Off the Gravel Road

I am waging a battle within myself right now trying to figure out what is the right thing to do and what isn’t.

I actually do know the difference between ‘right’ and ‘wrong.’  The source of my confusion is a very specific instance of personal finances.  Let me paint the picture for you.

I have a lot of debt.  Maybe my debt isn’t as crushing as some people’s, but it feels crushing to me.  I have never known anything but debt.  Without going into too many details of my life, let me just say that most of this debt I’m carrying around was not mine originally but it is something that I (for lack of a better word) inherited.

Working in the IT field, I don’t make a lot of money.  I make enough to survive, but I am amazed every month at how my payments seem to almost perfectly equal my income. 

In short, I don’t ever have actual disposable income.  I get paid, I pay bills, I buy food, and I drift to the next paycheck.  I don’t have a savings account and I don’t have a retirement account.  My debt equals my income and that is how it has been for more than twenty years.  I don’t take traveling vacations.  Instead, I take time off work and spend it sitting at home every year.  I rarely do anything fun or exciting choosing to instead put every extra dollar that happens my way onto bills.

So, enter the conundrum.

Nearly two months after the holiday, we found out today at work that we will be getting a Christmas bonus for this past Christmas.  It will appear on our next paycheck.  It isn’t a huge bonus, but it is generous.  It is also tax season and although my returns are never substantial, every little bit helps.

I had a thought of how I was going to use this bonus and whatever return I get.  I was going to purchase an indoor trainer and a new DVD player to replace my rapidly dying first-generation DVD player that I’ve been using since 1997.  The rest was going to bills.

Sounds good and responsible, right?  With just the right dosage of frivolous thrown in for good measure.

On Saturday, a rare break in the weather allowed for a chance to go hit the trails.  I was supposed to meet a group of guys there in the afternoon, but I decided to go out a bit early and get in a warm up lap before joining them as they tend to hit the ground running.

As soon as I started out, things felt wrong.  I had no speed, no endurance, no power, and no recovery.  Even on the flats, I felt like I was fighting for every turn of the cranks.

The bike was making all kinds of ungodly noises too.  There was a systematic popping and creaking coming from the area of the front tire and handlebars.  The rear derailer was shifting rough enough to jolt the entire bike each time I shifted.  The front brake sounded like metal grinding on metal.  The rear break sounded like I was strangling a pack of wild geese.

Before finishing my “warm up” lap, I pulled off the trail and called the guys I was supposed to meet and told them not to wait on me.  I then fought my way to the end of the loop alternating between screaming at myself for sucking and screaming at my bike for sucking.  By the time I got back to the truck, I was completely frustrated.

I threw the bike into the back of the truck and had a moment of sitting there pouring sweat and sucking wind that I wondered if I was even cut out for this kind of riding.  I might love it, but the general frustration levels were starting to get to me a bit.

I drove over to my bike shop of choice and hauled the bike inside.  The manager, who was with another customer, smiled and threw me a wave.  When he finished what he was doing, he walked over and asked what was wrong.  I told him my bike needed first aid and began explaining all of the odd little noises it had made on the trail.

He nodded and said he would get it fixed up for me, but was curious what the real issue was.  I told him I was just frustrated and that I was wondering if I should even keep trail riding.  I loved it and I realize that there is a steep curve to get into shape, but there were simply certain elements that seemed to be going slower than expected or even reverting.

He looked from me to the bike a few times and then asked, “Mind if I take a stab in the dark?”  I nodded.  “You have trouble climbing.  It doesn’t matter if it is a steep grade or a gentle grade.  You attack the climbs hard but blow almost immediately and then have to stop for a few minutes to let your legs quit burning.  You are also slow on the switchbacks and have to come to a crawl to make it around sharp turns.”

I nodded through all of it feeling dejected like he was going to confirm that I suck and should stay off the trails and let real riders have them.  He then said, “Your problem isn’t you… it’s your bike.  This bike was probably great when you bought it ten years ago, but there have been a lot of changes.  This bike wasn’t designed for endurance riding anyway.  It is more of a short track sprinter.”

I then spent a bit of time playing around on a couple of bikes he had in the shop riding around getting a feel for them and the difference was astounding.  The best of the two that I rode around was a Specialized Epic and it felt more like riding my road bike than being on a mountain bike.  The second, which was the Specialized FSR, was nearly as much fun to ride.

They both felt worlds different from the Giant Rainier I’ve been riding around.

And now I am left asking myself what is turning out to be a difficult question.  Do I do the responsible thing, keep riding the Giant and put the money I have coming on bills or do I do what I want to do and use the money to buy a new bike?

