September has been one of those months where I’ve occasionally had to stop and wonder exactly what happened to me.
When I started this journey, the idea was to lose some weight, get a bit fitter and, ultimately, get myself into a position where I could make it to Everest Base Camp. It seemed like a pretty big challenge at the time.
I’m now 84kg. I’ve lost 105 pounds.
That number still doesn’t quite make sense to me. One hundred and five pounds. I genuinely never imagined I’d be writing that sentence when I started all of this. There was a time when losing that amount of weight would have seemed completely impossible, and yet here I am, looking at the scales and wondering where the hell it all went.
But strangely, the weight loss isn’t actually the biggest thing that’s happened this month.
On 5 September, I cycled 100 miles.
Yes. 100 miles.
The bloke who once thought getting through a decent walk was an achievement somehow decided that getting on a bicycle and riding for 100.84 miles was a good idea.
And not only did I make it to 100 miles, I did it in 6 hours and 17 minutes, climbing 3,061 feet along the way. It was my longest ride ever, and when Strava announced that I’d picked up 104 achievements, I wasn’t quite sure whether to be proud or question whether somebody should have intervened earlier.
The route took me out towards the Lincolnshire coast and Skegness, and somewhere along the way I realised that I’d crossed into a completely different version of myself. There is something slightly surreal about being 70 or 80 miles into a bike ride and realising that, actually, you’re probably going to finish it. There were certainly moments when my legs were asking some fairly serious questions about my life choices, but by then there wasn’t much point turning around.
So I carried on.
And eventually I reached 100 miles.
The funny thing is, though, that the achievement isn’t really the 100 miles. It’s the fact that I now think 100 miles is something I might be capable of doing. That would have been completely alien to me not that long ago. I wouldn’t have looked at a century ride and thought, “I fancy having a go at that.” I’d have looked at it and thought the person doing it was completely mental.
Apparently I’m now the person doing it.
And the century ride has also had an unexpected side effect. I’ve bought myself a new bike.
Which brings me nicely to the other rather important change in my life over the last few months: I’ve not had a drink for ten months.
That has saved me a fair bit of money.
Now, I could have done the sensible thing and put that money away. I could have been responsible and sensible and financially prudent.
Obviously, I bought another bike.
And actually, I quite like the symbolism of that. Money that I might once have spent on beer has gone towards something that’s helping me get fitter, explore further and prepare for Everest. The old me would have spent the money in the pub. The new me spent it on two wheels and then promptly rode those two wheels for 5 days straight.
I’m not sure which version of me would have been more surprised.
And it wasn’t even a case of buying the bike and then putting my feet up for the rest of the month. September has been pretty ridiculous all round. According to Strava, I’ve clocked up 257.7 miles of activity over 38 hours and 44 minutes, with 19,454 feet of elevation gain. I’ve also walked 104.1 miles during the month.
When you actually write those numbers down, it sounds slightly excessive.
There was a time when walking five or six miles would have been something I would have been pleased with. Now I can casually knock out a walk like that and barely give it a second thought. Cycling 20 miles has become normal. Then 30 became normal. Then longer rides started appearing. And eventually, for reasons I’m still trying to understand, I found myself thinking that 100 miles on a bike sounded like a reasonable Saturday.
I’m beginning to suspect this Everest training might be getting to me, but that’s the thing. Somewhere along the way, this stopped being just a weight-loss journey.
The weight loss was the catalyst, but it isn’t really the story anymore. The story is what I’ve become capable of doing because of it. I’m walking further. I’m cycling further. I’m climbing hills. I’m playing sports again. I’m getting fitter. I’m doing things that I genuinely didn’t believe were going to be part of my life.
And I’m doing all of this while preparing for Everest Base Camp.
That’s the part that really gets me.
When I started, Everest seemed like this huge, almost ridiculous ambition sitting somewhere in the distance. Something I’d love to do, but something that felt a very long way away. Now I’m actually training for it. I’m looking at distances, elevation, recovery and what my body needs to be able to cope with day after day in the Himalayas.
The century ride has given me a huge amount of confidence because it proved something I think I needed to prove to myself.
I’m capable of more than I thought I was.
I’ve spent a lot of this journey looking at numbers on scales and wondering whether I’d lost enough. Now I’m looking at numbers on Strava and thinking about what those numbers represent. The miles aren’t just miles anymore. They’re evidence that I’ve changed.
And then there’s that 105-pound figure.
I don’t want to gloss over that because it’s bloody enormous.
I’ve lost 105 pounds and somehow ended up becoming somebody who thinks nothing of walking 100 miles in a month, cycling 100 miles in a day, buying a new bike with money that would once have gone on beer, and preparing to walk into the Himalayas.
I don’t think the bloke who started this journey would recognise me.
And perhaps that’s the best thing about September.
I’m no longer wondering whether I can change.
I’ve already changed.
Now I’m finding out just how far that change can take me.
So that’s September. 84kg, 105 pounds gone, more than 100 miles walked, nearly 260 miles of activity, almost 20,000 feet of elevation gain, a brand-new bike funded in part by not drinking, and one completely ridiculous 100-mile bike ride.
Not bad for a bloke who started all this wondering whether he could actually do it.
Everest is getting closer.
And, increasingly, I’m starting to believe that I might actually belong there.
Until next time,
Love to you all x
