I’d probably describe myself as a former cycling enthusiast, It was a thing I did alot for good period of 2-3 year and then I found it harder and harder to motivate myself to get out on the bike. Though I have done a bit more recently. Scotland was the perfect setting, fabulous quiet roads, scenery and summer nights that were light until very late, and the odd glimpses of red kites in the sky, red squirrels on the roads, and did I mention scenery… that in bucketloads.
I think this was somewhere between Perth and Bankfoot, but memory has gone. It was only many short 20-30 mile routes and it had a ford near the top.
Anyway, one such route that was known was ‘The Beast’ – it involved over 100 miles, from Perth, Crieff, Aberfeldy, then up and over the back of loch Tay and over Ben lakers, Killin, Lochearnhead, Comrie, snd Crieff and back again. If you can see the little roads on this map you’ll see the route, what you don’t see on this map is the hills and climbs. A cafe a Bridge of Balgie supplied essential snacks at lunch, but the calories for them were gone after the Ben Lawers climb, and there was still 50 miles for me to get back.
Anyway, If my memory serves me well, I completed this route three times. It was a summer thing, and needed several 70+ rides in the preceding weeks to build up to it. I didnt ever try and better times on it.
The second time I completed it I had heard of a way of making myself cycle faster.
In the bike magazine I was reading, it suggested that to slow down the messages from your leg muscles that you are in pain, listen to music on a ride. So I did. I borrowed a tiny iPod shuffle (it was 2011) and headphones and so, on the ride I listened to music. I dont remember the music, though I think I tried to listen to lively music for exercising and tempo.
In effect, I was trying to numb the actual messages my body was trying to tell my brain.
So, what happened? It told me, eventually, for though I had maintained carbs, liquids, gels, food all day – it wasn’t enough, I did complete the ride. If I remember I had suffered some kind of cramp around the route or on the 20-30 miles back. But when I got back I collapsed, on the bed, body fully empty of any energy, shaking, weak and beyond movement or functioning.
Those messages had been screaming at me, and I wasn’t listening. Yes I responded at strategic stops for food/water – but to get to the end I was numbing.
I feel like this was such a picture of how I deal with emotions, feelings – whether happy, sad, joyful, angry – I numbed them. I just had to survive. I just had to find ways of ignoring them, distractions, soothing, being busy, new hobbies, shopping, cooking, not stopping, to notice – then working, studying, staying in my head. My head was my safe place – but I also filled it with noise, of news, of podcasts, of opinions, of anything.
Numbing the pain on a ride was just a metaphor for numbing the pain and emotions that I had been running from all of my life. Go faster, climb higher, ride further – dont stop to hear the messages, until..I …burn..out.
Fearing what would happen if I could actually feel. Fearing that and losing myself in the soothing of others, denying myself, numbing myself and not listening.
Why am I writing this today? – well because sometimes when im sitting, thinking, reading, or even processing my emotional reactions to some startling news today – an image, or a memory comes to mind – reminding me of where I was. I needed permission to feel emotions, and safety too, as well as the time to get to know and feel myself. Its funny how cycling 40 miles on bike rides was also part of escaping the childhood house.
I can see that in this photo taken in 2012, that I am lost, and there is no life in my eyes.
What I realised a few weeks ago, is that its far easier to ride a bike when it didnt need to do more than be a bike ride. I could relax and breathe and…enjoy being happy on a bike.
Me in 2022..emotions on display…. a 10 year older face..but with spark and life.
Its kind of obvious looking at these photos what numbing pain and emotion was doing to me, isn’t it?
Instead of numbing my emotions, i’m learning to listen to them, learning that I dont need to hold them, noticing anger, fear, anxiety, and responding sometimes by swearing, drawing, moving, writing, listening – also means that I can feel all the happy feelings too, the bliss of being loved, smiling and laughing with my fiancé. I had to learn, and be in a safe place to begin to feel my feelings. Until that point I was numbing them out, like a mad cyclist on a 100 mile ride in the middle of Scotland. Like I used to.
James Ballantyne 