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I will pick & choose random things that seem to beg some comment...
I think the hardest thing about continually writing is the impossibility of making it even ok all the time.
Well this is a big one for me also. What can I possibly say here that I have not already said before? I rode a bike. I felt good. I felt like shit. I feel fat. I feel good. I love ice cream. Raid kills bugs dead.
Having said that I guess there is always LIFE and how it pertains to the world as we know it. Lou brought the point up and I'll get to that below. So there is riding but how do I manage to ride with the amount of time I spend away from home. Beginning last Thursday we were spending 11 nights away from home between then and July 16, and I would add 2 onto that as I have a separate trip for work in there. I mean there's that but then we all do that. In addition, there are new readers here who have not read my brain vomit to maybe they'll be interested.
Or not. Go read the blog about shitting yourself if that's your cup of tea I suppose. I know that some percentage of people will not take me seriously because I am no longer fast.
I think you would be pretty good at enduros actually. Just a random thought I had.
Is this your kind way of saying "You know fat guys go downhill faster and you don't suck at bike handling?"
I rode CR Monday with the crew and it was the first time I had been on a mountain bike in a month, and that was at Raystown. I felt like it was the first mountain bike ride in a year. Everything felt strange. I guess this is what it feels like when you turn into a roadie prick? I have been spending a lot of time on the road lately.
I'd like to try an enduro one day.
Your last thread got me to read 3 books this year, which is 2 more than I read in 2016, and we're not even done with June. Keep doing things like that. My neural plasticity thanks you.
FFS, at least name what 3 books you read.
maybe just all the OG bloggers/appreciators are gone? I still blame the like button.
Says the guy who comments once then goes into a hole never to be seen again! Can you at least send me a post card from North Bumbletucky?
I think the site is better when Norm blogs. Some of those early ones (cliff bars) were pretty instrumental and motivated me to train and get fast.
I really don't have anything to say to this other than I guess I find it interesting that I managed to turn consumption into a training methodology. Maybe I should try this again. I will say that if I never eat another Clif bar in my life I will not be sad. Clif bars are to portable nutrition, as Budweiser is to beer.
I "liked" the post, then will IM with Norm today about the post.
Still waiting on that IM!
See we IM about more important things that I can't always put on the blog.
How about creating a new narrative of what role cycling will play in your life?
Now that I read that to myself, why do we insist that things will work themselves out? Nothing really ever works itself out. We make choices (or don't), things happen (or don't) and the only thing that changes is our perspective as it relates to the outcome (ie whether or not it worked itself out). IDK, this is messing with me. Going to Starbucks, will revisit this topic.
I cut out a bunch of this out but the general point remains. What role does biking play in my life? I don't know the answer to that question but when I don't bike these thing happen:
1. I gain weight
2. I feel lethargic
3. I save tons of money by not destroying my bikes
In the end I think 1+2 far outweigh 3 so I need to keep riding. I got a little consumed by work in the last year and as much as it's nice to make more money, my pants are starting to not fit and I don't want to buy new clothes. Plus, if I keep gaining weight then well shit...how am I gonna enjoy that money?
So in a sense biking is a way for me to get a break from work and stay healthy. I enjoy it, so it's a hobby. And as a last piece it allows me to eat the things I want to eat. I won't go into the intake-output equations but biking a bunch allows me more wiggle room in that math realm.
But.
Will things work out? I don't know because for me it's not so much an issue of things working out. It's a matter of figuring out what the "things" are. Suppose you set your goal to do a 100 mile race just to finish. Or ok, let's aim higher. An Ironman. Suppose I train for 12 months and do it in 2018. And suppose I actually finish. Will that have worked out?
Additional information: What if I discard my family, do poorly at work, and become so tired I am a miserable prick all the time. Will that have worked out? I think for me it's always a case of what "working out" even means. And I think that while we may have goals, who are we to say that those goals make us happy, or equate to things working out?
At 45 years old, I don't even know what "things working out" even means. I mean at this point, I guess it means not being dead at 50. So really, goal #1 is to not be dead at 50. Beyond that we get into the happiness factor and we can all stand around making pretty comments about happiness and bowls of fruit and that sort of nonsense but we are all here because we want to be better, which often means being stronger, which tends to make us faster. Racing is a natural extension of that but it is not the only piece of the puzzle when this is the direction.
So Lou, I really don't know that I can say what I consider "working out" right now. I want to be happy but I also want to be able to button my work slacks again and I want to be able to throw down on the bike but I also want to be able to enjoy it. And I want to do well at work and more than anything I want an official Red Ryder, carbine action, two-hundred shot range model air rifle.
And you know what? If I get all that and still shoot my eye out? Fuck it, I'll red those books for Mr Quinn with one eye and consider it all worked out.
Do you count the time at the spin class in your time goal?
Yes, absolutely. If it's not recorded it never happened. I shall invite you to put a quote here about a rolling donut. Direct it at whoever you like!
Glad to see you writing again!
Man I figured you were sick of me talking given how much shit you have to listen to me say!