Snowdon – Scafell Pike – Ben Nevis
For those of you not familiar with the geography of the UK… This is how far I’ve cycled!
Today feels like my first real rest day since I’ve been back in the UK. No exercise, No visiting with people, No needing to do anything other than rest.
I guess you could say today was my first real chance to reflect on being back in the UK and returning (somewhat) ‘home’ from Canada.
Being back in the UK…
Coming back this time, I thought I was ready, although I wasn’t ready for losing someone in my family. I was in a difficult head space but also a strong one knowing what I needed to do and not do. My first week back consisted of getting over severe jetlag, visiting with family and taking myself off to the Isle of Wight to have some training for my bike ride done.
Then a week in France to celebrate a friend’s 30th. A week of relaxing by a pool, drinking and eating a ton, and really not doing much at all. This was a great but challenging week for me, having the chance to finally stop and take in everything thats gone on in the last few years, learning how much I had in fact changed, and realising that I need to take more time to myself and not always be full steam ahead. I’m not used to having time to slow down and time to do nothing, if anything I would become pretty antsy and anxious, with not knowing what I should be doing. I mean I love being around people, but I’ve also come to appreciate time to myself. Anyway I got a few hikes in and an adventure day to some caves and a swimming hole, so I was happy, and glad to have had a wonderful week with a good group of people! This also gave me the chance to mentally prepare for my Bike ride and get it all down on paper!
Why the Bike Ride…?
The background to me doing this ride really stems from when I was in my late teens and then when I read a book in my last year of University called ‘Free Britain’. I have always liked cycling and I had LEJOG on my bucket list since I was about 18! anyway the book is a great read, about 2 guys doing LEJOG… starting with nothing and relying on the general public and the generosity of the British people to supply them with clothes, bikes, food, shelter and so on to get them the 1000 miles across the UK. Like most people I have a bucket list, with things that I probably wont get to achieve. I never thought I’d have the opportunity to do this, until I needed a focus. I needed a BIG focus to get me out of a place that I wasn’t healthy or happy in.
At the beginning of the year I realised my mental health wasn’t good. And after months of neglecting it and burying it making it look like it wasn’t there I finally accepted that I needed a change. I needed my lifestyle and my environment to change, and I needed to be around more positive people and in a workplace where I felt healthy and supported.
I came back to England in October 2018 for a brief visiting, feeling like I had bridges to either built or burn. I had baggage that I needed to get rid of that had been holding me back for way to many years. When I left again to come back to Canada I thought I had the closure I needed and was happy, until a couple of months later when I really had chance to process it I realised that there was hurt much deeper that I couldn’t get closure on. This led to me questioning other aspects of my life, where I was, where I was heading, my relationships with people, and getting my head around some more personal issues like my sexuality. Realising how all the dots were joining and how everything was linking to each other. I could see the bigger picture and I could see I needed out of where I was. At the same time I felt trapped. Not trapped as in because of my location because I couldn’t get out… I mean I had my van (which I miss dearly). I was trapped because I was exhausted. I was physically and mentally drained with no energy to move on and start again somewhere. Travelling can be the most fun adventure, but can also be the most tiresome strain. I had got to a point where my anxiety was sky high, and I felt depressed. Which still isn’t easy to say, but it happens to the best of us, and it’s an emotion that has to be spoke about, and I’ve learnt has to be acknowledged. I was being a shit friend to people I cared about most, and I was being distant from most other people. I was turning to alcohol to feel more comfortable with socialising with people, I wasn’t sleeping, and I was engaging in meaningless hook-ups. Yep, I wasn’t healthy and I have to take accountability for that.
After one really bad day thats when I decided I had to have a focus. Knowing that I was leaving in Canada in 6 months I needed a different mindset, and I needed a new place to be for summer. I set up a gofundme page, and decided if I was going back to the UK, I was going back to see it all, and be done with it! I knew my head and heart wasn’t in the UK, but I also had this need to finally do LEJOG! I knew by setting up a gofundme page and doing it as sponsored ride that I was committing myself and I would have to do it. It was the focus I needed, and by doing the pet portraits for sponsors it was giving me a reason to get back to the sketchbook! The same evening I looked for jobs in Jasper, I wanted to be back down in Alberta, in the Mountains that I fell in love with last summer.
