Nine months after an operation at University College Hospital, London, I got a bit of my lower torso strength back, and managed to scale up this bastard of an S-shaped hill at Richmond Park without dismounting.
It took several attempts, about five weekends altogether, before I could cycle up all the way. The pain was excruciating. I failed in the first attempt on that one weekend in September, but did a lap anyway. In the second attempt, I had this mantra going on and on in my head: “Pain is weakness leaving the body”.
Ecstatic, I commissioned Holmes cc, aka the founder of GLUE, to design two jerseys to commemorate the event. This (pictured) is one of them.

I still do laps around the park. To be honest, it doesn’t get any less painful.
You just get used to the lactic acid, and learn to tell your legs to shut up.
[…] those of you who followed GLUE from the start, you would have known about what cancer meant to me and my family. Nethercott was an inspiration to many coxswains. An accomplished athtlete, outside […]
[…] given that I got the all-clear in June 2012, and added cycling to my post-operation get-fit regime in July 2012, a bad third place in a […]