It's Time.

A body at rest tends to stay at rest... unless acted on by a net external force.
-Newton's first law of motion
____________________________________________________________________________
It was time.
  
My body had stayed at rest for far longer than I wanted it to. The distraction of the RV project is winding down, and my epic battles with orange shag rug are at an end. While it isn't finished, it's pretty darn close- close enough for one year. My hip is still misshapen (especially in spandex), but it's not quite as noticeable if I'm standing behind a brick wall. My ribs ache and my back spasm occasionally, but otherwise I saw no reason not to ride.
  
Thing is, I wasted two perfectly good days not riding. It wasn't that I was afraid. My body was just at rest. It wasn't moving, and sometimes it needs an extra push or two to get going again. Finally, after a day at the state fair with the family, I kitted up and did a late ride. I fumbled around finding all of the stuff that had been misplaced over the past month. Everything didn't feel as natural as it once did, but I guess that's to be expected after such a long layoff.
  
I aired up the tires, threw a leg over the top tube, and with all of the grace of a newborn moose, lightly bounced off the side of the RV as I rode out of the driveway. OK, bike handling may take a while to come back.
  
I rode straight into a stiff headwind. I got into the drops. My ribs ached. I started spinning away. Quickly I found I had no sustained power. Fine. I settled into a prolonged 'meh' and tried to remember what it was like to be a cyclist.
  
It's going to take a while before I feel normal again. A long while. How long? I have no idea.
  
I'm moving, though.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Luke Simpson

Image
A couple years ago I participated in a stage race and had the honor to meet Saul Raisin, the former professional cyclist that suffered a debilitating traumatic brain injury during a race in Europe. As I listened to him speak and later read his book about his recovery, I (probably like most people) had two thoughts:                 “What an inspiring story.” …and more callously,                 “Wow, sucked to be him.” The second thought was just a result of thinking it would never happen to me. If you run the odds, it just doesn’t factor into the threat matrix as prominently as teenage girls with cell phones or that sketchy Cat 5 on the brand-new Madone. Then I got my bell rung. I’ve seen my share of stars and cartoon tweety birds over the years, but this was the first time I was knocked unconscious and woke up in an ER. Another driver’s moment of inattention resulted in a totaled car and weeks of disorientation, speech delays, and random face plants. It didn’t occu
Read more

Narrowed Focus

OK, here's the fun part.   You're clinging to the wheel in front of you. Doing everything to stay in contact, because you know in the deepest parts of your soul that if a gap opens, you will never close it, and you will be adrift. That few inches of space is your whole purpose in life.   People wait their whole lives to see the scenery on either side of you, but you're too busy focusing on meaningless points up the road. You're hoping that by acknowledging them that they will somehow help you climb this hill. They don't, because they're inanimate objects like signposts and rocks. Selfish bastards.   You match cadence with the guy in front of you, promising yourself that every time their right foot comes down, your right foot will come down. That you won't stand unless they stand. That you will be every bit as strong as they are, even if you aren't.   The steady ache in your thighs keeps building. You know all you have to do to make it stop is to
Read more

Sad

Recently a judge accepted a plea deal. A drunk and stoned young woman backed over a local cyclist, then drove away while he died without rendering aid in any way. This is not in dispute by anyone, on any side of the courtroom. She received 1 year and 10 days in jail.   I've tried to wrap my head around this from any number of directions, and it just makes me sad. Not for her. As far as I'm concerned, she has no place in society anymore. This is not her tragedy, as much as the defense tried to paint it that way while deflecting blame to the victim. I've harbored evil fantasies of vengeance that I'm not at all ashamed of. So much ink has been thrown out there about this that I'll just include a couple links to provide a more complete picture for those of you who haven't followed the story: http://www.adn.com/article/20150812/prosecutor-teen-used-drugs-alcohol-hit-and-run-collision-killed-cyclist http://www.adn.com/article/20150819/anchorage-teen-receives-1-y
Read more