Mixed emotions

There was that niggling feeling of guilt when I sent the text message to Alberto this morning: “Just woke up, won’t ride”. Alberto had left much earlier for the Sunday ritual, the Zupps ride. We had planned to meet for coffee at Doug's cafe. It wasn’t like I had slept in and couldn’t make it on time. The clock showed past seven. With only a half hour ride to Sandgate and Alberto not expected to be there until after eight thirty, there would have been plenty of time to get there on time!

It was a quiet sunny morning, only a Kookaburra was laughing from a tree in the backyard, and I had the house all to myself. I loved how the sun was shining bright through the blinds into the lounge room, the coffee seemed more delicious than the usual first coffee of the day and while sipping on my glass, feet up, I was leisurely catching up on other people’s lives, entertaining and inspiring blogs I hadn’t read for some time. Rushing to get out of the house and on my bike would have destroyed this blissful morning.

Discipline is something I will take up again after our holidays, together with my training. Today I just let the morning be...

And then, after lunch and after a little nap, I did go for a ride down to Nundah where the last race of the day in this year’s Queensland State Criterium Championship had just started. I had missed the women’s races. There were lots of people I knew but I found it hard to concentrate on conversations. With one eye on the men’s race I chatted with Nikki, who had crashed in the Mersey Valley Tour in Tasmania just two weeks ago. She got 5th, she told me excitely, and it took me some time to realise that she was talking about the criterium earlier. I had not expected her to be back in the saddle after that horrific crash, let alone racing. She is one tough girl. This year I would have raced Master 2 for the first time. Nikki told me that there were about 12 women racing in my age group and over 20 in hers.

I chatted with Shane and Murray and Terry and many others and the whole time I felt restless and uncomfortable and anxious. It was like poking a wound. Questions about my health were asked and I found myself bored talking about it. I left before the last race was over. I had to spin my legs to get this restlessness and the frustration out of the system.

And that’s when I decided to ban the nasty word from my vocabulary. You know, which word I’m talking about? The bad word that brings tears of boredom to your (and my) eyes … so no more mention of the GF word on this blog from now.