If I'm being honest I was (you'll have to imagine how close my fingers are) this close to giving up today. Waking up to yet another bad weather forecast, hastily rearranging my route from quite a pleasant Durham, with exceptionally lovely, kind and generous hosts, to Stockton then Leeds rather than Grassington. I'd expected to be on arriving at Kate Copeland's post box in Ingleby Barwick around 11ish. However, due to some truely dire signposting throughout the North East coupled with hills and wind I didn't arrive til 1.30 with 60miles ahead of me.
Now, as I mentioned yesterday my dad was meeting me for the evening and we'd spoken early on to discuss the change of route but my head had gone. Physically my legs are feeling fine but there was and in some ways still is nothing left to give mentally. From the postbox I made three phone calls in floods of tears, my mum, my dad and my friend Mike. All three answered and gave me some hope so I jumped back on and set off south again. All was going well, I thought and as I approached Thirsk I pulled over to take a phone call. It was 4.15 and there were 30 miles to go...that was it, again. My dad came and picked me up, driving me and my bike down to my cousin's house in Leeds.
Now, as I mentioned yesterday my dad was meeting me for the evening and we'd spoken early on to discuss the change of route but my head had gone. Physically my legs are feeling fine but there was and in some ways still is nothing left to give mentally. From the postbox I made three phone calls in floods of tears, my mum, my dad and my friend Mike. All three answered and gave me some hope so I jumped back on and set off south again. All was going well, I thought and as I approached Thirsk I pulled over to take a phone call. It was 4.15 and there were 30 miles to go...that was it, again. My dad came and picked me up, driving me and my bike down to my cousin's house in Leeds.
I genuinely don't know if I've ever felt worse. I don't understand why I'm putting myself through this awful experience, tiring myself out in snow, wind and rain in almost complete solitude, getting my head back together over night then running into the same problems the next day.
My focus now is completing tomorrow to Hull, the next day to Huddersfield and finally returning home on Monday. If I can do that I'll have completed day 9. The following 2 days are quite straightforward with a decent amount of recovery time which should help me get sorted. It still leaves me with 16 days of riding to go but I'm seeing people I know along the way and hopefully the weather will start to change.
I really don't want to let anyone down, but I don't know how much longer I can fight this feeling, a feeling brought about entirely by the conditions I'm suffering. The support I'm being shown from friends, family and strangers is amazing, that will get me back home, as will the fact that as of tomorrow I'll be wearing my customised TCAA cycling jersey but it remains to be seen whether it will get me the whole way to Penzance.
Here's the picture of Katherine Copeland's post box...
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