Wednesday, May 27, 2009

"so, are you ready for the job?..." - this is one of the most common questions I've been asked during the last weeks…

Last saturday I stopped here during my last training session before the Transportugal. This place has the special aura of being some kind of vortex where both my photography and mountain biking come together…

Leaving the bike on the ground I asked myself the same question: "am I ready?"… Obviously I don't have the answer, I practiced hard over the last 8 months… But I know that during the next week my limits will be pushed to beyond whatever I can imagine… So only time will tell…

Today, after leaving my last indoor training I kind of felt like being back to my college days when closing my books before going to sleep in the night before an exam… My muscles feel numb just like my mind felt void on my college days… With experience I knew that my mind would burst in knowledge as soon as the teacher placed the exam in front of me… I also hope my body will burst with energy next Sunday, but this time I hope more… I hope that energy burst to last for the following eight days…

I won't be writing more until the end… I'll probably scribble some thoughts in my paper book, or probably not… I'll probably create some images as I traverse the country from north to south, or probably not… I decided not to push myself over the single goal of reaching the end, so whatever I have when I finish (or when I give up) will be whatever I'll have for sharing…

After a comment in this blog regarding the book "what do I talk About When I Talk About Running" by "Haruki Murakami" I finally had the chance to read it, I still did not finish, but in the 1'st couple of pages there's something that I think will summarize the book for me: the author mentions that in order to survive the effort runners keep on repeating some king of mantra to themselves…

I never rationalized about this, but I have my own mantras that I keep on repeating to myself when riding. Sometimes I just remember about RPM music, sometimes I repeat my trainers mantra that "the human body is a survival machine", sometimes I repeat mine by telling myself to "do your own race" - as I know how I feel but I don't know how other riders feel - and finally I'll have a new one from the book: "pain is inevitable, suffering is optional"…

I know that most people don't go beyond the picture in my blog posts, and this one is already too long and hard to read…If you got to this point you must be survivor and that has to mean something, doesn't it?


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