How to… quit
Not how to quit cycling, just how to run up the white flag on an individual event.
It is easy to get consumed by rising to a challenge, and then put yourself through hell to reach your goal. It is common, in these circumstances, to lose sight of the simple pleasures offered by giving up.
First, you should remember that unless you’re a pro rider, this is your personal challenge. No one else cares whether you do it or not. It will go down as a personal failing, and you can simply file it along with all your other personal failings. This will get easier with practice.
Quitting means you’ll free up time and energy to get the grass cut or paint the downstairs windows. There is a good chance that doing either of these will make you feel at least as good as completing the event would have.
Don’t forget that quitting has a rush all its own. Giving up and going home is often a moment of clarity to outdo anything you were going to feel when you arrived battered and broken at an arbitrary finish line.
Failure will safeguard you from the danger of bragging to people about how well you did. Your friends and family are much less interested in a blow-by-blow account of your successes than they pretend to be, and will like you much better for a brief and frank description of your spinelessness.
Lastly, remember the proverb that goes, whatever doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. It’s fine to avoid killing yourself by as large a margin as you want.