On Wednesday I come home from work at lunchtime because the colleague behind me is about to deal with messy living away from home arrangements for a 15 year-old boy, parlaying all afternoon between intransigent parents, the foul-mouthed lad, and a government department.
Besides, work is boring. I have no pressing tasks in the three working days between Yuletide and New Year. And I feel really, really crap.
During the afternoon working at home, I get a clue why every turn of the pedals in the morning was a struggle. My throat turns red raw and my head starts to ache. My daughter and her partner have given me this contagion. I sleep badly but make it through to 5:55am.
Arsenal play Wigan at 6:45 EDT on Thursday morning, fall behind to a penalty, equalise then lead, then drop two precious points in the title race by putting an OG in the net for a 2-2 result. Why does my team put me through this?
I walk the dog and feel better, but by lunch my head throbs and I resort to pharmaceuticals. My manager emails to tell me not to come near her: she’s not had a cold this year and doesn’t want one on 30 December. I had a cold not three months ago, my first for several years, and wonder why I’m so blessed.
The big question is: should one ride when feeling this crap? This is, after all, the body’s way of saying “Ease up on me, Big Boy!” But the (large and strangely powerful) perverse part of me tells me to get out there, go hard, and blow the bastard away. And that’s what I plan to do in the morning at six o’clock. It’ll be 39 degrees later in the day.
I compromise. I'll ride, but will restrict myself to a nice flat trundle out to the eucy farm. I don’t get to sleep until after one, then at 5:15 the alarm snaps my trance and tells me to get up and get out there. Orange juice, weeties, a hasty cuppa. It’s 12 degrees and not a breath of wind. Perfect. And indeed, I feel great. My legs are as sprightly as they were dead 48 hours ago on Wednesday morning.
There’s always a spoiler, eh? This morning it’s my bowels. I almost insist on shitting before every ride: I’ll hang around waiting for the urge, sometimes for hours, days, but right now I’m so intent on getting going that I neglect the motion, the movement. It doesn’t neglect me.
Somewhere out the back of the racecourse the first pang alerts me. Once on the bike and pedalling it’s not hard to beat off the urge; in fact, it rarely arises. Not today. Within minutes the lower intestine is attempting to tie itself in an elaborate preventative knot.
I back off the pedals twice as cramps paralyse my lower abdomen and it pleads for relief. I pass a couple of Redback Dunnies on building sites and consider trespassing and leaving my mark. What if they’re bolted? Once I’m out of the saddle I’m cacktus.
I imagine that in the past I might have seen a Lions wayside stop for travellers at Huntly and hope it’s more than a picnic table and a couple of rubbish bins. As I approach I espy the familiar shape of a Besser brick shithouse.
I dismount inside the door, my bowels loosening by the nanosecond, grapple with my helmet buckle while simultaneously trying to peel my jersey off, but perspiration glues it to my torso. Mozzies swarm in the grubby cubicle. A frenzy of arms, bike clothing and mozzies ensues but I make it. Sort of. Thank god for reams of cheap toilet paper.
From there the ride out to Hartland’s Eucy Farm is a breeze. My speedo reads 44.66kms at 27.3kph when I dismount in Baxter Street
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