Cycling and Anxiety

It's definitely normal

Posted on Sun 27 December 2020

Very recently I planned a longer ride with a friend of mine. It was based on a route developed by a guy called Joel of 'Wayfarer Cycles', and it took in some lesser known gravel and mud trails in my local area around a 75 km loop; on paper it was an ideal route for a sunny day in December. I had been looking for something a bit more technical, challenging my navigation skills, and pushing the distance further than I was used to - and this fit the bill exquisitely. There were thick forest ribbons of mud and fallen trees, more robust gravel paths, a sprinkling of well tarmacked quiet country roads, with a few smaller unused access paths alongside canals towards the end. The elevation fluctuated across descents, languid straights and climbs that seemed incomprehensible until you were dry mouthed and gasping for breath halfway up. It really was an excellent mix, so after excitedly discussing the prospect of giving it a crack, I messaged Joel for the GPX file and any other advice he could offer - to which he courteously obliged in abundance.

The attraction to the route, however, was not necessarily the pretty pictures Joel had posted to his instagram page of his own attempt, nor solely the chance at tackling some great British mud and grime. The route was particularly ideal because it gave me the opportunity to cover some longer distances without ever being more than 8 miles from my house, with plenty of well-known 'exit' and 'rescue' roads I knew well enough to bail on to.

This requirement was particularly poignant - as I suffer with a level of anxiety before planned rides of any length more than about 15 miles. I am not sure what the witchcraft is behind that number, nor whether it is actually the planning that is the main concern, but it has afflicted a lot of my rides for as long as I have been riding. I thought that this route would assuage some of the worse of the anxiety by mitigating against my fear of getting lost. I have a lot of fears. They wrap around and around my brain until I am either exhausted or have reasoned that whatever activity I was about to undertake is tantamount to impossibility. Often it is both at the same time.

We organised the ride for a few weeks in advance, and I spent time putting all the preparations in place required to provide advance notice to my brain of the planned departure. I was surprised to find that I was excited rather than anxious: I spent hours on komoot and google maps tracing the route and preparing my kit. I knew what I would be eating, drinking and at what time. Everything seemed great.

The night before I was eating dinner, when a sudden wave of sickening heat crashed through my body. I was wracked with hot sticky anxiety almost immediately - worrying incessantly about nothing in particular. That's the thing about anxiety, very often it chooses not to rest on any specific subject, but flit from idea to idea, before it snowballs into a tight knotted ball of thread, 6 feet and unweilding. I worried about getting lost, about my bike, about the conditions, my clothes, my fitness, water, fuelling, being snatched, getting injured, being dropped, flooding, the mud, losing my lunch, getting soaked...

The anxiety lingered in my chest throughout the night, and I had an agonising sleep in which I woke several times, and sweated through my nightmares. By the time morning rolled around, and I sipped my coffee, I felt a wobbly mess. I waited impatiently for Rachel to arrive at my house, checking and re-checking my equipment feverishly, though the checking did little to satiate the anxiety. It wasn't until Rachel had pulled up, began building her bike and we started to discuss logistics that I began to feel the gnawing anxiety ebb. The little things I was so panicked about didn't seem to affect her. The catastrophic outcomes I had predicted didn't even seem to feature in her mind.

So we set off. The ride began fairly leisurely, at an easy talking pace. The idea was to ride steadily, and to take every terrain considerately. Neither of us were particularly practiced in thick boggy conditions, and we both wanted to experience the ride as well as keep ourselves safe.

We swept through 14 miles of countryside before I really noticed how far we had gone, chatting, laughing, and conspiring together in summer plans and bike packing trips. The roads and tracks, while not wholly familiar (I could often see familiar landmarks though had never taken the route), were friendly enough, and we saw plenty of other cyclists, walkers and families bundled up in scarves and hats. We stopped twice, once before a large and imposing roundabout interchange, and the second at the top of a severe hill unassumingly named Primrose Lane. I felt really happy. The anxiety sat quietly at the back of my mind, saying very little.

It wasn't until we entered Delamere forest that I began to feel the anxiety twinge in my chest. The weather, which had been crisp clear and blue early in the morning, had suddenly become dour, dark and cold. We had taken a number of incorrect turns, and deviated on others in order to find muddier tracks, spending more time carrying our bikes over stiles and picking our way through a copse to follow what looked suspiciously like a meandering gutter widened by sheep. At one point, we stood bewildered in a field on a hill, peering nervously at the barbed wire perimeter for an exit, but seeing only the repetitive and threatening 'Cyclists dismount' sign painted in blood red. By the time we had stopped for lunch, we had only managed to cover around 3 miles in an hour, and my phone, which was offering the Komoot navigation had dropped to 30% battery. We still had 26 miles left to cover in the last two-and-a-bit hours of light, and I felt wracked with nerves. My mind fell once again to the catastrophic outcomes that I anticipated happening; of getting lost, of running out of water, of limping home with an injury...

