem started with Smithwicks at 19. Smithwicks makes you wee a lot. They may now call it Red Ale but it still is a bladder beater. For me, I had to go every half pint or so. Thats grand until you go to your girlfriend's Grad. Try drinking steadily, attempting to get frisky and legging it to the toilet every 15 minutes. The girlfriend thought I wasn't interested in her. The toilet attendant thought I had a thing for him. It wasn't long before the rumour mill had me pinned as a bi-sexual philanderer with a drink problem.

So I'm cycling out to Graignamanagh at 7am, there's nothing but puddles, leaves and wind for company. Down a back road (that I would have used 30 years ago to avoid the Guards) I round a curve to hear the Phhhhfffft of a puncture. The rain is now HEAVY. Heavier than the atmosphere after midnight at that Grad.... I pull out the back wheel and begin searching for the flint or stone or whatever the culprit happened to be. Normally a miniscule item is to blame. Smaller than Trump's conscience. Not today. A massive piece of brown glass, invisible on the soaked road, has rendered my tyre and tube useless and nearly sliced the frame too. I step back in frustration. Step back and hear a crunch. More glass. I lift my foot and begin to see bits of broken glass everywhere. And a big piece with the Guinness label still attached. St James's gate under my cleats.

Its not 'til I'm riding home on the flat rim, crawling, thump, thump, thump, squelch... that my rage dissipates. Probably some kid drinking bottles of stout and acting the donkey dumped the bottle heading home. Down the back roads. Avoiding the Guards. Trying to stay awake. Can I really be angry? The kid didn't think he'd spoil my day, ruin my new tyre, get me soaked, score my wheel, or give extra business to my Local Bike Shop.

I had plenty of time to think about it as I hadn't made the call of shame. It wasn't even 8am. So I'd absolved whoever it was before I'd slopped into the hallway of my house a good while later.

The deluge stopped. I've changed the tyre and tube. I was about to crack open a beer but... well, something held me back.

Wednesday, August 8, 2018

Last blast.

50. It's a big number. I'm heading out tomorrow night to race my last ever Wexford league race. You know I'm in my 50th year. No big deal. But doing the maths it seems that I've participated in close to 50 of those races. Now THAT is significant. And I've only won a handful. Jeez Joe, that's not anything to write home about, I hear you say. But hold on a minute. Do you know what it takes? Me neither! At least, I didn't for ages! Let me explain!

To win (or survive) the league you must refuse. You need to refuse to think about anything but the win. That's far from straightforward. Cycling is chess on wheels. You race against clubs and individuals and conditions and your condition. You can be the strongest yet lose every week as you follow the wrong wheels, gamble on the wrong time to launch or stay or even let adrenaline guide you instead of the cold-blooded killer in your heart. You must refuse to race anyone's race but your own.

A good club can bring you to victory by doing all the work and shenanigans for you. This might allow you to ride easy and keep your reserves. Conversely, a club that lacks cohesion will burn energy and leave nothing for you to work off. Both times I won the league, half a dozen years apart, I found myself so well looked after by my club it became easy. On one occasion 8 years ago I was so well minded that I dropped my phone when reaching for a gel, stopped, retrieved it and got back up for the sprint.

But both times there was what the Spanish call a chispa, a spark. Years back I'd gotten such stick and abuse from the local cycling community after switching clubs that I'd trained harder than ever that winter. But I'd a restricted amount of training time. 70% of my sessions were short and sharp. And for the first time ever I'd incorporated serious, painful sprints. I didn't miss a weekly session from November to July. Once I let loose in the finishing straight....

Last year I'd gotten awesomely fit over the winter only to break my elbow at the end of January. The antibiotics killed me. I mean, I was back on the spin bike when I couldn't put my weight on my arm but my head was a ball of white noise. And I came back. I rang my coach Richie on the way home from my first win in the league last Summer and we laughed and nearly cried at our hard work and patience. Spark.

And both times I won the overall, the team were behind me like a strong breeze, making everything easier. The purple and gold jersey has always brought out the best in me.

Yet it was a couple of men I raced with elsewhere that taught me the basic maths. Frank o Rourke taught me that when I worked I should throw everything I had into the pot. And Stephen Kelly taught me (by continuously beating me) that riding smart is hard work with huge rewards.

I'm gonna miss the crazed, greyhound stadium mentality of a one hour race. Pretending not to hurt on either drag. Hiding until launch time, pretending not to be able/interested/motivated. Waiting for the strongest to waste energy or get caught out by an attacking team mate. I love the panic during attacks, those not wanting to work, the weak getting stretched, the strongest doing the damage. Not for the faint hearted.

So tomorrow is it. Years of chasing super fit humans all over the roads. Years of trying to out-think and out-gun all-comers. Years of cheer at the sign on, years of comeradeship and bitter rivalries, poker and defeat, bravado and bullishness contained in an hour.

How does it feel? Different. I've been around for a long time. I'm mentioned in the book of Genesis. Lately I've been hung up on compassion fatigue. I've run into hundreds of bicycle jockeys over time and always tried to be helpful and encouraging. Call it a family trait. Some appreciated it. Some didn't. It turns out that I've been doing this s##t for decades. Investing my time in other people's problems, trying to find solutions or the right words to help my fellow human beings along. Not everyone appreciates this. Isn't it human nature that we have preconceptions about others before we meet them? Or someone's opinion of you colours other's? I'm a give-a-damn kinda fella, I've had my ups and downs and flat-lines. Sure I've said the wrong thing or wouldn't tolerate a few fools to the point where its cost me friends or open doors. But I'm 50. I no longer care. I have some amazing friends in cycling. And I have many's respect. If I've not gotten on the right side of you then who's fault is that exactly? I think I've apologised to anyone that deserved it or you have graciously left me back into your world without a word and I thank you for it.

Compassion fatigue. I've smiled that crooked smile at a multitude. Said something funny to put you at ease. Time for someone else to do the same. Tomorrow I'll head out the road and soak up the atmosphere, take mental pictures all the way. And I'll race until I can't.

Then my friends... it's your turn.

Wednesday, August 1, 2018

Things that pass you by

Life is funny. There's a bunch of stuff you had on an adolescent bucket list that slipped your mind as you got older. And AMEN to that. Might have been the car, the girl, the house, the sporting triumph, the idyllic island holiday. You get the picture, right? Of course we might feel regret at not crossing off many of those targets that felt very important at the time. On the other hand, I do remember Garth Brooks lyrics from way back that are relevant. Now before you start lambasting me, I ain't no fan of country music. You don't have to wear a Stetson to have friends in low places and besides, isn't a hoe-down when your first girlfriend slips on chip-grease outside the kebabish at 3am?

No, Garth sang a slow song about thanking God for unanswered prayers. Of course, by buying his singles we were answering some of them. If you don't remember the tune, just hold a lighter in the air and close your eyes. I never dreamt about being a GAA star or even being fashionable. Rockstar? Nope. Rich? Nope. It never crossed my mind to dream big. But I did dream and say the odd prayer. And luckily, God had bigger stuff to be at! You know, famines, comforting the terminally ill, helping people face cancer or bereavement. Understandably, I was put out at the time.... Now I understand that the help I needed wasn't a big issue. God was telling me to figure it out for myself. Now, if you knew me 20 or more years ago you'll know I wasn't the fella with a blunt force trauma sense of humour or opinions, nor was I self-aware really. (Think cave man). So it took me forever to realise I had to make my own way, make decisions, make headway in life. Turns out it wasn't just blind luck or blind love that put me in relationships, although it might have kept me in them...!