On the one hand, I think I should definately put the money on bills.  How often do I have the luxury to make a real impact on my debt?  On the other hand, if I don’t buy a new bike now, it will probably be years before I’m in a position to do so again and if this is what I am going to be doing for exercise/fun/hobby hopefully for the rest of my life, wouldn’t it be justifiable to buy myself a decent bike now while I have the ability to do so?

I’m very confused.

It has been 2 weeks now since I have been on the bike.  The combination of winter storms, icy conditions, arctic winds blowing at 60+ mph, and a first-class case of laziness has kept me immobile for the last 14 days.

After another round of heavy rain mixed with snow, the trails are a muddy marshland right now.  However, the sun came out today and is producing temps in the mid 50’s.  Tomorrow is supposed to see temps in the low 50’s as a last gasp before the next round of rain and snow blows in on Sunday.

And so I got  a call this morning from my friend asking if I wanted to break out the road bike tomorrow and go spin the canyons.  Knowing that my lungs, legs, and whole body will be burning, screaming in protest and plotting my eventual doom, I agreed.

In an attempt to reduce the humiliation of coughing and gasping for air during the first dozen turns of the cranks, I am going to try to go for a short 10 or so miler tonight after work… supposing I get out of here on time and can beat the sun going down.

The overall frustration of not being able to ride at all has got me seriously thinking about picking up a trainer soon.  I am now really just trying to decide between a regular trainer and a set of rollers.  I want the rollers mostly because I will be able to measure my mileage without the need to reconfigure my computer.

The main argument against the rollers, however, is that I have reached such a finely tuned level of being a complete and total clutz that I can smell disaster on the wind if I put myself on rollers.

My most compelling argument for the regular trainer, of course, is space.  The rear wheel trainer will take up considerably less room and, let’s face it, my apartment is already busting at the seams.

One way or the other, I will soon have the instrument of indoor punishment and mind-numbing dullness at hand.  With any luck, Fatty will host another 100 Miles of Nowhere this year and I can participate and find out what true pain is all about.

I’ve been a bit frustrated the last couple of weeks… both with myself and with the weather.  I’m frustrated with the weather because it has not been very conducive to riding at all.  I’m frustrated with myself because I have let a little bit of poor weather keep me off of the bike.

Such is the way of things though.  I am sure that once the days start getting longer and I have more hours of daylight to play with, it will be harder and harder for me to stay away.

The only reason I even mention any of that is because of some things I have had tickling the back of my mind for the last few days.  In lieu of riding, I have spent a lot of time reading up on trails, popular rides, road ride circuits, and various other riding events from around the country.  I have read up on races, training regimens, and techniques and absorbed as many pictures and photographs as I could find.

It has been said (by Lance Armstrong I believe) that endurance athletes do what they do because they are running from something inside themselves.  I might not be an endurance athlete yet.  Who knows if I ever will be?  I do know that the endurance athlete route is where I feel pulled to.

I freely admit that I don’t know much yet and that I still have a long way to go, but for me personally, I have to disagree with the above definition of why endurance athletes do what they do.

I’ve spent plenty of time in my life running away from myself so I know what that feels like.  For me, this journey feels completely different.

I personally believe that endurance athletes do what they do because, inside, we are all seekers.  We can’t run from something we do not know, but we can seek something that we don’t know.  There is always something to reach for… some reason to go that much further… some drive that compels us on.  We might not know what it is and we might never know, but that hardly seems to matter.  The goal is there and the fact that we might never reach it is of little concern.

Because it is the search that matters most.

I was digging through some old CD’s over the weekend and stumbled across one I forgot I even had.  I put on the headphones and closed my eyes and simply listened.

When I reached one particular song, I was surprised.  For years, that particular song always invoked very specific images in my head, but this time, it was completely different.  As I listened to the melody, I saw pictures of the places I’ve seen from the bike and the rides I have done.  Those mental images were free from the exhaustion, struggle, sweat, and occasional pain and focused entirely upon the beauty of the ride.

Now the video for the song is a bit cheesy (in my opinion), but take a listen and see if this song doesn’t conjure up images from the trail for you too.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lh9j0-Ey3kw

I had high hopes for this weekend.  I was very antsy for Saturday to arrive.

As I said previously, we had really nice temperatures all last week, but the winds blew anywhere from 50 to 75 mph pretty much all week.  I also had a lot of late nights and travel time last week, so I never made it on to the bike.

I stood on my balcony Friday night staring out in disbelief.  The forecast for Saturday morning called for very little wind and an early warmup.  We would have a small but doable window to ride the trails Saturday morning before the wind started kicking back up.  I spent all day Friday thinking about the coming morning, so I was a bit crestfallen when I was standing on that balcony watching buckets of water fall from the sky.

