Moments that define you

"There are places I'll remember all my life" - Lennon/Mcartney

If you have never heard this particular Beatles song then I heartily recommend that you do.  This song has a particular place in my personal make up given that it was written by the Beatles (who are also from my home town of Liverpool) and used by Sky television following Liverpool's champions league win in 2005.  

Apparently it is John Lennon reflecting on his memories from childhood and how certain things stay with you.  Funny therefore that as a 36 year old dad this still seems as pertinent to me as at any time in my life.

The 2005 champions league game is one of the greatest of all time (unless you are a fan of certain other clubs - like Richard) with Liverpool being on the brink of an embarrassing defeat at half time before coming back to eventually draw and ultimately win on penalties.   This was possibly the greatest comeback ever and one of the most amazing ways to achieve a sporting goal perhaps until Manchester City decided to win the league in the last two minutes of this season.  If you still have them recorded on your sky plus/video and I have just messed up the ending for you then I apologise. 

As I sat on the grass bank looking out at the Orkney isles, talking to my wife and son to tell them that we had made it to our destination and completed what seemed impossible just six short months ago, I knew this is a place I will remember all my life.   The poignancy of the words in the song and this line in particular then really sank in and over the last few days I have had time to digest the trip and some of the thoughts that I had during it.

I can still see the waves lapping up against the far shore, feel the cold damp of the grass on my back and smell the fresh sea air just writing this and that is a memory that is just so alive.   

Thanks

Thanks have to go to a number of people on this trip such as Mike, Barry and Bob for manning the support vehicle that broke our journey up not into one 900 mile trip but a number of shorter targets.  Their company was a great break from just the four of us and their enthusiasm for being with us and a part of the achievement was highly contagious.  As this is a team event, we have signed the books for them at both ends to reflect their contribution to the team success.

Our friends and family who contributed to our success as well deserve special mention.  My wife for being so keen that I take this challenge on in the first place. Perhaps I should have worried more about Chelley wanting me to be away but I know that the main idea was the complete break from work would do me good and it did.  My son for wanting to know exactly where I was when we spoke and asking how was "Duncan" which meant he read the blogs we produced.  

Barri, Simon and Jamie who helped us to learn that getting fit can be fun, how to control our breathing on a bike to ride for longer and how to get lost in country lanes respectively.  The latter a skill I employed on many occasions. Jamie, thanks for the training rides you came on with us.  I learnt a lot from watching you disappear up those hills and that was very helpful at points on this trip.

To all others who joined in on our no doubt annoying Facebook posts, playing along with the silly games we were creating to take our minds of our aching muscles, reading your posts was a welcome distraction.  The record for words in the letters of Livestrong is now at 250+.  Some people (you know who you are!) are so competitive.

For everybody who has sent just a good luck message or been able to support Sparks as well we thank you as that was our main goal to assist a fabulous charity.  

It goes without saying that the team I rode as part of deserve a lot of thanks.  This was a team effort and we did it together at the start and finish as shown on the photos below.  Lee, Mike and Richard.  Cheers.

Lands end to...

John O Groats

I do feel however the need to single out two people in particular and acknowledge their stories which have inspired me over the course of the last two weeks.

"the extra 10%"

A few years ago I was lucky enough to meet Bear Grylls as he was a guest speaker at one of our work functions.  For those of you who don't know, he is famous for a TV programme called Born Survivor where he is dropped into inhospitable environments and then survives by using a variety of unsavoury methods, Before this, he also served in the British SAS and was the youngest Briton to conquer Everest (the mountain not the window manufacturer).  

As part of his speech that day he talked about the moment he was told he was accepted into the SAS.  He had always pictured himself in his best dress uniform crisply ironed and his shoes sparkling in the sunshine when he received this news.  When he actually did find out he was apparently wearing ripped clothing covered in mud and blood and had actually lost one of his shoes.  I will need to paraphrase, but the Commanders' (?) speech went along the following lines:

"you have been selected because when you had nothing else to give, when everybody else would have given up, you found the extra 10% to keep going."

Mike Potts is a hero in this mould.  Even per the Mariah Carey standards of simply having the strength to carry on.  I saw the pain he was in on the third day and the icing of his knee that was taking place.  At one point, he and Richard looked like Arnie's Mr Freeze in one of the Batman films with the amount of ice packs/freeze gels they had on them.  

