Gave up

Sometime on April 1, I gave up on cycling. Seriously, it was all over, I was done with it - as evidenced by a twitter tweet I made. I wasn't feeling hot, legs were sore, just overall it wasn't good and I blamed it on cycling - but I was wrong.

It's not the first time I was wrong. Ironically, two days over 3 years before that, I almost died in a car accident - truth be told I probably should be dead, but for some reason live to tell the tale. Short story, full ton dually pickup pulled out in front of me, was traveling at 45mph, passenger and I weren't wearing seatbelts. Aside from a messed up back (to this day), a pretty good concussion, and one scary ambulance ride (midway through someone saw something, or I did something that prompted that ambulance to HAUL), I made it out OK. My passenger, on the other hand, was hurt pretty bad. She has some permanent damage, and got banged up bad.

Of course after the accident, the slimeball who pulled out in front of me changed his story, witnesses were lacking, and his insurance company did a great job of playing not-nice to both my passenger and I. Lawyers had to be brought in, the fault of the accident was brought into question, and my back started hurting pretty bad/weight started coming back on. To boot, I was pissed at the guy, spending about 18 months of my life obsessing over the damn thing. Sometime in the late summer of 2007 the word from my lawyer finally came, the guy caved and they offered a settlement, but no full admission of guilt. A big weight came off my chest, I smiled, and I used the funds to pick up a full olympic bench/weight set, along with some powerblocks and other stuff for our house. I wanted the money gone, gone to something good to have positive effects on our life.

Today I was at the annual county storm spotter training, and saw the passenger from that day. She first showed me pictures of her newly-born grandson (which since having kids of my own, such things melt my heart), then when I asked her how things were going I got a big smile followed by stories of her new car, and the trip she took to Jamaica last year with her daughter. "He finally admitted he pulled out in front of it, that it was all her fault" I got back with a smile, and that little bit of weight flew away - and I smiled a big genuine smile. See a year and a half ago I realized that I was finally somewhat right, but not completely. Now I knew that I was, and that she was OK. Knowing, finally, you 100% werent responsible for harm to another human being is a feeling of peace.

But that's not why I almost gave up cycling.

I realized, finally, the reason I almost gave up cycling had nothing to do with cycling. I have a lot of stress in my life, right now my job is a good 90% of that, and that stress was looking for something to give. Something to buy a little more time, give a little, to make the sanity flow a little more. I gained 5 pounds last week, which hurt after a week where I lost 10 doing exactly the same thing I had done when I gained 5. Then my wife sent me an article about some hormone your body exerts under stress that causes.. some reaction that can make you gain weight even though you are working hard. And it all just clicked.

It clicked yesterday as I was riding to Cortland, pushing hard into one heck of a headwind. That has to be my favorite kind of ride, pushing hard into a brutal headwind the whole way out, because then you know the ride back is going to be nothing short of phenomenal. The pain of the legs - and there was pain, covering the 20 miles to Cortland took probably an hour and 40 minutes. The last miles from Princeton to Cortland were particularly brutal, it's all open trail on open prairie with nothing to stop the wind from blasting into your face. I cussed, yelled out loud at it and reminded myself that it would be good, real good on the way back.

It was.

My mind was clear, I thought nothing of my inbox, to do list, projects, or the flipping economy as I found the biggest gear I have and just spun effortlessly as the wind pushed me at it's velocity - over 20 mph - home.

Now I get it, the stress we all live in, it pushes us to everything that isn't good. We don't have time, so we eat junk and eat lots of it because - let's be honest here - whilst eating it, it makes us feel good. We buy big cars and houses because they make us feel good, and feel like that money is going to something, money earned under constant stress to continue to produce so as to continue to earn to continue to buy and continue to eat. In the end we feel empty, so we find things that "take too much time" or "hurt too much" and get rid of 'em, so we can work more and buy more things. And we get more empty. I know I was.

We forget how pure, how great it feels to look to the sky as the legs just blur beneath you, the accomplishment of pushing yourself further than you've pushed before and man the feeling of that is better than anything money can buy.