What’s Your Excuse?
I hate this feeling. Sitting at the office, nearly in tears and I can't stop thinking about the source of it. The last time this happened was June, when Mooch's diagnosis had come in, and I knew I was going to have to help ease my best friend out of the world.
This morning, before work, I discovered Fat Cyclist, the blog of a guy named Elden, who used that blog as a way to shame himself into riding more and losing weight.
Lately, I've had this wavering crisis of faith when I ride. I know, consciously, that I'm out-of-shape. I know, consciously, that I've been overly sedentary and indulging in a shitty diet for the last 18 months. But when I ride, the snap is gone from my legs, the fluidity isn't there. Soreness is measured in days, rather than hours. I suffer horribly on rides that would have been a cake-walk two years ago. I pull up the numbers from the Garmin/Powertap, and I have moments where I contemplate selling off the bikes and turning the den into something more useful than storage.
But that's offset -- I've got a history with this sport. I want to make a life around it. And I still have moments -- high-speed descents, camaraderie, or even the ability to crush a small climb -- that make me smile. But there's that nagging doubt that seems to find generate reasons not to ride.
Well from now on? Fuck that.
I've been reading Elden's blog, and his wife is dying of metastatic breast cancer. No, not undergoing chemo, no not having mastectomy. She's dying. Like hospice care, non-lucid, morphine pump, leaving behind a husband and four kids, dying.
And yet the man still finds time to ride. The thought alone of having to watch my future wife die absolutely destroys me, and I can't help but think that the only thing I would want to do is sit around the house and try to hold onto as much of her as was left. Fortunately, I don't have to endure such things -- and hopefully never will.
Elden's continued riding humbles and shames me at the same time. My mealy-mouthed bullshit excuses are just that: bullshit. Compared to Elden, I have no reason not to ride. It could be raining asteroids and I still wouldn't have a fucking excuse.
And so I'm inspired to ride again, ride more, stop making excuses. Thanks, Elden. My heart goes out to you and your family, and I'll keep hoping for a miracle for all of you.
MLK
Photo courtesy of dunechaser. Licensed under the Creative Commons.
Yesterday marked the 40th anniversary of the death of Martin Luther King, Jr., and I wrote nothing in here about it. From that, you could infer that this factoid is meaningless to me. That inference would be wrong, despite my being born four years (and change) after his death.
I could go on and on about how the world is a much better place for his having been here, and how much poorer we are since his passing, but that would be just repeating the words of others. There's not much I could say that would add value to the conversation.
Leaders like Dr. King are a rarity. Using only the power of rhetoric, they can make you sit up and take notice of a situation that's wrong, despite hundreds of years as a practice. They can create change by the force of those words and their willpower. And they can make the world a better place, simply by manipulating the language that binds all of us together and forming it into a mirror that forces us to see ourselves and the world around us not only as we are, but as we should be.
And as a writer, that's something that inspires the hell out of me.
Who Inspires You?
So everyone has their inspirations, people or works that inspire them. As a cyclist, you'd think I'd say something like Lance Armstrong, or Greg LeMond, and while I do think of Lance as a pretty incredible rider, and credit Greg with really growing the popularity of cycling in the U.S., neither of them really inspires me.
No, the riders that inspire me are the guys like John Sinibaldi (more), who ride into their 90's, where it's not about winning and losing, but about the ride. That's the rider I want to be -- I don't need to be the greatest in the world. I just want to be riding into my 90's and have a good collection of stories to tell over a beer after the ride.
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Checked in at Knight Cap Bar & Lounge
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Trio of girls covering "ABC" by the Jackson Five. They are fucking NAILING it. Michael Jackson lives! [fontosaurus]
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Checked in at Northeast Palace
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I'm at McDonald's - NE (1100 University Ave NE, Minneapolis). http://4sq.com/7fT8JH [fontosaurus]
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Checked in at McDonald's - NE
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Checked in at Lens Crafters
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I'm at Mall of America (Mall of America, 60 East Broadway, Bloomington) w/ 4 others. http://4sq.com/4z906f [fontosaurus]
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Checked in at Mall of America
