Ever noticed that?…… as you get wider your trousers get shorter! I suppose there’s only so much fabric to go ‘round’!
I look back, only with my bad eye, on my self professed, successful October Cycle Challenge which saw me cycling a minimum of 10 miles every day throughout October.
I never stick to anything, other than the fridge!
With the help and support of my Sweat Pledge buddies, The Wednesdays (buddies cycle group) and leading my HSBC UK Breeze rides I made it to the end of the challenge and for once was chuffed with myself.
Broken your New Year’s Resolutions Yet?
I had focus in October.
I decided I was going to challenge myself.
I decided what the challenge would be.
I decided I was doing it for me and for no other reason than to challenge myself.
I didn’t do it for reward,
I didn’t do it because there was great accolade at the end,
I didn’t do it because I was pressured into it. I did it for me, to test myself.
Did you make a New Years Resolution? Did you start it with all good intentions? Have you broken it?
Don’t make them …… don’t break them!
Resolutions, challenges, promises, they need to be faced for the right reason and not because you feel pressured or cajoled into it.
What constitutes a challenge?
Going one step further than you did before. Don’t set yourself up to fail. Though in saying that we can learn much from failure.
…And is it really failure if you can say you’ve tried? I think not.
Some people are quite content and don’t need to ‘create’ a challenge to feel fulfilled. For some, to get up every morning is a challenge as they struggle with everyday life limiting conditions.
A challenge and degree of challenge is as individual as each of us.
My challenge of cycling a minimum of 10 miles per day for a month pales into insignificance when in the company of the likes of Kajsa Tylen and Steve Abrahams with their upwards of 100 to 200+ miles per day for a year. BUT it was my challenge and relevant to me.
Trousers getting shorter!!
Blinking heck. I’ve done myself NO favours!
I completed my October challenge and was chuffed. I carried on cycling most days for the next couple of weeks in November then it started to taper off to about 3 times a week (I do need to earn some pennies you know!)
Early December I started not feeling too good. Put it down to yet another face infection (sinuses) but just couldn’t shake the clouded full head feeling.
…Then rollock!!!! 13th December … 3 Crashes … on 1 ride!!!
Thankfully involving no one other than myself BUT what a spanner! And when I say ‘hit the deck’ blinking nora it hurt (obviously i jumped up and said I was fine but inside I was wailing away).
Whilst I recovered from various body parts no longer working correctly and my face ache still aching, I got one of those viruses that was going round doing it’s worse.
For 3 weeks I was left totally fatigued. Starting to come around a little then Wham! Along comes another virus! Since the middle of December to about now, injury, infection and fatigue have been my constant companion…… along with food!
I’ve told you before I’m a gluten and so I am, hence why my trouser are getting shorter!
Need a challenge
Now I’m steadily getting back into my cycling stride, I look forward to what challenges ‘await’ and what challenges I ‘create’ as I travel through 2018.
Challenge 1: Get well – Short term challenge
Challenge 2: Stay well – Long term challenge
Challenge 3: Fell some timber – Long term challenge
Challenge 4: Put a training plan in place to address 2018 challenges – Long term
Challenge 5: Off bike Exercise Plan – Long term challenge
Challenge 6: Search out more cycle routes for my Breeze rides
Challenge 7: Confirm #BUTwillbeworthit rides and camp for Tour de Yorkshire
Challenge 8: E’tape Caledonia Sportive Sunday 20th May
Challenge 9: Tour de Yorkshire Borders – TBC date & support/sponsor – Pos. Sept
Challenge 10: 4000 cycling miles in 2018 – Long term challenge
Think that will do for now.
I know these are all fitness challenges, BUT I do have other challenges I’m working on. These are a lot harder to explain, though I was able to complete one today. It didn’t go how I expected it to BUT at least I faced it.
Going back to, ……have you failed if you have at least tried?…… I spent a few weeks mulling over a situation and getting worried about it. Finally, I arranged the meeting I would rather have avoided. After spending most of today in the loo, I went off to face my fear. At least I was able to say my piece without breaking down or shacking too much. It didn’t have the outcome I had hoped for, a peaceful one, BUT I did it.
That was a challenge for me. Did I fail? I’d like to say no BUT I fear I did.
I arranged the meeting, I went to the meeting, I thought I articulated well, I listen and appreciated. All positives.
BUT to no avail.
See, this is what I was saying earlier, we all measure challenges, failures, life experiences in different ways.
Onward
I shall finish on a lighter note. I am out cycling with the Wednesdays tomorrow. I haven’t been able to join them for a few weeks for reasons above, so I am really looking forward to being back in the cycling arms of my bike buddies (and as I have written this last bit a big smile has crept across my face).
Find the positives in the negatives and guide your energies in that direction.
Thank you for reading my blurb.
Cycle safe and smile!
Jo x
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