I used to dream about sailing. Around the world. I couldn't tell the difference between a stern and a spinnaker but none-the-less I was going to learn to sail and make a living from it by writing about my adventures in Yachting Monthly. But I didn't. I've met the deck shoe and white-shirted world-sailors and I'm glad I didn't become that disconnected soul searching for a spiritual home.

I dreamt about being a pro cyclist in Belgium. The cold, the grit, the cut-and-thrust of hard races. The solitary warrior accepting the adulation of the crowd. God turned his back and rightly so. I had to figure out by myself that I loved cycling but I didn't have the ruthless streak or constitution to push myself far enough.

Similarly, the man upstairs let me navigate my way through a couple of caustic relationships, taught me valuable lessons by staying out of it.πŸ™ˆ

I may have drifted a little, I'm not terribly loyal, skirted around the edges, didn't suffer fools and still can't.

Then I woke up one morning in recent years to the realisation that certain things I have, ways I am, people I love... are here now because those countless dreams faded into countless dawns. Garth Brooks has had a second coming since for God's sake! I woke to realise that the bucket list of your youth is a bunch of post-its you throw away as life gets involved. I woke to realise that I have a bucket list that I wasn't always aware of. It's just that a number of good souls have kindly filled it in for me.πŸ‘¨‍πŸ‘©‍πŸ‘§‍πŸ‘§

Jeez, when I think of sweating with worry alone in a bedsit, trying to work out how low I could go to keep someone loving me. Later replaced with the sweat of figuring out how to get away.πŸ™Š

Or dreaming of Belgian cobbled streets into the wee hours. Now I'm just stoked at getting to a league race or looking over ditches with my cycling buddies.🀘

And the love part? Lets just say a little thanks to the heavens that I don't teach in the Midlands now. Or I'm not an alcoholic lead-teacher in Madrid, waiting for rain, taking the strain. I really have so much to be thankful for. πŸ’–

Still can't stand country music though. Line dancing? Where I grew up, the line came before the dancing!🐴







Saturday, July 21, 2018

Spain for me

Ah Spain. It was only while sitting at a shaded barbeque demolishing Argentinian beef and roasted peppers that it hit me. We were finally relaxed. All the carnage of previous months had disappeared in a cloud of charcoal smoke, well-cooked steak aromas and the plick plick of Cruz Campo beer tinnies opening. I'd gotten on a plane 24 hours after my last race, visited everything worth seeing on the Costa del Sol and exhaled.
Yes the sun shone in Ireland. But its not getting away. Its not watching the world cup with an 86 year old Dutchman drinking G+Ts and talking about DeValera. It's not meatballs and kidneys for supper. It's not a world of back stories by the pool.

And the wine flowed too. I can float like a seal in the pool as good as any. Sun myself like a hide in a tannery. But mid-holiday I laced up the sneakers and ran along the seafront. My mentality of reading and rioja gradually softened to a sauna run at midday followed by a cool beer. I'd run as far as the Marbella club, drip sweat on their 5 star carpet, then turn for home. Slow, painful mission accomplished. Then the struggle back up the hill. But passing half-cut beach revellers, bloated lunchers and the idle rich as I ran, gave me an incredible feeling.
Days later I found myself cycling with Carlos, a fine tri-athlete from Madrid. We tested ourselves on all the climbs, often over and over. Before breakfast. Istan with it's twists and warm winds, snakes and Reservoir. Ojen, Monda and Alhauren el Grande with it's Don Quixote hilltops and windmills. And once I braved the San Pedro traffic alone to climb the madrono, a lonely, buzzard-crowded series of ramps up to the heavens. I kissed my rented Bianchi at the top, threw the knees out on the long, sweeping bends and waved at the melon vendors on the lower slopes. Outside the exorbitant golf clubs stood Spanish gypsies selling small buckets of golf balls, lost by foreign golfers daily and collected up nightly. Sprints by the coast, coffee spin to the yacht basin. Ah Spain.
Of course there was a Paella cooked by the neighbours to keep us fuelled you understand....
The miles took away the guilt of tapas and of beer literally cheaper than water.
So I'm thinking of putting a bike together and leaving it in Marbella so every now and then I can exhale....
Late on in the holiday, bike returned, sneakers moth balled, I was staring from a sand dune in Tarifa at Africa only a dozen miles away. The layers of mountains that ran through Spain in folds...the Sierras...dipped at the straights of Gibraltar and resurfaced in Morocco as the Atlas mountains. I've been in Spain nearly twenty times now and last week was the first time I realised that those mountains are me. Are all of us. I'll have to come back again to discover more. Wanna join me?

Sunday, June 24, 2018

Ready steady Eddie

Flashbacks.
Tyres pumped so hard before a time trial we couldn't make the slightest impression upon them.
Blue blazer wearing commissaire holding us back at the start of a race, keeping us warm in the midday chill by poking fun at all of us.
Meeting him at the zoo with his daughter and him being such a family man.
Ah yes. Eddie Tobin.
Every time I think of him there's sunlight. Apt then that I rode my last Eddie Tobin memorial race today in beautiful sunshine. Clean, perfect, kingdom-of-heaven sunshine. Was talking about him as I sat in the shade before the race. Sat like a poncho wearing Mexican. 24 degrees by God! Yup, Eddie was about, a divilish smile as we clicked in and rode out. He would have smiled too at the faces around the races. A bunch of folk that would have known him.
So where do I come into it? Well I don't really. I raced, I raced well. I've learned. It took a while. Three decades give or take. I did everything right but didn't bother the top ten. You know those old newsreels of nuclear explosions in Nevada? That was me at 75 measly metres from the line. Gone from the podium to needing Imodium in the blink of an eye. The writing isn't just on the wall, it's graffiti on my soul at this point. "Go home old timer!" or "this is a young man's game!". Yup, graffiti. As if Banksy himself was getting anxsty with my presence.
As a result this season has felt like a farewell tour of sorts. I'm saying goodbye to the people that formed me. Some of them,to our loss,have races called after them. I'm saying goodbye too to the people that race with me now. Very young to very wise.... And those that don't know I exist; those weekend gods I've always admired from afar.(Not in a weird way, just wanting to BE them rather than BEAT them.)
And in the last while all of those I've started out with or clashed with or met or lost have whittled down to a few that actually know me. Thats not as brutal as it sounds. Let's face it, cycling is a solitary pursuit. So we might turn up like Roman gladiators to do battle on odd sundays but otherwise we are... well... hermits. We hide away, use cycling as our spiritual waypoint, and do a very violent and contrived, nasty and physical mass of a Sunday. Imagine it! A cyclist's Sunday service is one where we lie, outsmart and rejoice in the beating of our fellow human beings!
So for me to call a few people REAL friends that know me isn't so terrible. I also realise I'm a good person. Every human is questionable, however, cycling mixed with the crazy sh##e of life of late has taught me that I'm ok.
And full circle brought me via Eddie and a galaxy of superb human beings over 3 decades of falling in and out of love with my chosen sport. So I feel like a stoned Californian with a spliff in hand on the beach at Aya Napa... I've found myself. By losing myself in the fellowship of the chainring.





