its a sweet whip

"S'that your whip?" with a nod to the mountain bike.

"yeah. It's nothing fancy, but I dig it."

"It's a sweet whip."

~a smile~ "I think so."

"Whoa, wait... disk brakes too?" ~an answering smile~ "niiiice."

And so that was the conversation from Friday that served to reiterate that I know NOTHING about mtb except that it's abbreviated mtb in a text message and that "whip", "ride", and "mtb" are interchangeable when referring to mountain bikes in certain settings.

But despite that lack of education, Saturday I was throwing around words like “cog”, and “whip”, and “gear”, and “sh*t!”, and “tree!” like I had a clue what they all meant, all while huffing through the woods sounding suspiciously like a twenty year 2 pack a day smoker on her very own mtb...

There was an occasional scream or squeal of glee-omgIamgoingtodie-fun.

"Uh, TOM???"

"Uh, Ginny, just ride over it."

I could totally tell y'all a story here, but I don't think it counts as a real bike wreck or fall unless there's blood & stuff. #prettysure

And, besides, it.was.AWESOME!

It was kinda the most fun I’ve ever had on a bike, ever.

Shhh. Don’t tell OC, my road bike, I was cheating on her... but honestly, this was so much more my speed and style than road biking. I will even argue that when you consider there was one ditch that I looked at and couldn’t bring myself to ride through. I will next time. I just needed to re-acclimate myself to riding off road before attempting badass level 7.

Today I was definitely squarely in badass level 3... maybe 4... for a few minutes...

And to be honest, this whole thing... well, it was just like riding a bike.

The last time I rode a single-track type outing was with a fellow BMX kid back in 1992-ish. We both had what we called mini-mountain bikes. They were BMX in size, but fully geared, and we tooled around the woods near our house on them for a summer and fall...  by the spring I think we’d both moved onto bigger and badder things.

My thing was a horse named Ringo (cos I was a Beatles fan) and his thing was a cute 8^th grader named Rebecca or Samantha or something like that (cos he was a boy).

Regardless, it’s been 20’ish years since I’ve been on a bike in the woods, and about 3 minutes into my ride today I thought, “I have found my winter cross training”.

For shizzle.

In fact, if I wasn’t training for a (race) this spring, I might take up mountain biking as a bit more than a cross training sport. I can totally see how this could be my new sport for a while. Kinda like how a few years back I was really into swimming... and then I came back to running after the break...?

Only, I don’t need a break right now. I just need a really intense high quality cross training adventure once a week... 

cos, yeah... this, today... this didn’t suck.

Cost analysis

Do you have any idea what it costs to shelve your pride?

I do.

I have a good idea, and the cost is pricy. It took me 4 days to do it. Four.Days.

That’s a friggin’ long time for me to think about writing a facebook message.

Seriously.

Who does that?

Someone with a crimped budget, that’s who. Someone who fears the emotional expenditure will be too much.

But you know, the cost wasn’t as bad as the budget suggested.

I had an unimaginable response. I’m not sure WHY it was unimaginable. We’ve established numerous times in the past that my friends are #epic. They do epic sh*t almost every day.

Including today.

Not Me, but CLOSE to me

This is what I Illusive Dave did this weekend...

An Alternate Route

Illusive Dave is an inspiration. He's amazing, and he's REAL. He gets it.

(Love you Dave! Thanks for sharing your galactic bada**ness with us today)

listen... do you want to know a secret?

Do you promise not to tell...? (ok, love the Beatles) 

Shh.

I’m training again.

yep. for shizzle.

Race to be announced after race day.

No, seriously... I’m so not hyping myself out of my race. I’ve done it too many times. My best races are the ones where I show up and run. So some Saturday or Sunday this spring, I’m going to just show up and run for an undisclosed number of miles.

And hopefully I can stay in the moment between now and then.

It’s hard to imagine I’m contemplating doing this, since my kid was sick this weekend and I couldn't even get to a mill... but you know, I’ll figure it out. 

I mean, you do know I’ll figure it out... right?

Hear the kick

It’s starting again.

The doubt.

The self-doubt.

It eats away at us.

I hear it in my head. I hear it in the air. I hear it in the voices of the people around me. I wonder a little if it’s because the holidays kick us so hard that we can’t help but doubt our own greatness.

I don’t mean to suggest that the holidays aren’t great. I love them, I do. I love the excitement, the moment, the build up and the goodness that is inherently found wrapped up in the holidays. The friends looking out for friends, the scraping of coins so that charity can be handed out to those less fortunate, and the warmth and wonder of it all as people open their homes and host each other for gatherings that range from pretentious to casual.

