Today, I Have Been Mostly... by Rob_Barber

2 massive hills (Minera especially), 2hrs 13mins, just short of 30 miles, average 13.4 mph. Doesn't sound that great, but there's a story behind it:

It's funny, you know, it's never come out in my running. Get in a running race and I genuinely couldn't give a monkeys about what others around me are doing. Sometimes I have a time goal, sometimes I don't, when I do, that time goal is what matters, and if everyone else beats me by a mile, so what? It doesn't matter.

There is a competitive side to me though. It used to come out in my MTB racing, it certainly came out on the football field too. I guess I was what some would call a "hard" footballer, I was certainly masochistic! The more I got kicked, the more I loved it, but that attitude carries a price, and is perhaps a big contributing factor in the state of my knees.

On the mountain bike too, I discovered quickly that I had a determination uphill few could match, and it was a strength I had to play to if I was to have any chance of success, for my downhilling was not as brave as my closest competitors, and my technical skill was a bit lacking too. Yep, a MTB race for me was a game, where I'd get left on the downhill, catch on the climb, left again on the tricky stuff, catch again on the flat where you could drive the pedals hard.

In my category, I was near enough to the front to actually care, close enough to sniff a possible victory, and I would push so hard up those climbs that I'd often make myself sick, but I wouldn't stop, rather the contents of my stomach would end up all over my handlebars , and I'd keep on going, ignoring the pain, because I had to, because it was the only way I'd have a chance of actually winning.

But not when I'm running. And not a feeling I've experienced in years.

Today though, it surfaced, and I'll freely admit, I liked it. I was out on my push bike (my racer) and my mindset was a little different to start off with. I'd left the house looking for the biggest climbs I could fit into a couple of hours, Minera Mountain the the Horseshoe Pass. Minera's tough, but it's a beautiful drop down to Llangollen via World's End - stunning .

It was on the Horseshoe where my competitiveness struck. I was climbing better than I'd expected, low gear but I was keeping them pedals turning pretty quick. I passed 2 well equipped and serious looking cyclists on the way up, and the 2nd one didn't seem to like being overtaken, tried to come with me, and that was it, my mind did something it doesn't do when I'm running:

"Crush 'em!" it said

"Destroy them!" and I was suddenly going up my gears

 "Leave 'em behind, leave 'em so far behind it absolutely demoralises them" my push on the pedals grew ever harder, my pull on the handlebars stronger, suddenly my whole body was really driving the bike up the hill

"Make 'em feel so useless they go home and hang up their bikes and never want to ride the things again". The upshot of it all is that I got over that hill a good 10 minutes quicker than I'd expected to, and pushed myself to a place I haven't been on the bike for fully half my life.

Though I didn't like the language of my thoughts , I loved the results, in that competitive phase, I was actually pushing 17mph, UP the Horseshoe Pass !

Perhaps, when this injury has properly settled, my running could do with borrowing just a little bit of my biking brain?