the tao of cycling: baseball

Thursday, April 9, 2009

baseball

I'm not a huge baseball fan. in fact, I'm not a huge fan of any organized sport. I'm one of those who would rather be doing than just watching others do. I have tremendous respect and admiration for athletes and the skills they hone, but I am not one to follow a team or an individual and track their progress or memorize their stats.
but I know a lot of people do.
and a lot of people follow baseball.
and most all of us have at least some knowledge of one of baseball's all time greats, babe ruth.
today, I'm writing about one of his sayings, because it's a pretty powerful statement that I need to continually pull up and chew on:

never let the fear of striking out get in your way.

one of my favorite movies of all time uses this line, though they tweak it a little, and every time I see or hear it I am reminded just how crucial this statement is to those of us humans who walk the earth with just a titch of fear within.
I love baseball hitting stats, because no one gets a hit every time they step up to bat.
in fact, they fail more than they succeed.
how encouraging!

I've heard that there are really only 2 ways to proceed through this world: to approach everything from a position of fear, or to approach everything from a position of love. I try to focus on the latter: a position full of forgiveness, acceptance, faith, and patience.
but occasionally I find myself operating from a place of fear. that's when the doubts creep in, the negative thinking, the pity party. what a debilitating place to hover; what a terrifying place to actually live.

babe ruth wouldn't let fear mess with his exuberance for the game he loved, and his advice is worth heeding in all aspects of life.
if babe hadn't gotten over his fears, he would never have made the 2873 hits he did.
if I hadn't gotten over the fear of buying my cannondale, I wouldn't have experienced the thousands of pleasures I have since that fated day.

never let the fear of striking out get in your way, nor let it keep you from playing the game.
there's too much to be gained each time you find the strength to swing that bat.

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the Male Ego

The other day I was coming down a canyon in my drop bars (two years ago I would have said, 'what's a drop bar?'), working hard, when I came up on two guys who were also heading downhill but at a more leisurely pace. I passed them, said hello as I did so, and pulled back into the bike lane. a few minutes later they went flying past me, faces looking dead ahead, not a single bit of acknowledgment that I even existed on this planet let alone was involved in and enjoying the same sport they were.
I have to attribute this to the male ego. what else can it be? now I know we all have egos, myself included. and mine even shows its ridiculous little head once in a while, or perhaps more often. but the difference between mine and say, those of certain men on bicycles, is that I KNOW mine exists and I can LAUGH at mine. I know my ego was quite excited to pass those guys, and I could also smile because I knew if the men had really been working like I was, they would have kicked my butt down the hill.
I think I pissed them off.
and I'm sure I will be sharing with you much more of my thoughts about the male ego . . .

a little history

I was married, and I had a mountain bike which I rarely rode. we separated, I moved out, and four months later someone stole my bike. the next spring, 2005, I bought myself a new mountain bike. I rode occasionally, and in april 2006 I rode in my first century, the Cactus Hugger in St. George, Utah. I made it 54 miles on that mountain bike, and it took me about 6 hours. I think that included the rest stops where I prayed that someone would steal my bike again . . .
in june 2006 I started riding my mountain bike five mornings a week, a 45-55 minute loop that was intended to be all about exercise. and what I found was that I loved the quiet, peaceful morning full of bird chatter and barely breaking sunrises. by that fall I was hooked, and began considering the purchase of a road bike. I rode up emigration canyon for the first time that Labor Day of 2006, panting and plowing along on my trusty (heavy) bike, and a month later I was the proud owner of my own road bike: I had become a two-bike girl!
a 17-week-long "power camp" over the winter and a handful of new friends kept bicycling front and center in my life, and when spring of 2007 rolled around I was ready to hit the pavement. I rode my first century the end of april, when I again went to St. George and completed that Cactus Hugger. it took me about 7 hours, but this time I rode the entire 100 miles with about 9300 feet of vertical gain. woo hoo!
I started riding canyons around our area, emigration and millcreek, city creek, big cottonwood, little mountain and big mountain, and once--yes, only once--little cottonwood.
then in september of 2007, I rode from Logan, Utah, to Jackson, Wyoming, in the slightly infamous LOTOJA race. I rode, I did not race. and I completed the thing, crediting my good training buddies, the incredibly perfect weather, my support team, and an amazing convergence of all things positive in the universe.
I put in about 3500 miles last season, and as of today, july 19, 2008, I have about 1700 in, adding to it every day.
I have again signed on to ride the LOTOJA race, and my goal is to have just somewhere near as great a ride as I did last year. oh, and to have someone fun to talk with along the way as I got incredibly bored last year . . . star valley is still a nightmare scene in my biking memories . . .
and here is a picture of the machine that has helped me reclaim my life.