A really bad week followed this, giving me the final push to give my resignation in at my job, the next morning I had an interview at a new place and a job secured at Miette! I was happy to be on my way out. The place that I had first loved working at had turned into a place where I didn’t want to be (I don’t need to name the place or go into anymore detail). I was on my way to jasper, via a city to go buy a bike! I was excited and finally ready for a new adventure, and feeling okay about starting again somewhere. I was starting at a place in Jasper I thankfully vaguely knew, so I had realistic expectations.
“Don’t be afraid to start over again. This time you are not starting from scratch, you are starting from experience”
Returning to Jasper, felt like retuning to my home in the mountains. I’m not saying the new job or the new living arrangements didn’t come without their difficulties but I felt better. Knowing that I needed to be accountable for my mental and physical wellbeing I finally decided to see a mental health therapist, who was absolutely brilliant. It was the scariest thing having to do to start with, but then was comfortable, uncomfortable, comfortable again and so on. It was challenging, it was emotional, but most importantly it was healing and it gave meaning and sense to my emotions and it put words to what I was feeling and what I had felt. I was finally able to unload… everything. It made me focus on myself first, before focusing on anything or anyone else. It made me take a step back: allowed me to see the unhealthy friendships I was creating, the deeper issues I had with ‘home’, as well as getting over a relationship that I had been whole heartedly in for some time and had struggled with the end of it. I could express myself with no judgement and start to come to terms with things that had gone on for me over the last year which I hadn’t been able to process and hadn’t been comfortable talking to anyone about.
“There’s pride before a fall,
It’s better to have loved and lost than never loved at all,
Hearts were built for breaking,
If you love ’em, set them free,
Time’s the greatest healer and what will be will be”
Time really is the greatest healer, so is space, and so are mountains
The Mountains became my saving grace, my weekly escape on my day off. My escape from over-thinking. My mind would go blank hiking up a mountain and it was the most liberating feeling. I learnt to respect the environment, I learn to respect myself, and I learnt all about the pleasure and pain in getting to the top of a mountain. And that its refreshing to take your top off at the top! 🙂
“If you don’t take moments to be yourself,
You’ll spend your life being someone else
Think of all those feelings that you never felt
It’s more than okay to ask for help”
I spent the summer concentrating on myself, and getting healthy both physically and mentally. I was biking and hiking a lot. I was getting ready for this LEJOG and 3 Peaks challenge. By the end of the summer, I was feeling a hell of a lot better than what I was 4 months previously. The place I had worked as was fantastic, and I couldn’t be more thankful for the owners and people there. A totally different experience to any of the other places I worked at during my two years in Canada!
Okay, thats the long bit. Now…
The Bike Ride
Well… what to say about this. It has tested me in all ways that I thought it would and more. It has tested my patience, my focus, my strength and my determination. Like hiking mountains it has given my mind chance to rest. Having to concentrate so hard on the paths and roads (google maps… I have some comments on your so called ‘cycle paths’…), It’s meant my mind has been free of all the other shit. It’s been wonderful. The hikes haven’t all been as good as I wanted them to be, but unfortunately I can’t control the weather. Im super proud of myself for getting myself up Snowdon in horrendous conditions. This bike ride has been more about proving to myself that I can do something out of my comfort level, and out of my fitness level for sure. I’ve found that by testing my body like this, I have become more aware of what I can really do. I’ve realised how strong my mind is, and that it’s true…‘If there is a will, there is a way”.
For once, I feel like I’m not proving myself to anyone else. No one but myself. For so long, I’ve put so much pressure on myself and on making sure everyone else around me is happy and neglecting to look after myself. I know I still have some way to go, but I finally feel like I’m heading forward and not backwards or standing still. I’m learning to love myself, be more present and to care less about what other people think, or about things that don’t concern or affect me.
I have so many things I want to achieve, and places I want to see, and people I want to connect with. My bucket for before I’m 40 is being created. AND I also have 200 more miles of a bike ride to finish. I don’t know where the energy will come from, but 4 more days on the road…
“Sometimes the people around you won’t understand your story.
They don’t have to. It’s not for them.”
Inverness – Tain – West Helmsdale – John O Groats
To Go!!
John O Groats, I’m about to hit you like a storm!!!!!!
And look out 30…… Im coming for you too!
