Hello there! I haven’t written anything of substance here in a long time because I have been busy not giving a crap about maintaining a blog. Funny, that. I typically wait until there is something meaningful to say before breaking long periods of silence here but at this juncture, I don’t have anything I’m ready to share just yet. There IS news, it’s just not fit for public consumption at the moment.
There was this one thing I was going to write a full post about, but never made it past the first paragraph so this will have to suffice: Andrew accidentally lost the dog in the middle of the night last week and I got to spend an hour running through the woods in the darkness wearing pajamas and fuzzy slippers screaming “TANNNNNNNER!” (Weird how that hysteria didn’t entice him to come closer.) The slippers came to a soggy death right around the time they sloshed through the third ice cold, sludgy stream. Tanner nearly came to his death when I finally tearfully herded him back into the house and contemplated strangling his perky little self with my freezing bare hands.
Then last Friday I had him neutered. WHO’S PERKY NOW, BITCH?
I also read this interesting column about “Keeping on track during the festive season” on Ella CyclingTips. Festive season! Doesn’t that sound positively lovely? I feel festive just thinking about it. Unfortunately, there was nothing remotely festive about this advice, unless your idea of joy is discipline and deprivation capped off by forcing your loved ones to bend their plans to your training needs. Here is my advice for the festive season, carefully cultivated over several years of racing professionally and obsessively: GET DRUNK. EAT ALL OF THE COOKIES. Alcohol is a carb, chunky riders get down hills faster, and life is way too short to miss out on festivities because of cycling. Balance is worth pursuing.
(All of my exes are laughing laughing laughing at the irony of me saying that.)
On the subject of cycling, I have big news that will be shared in the coming days. There will be bike racing, that much I can say now, and there will be travel and laughter and tears and sweat and probably some more tears because crying is how I cope with being alive. Winter training has been hard because it’s long and isolating and the weather often feels like it’s sent here to make me reconsider just how badly I really want any of this. Sometimes I think about quitting. I had a leg workout yesterday that I put off for hours, dawdling and dreading everything as the morning slithered into afternoon and the excuses stacked up like the reps I refused to initiate. At one point, it occurred to me that I could just not do it. Nobody would have to know. In the grand scheme of training or life, it wouldn’t actually matter. But I got it done, banged it out and threw in some extra reps as punishment for the theatrics, and then today’s ride was lovely. The crisp air, early morning sunshine, decent legs, intervals that felt challenging but successful. The winter makes you tougher and hungrier and forces you to realize that you’re choosing all of this and it’s a privilege to have that choice and love something enough to keep making it over and over.
I’m relocating to the west coast for a few months right after Christmas because my hair looks better in low-humidity climates and I need a break from my flatiron.
The end for now. But as we will soon see, also the beginning.
