Tussen de druppels was het (inderdaad) droog

It’s been six weeks since RatN. In those six weeks I have not gone cycling once. (Except of work related stuff, of course; Wendy’s gotta eat.) This honestly was a big surprise to me. I somehow expected that, as soon as I felt like my body had processed RatN, I’d be overcome with motivation to keep trying big things. But I wasn’t, and I didn’t. If anything, I started to feel an inner resistance towards the idea of going cycling.

“How come?”, is a question I’ve been asking myself a lot during those past few weeks. Since you’ve been following me while I was participating in the race, I thought I might also share something about the aftermath of it. So here are (some of the) answers to my question:

1.  The two months prior to RatN, I was completely ‘obsessed’ with making sure I prepared everything I needed to prepare; inspecting the route, buying new gear and kit, making sleeping arrangements, etc.. That meant, mentally, I barely had time or space for anything else.
2.  After having a few ‘disruptive weeks’ (RatN + the holiday to Scotland), I found myself longing for ‘normal weeks’. But as I also just started ADHD-therapy and medication, I landed straight into a process actively designed to not make my life go back to what I used to call ‘normal’. Inescapable status: disoriented much.
3.  I also put a lot of pressure on myself regarding having to keep doing impressive things. Going for a <100km ride didn’t feel like it would be good enough, for myself and also towards others.

Mostly the third point (but also the first two) made cycling suddenly feel like something I had to do. Luckily, my brain quite loudly yells: “No!”, if things start feeling that way, so I’m glad to be able to report I never pushed myself over that edge. Nevertheless, I think something is to be learned from this ‘reaction’.

Morale of this story: preparing for an ultra is a big part of the fun, but I think it’s important to make sure it doesn’t consume all of your spare time. Spending every evening from Monday to Friday staring at Komoot, doesn’t make you look forward to doing it again anytime soon. And, well, there’s also more things to life than the ultra you’re preparing for. If I had kept that in mind during the preparations, I probably wouldn’t have felt so disconnected from my day-to-day life after my return home.

I also think this has been an important reminder of an important boundary to set with myself: I decide how many kilometres I want to ride on a day, and nothing or no one else should ever have that power. Whether that’s 9 or 450 kilometres, is completely up to me. (If I’m dead tired and I still have 25 kilometres to go for a place to sleep, that’s also something I’m doing for me. Wendy has to take care of Wendy.)

The funky thing, though, is this: cycling was both the thing I had to get away from, and the thing that helped calm everything down again. That being said, this funky thing also isn’t a new thing. Everytime life gets a little too busy, I tend to stop and ‘forget’ about cycling. And then once I get back on the bike, I suddenly realise the good it does for my wellbeing. So maybe, if I had just gotten back on the bike after two weeks, all of this wouldn’t have become such a problem in my head. Or maybe, this whole process is just what balances it out: in order to keep liking cycling the way I do, I have to forget about it and rediscover it from time to time. Either way, I’m happy to be ‘back’, and happy to be able to extract a lesson from all the turmoil.

Amen. 🌞🌞