up and over

today I climbed a small mountain.
but first I battled weak muscles and a cough and little hills and wind and rain and more little hills.
and more importantly, my mind.
the one that said, you really can't do this. it's okay to just turn around and go home. you don't have to climb this thing, and besides, you really can't.

this is not truly my mind.
I think it belongs to someone else, someone involved in a great mind-control experiment, who has access to my brain when I become tired and weakened from one cause or another.
when my muscles fatigue and rob my brain of oxygen, the great experimenter slips in a substitute brain which is much less willing to support my choices.
it constantly tells me of warm beds and couches and cookies.
of the pointlessness of excess (meaning any) exertion.
of how silly I am to think that I can speed down bike lanes and up sharply climbing roads.
of how much stronger (wiser, smarter, cuter, younger) everyone else on a bike is.
of how I am not really capable of powering myself up anything more steep than a speed bump.
of how all of my past victories and successes are just that: past.

because there's just no reason why I would sabotage myself in this way, is there?
it must be someone else messing with my head.

today I climbed up and over that steeply climbing mountain road, and down the declivitous back side. I did it in the rain and without support of my brain, as it was so obviously occupied as described above.
I do believe my real brain has been returned to me, however, as I'm already planning tomorrow's ride and counting the peaks which I will conquer, with or without it.