In which not a lot of cycling gets done...

Good day, good evening, and greetings.

Earlier this year, after being a Buyer and before being a Support Worker, I spent a couple of months simply being me, and the beauty of that experience has the power to move me to tears purely by recollection. I lived a stone's throw from the Pacific Ocean in Big Sur, California:

and got to know myself, dancing every day, singing with abandon, walking among the fernwood trees, working in the grounds of the community I lived in. Six months on, my life has become a lot more settled, and my routines a lot more suburban, and the yearning heart in me is desperate to get out on the bike, to feel wind and rain and sun on my face, to push myself and push my pedals, to get up 17% gradient hills, to wave at the sheep and forget about the bustle of Brighton, the chaos of immersion in millions of lives. Because life nowadays frequently looks a little bit like this:

or this:

(I love getting a compliment with my coffee.)

As you can see, it's quite, quite different. And no, there are not any photos of bikes or hills to show you at the moment. Except for this one, which shows you my lovely bike!

Mmmmm, bike.....

There is a part of me tonight that thinks it's a little bit pointless updating you about cycling, you lovely soul who's decided to peruse this page, because quite frankly, there has been little-to-no cycling in my world recently. Nor has there been much in Nige's, as he's taken some sterling advice from some very wise people (including, ahem, me) and is deliberately not training for a couple of weeks due to illness.

Those of you who know me well will know that I will quite happily excuse myself out of doing any exercise for sometimes extended periods of time. I think the longest I've ever gone without doing something that raised my heart rate to the point where I actually broke a mild sweat was about 8 or 9 months, which is quite a long time when you think about it. Approximately 270 days, in fact. Yikes! As we all know, the hardest thing to do is get back on the rhetorical horse once you've gotten/fallen off it. The saddle is calling to me to reclaim my place on it, but due to the bike being locked away in the garage, I'm finding it far too easy to ignore. Most days, I drive straight past the garage without even glancing in its direction.

My monthly payment for the bike and all the gear came out of my account a couple of days ago. This month, I paid £70 for the privilege of having a really nice bike in a garage. Hm. I must get back on the bike!

All is not lost, however! Nige and I have officially begun to plan our trip, and I'm proud to announce that our trip date will be:

(drumroll please......)

Monday 24th May 2010!

Our goal is to complete the 1000+ mile ride (inclusive of scenic diversions) in 15 days. I spoke to a GP on Thursday whose sister did LEJOG with her son in May a couple of years ago - and apparently it bucketed down all throughout Devon and Cornwall, making it literally like cycling in a power shower. Except colder. Oh good.

What's been really interesting about the whole adventure has been people's responses to it. Some people can't really comprehend what we're planning to do, calling us "mad" and "crazy", two adjectives not-infrequently attributed to, well, to both of us in fact, but for other reasons (eccentricity and a complete sense of abandon when expressing ourselves creatively in public being the prime ones). Some people have either done LEJOG or know someone who has, and this usually sparks and excited barrage of questions from me. Some people don't really care, which I suppose is fair enough.

But for us, part of the point of doing this is to get people involved, to get them thinking about the limits they might have subconsciously imposed on their own lives and whether there's any desire or opportunity to say, "well limits, my supposed friends, you've served me well enough these past few days/weeks/years/millennia, but the time has come for us to part, and I bid thee good tidings". I'm so passionate about dreams, about transformation, and about LIVING, truly living; not existing, not getting by, not waiting for summer, not wishing this day away, not envying those who are living the life I yearn to live, but doing everything in my power to be a joy-bearer, a fierce, colourful, childlike, life-throttling adventure-seeking human, making what I can of each day and accepting my lot in this lifetime.

So I ask you, what is it that YOU want to do? What makes your chest feel like it's rising towards the sky? You know that feeling: the one where all the little endorphin soldiers in your body are fully alert, the feeling where you almost forget that you're a grown up and it's as if you're six years old and you've just learned how to ride without stabilisers, or rollerskate, or skip, or you've just done four roly-polies, or swum without armbands. THAT feeling. That's kind of what this challenge is about for me.

So, back to the bike I will go. Yes, it's raining, all the time at the moment. Welcome to England. It's windy, and cold, and I'll probably get sick. But this - this voice-in-my-head, sluggish, critical, negative feeling of bleugh - has been horrible, more horrible than the rain tap-tapping against my windowpane.

Last time I wrote, I went out and did it for Jim (if you didn't read about it, I order you to do so now, please. Do it because Jim is an absolute joy and a shining star so bright I can feel it here in Shoreham all the way from Darwen).

This time, I'm going to get back on the bike for me.

