uh-oh

it's begun.
yesterday bill sent me a message about the Ironhorse bike ride from durango to silverton. he has already registered for it.
this morning in spin class the instructor mentioned that rooms are already selling out in logan for the night before Lotoja.
registration is open for the skinny tire festival.
I just booked my room for the MS 150 ride in Logan this coming june.
it has begun.
uh-oh.

driving home from my workout this morning I once again saw a world I remember: a world of silhouetted mountains rimming the city, pressed against a backdrop of lightened indigo blue. the sun is rising earlier, and we are walking away from the depth of winter. I'm feeling a push, an internal push, to be participating in this outdoor world of riding again.
uh-oh.
for two reasons, do I caution myself: one, I don't want to go overboard and become lopsided in my zealousness. and two, this feeling is like a false summit. you think you've made it to the top and can now breathe more easily, get into your rhythm, and possibly even have a little bit of downhill to enjoy. but before you know it, the road pulls upward and you are climbing again, working, sweating, a whole entire hill in front of you. again. after you thought you had it all behind you.
that is the late january-early february feeling.
you can register your heart out for every ride around, book your hotel rooms, get psyched, formulate a training plan, commit to eating a nutritionally sound diet (okay, well, maybe not that one), and then . . . it's going to keep snowing.
it's going to continue to drop into the teens and twenties at night.
the roads are going to continue to be difficult to navigate.
then it's going to rain.
and snow some more.
and it it's like last year, it will be almost may before you can ride outside with any kind of regularity.

then there's the over-zealousness. the lopsided me.
this morning in class when the Lotoja conversations started I felt myself being sucked into a whirling, never-ending, overly committed training zone. I came home and checked out the date for this year's event, and then made the significant mistake of looking at the Lotoja 1000 award. mmm. this is awarded to cyclists who have raced 1000 miles since 1998.
that's 5 races.
I'm already at 2 . . .

can you see my little goal-setting cap perched on top of my head?
what is it telling me to do?

uh-oh.

I have to end this now, so I can start booking hotels for all of my events this spring and summer.
I can always cancel, right?