Ah hold on a minute. Even by my poor standards, that's a cop out.
What's the moral of the story? I'm kicking on 50 years old. Great if I'm a Ruby Port. I'm not. Today I raced against people 31 years younger. Want me to repeat that? And the dude at the roadside with the broken collarbone? It's all fun and games until someone can't go to work. I don't bounce like I used to do. Time is in shorter supply than morals in the Dail. I thought I could juggle but I make Bobo the clown look pro. The kids like having me around. It's time to hang up the wheels. Figuratively, as they are nice wheels and would be wasted on a wall. And as all this is happening, I've been surrounded by the coolest people on planet earth. Fact.

Sunday, June 10, 2018

Tied to the mast

What the hell? I mean, it's odd enough to sneak out at 7am, wending my way down the hill in lycra, an ungodly hour to be going anywhere. So imagine my surprise to find the boardwalk at the Dunbrody famine ship thronged with Japanese tourists. I mean, whats the Japanese for "get out of my way, I need to take a selfie!" anyway? It was a mutual thing in the end. They stared at me like I was a lunatic cyclist at 7am cycling in the fog, I stared at them as if they were camera toting tourists on a whirlwind tour of...New Ross.
But I got my selfie, thinking it was gonna be a weird day. My plan was to ride from sea level to the highest point in the province. So I needed a selfie with the masts in the background, the intention being to book-end it with a t.v. mast selfie up on mt Leinster. 55 mile round trip. Easy peasy...eh...japanesy?
Japanese tourists were the least of my worries.
I scooted along, finally feeling relaxed for the first time in a couple of months. It was warm. Shorts and short sleeves after 7 in the morning is normally reserved for Marbella. I assumed it would be cold 795 metres higher. Doh!
Just like a cheap spaghetti western I encountered omens. A road-kill cat that seemed to have been annihilated from four different directions. He didn't look happy. He'd have made a fine imitation lion-skin rug for a sitting room.
A texting driver on my side of the road.
A buzzard circled near the mountain. I hoped it was looking for a non-lycra-clad breakfast. From down in the valley it's wingspan resembled a hang-glider from hell.
I wound my way to the lower slopes and smiled. The mountain was shrouded in mist. I wouldn't be able to see the scale of the leviathan I'd chosen to assault. Mt Leinster climbs in a series of punishing ramps. The narrow road clings to the mountain side, it's sheer nastiness visible all the way on a clear day. Not today.
I passed broken glass at the bottom. A vodka bottle. Huzzar. Wasn't 'huzzah!' a celebration first exclaimed in Shakespeare's time? Why am I thinking about this anyway? Altitude. Must be kicking in. Or perhaps it's this bit of road, the Dying Sow? Nothing like a stretch of asphalt named like that to concentrate the mind!
And up I went defying gravity, for beer bellies are meant to stay at sea level. And then there was a bunch of horses on the road. Wild ones, calling the Blackstairs their home. Well, obviously they can't speak so they don't actually call anything, well... anything. They parted to let me on up the hillside. One of them looked at me pitifully and shook his head. "Poor f##ker" I imagine he snickered in pony dialect.
And then I arrived at the gates of hell. The private road to the summit and destiny. A walker was 100 metres up the road and disappearing into thick mist. I followed. It took me 6 minutes to catch him. I was in my lowest gear almost immediately. That was a shock. As was the 19% gradient reading on the computer. That's steeper than any learning curve I've encountered! On passing the walker I discovered he had seen two decades more than me. We shared a quip about heavy breathing that in hindsight should have been accompanied by duelling banjoes and a hog roast. Maybe thats why the Dying Sow died? My pace quickened.
Around the only serious bend halfway up, the heat kicked in. I was at 2000 feet and I was blinded by sweat, my hands couldn't grip the 'bars and the tar under my wheels was soft! 18 degrees below the summit. I put my foot down to clear my eyes, remembered the walker behind me, and pushed on again. And the summit was closer than I thought, hidden in a humid fog.
Mt Leinster's summit is an anti-climax. You touch the galvanised gates, take a picture, and descend. Apart from a family of walkers milling around, it's lonely. Not far off 3000ft up, yet celebration amounts to a slowing of the thumping in your chest and a realisation that you've sweated so much you are about to freeze.
A couple of white knuckle minutes warms you instantly. Then you pass the horses again and wink, bunnyhop the huzzar bottle, outrun the buzzard coasting the thermals above you and, with the wind at your back you arrive almost elegantly back where you started, in time to bid 'sayonara' to your animated, camera-swinging Japanese buddies....

Thursday, May 24, 2018

Thank you

This blog isn't really cycling related, so my apologies.
Cycling is a beautiful metaphor for life. And that's where it ends. Over the last month I was handed a bloody good lesson; that life (to quote myself) "is fleeting, harsh and nail-biting stuff with zero warranty".
Enough metaphors and literary devices. My daughter contracted a perfect storm pneumonia that landed her and ourselves in the hospital. And it got better. However, a call from the hospital questioning the x-rays and eluding to anyone's worst nightmare, let alone a 5 year old's, blew us to kingdom come. Weeks of living in hope amongst shredded reason and demented outcomes does nothing for you and everything at the same time. Sleep? Macbeth got more. Reason? Don't be daft. Reason doesn't work when reason is the only answer. Try reasoning at 3am when the bedroom ceiling is a cinema screen playing all the movies you hate but have to view. So what is to be taken that is good? Scanned to within an inch of her life, my daughter is going to be fine. And those things that broke inside us (everyone breaks) will heal despite the pain.
But I've realised that there's no escape. Cycling? It might keep me healthy but it takes from my family and buggerin off for a whole day to fulfil a dead dream is no longer justifiable. Wine? Numbness is dumbness. Reading? Escape is running away from now. Writing? Pulling the wool over my own eyes.
No. Reality is where it's all at. Living in the now is all the rage. And if anyone has rage right now.... I could make nandrolone look like a placebo.
It's ok. I'm not going to save the world or set out to reform you. Instead I'm going to point out that there's those around us that ARE reality. My friends that have the nightmare but are smiling at it's bastard's grin. Or those who's kids have gone down a rocky road that makes my last few weeks look like a summer meadow filled with unicorns and rainbows in comparison. I love you guys. I love your love for life and belief in it. What you are doing/have done is awesome.
If you are reading this... just sit for a minute now and mull it over. Who is suffering? There's always someone in the back of your head that rings alarm bells. Text them. Ring them. Message them. Call in. Tell them in your own way that they are beautiful and necessary. Tell them to fight. Tell them what every day having them around really means. Even if just for 5 minutes out of our manic lives... tell them.
After a month of emptiness (And I mean the darkest, foreboding hell) I appreciate what has been left to us. I would love to continue my stark atheism and derogatory nature towards all incantation and biblical contradiction. Instead, I find myself indebted to some God that listened to my honest and tearful begging before countless dawns. I owe so many colleagues, friends and family, random, caring strangers too... the cliche says 'the list goes on '... that right now I am just a little overwhelmed. But yez know who you are. And I used to carry a carcinogenic hatred to the ends of the earth, remember? Today, that black energy has been supplanted by good. I've learned through a time forged on the hot-plate of darkest hell that somewhere there are beautiful people with a candle for a heart that are there to see us through. And that... that is life's beauty.






