Stuff and nonsense

I treated myself to some new pedals and cycling shoes today.  This on the basis of last night's 10 at the Olympic Velopark, which was as slow and painful as childbirth.  Why did I do this?  Well, I suppose it's partly a material requirement.  My current shoes are showing their age, and they're really not fit for racing.  But mostly it was because I wanted to nail my colours to the mast and make a public declaration of my status as a racing cyclist.

Given last night was excruciating and to date the slowest 10 mile time trial I've ever completed, this might strike the onlooker as odd, but it makes perfect sense.  Racing cyclists revel in physical discomfort.  It's part and parcel of the game.  The argot of the sport is shot through with references to suffering and masochism.  When one or two cyclists gather together, you'll quickly hear references to "seeing stars" "turning myself inside out" or "blowing up".  Last night we each of us knew he was about to enter his own private Golgotha, and that drew us together as a group.  "We happy few, we band of brothers."  It was joyous.

All I need to do now is bring my new shoes out for a spot of training - the hard part.

Ninety nine percent perspiration

I filed my 300-word (phew) book review a moment ago, and the relief is palpable.  No, really, I could have weighed my anguish this time yesterday, such was its scale.  I shouldn't get too comfy I suppose.  There's still time for it to land back in my in tray with "not fit for broadcast" stamped across it.  However, I think I've cut my journalistic teeth sufficiently now that I could churn out another review that comes to precisely the opposite conclusions to the first.  I wouldn't lose any sleep over this mercenary about turn either.  I've been a hack (unpaid) for less than 5 five hours and I've already turned into Pol Pot.

I've now been overcome with that physical slump that follows moments of crise like these.  My ordinary duties look even more anodyne and pointless than they did previously.  I feel like a character in an earnest but shit modernist novel. 

I also feel hugely tempted to take my foot off the gas, but this is fatal for me.  I can in a fug and get depressed.  I need to apply myself.  I know all this stuff, and yet will I buckle down?  Almost certainly not.  There's a masochistic streak at the heart of the Irish male.  This explains the violent temper and drinking.

You can run from that gene pool, but you cannot hide.