![Do you know that feeling, when someone is pursuing a goal with unwavering focus, and yet your whole heart is quietly rooting for someone else, wishing that everything will unfold exactly as it’s meant to?Every time the Traka came up in conversation over the past weeks, it still felt impossibly far away, like there was all the time. Weeks of training ahead, more fine tuning of equipment, thoughts about nutrition, all woven into the rhythm of an already demanding everyday life.& than the three boys, rolling together across the starting line on a Friday morning, heading into the Traka 560, while you find yourself standing at the sidelines, doing nothing but hoping.Hoping they fuel enough, that their bodies can take it all in, that focus won’t slip, they won’t crash. Hoping luck stays on their side: no punctures, no setbacks, that they reach a good part of the track for the night …Everyone knows how much can happen over 560 kilometers, but in the intensity of a race, with 10,000 meters of elevation, it becomes something else entirely:160k wild horses in the Pyrenees, cold air, spirits stretched thin220k perfect conditions for the moment, now two of the boys, carrying them into the night340k fishermen at dawn radiating a quiet calm for a kind of new race, now alone for Mo365k quite frustrated Mo, with climbs that simply never refuse to end495k the first fragile feeling that maybe, just maybe, it will all work out for MoAnd then, suddenly, he was there after 560 kilometers, after nearly 10,000 meters climbed!As a spectator and companion, it is exhausting in its own way, to witness how much every single cyclist gives to endure this distance, and how quickly it can all be over. Watching this ignites something powerful for me: A deep urge to take on challenging myself again. At the same time, from the outside, it has never been clearer for me how close everyone of the participants rides to their limits, and how, somehow, they still manage to push beyond them. Huge congrats and respect to everyone!]()
Do you know that feeling, when someone is pursuing a goal with unwavering focus, and yet your whole heart is quietly rooting for someone else, wishing that everything will unfold exactly as it’s meant to?
Every time the Traka came up in conversation over the past weeks, it still felt impossibly far away, like there was all the time. Weeks of training ahead, more fine tuning of equipment, thoughts about nutrition, all woven into the rhythm of an already demanding everyday life.
& than the three boys, rolling together across the starting line on a Friday morning, heading into the Traka 560, while you find yourself standing at the sidelines, doing nothing but hoping.
Hoping they fuel enough, that their bodies can take it all in, that focus won’t slip, they won’t crash. Hoping luck stays on their side: no punctures, no setbacks, that they reach a good part of the track for the night …
Everyone knows how much can happen over 560 kilometers, but in the intensity of a race, with 10,000 meters of elevation, it becomes something else entirely:
160k wild horses in the Pyrenees, cold air, spirits stretched thin
220k perfect conditions for the moment, now two of the boys, carrying them into the night
340k fishermen at dawn radiating a quiet calm for a kind of new race, now alone for Mo
365k quite frustrated Mo, with climbs that simply never refuse to end
495k the first fragile feeling that maybe, just maybe, it will all work out for Mo
And then, suddenly, he was there after 560 kilometers, after nearly 10,000 meters climbed!
As a spectator and companion, it is exhausting in its own way, to witness how much every single cyclist gives to endure this distance, and how quickly it can all be over. Watching this ignites something powerful for me: A deep urge to take on challenging myself again. At the same time, from the outside, it has never been clearer for me how close everyone of the participants rides to their limits, and how, somehow, they still manage to push beyond them. Huge congrats and respect to everyone!
13 days ago