But no matter what beautiful expectations you have awaiting you between Thanksgiving and New Years Day, there is some kind of emotional KICK that goes with this season.  

Here’s hoping that it’s not a kick in the face. 

~savor the run~

Life's Greatest Teacher

Maybe this is better

Maybe, it is better to be older.

Like, maybe this total chaos is still better than being a single 21 year old, schlepping about through life trying to find love.

Because, what 21 year old knows who she is?  She doesn’t. No well grounded 21 year old can know herself as well as a slightly confused newly single 36 year old mom.  Ok, there are probably exceptions to every rule, but for the most part, I think that 15 years of life experience trumps almost anything a 21 year old can argue.

Because what is life’s greatest teacher?

Find me a 21 year old who has truly good friends to support her? Good friends who are unselfish. Friends will critique her horrific awesome text poetry in the middle of the night. Friends who will actually stay by her, and do what they say they'll do. The really best kind of good friends will cheerfully push a girl’s buttons with a low chuckle until she’s good and cross, and then make her laugh so hard in the next sentence she can’t remember exactly why there had ever been crossness at all.

The best part of all this is that I didn’t know...

I have it really good.

I really do. Even with the stress of school. Even leading a dual life of “motherhood by some days” and “singlehood by others” with no freaking CLUE how that duality could ever be merged.

Ever.

Of course, that’s just how I know I’m not ready to merge the two. And I guess that’s okay, because there’s a lot more out there to worry about... so, why worry about any of it now?

No real answers come to a person at 11:37 on a Tuesday night.

I sat down with someone the other day who asked me if I was depressed.

Flat. Out. Asked.

Wow. K... Blunt much?

And since I didn’t even see it coming, I answered, “Yes, sometimes. Sometimes it’s hard to get moving when I get stuck.”

“Ok. I wondered.” And then a minute later, “but are you able to have fun when you go out with your friends?”

“Yes.” I answered firmly. And then a slow smile crept across my face as I thought about last weekend. And, I started to giggle as the thought took hold.

That’s nothing, you should see me after beer.

I have seen you after beer.

No, I mean you should see me.. oh yeah.

And as the weeks of nursing school go by, my stress level gets tested daily. I keep raising the bar on the breaking point, because, I really don’t have time to break right now. There are days when I wonder IF I’m going to make it in one piece. Because hell yeah, I’m going to make it. I just wonder what condition I’ll be in when I get to the other side. Life experience has taught me that I will get through this. 

That’s not being optimistic, that’s just a fact.

On those days, when my hands are shaking but my 34^th cup of coffee has failed to warm me, if I’m lucky, my brutal schedule will allow me to spend time with some of my favorite people. So, I’ll lace on my shoes, strap on my Garmin, and hop in my sucktastic beige minivan, all kinds of ready to drive somewhere ridiculous to run while dodging cars or seeking hills.

And without fail, as I buckle myself in, I can’t suppress the giggle that bubbles out when I glance in the rearview mirror to see a dialysis filter on my back seat.

~savor the run~

Perspective... again

Perspective. 

My running nursing school mate, SomeChick, and I say it to each other all the time.

"You thought yesterday was bad...?"
(insert inappropriate cock joke here)
"... perspective. now you have it"

Many of you know, I've been struggling with injury. I am fond of saying that one never knows how bad it is until you really absolutely can't do the thing you love to do. That's where perspective really kicks ass. I've been doing a bit of running here and there, but recreationally, because I wasn't cleared to run any real distances.

Huh. How odd.

So I ran.
Not because I had to, or there was a race looming, or because if I didn't I would die or implode or explode... but, because I wanted to run, so I'd go run.

I even found a runner in my class who is a compatible runner. oh yeah. I liken it to finding a christmas present before christmas... an unexpected gift in the least likely location.

She's got guts. I admire that in a runner.

In theory, she's a bit slower than I am on the run. She's been working hard the last few weeks though, and the pace difference hasn't been noticeable at all. In fact, this week, we pushed each other. We had one of those runs where we finished, and spontaneously hugged each other on the street in front of Caliente.

Yes, we may have been giggling.

Probably we were high. er. make that Definitely we were high. And throwing out, "I love you man" like a bunch of drunk frat boys.

Oh hell. I might STILL be high off that run.
It f*cking rocked.

At that moment, on the street, wrapped in the hug of my classmate... I knew without a doubt that Paulo was right.

“Everything that happens once can never happen again. But everything that happens twice will surely happen a third time.” 

I just needed perspective...

So, My Run is back. I'm medically cleared to train by my physician. And, while my cycling obsession probably won't end, at least now I have options.

I'm cleared to train, and while that is a great thing, I think running because I can sounds really appealing.

Perspective... oh yeah. I've got it.