I recorded myself going up the Galibier, and every now and then, I listen to it.

I recorded myself going up from Saint-Michel-de-Maurienne to Galibier, which is a whopping 36km up almost 2000m. It took me 3hrs 42mins to the top. Here are some excerpts.

“C’est Parti. Let’s goooooo!!!”

“fuck, all the way up there? How the fuck l?” (upon seeing Col du Telegraphe).

“Good pace T. Good legs.”

“6km to go. 9%? Fuck” (after seeing those milestones. I say this at almost every km).

“Wout wout. Wout wout.”

“Telegraph… fuck yeah.” (At the bicycle statue)

“Alright, here I go. Come on. You got this. You go all in.” (In Valloire. Here, I spoke like Grischa Niermann and I pretended to be Sepp Kuss)

“This is so fucking high. Am I going all the way up there? Yes you are. Come on” (I don’t know where this road was taking me, but it just kept on going up. “Come on” is once again Grischa Niermann voice).

“Okay. Water break.” After water break. “Come on Apollo (name of my bike). Let’s fucking go. We can do this.” (At around 2000m)

“You can do it huh. Almost there.” (In Roglic voice because the road was painted “Roglic”)

“WVA, Pogacar, TiboPino, Vingegaard, Kwiato, ALLEZ, Let’s go!!!” (Just reading what’s painted on the road. I started to feel the air is getting thin and the wind was blowing hard)

“Come on T. Almost there. Fuck… Tour de France climb man… you almost there… insane.”

“Fu—cking goooooo” (lifted my ass for the last 200m)

“Yes!!! Yes!!! We did it! We fucking did it. Unbelievable man. Good stuff!”

“You did a fucking good job huh. I wasn’t sure this was possible” (talking to my bike).

I listened to all the nice things I said to myself, the encouraging words to push through my struggles to get over one of the most difficult climbs on Tour de France. And I wondered why it is so difficult for me to say these words and believe in myself in other life endeavours.

But I’m glad that I recorded it, because when I life gets tough, I listen to it to remind myself that there is a part of me that believes anything is possible.