Wednesday, March 7, 2012

He shoots, he...

Holy Crap I have a blog?  Looking at the past few days one would think that this was a dead link.  Now, as for last week I was praying for a swift death.  I had become very used to my toilet, and not in a good way.  Stomach bug on a supernatural scale.  Whatever got a hold of me took me for a ride, one that I am still recovering from.  That's the kind of party that I would prefer not to be invited to, you can keep it.  It got to the point that I could no longer trust normal body functions.  I lost a lot of weight, for a person my size, you know this fine-tuned-machine that I am.  I feel so weak, and I am worried to get back on the bike, because right up to the point that my insides tried to evacuate my body I was on a 20+ day streak of riding that saw me reach 33,000' of climbing in the month of Feb.

So this brings me to the second reason that the blog as been a ghost town with tumbleweeds blowing around.  I was riding bikes all the time, to work, for fun, to run errands, for just to ride.  About a week into Feb I decided that it would be really cool to climb the equivalent feet of Mount Everest.  Feb had the extra 29th day and Everest sits at 29,029' so it just seemed like the thing to do.  Not too lofty a goal, and all I had to do was climb roughly 1500' a day (I got a late start).  I reached my goal well before the 29th.  I know, I will try not to break my arm patting myself on the back. 

Everyone talks about goals, about doing this, doing that.  I've never been a real go-getter in the goal department, I just kinda do what I want and let the chips fall where they may.  Even after making and reaching my goal I don't get some crazy sense of worth, in fact my celebration was no more spectacular than a normal ride finish.  Beer, food, shower, and then if needed more beer.  What I am left with is this crazy feeling that I need to do something else.  Is this the OCD goal maker coming to the surface?  Oh, I hope not.  It was cool to attain my "Everest", but now I don't like this feeling that I need to do something more.  I have to one-up myself, this ain't no competition!  I don't want to be "that guy" that is kicking his own arse over numbers on a screen.  I don't want to define myself by my accomplishments, well unless I do something so kick@ss that everyone should know whether they need to or not.

I really spent over an hour looking up distances and trivia to base my new goal.  This is not right.  This is sick (sick bad not good).  I've opened a door in my soul that should have remained closed.  How do I shut this off, yet still remain positive about doing things?  Even now, writing this I'm thinking about riding my bike -to Texas, to the Moon.  Turn this off.  I'm gonna call a Priest to exorcize my ambition.  I liked me better when I didn't care, when goals were things scored in hockey. 

Ride your bike already!