Best or First?

If you have ever seen Toy Story (1 or 2, it doesn't matter which) you will be familiar with Mr Potato Head. Manufactured by Hasbro it's not the best toy ever invented, in fact I bet hardly any are even sold nowadays. But Mr Potato Head did something that no other toy will ever be able to do. It, or he, was the first toy to be advertised on television and no-one can ever take that away from him.

Now contrast Mr Potato Head with Subbuteo, circa 1972. An 8-year old boy unwraps his present at Christmas and nearly wets himself with the excitement of opening the FIFA World Cup edition of said game. The next 6-7 years passed in a blur of school-playing field-Subbuteo, and occasional bike rides to the beach. And not much else. Polystyrene cement glue was bought in copious quantities to fix all the men after they were knelt on by the boy's big brother. Whole competitions, leagues, cup runs, almost all won by West Ham kept me enthralled on dark winter nights before the invention of shit television and electronic games.

But have you ever heard of New Footy, invented in 1929 and an early rival of Subbuteo? Of course not because it was rubbish in comparison. But it was the first table top football game, a bit like Mr Potato Head.

This was the question I pondered today on the ride to work and back. Will I ever be first at anything on the cycling front? Not now Wonder Boy's arrived, and there will be others like him. But I can be the best. The best I can be, and ultimately in the last moments of consciousness that we are all going to have, that is what I want to remember. That I did the absolute best I could at any given moment.

I nearly had those last few moments this evening actually when a car I was overtaking decided to do a U-turn. Fortunately he had his window down and heard my startled exclamation.

It was cold this morning, near freezing in fact. But because it was foggy there wasn't much ice about and by the evening it was a very pleasant 4 degrees. I almost boiled on the way home. I've also got my light-rig set up a lot better so I have a reasonable chance of seeing where I'm going. Unfortunately I can not shared this with you since Charlie packed up on the way home and didn't record. It was the usual sort of route. Winscombe-Sandford-Churchill-Langford-Wrington-Felton-Long Ashton and then the office. Similar on the way back, and today I tried to keep to a few more back roads. There may be a bit of slipperiness and of course the dark also slows me down, but I'd rather that than compete for traffic on the A38.

So a round trip of just over 40 miles, which means that providing the weather is OK, the 5K mark will be on Sunday. I need 11.82 miles and only a blizzard and a two week frost can stop me now.

So was I the best I could be today? Given the circumstances yes. I was slow, and I was cautious, but I was happy. And that surely is what counts.