"CONTROL"!!! That's what the CTCT (Cape Town Cycle Tour 109 kms) cycle is ALL about! Your self-control! If you crave it, may I suggest you take up cycling! It's a very carefully orchestrated skill of balance, endurance and allowing ZERO MARGIN FOR ERROR!
As you navigate the relentless quad-burning uphills you realize that you are 1 km/hour away from falling off the bike if your leg strength fails you. You are also millimetres away from a fatal fall on the tar at 30 kms per hour if you don't "hold your line" and move 1mm left or right to get out of the way of the other 32,000 cyclists trying to demonstrate the same sense of self-control.
Mental concentration of note is required for that race. Afterwards I have a migraine, so big, because what you have just been through is akin to walking a tightrope for 6 hours with sharks in the sea beneath you waiting to swallow you if you fall. I am super proud to say that my 9th CTCT voyage is completed without incident some 4 years after the previous cycle.
When the hiatus after a good business run becomes a questionable result going forward, or when a new product line being tested after significant investment may fail—that's your Kilometer 70. The Kilometer 70 Method has three parts:
- Diagnose the Breaking Point: Don't dramatise it. Name it. The breaking point is not discomfort. It's the moment your long-term trajectory is threatened.
- Install Identity Stability: High performers don't make emotional decisions under duress. They make a plan, ride out the storm, and claw their way back to glory.
- Reframe Pain as Advantage: I wasn't supporting a failed result. I was protecting a narrative of a 10-time Cycle Tour finish goal. The fear of breaking trajectory was heavier than the fear of not finishing.
Will you navigate the fact that plenty of people in their mature years are still accomplishing great things? Or will you call it a day?
Lara Kaplan
Kilometer 70 Blog™
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