Monday, May 7, 2018

Old time Wexican stand off.

I hadn't had the easiest two weeks leading up to yesterday's race, the Frank O' Rourke memorial in my home county. A week ago my daughter wound up in hospital with pneumonia and in the previous week I'd had that seasonal pain-in-the-face (No the farmers aren't pulling silage yet), actually it was sinusitis. I felt more than a little sheepish signing on. A couple of easy spins in ten days hardly qualified me as a contender. Maybe marshalling would have been a better option? How do you disappoint all those smiling faces; the people who've relied on you and given a damn?
Scarier than my impending retirement (that I seem to be dragging the ass out of) was the bunch of cyclists in my race. You see, the Christian Brothers may have hit me 35 years ago as a reminder that my maths ability was Neanderthal, but on yesterday's start line I did a quick calculation and worked out that more than half wouldn't have had the pleasure of knowing/ racing with/ been on the receiving end of the rapier wit of... Frank O'Rourke. That scared me because I don't fit in anymore. Bygone era and all that. Frank tore strips off me in races more than 15 years ago. At about twice my age. He helped us all to race hard and smart. One of only a handful of Wexford men that did it all in Irish cycling circles. And when I went to his removal I just remember feeling a little lost.
And that's ages ago. Most of us have grown up. A lot of us have come back to cycling. The races we did have died. And now I feel like a Luddite, not wanting change. Too happy to sip red wine and wear rose tinted glasses.
So Frank took a break from his celestial chaingang yesterday afternoon and cycled beside me on the back road. It was obvious to him I'd burned all my matches just getting to the race. A waste. So he channelled his raspy-voiced spirit into a couple of buckos that escaped up the road, buckos who subsequently handed us our asses and a lesson in grit and spit. All thanks to Frank mind... for that was how he rode.

So I can do two things. I can call it a day, grab a bag of Amber Leaf and some skins and sit on my front doorstep regaling passers-by with stories of valour and bravery on the roads to nowhere. Or see out the season with Frank's attitude in my head. What have I to lose? I know its hard to keep going and justify racing. But I feel it would be even harder to simply fade out. Harder in the long run. So what's the plan? Yesterday I met a whole bunch of people that maybe don't race so much as they used to but when they did... they did. And most of them knew Frank. And I feel I let them down. I've only got a few races left. Why not rewind the newsreel to the good old days? Give those folks a show? Failing that, for nothing else than to remind myself (when I am smoking roll-ups on the doorstep) that I tried hard. That I made the race. That something I did, counted. Aggression, surprise, cunning... just to utter those words, thrills me.
So what if lots of those I raced against yesterday have no clue who the race was in memory of? That's just time. No reason though not to get back in there and remind them of his legacy. Wexford cycling was full of attacking, have-a-go heroes when I got stuck in. Why can't we see a little of that again?
I was tired yesterday but a little rest and we'll get going again. There was no way I'd miss the race though. No way. Annual Pilgrimage to one of my religious icons.

That era is what got me through life. I can't thank Frank and his kind enough. All of those leagues and line-outs are like a giant tattoo on the inside of my skin, a deep, personal homage to a magical time. When I hang up my racing wheels I'll make sure the hubs are rough from thousands of miles in slop and rain and peeling heat. I imagine the rims will be scored and scoured thin from stopping and cornering, the spokes brittle from inertia. Twenty weeks to say goodbye in a manner that befits my beginnings. Sounds like a challenge.


Sorry about yesterday Frank. It won't happen again.

Saturday, April 28, 2018

Who are you?

Glasses on my head, book in my hand, I can be found anywhere. I might be in my Mother's house of an evening, the prisoner of Azkaban in full flow, conjuring a spell beyond any number of dementors.
Or maybe you passed prefab 4 during the Great Gatsby? A foolish Nick Carraway living with morals while the Toms and Gatsby types do what they want?
Did you join me on the Metro when I read Catch 22? When I missed my stop to see what happened to Major Major? I laughed out loud and shuddered simultaneously. Remember Slaughterhouse 5? God, I was as flattened as Dresden after it. As flat as a moonscape. Did you join me on a journey through Spain in The Sun Also Rises? Did we have a beer in the square or fish together on the Factory river? Maybe you held the wine bag up as I drank? I honestly can't remember!
Remember reading Nesbo's The Snowman as snow fell outside? Jesus, I triple checked the doors were locked for a week. Did you ever read James Lee Burke? Imagining who you knew was just like Clete Purcell? And we all know someone that thinks they are Serpico, right?
So much of life is in a book. The thirst to beat all thirsts in Ice Cold in Alex. Life's shadows in Hogwarts. Our isolation in the New York trilogy. Sven Hassell's stark, glory-less war. The countless heroes and zeros of print; characters we embrace or run from.
I was Joyce strolling Dublin from the outside. I was Hemingway at the San Isidro bullfights. I may even have been Jeanette Winterson once, when lost in Venice. I've been Tim Krabbe more than I'd have liked and for sure I've been swallowed up by the system like Heller. And now I'm in the middle of the novel. My own. And it's damned hard to ignore the illustrious list above or to channel one of the characters that lit the way for me in the past. 116 pages so far, of steering clear of all the literature in my life imprinted like a tattoo on my soul. Maybe when its all over I'll be free. I won't be them. I'll be me.

Saturday, April 21, 2018

Nobody gets outta here alive

Life kills. No doubt about it. So let's not fool ourselves, there's pressure out there. We need to deal with it. Blame whatever you like; heartless banks, societal expectations, Facebook, your genes, Roundup in your bread, dementors in your head from the cradle, your boss or yourself. It doesn't matter. But I want you well. I just want you to keep going and realise you are as vital and necessary a part of humanity as anyone. Of course we don't all deal with life head-on like a Hollywood hero. Some of us are quite beaten by the madness life flings, so we deal with it our own way. That can take on a number of forms and outcomes. What do we need to get through?
Could be a leopard print underpants on in front of the tv, using your belly as a beer mat. It might be the syringe with whatever opiates you crave, a slice of a Fentanyl patch tucked neatly between gum and cheek perhaps? Wine often worked for me. It makes other people interesting in social situations and is a key player in keeping you comfortably numb when life stops being a mill pond and instead sucks out your shoreline to come at you with tsunami proportions. Maybe you're one of the ghosts gliding around from pharmacy to pharmacy, bagging enough codeine to kill the pain, the one that isn't really there but won't go away.
Sometimes it just takes an hour of The Cube to right the ship. Or a Tele-evangelist saying that perfect phrase that seems to reach all the way from your flat-screen to your flat soul. An episode of Friends to kill the white noise? Maybe you could hurtle a car down lanes at break-neck speed or painstakingly paint in watercolours.

