966km of pure hell! Back curved, legs straining, over mountains, round towns, through dirt, rivers and desert. 9 days of gruelling mountain biking ended on Saturday at the beautiful Lourensford Wine Farm. The sweat and tears and pain were all part of an extreme mountain biking challenge called the Epic. An incredible feat of endurance and skill! The upside is that you get to pick your race partner with whom you share the pain and agony. That and the spectacular scenery, the untamed nature reserves, the sheer mountain passes, and the heart stopping descents all contribute to softening this awesome challenge.

We went as a family to see these superhuman competitors literally fly home through the finish line. The relief, joy, and delight could be felt in the size of the smiles that surrounded us. We cheered a friend of ours home and toasted his success throughout the day, oh it was fun! He said that the race was the fun part, the hard part was the training, 20 hours a week, every week for six months. You can only imagine how all of that time must create an incredible bond between you and your partner. His partner happened to be his neighbour and long time friend. They had much to celebrate, not only had they finished, but they finished in the top 20% of riders, no small feat! Madness I was thinking!

And that thinking got carried away, I must be a bit of a pansy for never having stepped up to an extreme event. Watching these pumped cyclists finish this arduous event was for me goose bumps and heart flutters. I was inspired. I started to think about doing my own extreme event, perhaps run 211km over 5 days in a race called the Odyssey! Perhaps I could even band a heap of surfers together and create our own extreme surf event; my mind was ticking, and my body itching to pit itself against the seemingly impossible.

In the saddest turn of events my friend’s Epic partner died on Sunday of a heart attack.

Here was a guy in the supposed peak of his life, who triumphed one day and the next he was gone! In a funny way, I had gotten to celebrate his last great success, his own special goodbye to the world.

Wow, this could happen to me too!

Never before has the advice to live each day as if it were my last been more relevant. A day or two ago, I blogged about time spent in meditation. Robin Sharma in his book suggests that part of your meditation involves thinking about the things that you would need to do today if it were your last. And then going out and doing them!

This chap gave all of us who knew him a great gift, for which he paid dearly. Sadly this is a gift that most of us will pack away deep in the recesses of our minds and forget. But I suppose that would be our loss!

Me, I have things to do and say....