On doing a mountain bike race

I was planning to do the Sani2c. That is a really long bike ride. But hey, how hard can it be to ride a bike? Isn’t it downhill anyway? It’s from the Drakensberg to the coast right? Well, isn’t that generally downhill? So one hundred kilometres a day for three days is a long distance, I get that. Just pedal really slowly, eat well, relax, and maybe go on one or two training rides.

I told a cyclist buddy who looked at me incredulously. This was the expression of most people I broke the news to; there must be something about my current physical appearance that makes people believe that any endurance event would lie outside of my wheelhouse.

So my mate said, ‘Andrew, before you attempt that, let’s do a shorter ride, let’s do the Wartburg Classic. It’s only 45 kilometres. Much shorter. Let’s start there’. So I did. Here are my thoughts on that:

1.       The scenery is beautiful

I know this for I was instructed of this fact numerous times. I wasn’t looking out for the scenery choosing instead to bury my gaze one metre in front of my front tyre. There comes a time when natural landscape does nothing for you. Look at that Waterfall! See those trees! Isn’t it all so beautiful! Don’t tell me the landscape is beautiful, just tell me if that is another incline I see coming my way. All of God’s glorious creation you would trade, in this moment, for the Finish line. Actually - brutal honesty here - there were lives I would’ve trade for the finish line. By the way, I am a nature-loving pacifist. Yes, things got very, very bad very, very quickly.

2.       Inclines

Never celebrate a downhill. Every downhill has an evil twin sister that loathes you with all the loathing that hell could muster on one summer’s day in February. Also, when you start the race, a twenty degree incline is just that, twenty degrees. Thirty kilometres into that same race, a twenty degree incline becomes the equivalent of pedalling up a mine-shaft. Oh no, never celebrate; smile now and you weep later. Actually, don’t smile now and you will still weep later.

3.       Purple juice, green juice and bananas

You have these rest stops along the way that are there to feed you stuff for your journey. It is here, and only here that a combination of purple juice, extra- sweetened apple cider and over-ripe bananas looks appetizing. No combination of events anywhere else in this world would present this trifecta of gourmet delicacies as a treat, save for here. They were delicious and delicious only because it afforded me the opportunity of doing something other than cycling really, really slowly. Come Andrew, finish that fourth banana quickly, we need to get going! Do we have to? Can’t we stay here a little longer?! Maybe lie down a bit?

4.        She came in like a wrecking ball

You will get over-taken. They call this ‘snaking’. I only found that out just before the start of the race. ‘Watch out for the snakes!’ they cried. ‘If you are being snaked move out of the way!’ the announcer boomed. I got snaked by a twelve year old girl wearing pig-tails and chewing gum while quietly singing a Miley Cyrus song. Just deal with it.

5.       I thought this was about the legs!?

They have this thing in cycling called Technical. It’s a stupid term to describe sharp turns, loose sand and ludicrous drop-offs. All you really do is trade leg pain for arm pain as you apply different degrees of pressure to your breaking system. Eventually, foregoing any shame, I unclipped both feet and navigated the Technical bits with legs splayed out like Don Quixote on a particularly low riding donkey. I got snaked by most everybody even though it was single track. It helps to be veering off the track a lot of the time, this allows for others to pass without incident. Something else I learnt: Technical is the part of the bike race that takes forever to do and covers the magnificent distance of roughly one hundred metres. When you are running on empty seven kilometres into a forty five kilometre race that is very, very bad news indeed.  

6.       You may not finish

Or, in my case. You won’t finish. I got a lift back to the Start when I was twelve kilometres from the end. ‘Twelve kilometres doesn’t sound that far?’ you question. ‘Why quit so close to the end?’ you ask. When you have ‘hit the wall’, twelve kilometres is equal to the distance between Johannesburg and Cape Town, or Johannesburg and Cairo, or any foreign destination impossible to cycle to. The guy who gave me a lift was a friendly guy: does tyres for people in Wartburg he told me, Wartburg is a very quiet place he told me. He had the good grace to drop me off around the corner from the finish so that I could cycle in without facing the ignominy of being the only cyclist to lift my bike off the back of a bakkie. This is the bakkie of shame.

7.       Quitters never win!

Yeah, I know, but, well, how can I put this: I really really don’t care.

8.       The goodie bag.

You receive a goodie bag at the beginning of the race. This one contained syrup, the bag itself and a T-shirt. I chose an extra-large T-shirt that boasted of the fact that I finished the Wartburg Classic. I’ve built a bonfire. The symbolic burning is scheduled for tomorrow.

After that, I start training for the Sani2c.

On making my wife submit: part one

I don’t know how to make my wife submit.

I have to confess this from time to time, most recently to a close friend, slightly older than me, who has a son about to be married. He is a good kid, a seriously good kid – smart, faithful, observant of biblical directive, and unfortunately it is in that third category that he comes up short. In his young relationship, fast approaching marriage, the two love-birds are trying to arc a faithful trajectory for their lives. So, wife-to-be, submit! Easier said than done. He is marrying a Dominator. For those not familiar with the Enneagram a Dominator is known for, well, dominating. ‘Dominating what?’ you might ask.  Anything really - things people, situations; their governance is sure and sometimes terrifying. Where others on the Enneagram - Enthusiasts like me for instance - might be weighing up the cost, considering feelings, Dominators rush in, brandishing weaponry, ready to take names and seal deals.

