Lucky in Wheels
When you lose something for a while, it makes you appreciate it all the more. After the weeks laid up in bed back in April (with a small pressure sore) the freedom of being back on the bike has spurred me on for hours ‘in the saddle’ (well, the handbike seat if more like a comfy recliner than the knifeblade of most bike saddles).
Miles of pedaling quiet Highland lanes got traded for flatter Spanish ones back in June, for a World Cup Paracycling event, my first in a long time international race. Fast and intimidating, I was lucky to get third (which doesn’t sound so impressive when you know there were only 7 in the race), and an invite from British Cycling to the World Paracycling Championships in Quebec, mid-August.
So suddenly training has got more painful, with Gordon Gillespie (Handbike Scotland, http://www.handbikescotland.co.uk ) offering to pace me at least once a week…still trying to catch him on the hills, but all good stuff for the races ahead.
The pacing, combined with the new bike currently winging its way to me from Albion Mobility (http://www.albionmobility.co.uk ) near Stirling, should hopefully improve my speed and maybe, if training and luck work their magic, get me a decent place at the finish line. Albion Mobility are the first Scottish retailer for handbikes (at last we don’t have to travel hundreds of miles to southern England!) and I owe them a huge thank you for their help getting me set up in time for the Worlds.
In between all this, I had my eyes opened in the bright lights and smoggy skies of Shanghai, reminding me how lucky we are in the ‘West’ when it comes to wheels.
I met two young men who’d been tied to a bed in an orphanage for 20 years, just because they have disabilities, and another young man who’d been sold for sex since his birth, to age 17, because he has Spinabifida and was unwanted. It seems that disability is misunderstood, or at worst, and unwanted embarrassment in Chinese society.
The Home Sweet Home charity (http://www.homesweehome.org.cn ) rescues people with disabilities from orphanages and the streets, gives them a home, and a job. Any profits from the products they sell is re-invested to support the work of the charity. A fantastic social enterprise. Realising how lucky I am when it comes to wheels has me thinking about how to help places like Home Sweet Home where people with disabilities aren’t so fortunate. Email me if you have any ideas?....
— July 29, 2010 10:24 PM
Spring Forward, Fall Back
The clocks are forward at last, lighter nights, new energy after the long cold winter months of the far north. And ‘Spring Forward, Fall Back’ seems a great metaphor for life too – at least from my position right now. I’m stranded in bed in a flat in Sheffield, due to a scuff on my backside that would be inconsequential for anyone who could walk, but a potential disaster for anyone sat in a wheelchair (the nightmare of pressure sores).
I’d just had a spring forward after winning the first bike race of the season for the British Para-cycling Series (thanks to John at http://www.fit-for-purpose.co.uk for his coaching over the winter) and two weeks bike training in Mallorca – oh so good to ride on roads where there are more cyclists than cars, more sunshine than cloud, and more cafes than a hungry woman could wish for.
But with every bit of progress we make in life, there is often a setback, and as I’m reminding myself now, its how we deal with the setbacks rather than the leaps forward that makes the difference between being happy or miserable, succeeding and failing…
So here’s what I’m telling myself…you’ll be stronger for resting; Lance Armstrong won races after cancer, so a tiny sore on your bum is nothing; read some books; learn some stuff; enjoy the peace and quite of being cooped up in four walls; don’t go on your turbo trainer ‘cos you’ll only scuff it up again – patience is a virtue; write blogs that you never find time for otherwise!
So far, so good. And as the quote below reminded me, I’ll do what I can to find the good bits about being stuck in bed, rather than get pulled into the potential gloominess of it! (yeah, probably most teenagers dream)
“You may have a fresh start any moment you choose, for this thing that we call ‘failure’ is not the falling down, but the staying down” (Mary Pickford)
All a bit melodramatic for a scuff, but then it’s the scuffs in life that have the potential to drag us down, when really we just need to scuff them off.
— April 09, 2010 06:05 PM
Norway, mountains, friends and stuff
Minus thirty. Eyelashes tipped with mini balls of ice. Fingers numb. The cold gnawing at my cheeks so they feel that skin has been stripped from them. I wish I could feel my legs and wonder if my toes are blue; and we’re planning to head for Antarctica? It seems a mad plan when even a Norwegian winter feels so harsh.
At minus thirty, the sit-ski has no glide over the snow, as if there’s a layer of superglue between it and the white stuff. Pulling on my ski poles with all my strength, I barely move, and suddenly the prospect of a mountain sk-tour seems like a sentence for torture.
My friend Kristina straps on a harness, normally for towing sleds, and hooks me in. She’s hardy, born on skis and used to the Norwegian winter. The ‘stick’ of the cold snow is broken, and we start moving. My arms work like pistons in rhythm with her legs, and the intermittent tug from the tow-line keeps my momentum going. Slowly but surely we follow a skidoo trail, up, up and up into the mountains.
Way up high, its warmer; some kind of temperature inversion. There is pristine snow, peaks and valleys blanketed in ice, the sky blue, a sparkling landscape. I’m glad for friends mad enough to help me be there.
Without friends none of the stuff I do would be possible. So thanks to all of you, and for being a little bit crazy to trek high and far with me. That’s the stuff that brings life to life.
— February 17, 2010 12:39 PM
Into the Unkown
Over the last few weeks I’ve donned my very best BBC voice, presenting a new series for BBC Scotland called ‘Into the Unknown”; interviewing explorers such as John Blashford-Snell, John Ridgeway, Pen Haddow and Benedict Allen. It was a real privilege to hear their stories, and perspectives on adventure and exploration.
You can listen to the programmes by going to BBC radio Scotland ‘Into the Unknown’ page.
— February 09, 2010 11:21 PM
Remarkable New Year
Happy New Year! Its snowing like I’ve never seen it snow in Inverness before. Scotland has the best ski conditions in Europe, as demonstrated by skiing along the canal towpath this afternoon. Had to remove the Air Greenland tag from the back of my sit-ski, which is really sad because it means I haven’t sat in it since then…that’s three and a half years since the most incredible journey of my life, skiing across the Greenland icecap. Big skies, open space, pure wilderness, the kind of place that empties you, so you can stop doing and start being.
At the end, I was hooked, reluctant to return to ‘normal’ life, and was sure I’d be hard parted from the ice for long. So what happened? Work, family, commitments, daily chores, miles of biking…the kind of stuff that although important, can easily squeeze out a few vital blocks. The blocks that hold all the mortar together; the adventures that give us the space to breathe amongst all the busy-ness of the business of life, and remember that we’re a little being in a big universe.
Our ski tracks across the pristine surface of the Greenland icecap are marks I’ll never forget. Simple marks that made life feel remarkable. It is, but sometimes we get too busy to remember.
To all I know and all I don’t, Happy Adventuring in 2010, and may you find yourself feeling the remarkable-ness.
