You keep hearing the saying about the Journey versus the Destination and it can be quite easy to nod your head and agree – but somehow, you never get to do it in your every day life.

…Some of you will have heard about the stack on Sunday 3^rd March at Lansdowne. A grade had over 40 riders and towards the end, there was a bad crash involving about 10 riders at the right hander coming up the last climb. John Cooper suffered a broken finger, Sal did his collarbone in and Jack was carted off to Liverpool Hospital with a neck injury.

This is the story and it is more than sufficient to describe how everything ended up on the day – All done and finished. This is if you just want to get to the facts

BUT, this is what really happened:

…. Let’s try going up the left on this lap because it is a bit faster and there is a bit more space. I don’t really like the steel rails on the inside.. Plenty of space. What is happening? Movement on my right…riders falling down!. One laying on the road directly in front… No-where to go….Brakes on lock.. BANG. ……

Shit…I am on the grass.. I can’t move… right arm is somehow behind my back and shooting stinging pain… must stay still… help is around, shouting instructions…. Wiggle my toes – good.. feel good movement. Then fingers respond. Feel happier – but pain still intense. Roll over slowly and assess the situation…OK…but neck area frozen hurt…mates around helping…. I can relax…see what happens..

….Questions from the Medico. Lucid enough to give answers – even silly enough to say that my favourite movie is “Sex in the City…#5”

..Ambulance arrives… nice girl… cuts my jersey in the ambulance…..gives me some oxygen and turns on the air conditioning..

Arrive at Liverpool Hospital emergency and straight to X-ray and CT scans.. Hear a voice beside me..”Jack??”. “That is your other mate” the nurse says. It is Sal with his broken collar bone…Not allowed to turn my head, all I can do is listen and check out the fluorescent lights in the ceiling.

… drifted off … “Hi!” – Shirley has arrived with Kenny. “Gil dropped the bike over and told us” they say…

…this neck collar that they have given me is hurting a bit  …but I still don’t need morphine…now the wait for doctor’s instructions… still waiting and my lower back is killing me with pain (always happens when I am stressed and on my back for a while). Kenny puts padding under my back… still paining… must roll over…

..”STOP! You can’t roll over” Kenny, Shirley and the nurse.

.. No-one can stop me. I grasp the bed rails and roll over on my side… Nurse turns up soon and says not a good idea. I don’t care. Just want pain to go away. OK. Give me big dose of morphine!…five minutes now and my back is still bloody sore… roll over the other side… more nurses rush over. Now the doctors are coming. Good. Something will happen. Can I just sit up? Only if there is nothing broken on my lower back…Straight to the X-ray again to check my back.. soon all clear…

…I can finally sit up on my bed! …Lower back pain subsiding….What a TRIP!

This is what the Journey is like. This time, I was able to just lay there (and finally sit) and let the events unfold, including doing what I felt like doing – whether the medical staff thought it was a good idea or not.

I felt the pain. I listened to the conversations around me, I could only see straight ahead – but that was all I needed to see. I had things done to me and I also did some….But the main thing was that my mind was in the present rather than worrying about the future – or replaying the past.

… I was purely experiencing what was actually happening…real time..

Long ago, if the same crash happened, I would be looking for someone to blame. Then I would be ticking off the consequences. Planning for the future, and trying to minimise the impact to my daily routine. Worrying about all things – just because of that silly crash… I would be just so constipated with the consequences that the scenes that unfolded would be only a inconsequential part of the Bike Stack story…”Just get me to the end and never mind the fill –in bits!..”

….Just like speed reading to get to the end of the book in record time, or fast forwarding the video to see the ending.… are we there yet?

… Thankfully, this time around, I know that there is no need for me to be there yet. I am happy with just getting there…