Chain of events

How a decision to ride a mountain-bike track in bad weather changed everything.

- BILL NELSON

I remember messaging my friend Gerard with a plan to head out after work. I remember closing my laptop and getting changed in a toilet cubicle. I remember attaching a spotlight to my helmet, and another smaller light to my handlebars. I remember zipping up my wet weather gear. I remember reading the weather forecast – wet, gale-force, a mid-winter shit-storm as only Wellington can put on. I remember messaging my partner and thinking at the same time that maybe this wasn’t such a great idea, there would be other days, and that maybe I should just go home, watch TV, eat something warm, and drink something cold. I remember reading the return message, “Just be careful.” And then I don’t remember anything. Just a black hole where normally the rest of the evening would be.

It was 2016, two months before my first child was due to be born. I was in some kind of early-onset, mid-life, change-of life, not-quite-ready-for-parenting-yet, self-denial sprint-to-nowhere. A lot of things were about to change, but also nothing was changing very quickly. I went to the pub, rode my mountain bike, signed up for races, jogged, worked late, booked holidays, bought new shoes. It felt normal, like my regular pre-child life, but even then, I knew I was trying to cram the fading light of my youth into a few short months before the baby was born. It was futile, but that made me even more desperate to cram more and more in.