SECRET SAUCE

I am guilty of a great many things for which I feel a slight sense of shame. An overwhelming fondness for bed in the mornings — when my children are at their most hyperactive, and my wife is an early riser. Drinking too much coffee when I know I’ll not be near a loo for the next hour. Conveniently using ‘in a minute’ to mean ‘at some point in the next three weeks’. I know I’m not alone.

Unfortunately, among these vague embarrassments is laziness. Not necessarily from a ‘physical activity’ point of view (OK, OK, that too) — but laziness of thought. It’s easy to get stuck in a rut and to not even realise it. It’s easy to always eat the same thing for breakfast, go the same way to work every day, to ride the same trails over and over again. The ones from my doorstep, or the ones a 20-minute drive away. They’re ‘easy’ because I know where I’m going, I don’t have to look too hard, and even the technical stuff I know well enough that I can pucker and squeeze down most of it, and it’s easy to congratulate myself that I’ve