Fortunately, the ground soaked in the water just fine because the trails were in perfect condition Saturday morning.  The air was a bit chillier than expected and the wind a bit harder, but we were all ready to go.

Five of us set out from the trail head, but it didn’t take long at all before I realized something was wrong.  Very early on, before we had done anything more than ride along flat ground and negotiate a couple of switchbacks, I started gasping for air and my legs started burning.  Less than 5 minutes into the ride, I dropped off the back.

I cranked away at a slower pace cursing myself under my breath and playing my best drill sergeant “shame them into motivation” speeches.  I heard someone yell, “You okay?” and looked up to see my friend from work had stopped to wait on me.  I told him of my annoyance at my sluggish pace and he said he would ride with me.  I urged him to ride on with the pack and get a good ride in, but he smiled and said, “I’ve been there.  I had days where I couldn’t ride and I felt bad for holding everyone up.  My friends did it for me and I don’t mind doing it for you.  Let’s just have some fun.”

Things didn’t get better.  The first climb about killed me.  Once at the top, I was beat.  It took a seemingly long time to recover and I actually thought about calling it quits and going home, but I pushed on.

It wasn’t a technical section at all.  It was totally flat.  Maybe a dozen yards away was a drop and climb, but this was just easy track.  I was going around a turn that I have taken a hundred times.  It isn’t that sharp of a turn and there were no obsticles of any kind in the way.

Somehow, my front tire ended up going too high on the outside of the turn, digging into soft ground, and slid out from under me.  My speed at the time was roughly 16 to 18 mph and I went down hard.

The first thing I noticed was the massive bed of prickly pear cactus resting mere inches from my face.  I almost immediately started giggling at having missed it. 

I started climbing out from under my bike and setting things right (seat was pretty cock-eyed after the crash) when the pain hit.  It wasn’t anything substantial… just that unexpected stab of pain setting in followed by the fading into a dull but persistent throb.

About then, I hear my friend yell from a short distance away asking where I was and if I was okay.  I answered back and quickly set my seat back.  I jumped on the bike and started turning the pedals when the second wave of pain hit.

I more or less coasted over the drop and struggled up the climb.  I came out where my friend was and before I even said a word, he was pointing to my leg and grinning.  “Nice one,” he said.  As an afterthought, “You okay?”

It was then that I finally looked down.

It’s nothing bad obviously although the large scrape in the middle of my shin is deeper than it looks here and the two “vampire bites” on my knee are likewise pretty deep.

I struggled through the rest of the lap and my friend asked me if I was done. 

Saturday was actually a “wave” ride.  The 5 of us were going to be the first wave to arrive.  An hour later, a second batch consisting of a couple of newbies were going to arrive and we were going to do an easy lap to get them used to things.  An hour after the second wave, a third wave was going to come out.  We weren’t sure what their riding level would be.

I struggled so much on the first lap that we all figured I was done.  I got back to my vehicle, stretched a bit and did some more cursing myself out under my breath.  I sent all the guys out to ride some more and said I would wait for the second wave.  I suggested that I might be riding like crap, but at least I could survive a slow ride around the small 3-mile circle.

The second wave arrived and we set out.  A few minutes in, I suddenly felt fantastic!  My legs and bike were both chomping at the bit and screaming to be let loose, but I was playing the part of tour guide.

We finished the lap just as the third wave (which ended up consisting of only 1 person) arrived.  By now, all but myself and my co-worker had left, so the two of us joined up with the new arrival and set out.

I was told to take the lead and I did.  Finally opened up and freed, I attacked the trails like I never have before.  I was cleaning the climbs with nearly no difficulty and not feeling even a little winded. 

By the time we got back to the vehicles, I was pretty tired but definately excited that, after such a rough start, things had ended up going so well.  The total distance for me ended up being about 18 miles which was 17.9 more than I had thought I would make when we first started.

And it was with that remembered excitement that I went back out yesterday.

My leg was stiff and sore from the crash and both legs were still pretty blown, but I still wanted to ride.

Well, what I did yesterday was less of a ride and more of an extended muscle spasm on 2 wheels.  After just over 3.25 miles, I decided to cut my losses and head home.

All in all though, it was a great weekend of riding… even though I didn’t go as far as I would have liked.

From all indications, that one might have to do me for a while though.  The temperature is supposed to drop signficantly again tonight and, for the next 2 days, we’re supposed to get a lot of rain followed by 2 days of snow.

