snow

someone built a snowman on the shoulder of the first graceful switchback heading up big mountain, complete with cheery, multi-limbed tree branches for arms.
by the time I passed it early this afternoon, its head had deserted its body, but a grin slowly snuck onto my face anyway.
after four days of cold and wet, the sun worked hard to reestablish its benevolence today, for which I'm exceedingly grateful. 44 degrees is just darn cold, and 48 degrees with lightly spitting rain isn't one bit better: my last 3 rides have been less than fabulously exhilarating.
snow chunks dot the side of the road up big mountain, and by the last mile snow is consistently visible on the hillsides beside you. it's surreal, it's shockingly out of place while completely familiar, and while my ipod is playing a song with the lyrics "summer is here" I am forcing myself to accept the fact that summer is decidedly over.
I'm not quite there yet.

addiction

I had brunch with my handful of female friends a while back, something we do much too infrequently. we are connected through former employment and our children's schools, and the seven of us bring amazingly different backgrounds and life experiences together in a beautifully successful, crazy quilt kind of way.
two of us are from michigan, two have lost sons, one has lost a husband. five of us worked for the same company years ago, and four of us have children who have attended the same schools. two of us married boys they dated in high school, and one is currently dating a boy she went to the prom with. one just returned to college, three have graduate degrees, and between us we've given birth to nineteen children. one has a sister with addiction issues, and one has an ex-husband with addiction issues.
while we are all healthy, a few of us walk, a few run, a few own bikes, only one of us is as committed to cycling as I am. yep, that would be me.

one of us has a son who died of an oxycontin overdose five years ago.
his mother has fought for years now to spread the word about this dangerous drug, to warn others, and to have oxycontin banned.
so some of our conversations are about addiction.
and at brunch, it turned to other kinds of addictions, and suddenly I was addicted to cycling.

now, certainly, people can say that, think that, even believe that.
I can get defensive, I can agree with it, or I can try to put it in perspective by understanding their perspective as one who doesn't live inside my skin.

I begin with a definition of addiction. the following is the most relevant one I could find, as most definitions focus on the use of drugs or other habit forming, harmful substances:

a recurring compulsion by an individual to engage in some specific activity, despite harmful consequences, as deemed by the user themselves to their individual health, mental state, or social life. (the infamous wikipedia.)

so . . . compulsion? well, I do feel compelled to move. (I think we're supposed to do that. doctors tell us to, and God gave us all those muscles and capabilities for a reason.) I just happen to like to move on a bicycle as opposed to walking or running. but I also love my books and my couch.
harmful consequences? like . . .? a healthy heart? toned muscles? a boosted metabolism? not sure I can find a harmful consequence. I manage to balance responsibilities and social activities with my cycling. and my mental state is mostly improved by biking.

some say we get addicted to the endorphins, and push ourselves to keep experiencing that high.
well . . . I think I grew up learning that a "natural high" was what we were to reach for, to "get high on life" as opposed to alcohol, drugs, food, shopping, and on and on.

I've stated this before, and I still hold it to be true: I am not addicted to cycling, nor am I even obsessed with it. I am someone who finds peace, joy, and a way to be healthy, all on my bicycle.
and on those days (weeks) when the phone doesn't ring, the editors don't respond, and orders for my work are nonexistent, riding my bicycle is a way to keep my sanity.
I train hard for the events I choose to participate in, and I love feeling strong and capable, but the meditative aspect of cycling is probably the most important piece of all.

a beautiful bit of advice I once heard was this: don't explain, don't defend.
so to even write about this is difficult, as I don't want to be one who doth explain too much.
I am firmly committed to my mental health, to my physical health, to experiencing joy in our world, and to being a peaceful, loving, helpful member of our shared planet.
riding my bike dovetails perfectly with my goals, and for as long as it brings me health and joy, I will continue to hop on ruby and pedal away.

you can call it addiction if you'd like, or even obsession. but I know the truth about me, and I'm okay with it. I've got a fabulously healthy heart, and I've got my sanity.
works for me.

genetics

I rode yesterday, finding a hole in the clouds, a sunny gap between rainstorms.
it had just finished raining and the road was still wet. dark, shiny, water clinging to my tires.
occasionally I would come up to a dry spot, a stretch of road lit by sunshine, pavement just a touch higher and thus drained dry more quickly, or an area protected by overhanging trees, leaving the road surface pale and dry.

my bike steered itself toward each dry spot. as if on auto-pilot. the kind of movement you don't think about as it's happening: it just happens.

my question is this: which genetic code is it that draws me there? is it simply the move toward safety, knowing that dry surface is always safer than wet? or is it the desire to leave tracks, to mark that spot with my wet tire, to validate my presence, to boldly state "I was here"?

the first unconscious pull to the dry spot happened before I could think about it, catching me by surprise. as I reflected on it once past the spot, I came up with these two possible reasons for why I was drawn in that direction. in trying to determine which one is more likely the "correct" reason, I'm stymied. how can I really know?

I love making first tracks, marking my trail, validating my existence.

but I'm also reasonably cautious, eager to stay upright and unmarred.

