I want to...

I've been to the well, and the well has gone dry.

Sometimes I just don't have anything to say, or feel like what I do have is not worth the effort.  With that being said, I am putting the caffeine levels at max, chaining myself to the chair and putting letters on a glowing screen in no particular order.  If they happen to form words and sentences and a paragraph or two then I will have a small success.  Like clearing the first level of Mario Bros.  Yeah, kinda like that.

It's not that I don't have the time.  Between loads of laundry, vacuuming, dishes, cooking, brewing, riding bikes, and working at the shop, I really do have time.  I do.  I don't know what has been my problem? Desire? ADHD? Not drinking enough?  Maybe I have too much to write about and it had clogged the well and nothing is going to come out?  Is that even possible?  With all the bike riding I have been doing, I have written hundreds of things in my head, if I could only get it in a readable format for you.  My reader.  All three of you, and Mike.

With my new phase of life working at the shop it has put a question mark on my super fabulous career as a Cat IV bike racer.  I am OK with this.  I want to race bikes, but I don't need to race bikes.  Going into this race season I have put all training on hold, an indefinite hold because I don't know when, where, or how I will be racing.  I have done zero intervals, I have looked at my HR but only out of curiosity, and watts are just numbers on a screen.  I have 0 trainer miles.  My fitness is a giant ?. 

I am riding bikes to ride bikes.  I, for the past several years have tried to have some sort of "training" program that I follow or don't follow.  This has gotten me some fitness and has kept me entertained looking at power files, charts, graphs, zodiac signs, and fortune cookies.  All of this has gotten me to the same place every time.  This realization is............ I love to ride my bike.  I love to ride whether it involves power/HR constraints or if it is just to run an errand.  It is a bike.  Bikes are cool.  They are hella fun to ride.

Don't get me wrong, I still ride strapped up to my HR and the PT wheel is on the road bike.  On the MTB I only look at distance, elevation, and time.  For some strange reason I do wear my HR on the Cross bike.  It's not that I don't like numbers, I do.  I like to look at accumulated time, distance, and my favorite is elevation.  I like to get high.  I don't necessarily like to climb, but I like what climbing does for me.  You got to get up to get down.  This is so true on the MTB...earn your turns.  On the road I love a good climb if it is rewarded with a screaming down hill and an ear to ear grin.

Riding a bike for the sake of just riding a bike has given me a new love for the bike.  I don't "have" to ride my bike, I now want to ride my bike.  My goals are no longer convoluted, my goal is simple. 

Ride