Push Yourself this Year

2021

This year I’ll turn 30. So it seems a good a year as any to finally push on with those ‘I should probably get that done’ thoughts that rattle around my mind.

Racing.

I’ll (COVID permitting) have crack at competitive sport again and Race Cross-Country on my Mountain Bike. These last few years have been an absolute whirlwind and I’ve always had the ‘I need to get fit again’ voice in the back of my mind. I’m not over weight by any means and most I suppose would consider me to be a pretty healthy, fit cyclist anyway. However after a couple of seasons a few years ago racing road bikes and training, that urge to feel ‘fast’ has been nagging me again. It’s something I feel I should have another crack at and feed my extremely competitive nature. There is nothing quite like the adrenaline of a bike race.

The first step to that task is to actually train and I can say that I haven’t missed a day off the bike or turbo trainer (a training device you attach you bike to effectively turning it into an exercise bike, but one that lets you play on Zwift - google it, it’ll blow your mind). This year at the time of writing we are following a training plan and we’ve hit 18/31 days. We are in lockdown in the UK and it’s been a great way to focus and motivate through the start to the year. Here’s to hoping I keep it up and can race well come the summer. After all I once read somewhere as a teenager that we are at our physical peak of endurance around the age of 30. So it’s now or never in my eyes.

Spoken Word.

The other item on the menu this year could well have me finding another source of untapped adrenaline. Performing Spoken Word at an open mic night. In a previous life, again years ago working freelance as a videographer and photographer, I got the chance to become involved and follow the spoken word scene in Bristol. A friend who wrote reviews of the evenings and scene invited me along to shoot portraits of the poets and film the evening. It was brilliant, watching the best names in the business bring such emotion on stage and watching how they often broke up the pieces with the sharpest wit and clever little jokes to ease the audience had me gripped.

But life moves on, situations change and it wasn’t until meeting my current girlfriend around 3 years ago that I started writing myself. Seeing a Bukowski post (along with mountain biking photos) on a tinder profile had me very interested. Bukowski was a great in and the fact that this incredible girl wrote poetry was amazing. The first thing I wrote was actually under the influence of some pretty powerful painkillers after a heavy bike crash resulted in a broken pelvis and collar bone. So led but kinda floating on the hospital bed I started writing. Sent her the poem and we haven’t stopped writing since. She unlocked something in me that those poets I have photos of on some old hard drive ignited. It only seems right to try it out properly. Edinburgh open mics, I’ll be there (COVID permitting).

I’m turning 30 this year, and to a 29 year old that’s scary so I wanna do some things that I might not be bothered to if I leave it any later.

I hope everyone does something this year they’ve been meaning to do, go get some adrenaline and feel alive.