This is not where I planned to be!

I’m not where I planned to be. I’m not even close. A year ago I had recently finished the Indian Pacific Wheel Race, and even though I’d had some issues and was a long way behind the winner I felt like I’d done pretty well, all things considered. I knew I’d done a bit of damage to my knee in the process, but overall I was feeling good, and I had a plan. That plan was all focused around a single moment, 5 days from now. The problem is

life hasn’t followed the plan. What should have happened was a quick recovery for the knee, a slow build-up following a steady training plan over summer to get into peak condition, some big races with huge victories over the last couple of months, all culminating with me being in the best form of my life standing on the start line of Transcontinental Race number 7 in Burgas, Bulgaria, in 5 (now 3) days time. Oh yeah, and I’d be on a perfectly sorted and perfectly running bike, with gear that I had thoroughly tested, well in advance.

Here’s what has happened instead.

I haven’t trained. I think I am in the worst shape I’ve been in for 25 years. I suddenly understand why some people have looked at things I’ve done in the past and thought they were ridiculously hard. Right now, they seem that way to me.

It’s not that I didn’t want to train, I did. But the last year has brought a lot of challenges. I couldn’t see it at the time, but the year before that was one of the most destructive years I’ve had. I was in a terrible environment that was really damaging my mental health. And then, through good luck, wonderful timing, and great friends, I got out of it. So my life today is much better, but also much busier! On top of that, I’ve been sick or injured a whole lot more than usual this year, I’ve been travelling a lot more than usual and I’ve had a whole lot of new demands on my time. Oh, and also I started working from home, so the 300km per week I did just as commuting went out the window. Basically, I’m in terrible shape.

I missed almost all of those big races, I’ve barely touched the bike I’ll be racing, and I have some new gear that as of today I still haven’t actually tested on the bike. My plan is to test it on thursday in Bulgaria though.

And when I checked on my bike as we passed through Frankfurt (where we lucky enough to be treated wonderfully by some great friends) it turned out it had been damaged on the flight over. I managed to get the parts I need, now I just need to put them on the bike.

What I have done is thought a lot about what I need to do during the race (ride, then ride more) and how I need to approach it. I think I’ve got a solid plan, and even with my low level of fitness it should work out OK. I certainly won’t win (and a year ago I really thought that was an option) but hopefully I can still finish, and maybe even make the finisher’s party on day 15. I’ve got my race number (60), I’m in Europe, and even though I’m not where I wanted to be physically I’m looking forward to the attempt a lot! I also happen to think mine will be the best boat in the bunch.

On top of that I hope I’ll still manage to raise a decent amount of money for Beyond Blue, the charity that I’m supporting. I’m off to a pretty good start in that sense with some amazingly generous donations coming through already, so I’m now at about 15% of my fundraising goal, and haven’t started riding yet. Don’t forget if you want to contribute to that you can do so right here. Hopefully I’ll hit that goal pretty well!

Right now though I’m at the airport, ready for the last flight. One of the things I love about watching the dots of this race is the way they all spread out from the start line before all converging at the first checkpoint, and then repeat until the finish. Standing in the queue to check in I saw another guy with a bike box and not much else (to be fair my number one supporter was carrying all of our other luggage) and we shared a nod. The converging has started already, and I’m feeling pretty excited!