A cuppa doesn't work for me so I try to hit the road. The road talks to me and I talk back. Asphalt is a good listener. I let it all out; the anger, elation, brutality and euphoria of life. I transmit it all through my Bike to the road and it whispers sweet nothings back, dulcet tones of forgiveness. And the road has never betrayed me yet.
But cycling is nothing. I don't care as long as you do something. Jump around a stage, walk the impossibly-short-legged dog somewhere, take a stroll under amber street lights at midnight, drive with the window down or turn up the Ramones to eleven. Go to church, get stuck in, light enough candles for everyone that loves you. Read a book with the tv off. Watch the sky after dusk for bats or just stop and listen. Listen beyond the fridge-hum. Hear that? It's you listening. You are there.
Say hello to everyone. Feel the sun on the nape of your neck. Look up. Taste the food instead of just using it. Say sorry. To hell with the rain, go out in it. Smell the turned soil from a field. Get your hands dirty. Allow yourself to feel tired. If someone asks how you are, tell them the truth. Have the second coffee and stay awake. And say thanks. A lot. And don't waste your time on random bloggers trying to keep you switched on. But always, always hang in there for the next sun-up. Promise?

Thursday, April 19, 2018

Still here.

So I'm walking through the graveyard with four students. It's a field trip. I'm surrounded by the living and the dead. The living are the four lads, enjoying Spring weather, full of banter, stories and a lust for life. The dead are... well, I don't have to explain, do I?
Saint Stephen's cemetery has 'em all. The unmarked graves, the familiar plots of my loved ones and distant relations. And friends that broke my heart. It also has the marble mausoleums befitting Roman generals that can be seen from space. It's all irrelevant really. Those in the ground have left an impression on those above it. Those above it are wasting their time building monoliths. Of course my Father-in-law used to say 'there's no pockets in a shroud' so if you feel like emptying Tuscany of all it's marble, then go ahead!
Me personally, I'm kinda hoping for something small. And I'd really like to be alone in it for a very long time. I mean, I'd be hoping my missus and kids would have crazy-long lives and leave me to it for a while. They'd deserve a break anyway. Besides, somehow I can't see me being around, sarcastic and irreverent at 90. But then that's the beauty of life, ain't it? We have no clue! I might be around in forty years, a bitter old man and still smiling gummily. I may have won the lottery and decided on a crypt bigger than any warehouse. Or I might be laid to rest in a pauper's grave, forgotten, unknown, unloved. Who knows?
The main thing is I'm not worried. You see, I'm living right now. I feel life. I'm aware, still moving, thinking. Still HERE.
I walked between the rows of graves and headstones today in the balm of sunlight and fresh air. I had the great company of my students. They exude life. Have a healthy disdain for authority. Come from vastly different backgrounds and situations. There they were, eating ice-cream cones, as we strolled through a who's who of the loved and the damned, the revered and forgotten. And it felt important. Why? I think the living have a duty to be alive. I know that those I loved and lost and who now lie in graves we passed today did... they LIVED. And I know that taking a half-hour and traipsing around the graveyard with a group of happy-go-lucky young souls for company, reminded me that, yes, I am living, I'm still HERE, keeping good company. If "Every day above ground is a good one", then today was great.







Thursday, April 12, 2018

Missile Crisis

Oh Lord its April!!!! Time for Heidi to go skipping along through alpine pastures following a goat herd, intoxicated with flower perfumes and the new-air of the season. If you were farmer John you'd be sowing corn, the fine smell of green diesel, earth and hope in your nostrils. If you were fifteen again, life would be busting out of every corner, possibilities firing off like an electrical storm in your brain.
Ah... I must be dreaming!!! I'm a cyclist. So far Spring has hidden like Bin Laden, petrified to peek out. I never remember having a race cancelled because of snow. I never remember watching the weathergirl as she tells me the roads will be too dangerous to drive to an event. Even when she is dressed just this side of cute and gives a smile that has led people to do stupid things, she can't make the roads safe, can't melt snow. A decade ago I had sunburn behind my knees and arms on Paddy's day. What's going on????!
I've been looking for signs. Leafy trees. Grass growing. Ivory-legs in shorts. The need for sunglasses. Muffin-tops. Beer bellies cascading over waistlines. Pink foreheads from beer gardens. No chance! Instead I've trained in full winter gear until mid-april , managed to get to one race, disintegrated a rear-wheel, blown two sets of bearings, sucked up a whole damn month of Ozzy flu and it's aftermath, and nearly, not quite, but nearly... actually called it a day.
So what, I'm writing nature blogs now? No! I'm one of hundreds in the same situation... kindred souls hamstrung by a damn-near nuclear Winter in terms of length. So when I rock up to a race I'm up against it. Everyone is firing a salvo of what they've developed over the off-season. Missile after missile of strength, endurance, frustration. Serious energy and fire-power.
I've picked one hell of a year for a final season. On the grid, the joules bursting forth from likely, Lycra lads, would power a town. The season will be shorter, as will tempers, recovery, odds for a win and length between hospital/ Physio visits. And packed into that will be Joe the slice of Gouda cheese, looking razzled already before being placed in the sandwich of race-winners and hardy bucks that spit the likes of me out daily.
That long winter hit me hard. I am, in my fiftieth year, a finite element. Winter training is a beautiful thing with an endgame. The endgame is racing from March 1st. That's a reward for turning yourself inside-out in grey, S.A.D.-inducing dead months where the fields look the same and you are alone to test your will and sanity. So to not get to race hurts. And now, finally back racing, everyone is taking their frustration out in earnest. Closure, revenge, rage, catharsis... call it what you want... but it hurts real good. It seems I'll just have to get on with it. Make that hurt pay dividends.
Heidi would have skipped along, avoiding goat shite in her patent leather shoes and smiled up every mountain. Farmer John would look at the thunderheads gathering, spread slurry for soakage and laughed in the face of failure.
And the fifteen year old boy with a head and heart full of possibilities? Well, that was me. And it's been one helluva ride!

Tuesday, April 10, 2018

Creole Belle

Two days now and not a word. The phone is silent. Ironic that, silence. Down the strand just over the beaten fence of the beach house, the surf pounds. It should be beautiful, isolated, a refuge. Instead all I can think of is her wind-blown, shoulder-length hair as she left. It wasn't an argument, more a disagreement. I don't raise my voice and she doesn't hold her ground. She'd often take the car, get some air, come back an hour later as though nothing had happened.
Not this time. Her phone was resolutely OFF. I sat in the sunroom staring out. Bleached cushions, bleached cane furniture. A smell of heat off everything now in the height of Summer. But I felt cold. Was she gone back to him? Would I want her back now if she did show up? I sipped the almost-cold coffee and watched in the distance as kids played down by the water's edge. A car door slamming woke me from my daze. I jumped up. Whatever it was we would work it out. We would. I rushed to the screen door and pulled it open for her. Sergeant Williams faced me, hat in hand. "Hey John", he said, eyes lowered.

