eating cake

last saturday biking buddy bob and I rode our bikes to sundance and back.
as we passed through a neighborhood on the southeastern foothills, bob said this is the 'let them eat cake' part of town.  communities set apart with guardhouses, four-story mansions on the hillside, private gated homes . . . this is an area of "haves".  or at the least, "hads."  homes built during the years of bigger is better, of if one is good three is what I'll have.
it's difficult to imagine what I'd do if I had oodles of money.
it's even more difficult to imagine being so out of touch with reality that I didn't know people in my own community were poverty-stricken and starving.

and this all began, today, because I decided to have cake for breakfast.  well, not really for breakfast, because I considered my wheat-toast-with-peanut-butter breakfast.  cake was more like a, um, post-breakfast snack.  then a pre-mid-morning snack.  and now it's my mid-morning snack.  soon it will be a before-lunch-snack.
perhaps it's time to stop eating cake.
I'm not quite sure what's going on for me today, but it's possibly connected to the fact that I'm in taper mode.
last saturday's ride to sundance and back (114 miles, 8 hours of saddle time, 10,300' of elevation gain) was my Big Final Ride of the training season leading up to lotoja.  once that peak is reached, I move into taper mode, where my miles-per-week are lessened, I try to rest more, I do more yoga.  the theory is that after one trains all summer, increasing the challenges to a peak, it's then time to cut back and rest up before the big event.
if I haven't trained hard enough yet, it's not going to happen in the last 10 days.
time to ease off.
relax a bit more.
rest.
and eat cake.
oops..... not sure about that last one, but I can't seem to convince myself that cake isn't part of the plan.
I hit taper time and think it's indulging time.
the right thing to do would be to eat more vegetables, dark leafy green things, protein, some fruit, drink lots of water.....
but I seem to want cake.

I'll never live in a ten-thousand-square-foot home on the hillside;  I'll never be an over-consumer.  I'll never forget that there are people who can't afford bread, let alone cake.

but I fear I'll always love cake just a little bit more than I should.

the eventuality of change

I struggle with days like today.

I am not riding today, and part of me is chomping to get out and ride, and the rest of me is soaring with joy that I don't have to go ride. chomp, soar, chomp: I think I have dissociative identity disorder and am in need of medication. who am I?

I'd like to just be a normal person, one who rides some days and doesn't ride on other days. maybe even one who cross trains, going for a run on non-riding days, or something healthy and energetic like that.

but no, I am me. me who wants to ride and is so terribly happy not to ride.

yikes.

I'm not riding today because I'm tired. I am in my taper phase, and I have decided to treat that as a time not to push. yesterday I wore myself out ~ not with exercise, just with being a human doing ~ and since I'd ridden four days in a row I decided it would be okay to take today off.

on days like today I often think, I'll never ride again. I'm tired, I'm tired of riding, I could become a different person (i.e. a normal person) and give it all up.

however, this is unlikely to happen. no matter how tired I am, it eventually changes. in fact, no matter how joyous I am while on my bike, it eventually changes.

everything changes.

which is what keeps us interested in life.

but sometimes it's difficult to remember that things will change. perhaps I won't always feel like I have two different people living in my head, as I do today. in fact, many days that I can recall I appear to be (and even feel to be) a single, solitary, cohesive individual. this is thus proof that I am in a temporary state and things will change.

today I have a thousand things to do. or perhaps it just feels that way. I am behind in this and that and want to be further along in these things and those, and am desperately trying to increase my productivity in everything. and just like my directionally-challenged biking desires, I have directionally-challenged life desires: I want to write a thousand words on my book project today, I want to work diligently to get ahead on work production, and then . . . I want to take a nap.

and this is what I know to be true: just as everything will change, everything will work itself out. I will ship the orders that need to be shipped, I will accomplish the tasks that must be accomplished. I will work as much as I can, and rest when I need. I will get daughter one to the doctor and uniform store, and shop for my son's school supplies and get daughter two somehow home from school. I may even make it to the lacrosse store to get my son's stick fixed. I will write as much as will be written today, and tomorrow, yes, tomorrow,

I will ride my bike.

because today is today, and tomorrow is an entirely new day, and everything, as always, will work itself out.

even though I have dissociative identity disorder and need medication.

waning

synonyms for taper:
abate, bate, close, die away, die out, diminish, drain, dwindle (ooh I like that one), fade, lessen narrow, recede, reduce, rescind, subside, taper off, thin, thin out, wane, weaken, wind down.

I first heard the cycling-related expression "taper" two years ago. as you approach your event, you should begin tapering. you go google "cycling taper" and summarize the results for me, please.
everyone has a slightly (or hugely) different idea of how to taper.
and tapering for a time trial is different than tapering for a century, which is different than tapering for a 40K race which is different than for a crit.
and I have yet to find the perfect guidance for training for a 206 mile ride, let alone tapering for one.
this is when it would be great fun to have a coach.
some people do that: hire a coach.
my fear there, though, is that they would tell me what to do and when I did something different (like ate chocolate cake instead of broccoli) I would feel enormous guilt.
thus, I google and ask others and somehow create a game plan.
right now I am trying to formulate my game plan for the next 13 days.
it is all based on this tapering stage I'm now in, which I like to liken to the waning lunar stage.
I am like the waning moon: slowly changing and preparing for rebirth.

I just read some tapering advice this evening that suggests for the week before one's event one cuts their total miles by 2/3. since I've been averaging about 240 miles a week, that would mean I'd cut back to 80 for the week.
eek!
what would I do with all my spare time??
I'm not sure, but I'm thinking about giving it a shot.
this site suggests keeping intensity during intervals of the rides, but keeping the entire ride abbreviated.
that brought a smile to my face.
I think I can live with that.

but we'll see . . .

the sad thing is that it did not suggest that one stays in bed, or spends more time on the couch, or ~ saddest of all ~ that one eats more cookies in preparation for the event.
in fact, the terms "fresh vegetables" and "plants" keep cropping up in the dietary comments.
sigh.

I suppose if I want to truly follow the waning moon path, I shouldn't be increasing my girth, should I? I will do my best to limit those cookies and that yummy chocolate cake I had last night.
I'll keep you posted on my success.

after the big ride

today's stats:

131 miles
10,700' elevation gain
9 hours riding time

and now, the best thing on earth, my favorite time of the whole training process, something I have earned and am so very grateful for . . .

it is time to taper.

woo hoo!