This was a surprisingly tough day, too. I don’t know why. Perhaps because I expected to be bursting with energy and sparkle as it was the last day – and it was going to be a short one, too. It didn’t work out like that. Unsurprisingly, I suppose, I was just exhausted – and with the end in sight I started giving in to it instead of (what I should have done and what I’ve learned from kickboxing) adding on an extra day and focussing ‘beyond’ the final target.
To be honest, I can’t remember much of the cycle today. I was struggling again and just waiting for every corner to be the last. It came – eventually. The big ‘re-grouping’. It was nicely done but an odd moment – a lot of mixed emotions. Do I want it to end? Do I not want it to end? What now? What’s next? A void ahead – new plans in mind but not yet taking form … Wanting to go home and dying to share the experience but not sure how … the end of months of training, fund-raising, excitement, trepidation, hard work …
Hard to describe the thoughts going through my mind – and everybody was reacting differently. For some it was truly momentous, for others more like a dream.
We regrouped, then cycled the final half-kilometre all together, turned in and cycled under the banner. It was over in a split second. It was very strange. I think I’m still waiting for it to sink in. As soon as it was over it seemed that it had never happened.
Totally weird.
Off the bikes and a lot of tears and celebrations. More bindis, more flowers (which I had to take off immediately – a gesture not really in the spirit of things, but they started to make me sneeze!!!), and champagne. Very nice champagne it was, too.
The only pity was that the group who had trained together didn’t finish as a group. There was certainly a divide over the cycling days – understandably. People were cycling at different speeds, people were making news friends (and perhaps even losing others) – it was all very normal and very human (have to say I LOVED the dynamics of what was going on) – but it was a shame not to finish as we started. A little thing – but a pity nonetheless.
Me? I sat for some time on my own, ate on my own and … well … eventually headed for the bar and a celebratory gin and tonic and went in search of laughter, which was never far away with the likes of Terri, Dawn or Ali around. Oh – don’t get me wrong. I said I was on my own – but I wasn’t alone! I think that no matter how many people were around, at that moment every single one of us was on her own, celebrating her own private victory with her own thoughts. And many, perhaps, grieving for reasons that had brought them here in the first place. The team of 84 cyclists had reached the winning post together – but a team of 84 ‘individuals’ were celebrating. The ‘together’ bit would come later. That’s how I saw it, anyway.
Either way, mission complete.
Two hours later we were on the bus to our hotel in Jaipur. What can I say? A toilet that flushed (sort of). A bath with hot water. I could ask for no more. I’d found Heaven.
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