One of my favourite moments was on the fifth day when a combination of a good down hill and Mike's fearless approach to descending them meant he and Richard flew past me screaming " coming throughhh."  At that point Mike seemed to be coming to terms with all that his knees were throwing at him and his determination to reach the end was truly heroic.

"If an idea is not at first absurd, then there is no hope for it" - Einstein

A few months ago, we all wrote a small story as to why we were doing this.  Most of us laid the finger of blame firmly at Richard's door.  In fact if you go back (and I have) this was Richard's "fault" that we were all putting ourselves through training sessions, the harsh weather and preparing for something as monumental as this.

By the end of last week, nobody was using the word fault anymore.  Richard had been the inspiration behind the whole trip and thanks to him we were all getting to contribute to helping make such a dream a reality. 

When we had finished I got back to the hotel room for the night and logged into Facebook to catch up on the messages we were receiving.  My aunty had liked the following picture that Richard had posted months before into the group:

Richard's devotion to this idea made it happen.  Although he would never have it said that way.  Andrew Carnegie once said

"No man will make a great leader who wants to do it all himself, or to get all the credit for doing it"

If we had a yellow jersey to wear as opposed to fluorescent yellow rain jackets then Richard would have been wearing it from day one to day 10 but I suspect it would have been hidden under his blue wick away t-shirt.

The yellow jersey is not normally plastic

Richard and Lee do these challenges every two years to "give something back" which is a tremendous mindset in itself and I am just looking forward to seeing what 2014 has to offer.  

Challenges

We chose to undertake this challenge.  However, some people are forced to take on the most horrendous of challenges when they find out that their children are ill and need to cope as they have no choice but to be strong for all concerned.    

One of the things that I thought about whilst approaching John O Groats was that our challenge had an obvious end to it.  A target point at which point our pain and discomfort would be relieved and we could rest or return to our "normal" lives.  As above, we were looking forward to the next stop, lunch, end of the day and only really on the ninth day when it was in sight did we start focusing on the actual destination.    For the people we were trying to help they do not always have a clear target point in mind and in this case their strength of character must be phenomenal to keep going.  

As we slowly rolled down the hill, nobody seemed to want to speed to the finish and actually end the journey.  It was as if we wanted to cling on to it and make the moments last that much longer given what they had meant to us.  This was my most emotional moment on the trip as the thought occurred to me that this was also potentially true for the people we were trying to help as the alternative may be too hard to contemplate.

This ride left me with great memories but more importantly I truly hope, borrowing somebody else's wording, that we will help some families have some moments that mean the world to them as that was the whole point.  

Cant vs Wont

We had people tell us repeatedly how hard this would be.  I am sure some people said that "we wouldn't do it"; some people probably also said "we couldn't do it" and the difference between those two words had never really struck me before.  

Six months ago I flippantly said "its just 8 hours a day of riding at 15 mph".  Then I bought the bike and realised what riding for an hour entailed.  Then I tried to repeat the effort on the following day and the effect was scary.  

My hardest moment during training was when I attempted the horseshoe pass in Llangollen for the first time.  Halfway up this 800 feet, 2-3 mile climb, I stopped in a lay by.  I was hot, wanted to vomit, was struggling to breathe (having stopped twice already) and had tears in my eyes as I stood there thinking I could not do it.  Thankfully at that point another part of my psyche kicked in.   It said "you will do it".  I paused, took deep breaths, sent Richard a text saying "struggling" and then got back on the bike.  


Whether you could do it is your body, but I realised that this is controlled by your mind which deals with the would component.  I think we were all amazed at the relative strengths of those two different components on this trip as we pushed our bodies beyond what they had ever done before.

When we hit the hill just outside of Helmsdale on day 9 that was so reminiscent to this, the fact that you had done something before is a great boost.  This wasn't a new task it was just repeating an old one so despite having ridden for around 65 miles already you used that memory and training to get to the top.  My mind had been trained as well.

The vans view from the top.  The hill starts way back in the top left corner

Surprise yourself

I hope you have enjoyed reading our stories and somewhere on these pages (assuming you read them all) you have found something to inspire you to take on a challenge.    The challenge may not be cycling one end of the country to the other, you may have far grander ideas than that, it may simply be to pick back up that new years resolution that has slipped.

The fear of failure can be immense, and also potentially a great motivation if you have told lots of people your plan, but from my perspective what defines you as a person, is not whether you finish the challenge but that you have the courage to start it in the first place.   

With dedication and time, we can all do things that surprise everyone; particularly ourselves.