Monday, March 19, 2018

Tempus Fugit

Time is an enemy. It catches up and breaks you down. All of a sudden you are having a conversation with your 87 year-old mother. You're engagement photo from Tunisia is 17 years old. You are counting down waiting for the few snatched play-times with your growing kids, caught between watching them grow into characters and wanting time to freeze-frame. What can we do? Look back and count the cost of time wasted aimlessly waiting, or, count the fewer memories of time lived fully? I remember dragging my ass through college, hours every day... gone. A lost boy. A faceless institution. But I took a love of words from it and met some incredible people along the way. Before that I can count the lost five years when I nomadically plodded about once I'd left school. Or I can recognise the character that came out of those lean times.
And in recent years I've awoken to another fact. I always felt my Dad passed on too soon. I was twenty-three. He was seventy one. Since my daughters arrived in my life I've seen it differently. I was too caught up in myself at the time to see that those were twenty three years where we were really lucky to have each other and to share whatever we did. I never saw that perspective after his death. Felt hard done by for a while. Life is fleeting, harsh and nail-biting stuff with zero warranty. He taught me that. I have a feeling he enjoyed those years just as much as I'd like to replay them.
I look at how green I was in the late eighties/early nineties. I rode my bike with no coach or clue, putting myself to sleep at night dreaming about Belgian toothpaste, epic battles and success. Sure, at the time I wasn't happy when I couldn't win jack sh*t but now I'm so happy turning the pedals. I look at young fellas being coached and equipped and mentored and I can only feel pleased for them. Cycling has probably contributed to my being here right now, more than any other thing. Yes I could have ridden and finished the RAS in the early nineties [and most definitely NOT in the last 20 years] but sure, in the grand scheme of things I've smiled a lot through cycling. I didn't burn like a flare. I wasn't extinguished in the dark times either.
In a nutshell, I've managed to get a handle on time and it's effects. I know it's value. Despite what my wife may sometimes vocalise, I spend a huge amount of time not cycling! There's the time with that aforesaid 87 year-old, there's the crazy times around the town with the kids, in the cafΓ©, chasing them around the fruit and veg in ALDI, staying up reading with them or having cheeky snuggles on the couch. I cycle probably 6 hours a week. And I enjoy it. Most of that is done out of the school gate. Sunday spins have me back in time to do the shopping and look out the supermarket window at local clubs cycling by.
I don't have a great routine. I just try to turn the stereo up. Depeche Mode's "Enjoy the Silence" is sublime when turned up to eleven. I drive quickly. I train harder. Or pick harder routes. I jettison anyone that tears time away from me. I read hard-boiled stuff like Raymond Chandler instead of literature. The coffee machine in my classroom is always on as I try to teach at a million miles an hour. I pitch my life experiences at 30 students every 40 minutes. At home Lavazza is the pout pourri replacement. I have repetitive strain injuries in my sense of humour from messaging the good mates I have. If they were in a quiz they'd be the quick-fire round!
I try desperately to kick chronology in the gut and buy more time. I'm trying to log this blog [written over lunch] before putting the sprogs to bed!! But I'll be back down the stairs to write a page of the novel.
Andy Dufresne gets the last words though; "Get busy living or get busy dying."









Sunday, March 11, 2018

New tattoo

I'd like to think I move to the beat of a different drum. Doesn't everyone? A tattooed beat all of our own making. We all have a different reality deep in our subconscious. It's back there where we were little, hairy, hunter-gatherer types. Our way of being is decided for us long before we ever became aware of it. So though I'd like to think my slightly incessant sense of humour, my love of the outdoors and an awful disrespect for authority is a personal project and journey that I alone forged... the truth says different.
I have no idea who I am in reality. If I write drunk and edit sober then I'm of Norman descent via Flanders, farmers, educators, emigrants and tradesmen. I don't feel as though I belong to any of that bar the Flandrian part. 800 years ago that's where my namesake hailed from. A small region that prides itself on directness, a stubborn streak, and a sarcasm unparalleled in western Europe. Plus an affinity with the hard outdoors.
Today I coughed and spluttered and sounded like an East German female weight lifter every time I spoke. I belted out to the Saturday time trial league only to find that there were no other competitors. I had a chat about soccer with timekeeper/photographer/organiser/bastion of cycling Sean, then we called it a day. But somewhere in my sub-sub-conscious a troglodyte Norman with the unibrow and B.O. started to suggest I race anyway. So I couldn't breathe properly (hey maybe it was lack of oxygen to my brain?), knew I was racing myself only, and said flip it, let's do it! Would you believe it if I said I got a shudder down my spine as I started the stopwatch? I know, I know, it was probably just the Veno's cough syrup, Sinutab and vitamin D coursing through my oxygen-depleted veins.... But I'd like to think it was that inkling of ancestry, a dot of soil from a North Sea buffeted field.
Off I set, a sorry sight hurtling down the inclines and struggling up the drags with a stubborness and angst that belonged in De Panne instead of a rural corner of Wexford. I could have taken a shortcut, or turned around on the road. After all its not as if there was a witness. Hell I could have called a taxi! I was pumping amoebic horrors from my nose, leaving a trail Hansel and Gretel would have been proud of. And all to race myself because some glitch in my DNA bade me keep going. My ego would like to think I was tough to finish but really I didn't want to admit I'm sicker than my wife thinks. And there was that feeling that a little bit of cycling here and there keeps my hopes of having a decent season alive. My personal image now stands at 'Tough Flandrian skin wrapped around a soft, chocolate-fondant body'.

Monday, February 26, 2018

Funny half hour

Forty odd years ago my Dad would let out a holler from downstairs at us to quiet down, to go asleep, that it wasn't 'funny half-hour!!'. So we'd quit our sniggering and stop hitting each other with pillows or insults and nod off. As I cycled around town today I couldn't get the phrase 'funny half-hour' outta my head. It wasn't nostalgia. It was relief. I'd spent a week in a nether-world between sleeping on a sofa or walking like a zombie. Energy-depleted. Sore. Listless. Antibiotics and coffee the staple-diet. I'd gone from riding a time-trial on a Saturday to beaten old man by Sunday. Fun times. I knew I was going to get sick, what with viruses and doses having turned my house into a small hospital in the previous weeks. The virus I got had been in the post, so to speak.

And today I cycled for half an hour. Half an hour steady. To put that in perspective, I normally do full-on intervals on Monday, dragging my ass up a hill ad infinitum or sprinting like a deranged greyhound after a non-existent hare. But today was a litmus test. Ride a bike. For thirty minutes. Just cycle. And I did. I watched my heart-rate climb, felt my legs spinning in the cold air. And I laughed and smiled and laughed some more. Funny half hour was thirty minutes of beaming like the village-idiot, laughing at the air filling my lungs and feeling alive. I had thought my legs would go, my heart palpitate like a caffeinated octogenarian, dizziness would overcome me like a wobble to jelly or I'd just fall over like a fool.{I have form lately in that department!}.

Nothing happened. I survived. My lungs are good. I'm still smiling. There's been days in the past when time was too tight and I'd not cycle, thinking it wasn't worth the hassle. Never again. I'm sure half the people that saw me lapping the town like an idiot, grinning at my luck, probably think I should be sectioned. They could be right. But I'll keep on smiling, just to keep them guessing.