I suppose that determining the True Reason my bike was guided to the dry pavement isn't necessary: it's enough to acknowledge that some of our decision making is guided by wisdom so deep within us that we won't ever detect its true origin.

and perhaps we don't need to, if we can simply learn to accept that the wisdom deep within our genes, our cellular structure, our unconscious, is ready to guide us along our path if we can only learn to let go and let it do so.

cresting

peter wilborn calls it riding through the top of a climb.
shannon mulder, one of my favorite power camp coaches (think Korn, raunchy jokes, drop your shoulders and consistently genuine enthusiasm) told us not to let up just because you've reached the top.

I simply describe it as don't stop pedaling as you crest, and this has been one of the best tricks in my little cycling bag.

many cyclists dread hills.
I don't; I rather like them.
I prefer them to the flat (ish) sections where men (and strong women) can outpower me significantly, where I usually find myself at the back of the pace line, heart pounding just below zone 5, trying to hang on until I eventually get dropped.
the hills are much better: the line splits up, everyone goes at their own pace, and I get there when I get there without that fear of falling off, being dropped, failing to hold on to the draft off someone's wheel.

and shannon taught me, that first year of power camp, always ride through the top of the hill because that's where people slack off. now I don't care too much what everyone else does, but this taught me a huge lesson that has benefited my training (and experiences) significantly. this is when I learned one of cycling great truisms:
you can always recover on the down.
since I don't race, it's really not about beating anyone else, being faster than anyone else, getting further down the hill before they do: it's about training your body that it can work just a little bit harder for just a few seconds longer, and then find its way to a resting place while coasting (or pedaling with much less intensity) downhill.
to stop at the top of the hill destroys my momentum. it's anticlimactic: I find myself so much more gleeful as I ride through the top and start the descent, grinning and relishing the joy of the much-deserved swoop. my heart will still be pounding as the grade slips into negative numbers, then gradually tick its way down to a hardly-working place as the scenery slips by.
I love this.

to be clear, there are definitely times when I stop at the top of a climb. brighton, alta (or albion basin), city creek, lamb's canyon, millcreek: when you reach these summits the road ends and it's time to savor your victory for a bit.
but on the climbs that are simply leading you to the next leg of your ride---whether they be 10-mile climbs or 1-mile rises---the trick of powering over the top and continuing on teaches you that you are tougher than you thought, more capable, stronger, and, I dare say, wiser.
the road will ease, you'll be given an opportunity to recover.
need I say this holds true in other aspects of life as well?
nope, didn't think so.

power on, don't stop when you reach the crest.
keep striving, keep reaching, give it a little more, and the rewards will shortly follow, when you can doubly enjoy your swoop.

PS: nineteen years ago today at this exact time I welcomed my incredible son beau into the world . . . happy birthday, big guy!

willingness to learn

our awesome team Bad Ass captain, ann hoffman, alerted me to a great article about riding in groups.
our team has a good hundred or so names on the roster, but group rides usually range from a fat handful to a few dozen at most. as members of this fundraising and social team, we're not all about riding at the same tempo, so many of us just do our own thing. we have team members who are licensed racers, and we have team members with MS and ALS who get there when they get there, and riders who slip in at just about every point of the continuum anchored by those extremes. so our groups often consist of people at different levels of skill and ability, and ann is terrific at herding us all in an appropriate way.

the article she found points out what often happens when groups of cyclists try to ride together, and it brings home some fundamental truths while offering hope for the future. you can access it by clicking on this link
the lost art of the group ride

the author makes a few excellent points, and at the end, provides a list of skills/knowledge that a cyclist should incorporate. he suggests each cyclist does best with a mentor, someone more experienced who is able to teach all of these skills and awarenesses.

I've had a few key mentors in my cycling life, and I've learned from them everything from how to lean into a curve on a descent to how to keep my helmet clean. without my biking buddies bob, andy, ivy, brad, bill, bill and patty I'd still be cycling in a less efficient and effective manner.
with a stinky helmet.
ann hoffman is another mentor, one who has instilled in me a desire to be an ambassador for cycling whenever I'm out, whether I'm wearing a Bad Ass jersey or not. she is the epitome of kindness, common sense, generosity, agility and grace on a bicycle, and I hold her up as one to strive to emulate.

so check out the article when you have time: it's full of reminders of how we can be our best selves while sitting on a bicycle saddle out in the real world.

(and on a side---but oh so wonderful---note, it's october 1, the trees are vibrantly outdoing each other, and it averaged 75 degrees on my 57-mile ride to east canyon reservoir and back . . . what more could one ask for?)

crunchy leaves

the first crisp leaves of the season have begun spotting the bike lanes, dancing, skittering, leaping with the wind and, between gusts, coming to rest on the dry road. they crunch under my tires, brittle things that they are.

signs of the changing seasons, a symbol of the life--and death--cycle, an indication of what is yet to come, the quieting of spring and summer's riotous growth, the slowing of earth's proliferous period, the easing into winter and dormancy.

I like to view it as simply an outward manifestation of the inner process of growth.
without the shedding away, a new cycle is unable to begin. the tree remains strong, the tree continues to grow, its roots dig deeper and its limbs reach further skyward. it lets loose of what it no longer needs, and the colored leaves slip down, away, gone into what will become new earth.

the crunch is pleasing to my ears for some reason, and I do not weave my way between them but ride smoothly, straight, forward, smiling with each hearty crunch and smiling, as well, at the silence between.

math

I am riding stronger and better than ever right now.

I am riding less and getting more rest than ever right now.

do you think I should do the math??