Monday, April 25, 2011

Why Hello Bike, Do you remember me?

  I am sitting in Russian lecture the other day, I should be paying attention. However, as my tutor will tell you that doesn't often happen. I'm looking out the window and thinking what a great day it would be to go for a ride, if only I rode my bike. I get my attention snapped back by a word. Cmeptb (pronounced smert) which means death. Immediately a song lyric flashes in my head. "Leave tonight, or stay and die this way." So I have two options; keep pushing my life back by not riding and keep come up with a reason not to ride or stop being a wimp and just go do it. The teacher wasn't even able to finish  до свидания before I was out the door. I didn't really have time to think about what I really needed or wanted; shoes, helmet, water, and bike, that seemed sufficient. I guess I didn't learn my lesson from 127 hours because I left without telling anyone where I was going, but I did grab a swiss army knife so I thought it canceled the other out. I knew that this ride was going to go one of two ways: A.) I would be so timid that I would probably wobble back and forth and fall over before making it 5 feet in total or B.) I would take the mentality that not even a car can take mt out so why would anything in the forest be able to do the deed. 

Much to my mother's dismay I went with the latter, I took drops and descents that I probably would have thought twice about before. As a result it was one of the most pure rides I think I've ever had, I wasn't even really thinking I was just riding. In hind sight I should have realized that taking 7 months off doesn't mean I'll be able to do amazing trick that I couldn't do before, but I still tried. I'm just glad that when I fell off a log I went right and not left into the electrical box (win!)

If I go missing, I'm in here ^
I've actually been out a couple of times since then. It's funny because I start in the same place thinking I'm going to be following the same path I've taken the last time. But riding is much like life, you look and see something you didn't before and it turns out to be a sick trail with all the fixings, and you missed it before because you were so focused on getting to where you thought you needed to be. I did notice, however, that in an Easter dress my legs looked quiet mangled from all the bumps/bruises and turns along the way but it's minor factor in the overall picture. At least my parents will be happy I took off the spider man band-aid.  

If there is one thing I've learned from my history with my bum leg is that you have to be proactive. Nobody really cares if you never run again, just like nobody is going to make me get back on the bike. Today I actually went to the bike shop to test ride a few bikes. It was actually the first time I've been on a road bike since the crash and I went full force, riding on streets, taking turns, and dealing with cars. I didn't even think about getting hit, I mean I did, but it wasn't controlling me like I thought it would. There was one time where my heart started racing when a car was awkwardly driving in the middle of the road, much like the one that hit me did. Maybe my subconscious set it off, or maybe it was the hill I was attacking. Anyways I found a bike, this is where my dad is going to roll his eyes. Because I know all the components and I know what the bike is capable of, but honestly I picked it because of the color. It's gorgeous and will do everything I need to to exceptionally well, but really it was just too beautiful not to get. I guess I really am my mother's daughter. And I made fun of her because she bought her car because it had a CD player and was white. . . .

As far as Heft went he did live, but he realized that he didn't have to be the best at cycling to be a good person, which I think gets lost in our society sometimes. He scaled back his training and didn't try to kill his body so much but he spent more time with his children and less time worrying about his power output. Not to say he stopped riding or taking it seriously he just scaled it back and wasn't quiet so obsessed. Maybe incidents like that are need to make someone take a break and to actually re-evaluate just what they are running from.  

As for the rest of the reading with DF I poked around Michael Phelps book, and Kelly Slater's but I'm mainly on the writing portion of the class. I'm trying to answer the question what makes the different between peak performance and champion performance. Let me tell you every champion you asks tells you a different answer so needless to say it seems to be never ending at this point.  

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