Tuesday, February 13, 2018

Hope

Why do you ride a bike? There's complex answers to that one. And I'm only asking because of late I realised that there's every possible avenue into our sport. I'm reminded that cycling doesn't have to follow the traditional routes of many sports. I'm reminded of Dutchman Steven Rook's drunken bet in a bar that he could win a race despite not riding a bike at all. And later rode the Tour regularly. Or all those ski/biathlon/triathlon/runners/GAA players with injuries that did more than take up cycling, they took it over. And we are surrounded by people who inspire without knowing it, simply because there is no hallowed path into cycling, no sure fire system like a lot of mainstream sports with their apprenticeship approach. Truck drivers, teachers, accountants, dentists, farm contractors,fitters, joiners, builders, salespeople, gangers, are the first people to mind that cycle in my world. That makes for some eclectic mix of personalities and mindsets! Get the picture?
I got into cycling through my brother Stephen and also my friend Adrian. Let's be honest. When your bro brings home Tour magazines in French from, of all places, well...France... you are only going to fall in love. He was off in France for parts of college when cycling was on the rise in Ireland. I was absorbed by Phil Liggett-voiced American cycling tales on RTE but Stephen taught me 'La tete et les jambes' (the head and the legs). Of course it didn't stop me from ignoring the 'tete' bit for the next 20 years but as they say in Brittany... actually I don't know what they say because I didn't learn much of that language! Roughly translated they would say "Imbecile! You are as useful as a teapot du chocolat! Mon dieu!" And besides, the shit-cool photos of Laurent Fignon and his ponytail or backdrops of open, heat-shimmered roads caressed with echelons in the mags sold my soul forever.
Adrian brought me out clubbing. Before you ring the drug squad or Greenpeace I should point out that it was bike-clubbing. Hard-as-nails chain-gang torture in the muck and wet of winter. Joyce described plunging into the Forty Foot in Sandycove as 'snot green and scrotum tightening'. That also defines our local roads. Just replace snot-green with slurry brown. Adrian was up for long spins of the return-home-buckled variety. I can honestly say that I was lost on his bike rides. And never as happy. And then I was hooked. Fast sprints around the town on friday night's when Stephen got off the bus followed by character building Sunday spins with Adriano where you came back with a beard.
Other club members came from handball or cross country running. Grass-track champion DNA or the Belgian school of hard knocks.
That was back in the Ark compared with today. And this is where cycling is beautiful. You can't pick up a Hurley at thirty and rock up to the GAA club but you can cycle with any club. You might like to think the local rugby club might accept a 25-year-old newbie that doesn't know their ruck from their try but really you'd be better off on a bike. Only a golf club will be as accepting. (Of your cash). So cycling it is then...! As an example, look at the crowds that participate in the Cycle Against Suicide or any large Sportif for that matter. They haven't come through the system in most cases. They needed an outlet and found most other sports inaccessible. Seriously though, Like drops of rain draining into streams until they become an ocean, it thankfully doesn't matter where we come from anymore as long as we get out cycling. Snobbery exists everywhere but thankfully in cycling it's being slowly swamped by a tide of MAMILS and smiling young folk that are of the zero-tolerance-of-BS generation.

Is this too chirpy for you? Too endorphinated? Seriously?! Sunday I met a bloke called Garrett and had a great social chat in a snow flurry as we cycled along at 8am. By 9.30 I was talking to a lady by the name of Mia who happens to be part of the National set up and is a track rider and good company too. But neither cyclist started with a club as a 12-year-old and learned the nutty, prohibitive rules. And both are definitely better for it. Instantly sociable will always trump the silence new cyclists used to receive. There is no longer a pecking order. Can you ride a bike without knocking me off? Fair enough, no need for an apprenticeship then, or, the 457 grey rules to accompany it. Why shouldn't you enjoy the same event as everyone else?
Mindfulness has probably, single-handedly re-shaped Irish cycling. We need our break. We need to re-connect. We want to enjoy the Irish countryside without a book of rules that basically shuts the door on day one.

So an average club cyclist equates to an average club member in any sport, right? No way! Look at what we are; Super social; apart from the odd grommet in your ear, we can instantly connect with most fellow cyclists. A Sunday group ride is basically manic speed dating in lycra. Had a mechanical? You might sit in your car waiting for the tow-truck but as a cyclist you'll be surrounded by helpful people instantly, like a benevolent pit-crew. Want to push yourself? Then you'll find events with hundreds of people (just like you) lining up, all with diverse backgrounds and circuitous routes into the sport. Cycling is a beautiful activity, a passion and a lifestyle. You are less ordinary. You are a rarity. You are a deity in a world of worshippers. You may not feel it when the trolls pass too close on the road but its blind jealousy that brings them close. They want to be you. They have drifted from soccer at 30 or hurling at 32, felt betrayed at 34 in rugby or dropped their gym membership at 36. They want your will and your resolve. They want your heart too. Pity them. They don't cycle.

Tuesday, February 6, 2018

Tramadol for the craic

You have to laugh. Karma has been buzzing around the last ten days like an unwanted fly in a kitchen. As the fridge magnet reads, 'Sometimes you are the pigeon and sometimes you are the statue.' Last week I was the pigeon, soaring, carrying the message of karma to all. This week I am, most definitely, the statue. I rounded off last week with the tough Sunday session in my schedule and it went really well. I felt good and didn't waste a kilometre. In fact I had time to spare coming back from the Hook and headed, as suggested, for Sliabh Coillte. It's a hill that my friend Mizgajski turned into a training Mecca. I've probably, literally been up there a hundred times and it's a horror. A Bullfighter will often refer to the bulls as being their friends, even after a goring. I'll never call that hill my friend. Frenemy on a good day maybe. I must have been motoring in the last week whilst delivering that karma message. I'm one to torque. My chain snapped as I rounded the first hairpin bend. I was standing, churning, doing a Contador. Well, El Pistolero but firing blanks. And then I was on the deck, via the handlebars. My pride was shot to bits. My broken chain became a broken projectile headed for the nearest ditch. My voice became that of a drunken cowhand's, cursing mostly myself.
At this juncture you may be laughing solidly at my misfortunes. Thats how karma works. This week I'm the statue. A cracked rib, stiff neck and swollen knee delivered at 5mph. But then karma just might have been taking really great care of me because during that morning's session I'd totalled 28 all-out short efforts. So I could have face-planted anywhere and at any speed. Fair enough I could probably do with the free cosmetic surgery more than most. But methinks something is keeping me alive. So the 'Jeers' (As my Dad called them) from the past can come get more karma....
And although I'm sore, I'm not terrible. My friend Shirley nearly broke her ankle last evening playing hockey and vomited on the way home with the pain. That's nasty. I can pick up my kids but can't turn sideways. Grand really.
That's not to say I didn't consider painkillers. But if my body is telling me it's sore then I should just back off. Like the cyclists going to league races a few years ago with a car boot full of supplements... you are only writing cheques for your body short term, knowing that the account will soon be in arrears. Better rest now. Besides, even though there's Tramadol in the house I'm not a pro rider in need of results. I'm not even a second string kermesse rider in Flanders. I'm just a weekend warrior. Actually more a Sunday skirmisher. No, a partially motivated MAMIL with delusions. So Tramadol or Nurofen or NO Explode are out the window. As for creatine, yohimbe or beta-alanine... I can always do with a tingle but no amount of potions will make me great. A doped donkey won't win the derby and all that. I won't give up my coffee though. I may never be a champion but my Cuppa Joe tells me different. I'll just avoid the pastries and general, stretch-mark inducing, diabetes-in-a-bun delights I seem to be surrounded by.
So where to? An easy week beckons. I can do that. I'll cycle by the bike shop, coffee shop and off-licence so word will get around that I'm constantly clocking kilometres. I'll stay off Strava to keep the chaingang chimps guessing too. I might drink 4 cortados per day to keep the weight down and trick my heart into thinking it's training. In no time at all I'll be the pigeon again. Pecking around, noisy when approached and leaving my mark on whoever's the statue next.