"Training" Update number 1

Hello and happy Tuesday afternoon.

As Brucie would say on my favourite show, it's nice to see you, to see you *nice*!

Rather in the style of Strictly Come Dancing, or even the dreaded and much publicised X Factor, I thought I'd give you this week's training update.

There is, in fact, nothing to report. Well, at least, nothing in terms of actual cycling. That's right; I haven't been on a bike ride since last Wednesday, although that was, admittedly, absolutely beautiful and is almost deserving of its own post; 25 miles of Sussex B roads and country lanes, lit by dappled sunlight and with fabulous company (not including the almost-argument about an apple...). It was one of those rides that makes you feel like you could just keep going and going, without aches and pains, until you pull away into the sunset as the camera behind you pans across the horizon.

And then it got dark. And we discovered that my back light wasn't actually working, the batteries having gone dead in the back of my bag. I'd never even used them! Oh, the indignity of it.

Since Wednesday, I haven't ridden, partly because it's been cold and wet and I've been a bit cold and wet too - I slept all day on Thursday, from 10am until 7pm, despite having slept 8 hours on Wednesday night. I had no problems sleeping on Thursday either, and on Friday, Nige and I got into our cars and drove in convoy "Up North".

Going up North means going to Darwen in Lancashire to see his folks. The reason we were going this particular weekend was because we found out on September 1st that Nige's dad, Jim Atkinson, has mesothelioma, an incurable form of cancer caused by exposure to asbestos, and Nige had decided to throw a party for his dad, to celebrate his life and bring the whole family together.

Since his diagnosis, Jim hasn't been well, and the week before last, he was admitted to hospital with a rare kidney disorder, the timing of which has unfortunately coincided with the cancer being diagnosed. A lot of uncertainty hung in the air, potent, about whether Jim would even be able to make the party, but the specialist doctor agreed that a 24 hour release from hospital wouldn't do any harm. The beautiful and ironic thing is that in fact, being out of hospital, exhausting as it was for Jim, actually had the tangible and positive effect of lowering his blood pressure, so thankfully he's been discharged from hospital and sent home for the time being, until he goes to Preston for his kidney biopsy on Friday.

Jim Atkinson is quite a legend. He's a renowned hill walker, and together with his wife Jenny, Nige's mum, they've climbed probably every worthwhile peak in the UK. Arran is their favourite place above all. However, Jim's expertise stretches well beyond walking: he used to sing Swing in clubs, and brought Nige up listening to Sinatra; he's a gifted handyman and has his workshop out the back of the house, where he straightens things out on every level; he has that inimitable ability to light up a room and get everybody laughing; he can talk the hind legs off a donkey (a heritable trait I'm utterly convinced); and, most relevantly, he used to be a fantastic cyclist and in particular, a monster hill climber.

Jim Atkinson would apparently simply tuck himself in on a bike and climb whatever incline lay in front of him, regardless of size or gradient. He could go for hours.

I've got a lot to learn.

It takes all my psychological strength and willpower to get to the top of a molehill on two wheels, and I get up there heaving and panting and sweating and gripping the handlebars for dear life. I get up hills but I do not do it gracefully. I have to psyche myself up, talk to myself before the ride, during the ride, on the hill, and congratulate myself afterwards. I hate it and that's why I'm determined to make friends with it, just like Lance said about the Tourmalet in his first book, "It's Not About The Bike". I want to befriend hill climbing because in cycling I see such parallels with how you live life. If I can learn to embrace hills....

For me, Jim is up there with the great hill climbers:

Mercxx, Indurain, Ullrich, Armstrong, Atkinson.

I will continue to cycle and attack the hills I encounter not so that I get a tighter bottom (although that will always be a bonus result), but so that I can honour this man who, without even knowing it, is the reason I am even on a bike at all.

A sceptic might doubt the logic of what I've just said, but stay with me here. If it weren't for Jim Atkinson, Nigel Atkinson would never have ridden as a boy and again as a man. If it weren't for Nige's enthusiasm and passion about the bike, passed on from his father, I would never have taken an interest. It would've simply been one of those things that Nige likes that I don't like. But somehow, one man's life lived in the depths of Lancashire decades ago has come to influence a girl from Putney's life in more ways than I'd ever comprehended before this weekend.

