Turns out you can’t out ride everything

Feeling vulnerable.

I've been through a lot over the years. Just being stable and content has been a constant challenge throughout my life but last year I thought I'd turned a corner. I wasn't struggling and I wasn't chasing anything, I'd found a work/life balance for the first time in a long time, I felt like I had nothing to prove to anyone or myself and I was happy with that. To me that felt like I'd finally realised what "content" actually felt like. It was a fairly alien feeling and I enjoyed it.

Maybe I was finally maturing, at 51 years old, let's be honest, it was about fucking time. But I also started noticing other changes. I'd started losing my drive, and a big part of me loved my determination and focus. I'm a get-shit-done kind of guy. I've generally been fit and healthy physically, and even when I've had a break from riding my fitness has always come back quickly, losing weight was always scary easy. I always thought that drive was a defining part of my character, until I realised it wasn't entirely healthy. While I considered it an asset, it was also at times crippling, when things didn't work out, or when I thought people were holding me back from achieving what I wanted. I thought over the last couple of years I'd learned to deal with it, and that's why I'd seen the improvements.

But things seem to have changed and I'm finding it really hard to adapt. Apathy has replaced my drive, laziness has crept in. I've often channelled Mark Manson's The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck — it's been a bit of a bible. Being able to choose what to give a fuck about and what to focus on. But I'm not there right now.

I'm not loving riding my bike. I can't be arsed, and while I've gone through phases and breaks before, I've always been able to use riding as a tool for re-energising myself or finding some headspace. Not this time. This is a first, and a feeling I haven't experienced before.

For the first time last year I felt slower. I thought I was comfortable and content with it. I was riding less and seemed OK with that. Even when I went to Mont Ventoux in the summer with friends and they kicked my head in, I was OK with it. They're 20 years younger than me, they train, they have coaches, they have goals, something to prove, the opposite of me. To quote Point Break and FBI Director Ben Harp: "You're a real blue flame special, aren't you, son? Young, dumb and full of cum." I was OK getting hammered on Mont Ventoux, I was only 4 minutes behind, so not that bad and I've been there, done that. I still have Strava times from 10+ years ago they'll never touch. But I live in the here and now, and right now I needed to accept I'm getting older and slower. And I had.

So accepting I'm not as fast, strong or lean as I used to be, that's OK. The apathy and laziness that's crept in isn't. But there's something else too.

It's not just as a cyclist I'm feeling like this, and maybe it's neither laziness nor apathy. It's been a particularly rough year for me and those around me. When you hit 50 you become increasingly aware of loss. Friends' parents you grew up with, and then sadly your own passing away. Almost once a month I'd get a call or message about a friend's mum or dad. This year has been shit. I've never felt so acutely aware of how short life is, and I've never felt more vulnerable.

I seem to be surrounded by Gen Z and Millennials, full of life and drive. Fitness is a big part of their lives, whether it's cycling or running, they're super active so when I ride or run alongside them, I feel old and slow. Oh how the mighty have fallen. I'm also too easily drawn into social media. It's a big part of my job so it's hard to escape, and I'm shit at switching it off and ignoring it. The algorithm spewing out all the things I wish I could be arsed to do.

I feel like I'm in a really strange place. People never believe how old I am, I've done a pretty good job of staying young, or just been an immature prick. Who knows. It doesn't really matter. What matters is that I'm starting to feel older than I am, and I'm trying to cling on to the past. I was fucking invincible back then. Genuinely. I couldn't even kill myself when I tried and I tried twice, so I gave it a fair go. I'd ride down mountains at 80+ KPH without a thought in the world and generally act like a bit of a twat with no regard for the consequences. I never got ill, not even a cold. But all that's changed.

Now I feel more vulnerable. More aware that I'm not going to live forever, that I do get ill, that people do die, and that I am slowing down. And right now I can't shake the apathy.

This could just be a rut, the funk, but it feels different. The doom scrolling doesn't help. Being told to snap out of it doesn't either. And all the cliché mental health quotes — "This too shall pass," "It's OK to not be OK" — can get in the bin. It's not just a mental or physical thing I can turn on and off, and I can't figure out what I'm OK with and what I'm not. That's the problem.

Riding was always the answer, or maybe just a plaster, but it worked. I would always find ways of distracting myself or even running away. My Headspace bike packing trips were my reset button, out there with no agenda and no people. But now I worry I'm not fit enough, or I think of more reasons not to do it than to do it. The tool I've always reached for feels like it's been taken away, and I haven't found anything to replace it yet. That's the bit that unsettles me more than the apathy itself.

This post isn't anything for anyone to worry about. I'm not feeling anywhere near as bad as I used to and I know the difference. I've just not felt like this before this particular combination of slower, softer, more aware, less certain. I'm really hoping it passes and I find reasons to rediscover my drive, or at least a version of it that fits who I am now rather than who I was. Maybe that's actually the work not getting back to a previous version of myself, but figuring out what forward looks like from here.

I understand that feeling vulnerable is OK. That having concerns about my health is OK. That being content when I can find it is also OK. I've spent most of my life moving fast enough that I didn't have to sit with any of this. Maybe the discomfort right now is just what it feels like when you finally stop long enough to actually feel things. I don't have the answer yet. But I'm starting to think that being OK with not having it might be the first step.