Thursday, February 1, 2018

Manipulation examples

"Go on, it'll be the best tenner you ever spent!" She winked and put the tiny pill with the Mitsubishi symbol on the end of her long tongue. She smiled and it disappeared.
And I knew what was inferred, her message.... Join in with me and you just might get me too. But that was the voice in my head. It didn't occur to me that in a club with 1000 other pill-necking, beautiful-people, it might not be me she'd go home with. But it did occur to me, like a neon sign flashing over my head, that if I didn't do it, she would disappear like a witch into the night. So I took her hand, her exquisite, manicured hand, and she led me into the corner of the club, near the booming bass and pointed out her dealer of choice. She called him Instagram, explaining that he could always, no matter where you were, show up with a gram in an instant. But the bass pounded, we didn't talk, I waved a tenner, he waved a pill. On the dance floor, Amy waved a finger at me in a come-hither way and my conscience dissolved away with the powdery taste in my mouth. She had won.
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"F**k you ya clown!" My first impression was that he was big. Rugby big.
"It was an accident lad. I'll buy you another beer." And I turned to the bar to do just that.
"I don't want another beer, you've ruined me night ya eejit." He was squaring up. Well as 'square' as a chunky, over-weight rugby jock could get.
But my girlfriend wasn't having it.
"You ain't gonna let that blob call you an eejit, are you?"
"Well, I just want a quiet time Rachel. Hadn't planned on A+E tonight." Rachel had had a few drinkies by now.
"Well I think you should take that fella to the street and 'bate the head off him!" The problem with this statement was it's volume. So loud that the Jock looked at me expecting me to go through with it. Thank you Rachel, my soon to be ex.
"OK, you want a beating, I'll give you a beating!"
Then we were outside, tucked away around the corner out of sight of the bouncers. As I passed out from his knee blocking my wind-pipe, I remember the smell of urine in the alley and the absence of Rachel, bloody Rachel, presumably still in the pub.

Sunday, January 28, 2018

Biting back.

'A' game my ass. Don't get me wrong but I couldn't capitalise on my physical resilience with some mental strength today. 100k swooping through the southeast with 170 fellow cycling nutjobs should have been a doddle but my pride got in the way. I had everything sorted but half way through the event he showed up....You know the guy, right? Am I moving too fast? Ok, breathe... lets start at the start.
I can be vindictive. Cross me and I'll not forget. Might be something cutting you said in passing or a look you gave me you know you really shouldn't have. Cross my wife or kids and you're dust. I've really tried to work on it, letting it go etc. In fact there's people talking to me today that would not a few years ago. Over in the old Saint Mary's Abbey in New Ross there's a Leper's squint in the wall of the North transept. The leper's colony in the town (Norman soldiers had brought the disease back from the Holy Land during the last Crusades) would go to the tiny hole in the wall to receive communion, being forbidden to mix with the general population. At one point half a dozen years ago I felt like that leper, the focus of a condescending attitude from a coterie of cyclists I had once known well. And in today's event a particular scenario came flooding back as I ran into one of those self-same dudes. I don't know how much you understand about cycling but it's about conserving energy as long as possible. A few years ago I found myself only a few kilometres from home in a small group dropped by the leaders. The gap was only a hundred metres and on a false flat, three out of four of us were trying to bridge, each giving it everything. And this one guy told us he was cooked. Couldn't contribute. I rode on like a demon possessed, alarm bells ringing because the same dude was putting in savage training every week. We got to within fifty feet of the group but they were starting to pull away again. I did one last savage turn and expected honesty from the others when, out of nowhere,the non-contributing 'cooked' lad shot out from my slipstream and sprinted across the gap to the disappearing leaders. I blew spectacularly and limped home. And stored that away in my hard drive.
Today, 65km into the ride, on a serpentine, flooded back road, whom did I find myself in the company of? Mr 'I'm cooked' from yesteryear. I pushed myself hard and followed him in the gutters for the next few sections of the course. Indeed I pushed myself too hard in order to position myself well for the final few climbs. I made sure to hold back a little and certainly not contribute to his pace. My heart rate peaked at 188 on the climb after he was dropped. I needed to copper-fasten his demise but my efforts were signalling my own. My legs locked like Brinks in the final few minutes but by then I believed I'd delivered some karma for past misdemenours. Yet I'm sitting here feeling petty. Shouldn't I be all Zen and forgive and forget? Shouldn't I be the better person? Maybe. But sometimes you gotta right the ship when its been listing a long time.
I feel ashamed in one way to have finished today's ride in such a manner. Hadn't I had a ball catching up with the friends that always respected me? Hadn't I felt like a fleet God in the bunch all day? Wasn't it a Belgian-toothpaste-handlebar-licking-morale-lifting beauty of a ride before my pride? Yes it was. Maybe I'll pop over to the Abbey tomorrow instead of cycling and ask for forgiveness and tolerance.

Monday, January 22, 2018

See you Sunday. Bring your A game.

A minute turns into an hour, turns into a day, turns into a week... a month and then it's a year. Where was I at a year ago? Peering at a dystopian computer screen full of silver and white shades having a well-broken elbow pointed out to me in post-mortem, post x-ray detail. A Morgan Freeman voice; "This son, is it. You've had it." But I knew I hadn't. I knew I'd do something. I wasn't going to be a God, like Mathew Hayman, winning Paris-Roubaix after 6 weeks on a home-trainer. But I would come back. I would not die as a sportsperson and take up golf. All due respect to my fifty year old peers playing golf but I can't respect that. Argyle only sits well on Travellers and 19th-hole-graduates and last time I looked I wasn't either of those. I refuse to talk handicaps and Gant.... I can always run, or walk, or hike, or... you get it. Not golf.☠ Did I mention I don't like golf?!
So this week I find myself in the privileged position of once more looking forward to the first event of the year in good, healthy form. Fingers and all sorts of bits crossed like a squid doing Pilates. A year ago the veil had come down and I'd already sunk into an overwhelming darkness. Affectionately known as the abyss. A broken elbow just as I was starting to hum in training. I was so happy just before I fell. So, so content. Rotten luck. I'm back now. My goals may have shifted to a long-view, racing, sun-holiday with the bike etc. but I'm here.
And I'm counting my blessings in every sense. I didn't fracture something important such as my skull or someone else's life. I'm thankful the Egyptian lady in charge of A+E took a shine to me and fast-tracked me out of what is carnage on a daily basis. I'm blessed my wife didn't put her foot down when really she had the right to. I'm glad I've regained full function and also got over that sea-fog of anaesthetic. If I'd hit the fentanyl I'd be dead by now. Instead I had no pain and I'm super grateful to the Flandrian in my DNA for that. I'm glad I was awakened to the caring few as opposed to the disingenuous multitude. Those I trust could now be counted on one (slightly inbred) hand.
And do I have a beautiful message, like Jesus with a bunch of misfits at his feet, somewhere in Galilee? Why yes, yes I do. Seize it. Seize it all before squinting eyes or early-onset-Alzheimer's or heartbreak or realization or circumstances beyond our control rob us of the right or ability to do it all anymore. Conquer before the tide turns against us. And if that doesn't sound like Jesus, then... seize life and don't hurt a soul in the process. Get what you can from life before it knocks on your door looking for something in return. For it will not be pretty.