What I saw at the party this weekend was Love. Love isn't an invisible force. I saw it in action. It was there in the setting up of the room, in the people who came from all over the continent (yes, you read that right - guests travelled from Sicily and Ireland simply to be there, because of Jim), on the faces of people who hadn't seen each other in far, far too long. Love was present when Nige sang to his dad, when Jenny danced with her nephews, when Ju sorted out the buffet at the end of the day, when the girls working on the bar got tears in their eyes on hearing the reason for the party. Chris Boardman, Olympic Gold British cyclist, says in his book, "The Complete Book of Cycling", that his motivation is winning. I tell you this: my motivation is what I saw in that room this weekend.

Nobody knows what's going to happen with Jim. The doctors don't know. His family don't know. It's going to have to be a day at a time. I didn't get out on my bike today (cold, wet, grumble), but do you know something? Writing this, I regret that. Tomorrow, come rain or shine, I will go out. I'll do it for Jim.

Love,

Elloa x

Why LEJOG is not French and doesn't involve running...

Hello there, and welcome! Grab a cuppa and make yourself at home.

My name is Elloa - it's African; I'm not - and together with my best friend, Nige, I'm going to cycle from Lands End to John O'Groats next May, 2010. We're doing a scenic route, soon to be planned, so that's over 1,000 miles of fine British road.

Now, you may not be interested in cycling - fear not! Neither was I until about 6 weeks ago. All that is needed here is a desire to juice life's orange and an open-mindedness to explore new lands... allow me to introduce you to my story.

A few things to note as we begin:

1) I love tea. I love it so much that earlier this year I asked for a job in my favourite tearoom, Orange Pekoe in Barnes (www.orangepekoeteas.com). I never go a day without tea.

2) Like most women I know, I have "issues" with my body, and used to have quite a severe problem with eating and food in general, a problem that was classed as being an eating disorder in fact. I've been in therapy. I've been in a treatment centre. I've spent hours and hours and days and weeks and months hating my body, obsessing over it, wishing I could cut bits off of it.

Hence, exercise used to be a painful & punishing means to an unachievable end: the pursuit of the perfect figure, and of that oh so elusive self-confidence that heat magazine insists just wafts out of the very pores of the stylish, the skinny and the ever sought-after celebs.

3) I like cake. A lot. And chocolate. Sugar in general. Vegetables too. Oh, don't get me wrong: veg is great. I get my 5 a day. But there's nothing quite like a nice piece of cake, or two. Numbers 2 and 3 have historically clashed quite considerably for me, leading to quite drastic fluctuations in my weight and size over the last 10 years (I've been everything from size 8 to size 16)

4) Rather miraculously, given my history, I have committed - along with Nige, my best friend and mighty companion - to cycle Lands End to John O'Groats - or LEJOG, as it's commonly known (see: I told you it isn't French and doesn't involve any jogging whatsoever) - next May, in something like 15 days. Now, many people have done this in the past, and as I write this even now, there will be some crazy folk out there doing it in this very moment (although perhaps they'll be settling down in a B&B somewhere, what with it being 9.30 at night and all). However, this does not for one minute detract from the enormity of the challenge for us. Here's why...

Nige is a remarkable man and a walking miracle. He lived the first 39 years of his life completely unaware that the panic attacks he was experiencing were due to a condition called Wolff Parkinson-White syndrome (http://www.americanheart.org/presenter.jhtml?identifier=4785), which I think basically involves a person being born with an extra pathway in their heart, down which blood is pumped at a ridiculously fast and dangerous rate, putting them at risk of sudden death. That's probably a completely inaccurate description of the syndrome, but I do know I'm not exaggerating about the risk of sudden death.

Nige was operated on in 2008 and, upon being told that the operation was a success and he was effectively cured (no rollercoasters allowed though, we've since established with some dismay), was told to go and live his life and, in my opinion, does so with astonishing grace, spiritedness and enthusiasm. He is one of my greatest teachers in this lifetime.

Elloa (that is, me): I am, as mentioned earlier, a recovering anorexic and binge eater, although I hate labels like that nowadays, who used to self-harm, and has somehow turned my whole life around. My greatest hate - myself, my body - is becoming my greatest ally in this wonderful adventure that is my life. I have discovered the beauty and sacredness of dancing and now of cycling, and I intend to use these next few months to build not only my physical strength in preparation for our intensive bike ride, but also my appreciation of the wonder of the human body and the female form.

So, if you like the sound of what Nige and I are attempting, and if you'd like to follow our progress as we train through the cold (icy, rainy, dark) winter months, and if you'd even like to sponsor our efforts with a few of your finest English pounds, why not follow us and see where this journey takes you, too? Because one thing's for certain: life is for living, and here you have stumbled upon two people who are wholeheartedly committed to living it with as much gusto as possible, making as much of a positive difference as possible in the process...

Bring on the aches, cakes and hydraulic disc brakes...