I spoke to Rachel and she suggested we stop for lunch. Which we did, on a log, and talked about everything other than the issue at hand. Rachel is good at that. She distracts you, brings down your anxiety, and then handed me a plan to get us home. It meant bailing on the route, but she explained that didn't matter, and being safe did. She she re-planned on her phone, and we continued onwards. We got home just as the light was failing, and drank tea in my living room.

After Rachel had left, I edited the photos I had taken on my go-pro, and uploaded a few to instagram, but instantly felt deceitful. I posted about this on my instagram page - for no other reason than authenticity. A colleague of mine once said - in passing - that she wished she had the same level of confidence to just go out cycling that I had. At the time, I felt it was really disingenuous to have not corrected her - I didn't have the confidence. I often felt incredibly anxious prior, and during rides, and have never spoken about it publicly. I realised that not only did I not speak about this publicly, but no-one ever speaks about this publicly. I was conscious that the only photos I had chosen to include were ones of my friend and I happily smiling into the camera or making progress. I had edited them carefully too, to exude the exact level fo drama and depth I wanted them to exhibit. There wasn't a hint of the anxiety I had experienced. I was just as bad as all the others.

So I was opened up about it, and It was incredibly surprising then, to find the number of people messaging me sharing similar stories and concerns. Others who felt that they were alone, or weird for feeling like this; others who had already reconciled themselves to their anxiety and had developed coping mechanisms; others who hadn't even realised this wasn't something other faced; others who never suffer, but wanted to extend their support. It was humbling.

I often treat my anxiety in the same way I would treat a broken bone; carefully wrapping my mind in a protective layer of planning bandaging, making sure I don't over stretch myself while it is healing, and being careful not to be too harsh on myself for having it. A few people have tried to reassure me that 'I will grow out of it', but it is both unfair and diminishing to consider it like this. Instead I am trying to accept my anxiety, and work within its remit.

The day I began writing this post, I had planned to take a shorter 10 mile loop along some of well known off-road tracks near my house. I knew every part of the ride intimately, with the exception of a 2 mile segment along a restricted by-way called 'Rake's Lane' - a straight farmer's track across a sheep field, water-logged and mud clogged. I have never turned down Rake's Lane before. I normally cycle past it, or turn off before it. I knew where it would bring me out, because I drive past the entrance every day as I travel to work; thus, had decided to follow it to satisfy a restless curiosity to mentally colour in that section of the map between the two points.

I saw only one family at the beginning of my ride, and enjoyed myself smashing into potholes filled with a foul smelling muddy slip, singing as loudly as I could to the Pogues' 'A Fairytale of New York' (undisputedly the finest Christmas song). I turned from Moorditch Lane, to Lordship Lane and without thinking onto Rake's Lane. Tufts of sheep's wool clung to the barbed wire cutting either side of the track, and I continued on alone. But about half a mile down the path, after a particularly deep pothole of claggy mud and rocks, I stopped.

I was suddenly faced with a wall of shaggy grey sheep fervently chewing the cud, framed - in some sort of rosy bucolic diorama of the British pastoral - by the vividness of the steadily setting afternoon sun. I felt the familiar twinge of anxiety. The scene had alerted me to the time. To go back the way I came would take too long and risk getting caught in the dark, but to continue onwards seemed stark and uninviting. The path rounded to the left, with high banks of thick stick mud embellished and churned with tiny little hoof prints impressed deeply into them. A large span of sluggish water spanned the path, I could see a large industrial barn, it's grey aluminium face staring blankly back at me. It was completely silent.

We stood transfixed similarly, the sheep with the fiery caution of prey animals, and me with a suspicious wariness. It was two miles on familiar land. I had no choice but to move forward if I wanted to beat the sun home - and I very much did.

I took a deep breath and moved, scattering with surprising agility the sheep that had blocked my path. The anxiety did not subside initially, but as I moved past the blank-faced barn and spied a familiar landmark - a crooked tree - and I felt it depart immediately. There was an elderly couple walking a dog, and a young mum with a little boy on a trike.

There is little point in trying to deny this side of my rides. The anxiety can flare at any point, and I want others to realise that this is normal, and that it doesn't prevent you from engaging in, and loving the sport. This is my first step towards that aim.