Slaying the little whiny voice inside

Have you ever talked to a mountain? Or a road? Or a distant headland?

They don't answer back. They never answer back. They just keep dishing out more hills to climb, more road to push yourself along and more distance to swim. Until they don't, and you get to the end. It's nothing personal, see?

I know this, and yet still I talk to them.

More precisely, the little whiny voice in my head talks to them. Or talks to me about them.

"You're kidding, right?"

"Another hill? But I just rode up a hill!"

"Is that thing getting any closer?"

These are the little conversations that go on inside my head in the "hurt" phases of an endurance event. It generally hits just after the half-way point of the race, when everything's a bit tired, everything's a bit sore and yet there's still a long, long way to go.

There were a few of these conversations on Saturday which, as promised, involved a fairly monster mountain bike ride.

Slipping silently through sleeping Sydney at six am, we had parked and kitted up at Glenbrook by 7.30am.

The plan for the day? Ride from Glenbrook (at the bottom of the Blue Mountains) to Wentworth Falls (near the top of the Blue Mountains) and then back again. A round trip of a neat 100km or so, all off-road.

"Rocket" Ron Bauer and I had been planning to meet up with a friend who had instead been volunteered for school canteen-renovation duties on Saturday, so it was just two of us to begin with.

The first half of the ride, circa 47km, was all about the climbing. It took us up the Oaks Fire Trail to Woodford, followed by a brake-burning descent down to Bedford Creek, and a monster climb up to Wentworth Falls. There, at the erstwhile sanatorium Queen Victoria Hospital, we met up with "Speedy" Sean  for the return run.

It's not just the vertical height distance between Glenbrook (elevation 163m) and Wentworth Falls (elevation 867m) that made it so tough, but the fact that the trail between them climbs and descends, climbs and descends, seemingly forever. You gasp and grind your way to the top of a hill, only to see the trail disappear downwards again, dissipating all the hard-earned height and rewarding you with yet another grinding climb.

Just over 100km in all and, according to the GPS, 2,686 vertical metres of climbing. Yep, the whiny voice counted all of them too, but after 6.5 hours of riding it was gone.

An epic ride is inevitably followed by an epic hunger. First stop after finishing the ride was the pie shop in Glenbrook. Actually, there are two pie shops in Glenbrook and, as always, competitive tension brings the best result. After scoping them both out, the one with the most delectable looking cinnamon doughnuts and apple pies won out. I'm not sure the owners knew what hit them, but the scene was a bit like this:

A fantastic day's riding.

Thanks again to all who have generously donated. We're well past the $4k mark now, and it continues to climb.

Remember, all donations over $2 are tax deductible (and with 30 June fast approaching, now's the time to lock in a nice big deduction, right?). Convinced? Just proceed here to donate.

The training continues. Apart from Saturday's big ride, I did a solid 2km in the pool on Friday and another 1.6km in the pool today accompanied by Paul "The Prancing Moose" Gertler.

Between now and May 19, the bike's going to take a back seat and the swims will get longer and more frequent again.

Til next time...