the tao of cycling: laurels

Tuesday, February 15, 2011

laurels

if you know much about me, you know that at heart, I am a writer.
I need to write, it is as much a part of me as my eye color and the shape of my ears.

now I also know that everyone (and their dog) has a blog and is writing a book.
apparently, many of us have similar wishes, desires, and drives. I often feel like just one more person who thinks they have something to say.
but I cannot shirk this; it will not go away. so I keep practicing here (yep, you're my practice guinea pigs) and I keep on plodding along, eyes on that carrot out there that says yes, someday, a book, a payment, validation.
you know me and carrots.

so today I celebrate.
not only did I complete a 25 minute time trial this morning (that's 25 continuous minutes at VT, ventilatory threshold, zone 5, top number on our little workout cards, killer place to hang), but I also finished the book I've been working on.

these two things are related.

here's the story: this blog was born two and a half years ago as a way for me to practice--daily--my writing skills. I'd made a commitment to focus on what my heart told me I had to do, and decided a blog was the perfect way to support this commitment: it was earth friendly (I don't waste paper), it was a challenge (to create something worth reading every day), and it was public (I can't pretend I did it when I didn't).

so I rode my bike, and I wrote here. most every day I was riding and writing, as well as doing all the other things one must do in life (work, laundry, cleaning, cooking, parenting, you know).
and this went on for a good year or so, when I cut back to posting every other day to preserve my sanity. about the same time, though, I wrote a post about someone I'd seen while on a bike ride. september 26, 2009, I passed a man pulling a handcart down emigration canyon, and I wrote about it here: faith greater than pain.
and a friend of this man's read my post.
and told the handcart-pulling man.
who later hired me to write his story.
which is now finished. today. this morning.

so today I celebrate, I celebrate the tao of cycling, the way of cycling, which has brought untold joys into my life, countless friends into my life, amazing strength and tenacity and focus into my life. and a book into my life.

I'm still on the path to fulfilling my life purpose. but I've just passed another milestone, and it feels great. it's taken me a lot longer to write this book than it did to complete my time trial this morning, but they have similar aspects:

you have to do the prep work, the ground work beforehand: you can't just walk in and do it
it isn't easy to hang in there when it gets difficult
it seems to take longer than it should, and watching the clock doesn't help in the least
sometimes it hurts, sometimes you want to bail
it can drain you, exhaust you
you feel like the king of the mountain when it's done
and . . . there's always another one in your future

which is good, because laurels are pretty prickly things to rest on.

and like a time trial, the completion of the book is just one more step in the lengthy process of getting it to a bookshelf. we have a long way to go; I can just hope that the groundwork I've laid, the tenacity I've developed, and the endurance I've grown and nurtured will pay off not only for my riding, but also for my writing.

may your life also be filled with carrots, laurels, payoffs . . . and of course, more carrots.

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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.