This conversation was all the more meaningful for I too am married to a Dominator and to be honest, I’ve never really known what to do with the whole submission thing; my wife is not the submissive type. We’ve never had that conversation. I’m too scared. Generally, Christian men married to strong women are quite easy to spot. When they speak about the necessity of their ladies being compliant, they’ve either done it with a little too much assurance – almost as if masking a fear – or with a slightly sheepish look on their faces as if, one word out of place and it might be cold shoulder and hot tongue for lunch; always, without fault, it has happened with other people, men in attendance, witnesses, in other words. If wisdom really prevails, they don’t say anything at all.

I understand that. To encourage my wife to be more submissive would probably include a whip, a chair and a large ring. I say large ring because I would need the space; my wife stands quite low to the ground but, famously, is quick over short distances. I would need room to manoeuvre.

Now make no mistake, I love my wife dearly. Please tell her so if she asks. And our relationship works, I’m not sure why, we don’t think about it that much; come to think of it, that might be why. It works because we are really good friends. Our marriage started with years of friendship – we spoke till the cows came home. We still do. I was chatting to a good friend who is heading towards marriage. I don’t know the guy, so I was quizzing her relentlessly; I’ve known her since I was twelve, she ten, so I have this kind of Big Brother approach to her. Inquisitorially I ask, ‘Tell me about this guy,’ eye-brow raised, is-he-good-enough-for-you reflected in the look. ‘We speak for hours,’ she said. That’s enough for me, couples that start with friendship, speak for hours, in my book, they’re standing on pretty solid ground.

The opening sentence is only partially true. Mary does submit. Sometimes she really wants me to take charge. I’ve learnt (am learning!) that I need to do that sometimes for, to be honest, sometimes I’d rather not. For me to make certain decisions, to act out for the family and to take the lead, brings her great comfort and life. Sometimes, I need her to let me lead, sometimes she needs to shut up and let me lead as I want. I always convey this sentiment very carefully as only a guy can, by saying something along the lines of, ‘Shut up and let me lead’, you know, real nuance-like.

We get by.

I haven’t chatted to the guy yet but if I did, if I was to speak to him, I might say, mate, don’t start with the Bible, start with her. What does she want from you? How would she read that? My guess is, she would like you to take charge of certain things. It will bring her life. (As an aside: if you are following the Bible in ways that don’t bring life to those around you, get a new approach or lose the Bible because you’re just going to manufacture a world of hurt).

Sometimes leading means following, right? If you are good leader of your home, you will soon realise there is some stuff you are rubbish at and that your partner is good at – put your pride in your pocket and support them wholesale even if it is in a field where your gender generally rules the roost.

I can’t put cables from the TV to the DSTv. It’s just a mental block – there could be two cables and two holes and still I will sit for hours in a cold sweat wondering how do I do this?! I should be able to do this, I’m a guy dammit! Mary does this stuff blind-folded, Houdini-like; she snaps for cords that I must deliver in double-quick time, like an apprentice scurrying around a workshop, am I, marvelling at the work of a master craftsman (woman..)

It’s fine. It works. It also gives me more couch time.

Just don’t apply a cookie-cutter approach, mate. The Bible will guide you, but there has never been a relationship exactly like yours. There never will be again. What submission – wife to husband and yes, husband to wife – will look like in your relationship will be absolutely unique, never again replicated in detail. So generic, sweeping statements, broadside bromides sent flying from pulpits in a hysterical attempt to keep everyone marching in lock-step, commands that have to be applied to all people everywhere, be very wary of them. I have found them to be as harmful as helpful.

And above all, just love, love like Jesus and things will fall into place. You see, it’s not really about power, it’s about partnership and partners help each other.

 

Now excuse me, Mary is calling. I think it’s my turn to make tea.

On keeping the shoes apart

The other day my best friend made me choke on my cappuccino. He was telling me about a person who came to see him; her story contained numerous spirits, some strange beverages, and a visit to a psychic among other ill-advised appointments. ‘You know Andrew,’ he said, ‘I wanted to tell her, you’re not possessed, you’re just crazy’. (The noun ‘crazy’ was actually prefaced by a wonderfully colourful hyphenated word that gives full expression to the sentiment, a word related to the faecal matter of a cave-dwelling mammal). All ministers have these moments when, while listening to some far-fetched tale told by a person who seems to have a tentative grasp on reality, you wonder, 'Is this not all just nonsense?' I once counseled a young girl. Her mother was particularly drawn to the supernatural. She saw things. Experienced things. Got knocked over regularly and not because she had an inner-ear infection or because she struggled with right turns. No. The girl, with great shame, laughed when she told me about a ‘spiritual episode’ her mother experienced; she found her mom lying face down on the floor ‘overcome by the Spirit’. Her mother was prone to being 'overcome in the Spirit'. The girl’s observation though was not so much with her mother but with her mother’s shoes, which were perfectly placed next to each other, a foot away from her now recovering mom. The point is, for credibility, if you are overcome by the Spirit, your shoes should not be found together. The Spirit has never really cared for that level of house-keeping; you can’t be slain in the Spirit and still have time to polish the fine China on the way down. I’m not saying hard-to-understand spiritual stuff doesn’t happen - heck, it happens to me – but there is some naughty other stuff that happens as well, that is a lot more manipulative. So, next time you are ‘overcome’ throw your shoes in different directions or don’t go see my friend, he might just call it as he sees it.