Earlier in the year you may remember the amazing Lumes shared some of her thoughts leading into taking on “The Route”. (The Route aims to raise vital funds for our charity partner, Cure Leukaemia, with 10 amazing women riding the entire Tour de France Femmes route a day ahead of the pros).
Since her return, life has been a whirlwind of emotions. Keep reading to find out more.
All photo credits to the talented Joolze Dymond
It’s been 3 weeks since I rode every stage of the Tour de France Femmes a day before the pros to raise money for Cure Leukaemia. Never in a million years did I anticipate when I first signed up that finishing it would feel like this.
10 months ago, I signed up to take part in The Route together with a team of 10 incredible women. We started our journey on July 23rd at 8am. 63 hours 4 minutes and 21 seconds of riding later (a.k.a 9 stages later) I finally crossed the finish line. By every metric, it was a success. Every incline was climbed without needing to walk, every stage was completely ridden without rescue, and every bone remained intact despite a small crash at the start of stage 8. I gave every km I rode, every meter I climbed, and every £1 I raised everything I had and it was life-changing in all the best ways.
The biggest surprise of the entire event however, was not how the locals welcomed us or how arduous some of the stages were, or the number of times I cried from sheer exhaustion, shock and elation. The most unexpected part of this whole experience was the confusing combination of emotions that began at the finish line and would continue to swirl around even to this day.
I thought when this was done, I would feel ecstatic, immediately proud, and ready & able to tell everyone all about our experience. Instead, I came back feeling a little numb. Maybe a little traumatised. Definitely not yet proud. Definitely not ready to talk about it. And so overwhelmed. It was like my brain could not fully process what we had just done. This made no sense considering how well it all went. So why did I feel so low? Luckily, science has the answer, and apparently, it all has to do with dopamine.
According to Psychology Today, dopamine is released in anticipation of receiving a reward and not, as some of us believe, at the receipt of said reward. Our brains release dopamine when we take an incremental step towards the goal we have chosen, which is what motivates us to want to keep going towards our goal. As soon as we reach our destination however, there is a big drop off so the excitement tends to be short lived fading away much sooner than we expected.
All that to say, everything I’m feeling is normal.
With that in mind, here are some of the things I’ve been doing that have really helped to reduce my mind swirl. Perhaps they might help you too when you smash your own big scary goals and find that you don’t feel the way you expected to feel.
1 – Talking to Professionals – As a professional life and mindset coach, I deeply believe in the power of coaching, so of course, the first place I turned to to help organise all my thoughts into something coherent was a coach. This really helped untangle some of the noise so that I could start to process everything.
2 – Sharing My Story – After locking myself away for a couple of weeks, I’ve now agreed to talk about my experience across a variety of mediums to a variety of different audiences, which has helped me begin to process my emotions in order to make some sort of sense of them. This has been immensely helpful in breaking down the general sense of numbness into its individual parts, reducing much of the overwhelm.
3 – Introducing Novelty – This could be setting a new goal or getting a new coach, or adjusting your training goals and/or routine. Bringing in some novelty into my life has re-energised me and helped me start to fall back in love with riding my bike.
Most importantly, I’ve been considering myself. More sleep, more nutrients, more cuddles from loved ones, and full acceptance of any and all compliments about this achievement without my usual pushing back or downplaying or self-deprecation.
What we did was huge, and I’m so proud of all of us. Despite the immense highs, the deep lows, and the resulting emotional swirl, I don’t have a single regret. That in itself is the best outcome I could have hoped for. There’s still time to make a donation to the team! We are so close to our target so if you have any coins spare, please consider sending them here.
Massive congratulations to Lumes and all the incredible women who took part in this event. We’re immensely proud to be a sponsor of both The Route and Tour 21. If you’re looking for a challenge in 2026/2027, why not consider signing up yourself?!
