Marmot Tours Ltd (whose guides were unbelievable excellent) provide overview notes for every day’s ride and the notes for day 2 set the scene: “A big day today!”. The day ended with a 20km climb up to the summit of Col du Tourmalet at an elevation of 2115m which “deserves serious respect”. We will have climbed a total of 3620m when we get to the top.
Just before the climb really started, the heavens properly opened for the first time and 2 of us sheltered in a garage (turned out to be in a sewage works!) while we put our wet weather gear on. We were only at an elevation of 600m, and I was worried about conditions at the summit and how late it was. When I was told “it’s grim up at the top”, I was convinced that the challenge was over: we would have to complete the stage in one of the support vehicles; swept up by the broom wagon.
However, all it took was my riding buddy John Kellett, to say … “well we have plenty of time before it gets dark to do this climb , we've got this” for my mindset to change from negative to positive from fixed to growth.
And until I told him later, John had no idea the impact his words had made. It was a great reminder that a small intervention, a small sentence can make a huge difference to a colleague or to a team particularly if one is being looked at to lead.
