Something To Aspire To.

I've been having a little sabbatical to recover from Mallee Routes and pay some attention to work, my home and family.  Things aren't exactly going to plan with my riding but I'll most likely survive.  I'm three weeks out from the GSR and I've been struggling to spend any time on the bike.  The last two weeks I've scraped 100 and 150km respectively and they haven't been top quality k's.  Now I've got a cold to boot.  Damn.  Normal service will resume shortly.

I feel inspired to write about the fantastic efforts of John R at Hopetoun.  For those who haven't heard, we had temperatures in the mid thirties and 50+ kph winds for the weekend.  This led to very high dropout rates and suffering for everyone.   Everybody who rode suffered.

John tackled the 600km ride.  It was hard on almost every leg.  There was heat, wind and lots, lots more wind.  Even on Sunday when the temperature dropped the wind kept driving into the riders faces.  I'm quite sure that at some point, everyone felt that John wouldn't make it.  He was dead on his feet, lacking sleep and at times struggling to make 10kph headway into the wind.  Everyone, that is except John.  If he had any doubt in his ability he didn't let a flicker of it show.

In the end John finished with around 40 minutes to spare and collapse into his swag.  For me, his ride epitomised everything the Audax spirit stands for.  Boldness in the face of adversity.  Quiet, confident determination.

While I look at the people doing the Alpine in under 7 hours and the sub 50 hour PBP'ers with wonder and admiration, it's the people like John who bring a tear to my eye and give me a measure of skill and toughness to aspire to.  It's when just keeping going gets tough that you really start to see who's strong at heart.  I just hope I've learned a little to take to the GSR.

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