Why I am slow (Part 1)

I started this post yesterday without any clear idea of how I was going to explain the million and one reasons I am slow (on the bike, not like this). There really are so many, so I won't bother with all of them, just the most glaring and possibly (hopefully) correctable/fixable/ignorable/or otherwise changeable.

Focus.

The best bike racer types, whether they're pro, Cat 1/2 guys, or the guys in the 4's & 5's on their way up are really good at focus. For the pros, their ability lies in being able to completely live their lives for 90-95% of the year for their jobs. They're job, which just happens to be riding a bicycle requires more than most jobs. I mean, hell it's not like mine where after exactly 7.5 hours of bullshit work I can leave and stop thinking about data analysis and research design. They eat, sleep, and breathe their jobs. To be a pro, not even the top guys, just a pro means they are able to direct their energy towards one thing with more focus and intensity then I can imagine.

I love riding my bike, racing my bike. I love it, I'd take a shitty day on the bike, riding in rain, snow, whatever, feeling like I've got a twenty pound bag of sand hanging off my waste, anything, I'd take the feeling of being out there over the best day at "work". The problem is that I just don't right now, have the ability to focus what little energy is left in me after I give to the "musts". You know, work, wife, house, bills, food, errands, all the garbage of ordinary life, etc.

The thing I love to do more in the world than anything just doesn't fit. Or, rather that I haven't yet figured out how to make it fit with real life living. That's what those guys who show up on to the Psuedodrome on Wednesdays can do that I can't. It has very little to do with genetic predispositions, equipment, and all the other. They're just better at living a life and still racing bicycles.

The most ridiculous part of it is that when I'm out there riding, I feel so good, it balances me, makes me happy, makes all the less desirable "musts" seem to fade away. That's the problem though, the more I ride the more my focus turns to the bike and away from things that I just cannot ignore. I know both can be done and done well, just haven't figured that out yet.

So I sit and get a little squishier around the middle, my bike gets a little dustier, and I get a little bit further from where I want to be.

Stay tuned for Part 2.

The snow falls sideways,

In big flakes right outside of my window. I'm sitting here hoping that a jet engine or something will fall on my head because I don't want to face another crap day at work. No I don't ride my bike to work, I should but I don't. Honestly, because I can't force myself to wake early enough to get ready and make it there in time. I don't do a lot of things on my bike that I should, like training.

I haven't so much as sat on my bike since the Dirty Dozen. That makes 80 whole days without turning a pedal. Fuck. I don't know why exactly, primarily though I think it was the damage done to my body by doing that ride. I did the dozen with exactly two herniated discs in my lower back (between l3 & l4, to be precise). I remember getting home and never being more satisfied and never feeling so stupid. Seriouly I couldn't stand up straight for about two weeks and have ever since that day had a ridiculous pain/numbness in my left leg. Hooray.

And of course almost immediately after that I decided to give up being a newly christened non-smoker. Brilliant.

So, maybe today I'll ignore the numbness, the fatness (remember it's been 80 days, and I was never exactly svelte), and the general malaise that comes from winter in Pittsburgh and hop on the trainer or the rollers to hurt myself a little bit.

Here's to being back on the wagon.