The last couple of days, unlike the earlier parts of the week, I have been both motivated and excited to get out and ride.  What is more than that, the temperatures have been perfect for riding.

The temperatures.

The winds, however, have been another matter.  Yesterday, we had sustained gusts of 60 mph all day.  Today, it was absolutely beautiful in the morning.  Right now, the sustained gusts are about 50 mph.

I’ll ride in the wind.  I’ll curse it relentlessly, but I’ll ride in it.

There is a ‘but’ though.

Where I live, we are surrounded on all sides by cotton farms.  During certain parts of the cotton season, winds mean dirt.  Lots and lots of dirt.  I’m not a farmer and have no interest in farming, so I don’t even pretend to know anything about the season.  The only thing I do know is what dirt looks like and what evil, constant, flying dirt looks like.

It looks like diarrhea soup is what it looks like.

Imagine a fog so severe that the news stations are cautioning you to drive slow due to extremely limited visibility.  Now imagine that fog is brown, gritty, gets in your eyes, and gets in your mouth… no matter how hard you try to keep it from happening.  For hours after you were outside for a maximum of 5 seconds, every time you close your mouth, you hear a crunching sound.

That is what life has been like here for the last 2 days.

I guess I won’t be riding today either.  This weekend, however… I’m going to ride even if it means I’m digging dirt out of places disturbing to find it in for the next year.

On the up side, this is better than where I used to live.  I’m from a city just 2 hours up the road from here.  There weren’t any cotton farms in the area, but we were located less than 30 minutes away from one of the largest cattle feed lots in the nation.

Brown outs there took on a whole new and entirely disgusting meaning.

After my ride on Saturday, I was pretty upset and didn’t sleep that well Saturday night.  I was sore so I couldn’t get comfortable, but my mind was also playing tricks on me.  I was running through all manner of scenarios in my head about what could be wrong with me physically to cause what happened to happen.

Needless to say, I woke up early Sunday morning.  I tried to jump out of bed, but the effort turned into a curse and a groan.  It felt so convincingly like I had been stabbed in the gut that I literally threw back the covers and looked to make sure.  For all I knew, I had left something lying on the bed and had rolled onto it and impaled myself in my sleep.

Well, there was nothing there and I started to think that maybe I had pulled a muscle in my stomach and maybe that was the root cause to my problems on Saturday.

I took care of some household chores like going to the store, washing dishes, and doing some laundry.  I was trying to kill some time because the guy I was supposed to ride with yesterday didn’t want to go until 2 in the afternoon.  I prefer going earlier when possible, so I was already a little annoyed.  I was also itching to get back on the bike and see what was wrong.  I needed to get back on the bike.

Finally, around 10:15, I couldn’t take it any longer.  I picked up the phone, called to let him know I was heading out there now and that he could join me if he wanted, and off I went.

Oddly enough, in spite of the abdominal pain, what resulted is the best ride I have had to date on the mountain bike.  I didn’t go any earth-shattering distance, but it was my longest ride on the mountain bike and I felt great.  I finished up at just under 15 miles.  I thought about going for another lap to make it an even 20, but my legs were showing serious signs of fatigue.

I probably would have been okay, but at the start of the third lap, I ran into a guy I have ridden with a few times.  He was on his cyclocross bike.  He asked if I wanted to ride along with him with a declaration of, “I can’t ride this bike nearly as quick as I can the mountain bike, so I might slow you down.”

And with that, he vanished in a cloud of dust.

I tried keeping up with him for as long as I could, but after a quarter mile, it was obvious that I was way out of my league and I dropped back.  I think that maybe, if I hadn’t stupidly tried to keep up, I might have been able to get that forth lap in.

Then again, maybe not.

I got home feeling tired but happy.  It felt great to know that Saturday was most likely just a bad day.

I sucked down some food (I was very hungry at that point), started some laundry, and promptly fell asleep on the couch for the next 5 hours.  I woke up stiff and sore, but feeling fantastic overall.

This morning, I woke up and all pain and soreness was gone.  I still don’t know what happened Saturday or what the pain in my stomach was yesterday, but today, I feel healthier than I have in years.

I also stepped onto the scale this morning.  Since Christmas day, I have now dropped 12 pounds.  I still have a ways to go, but you have to start somewhere.

In a freakish reversal of weather patterns from the last few months, we are hovering damn near 70 degrees today with very little wind.  Most likely, that means I have a road ride in my future this evening.  I would take the mountain bike to the 5-mile circuit I found close to home, but I really need to clean the bike up and lube the chain.  It started making some horrible noises yesterday towards the end.

On certain levels, I am a competitor.  I don’t actively compete in anything and haven’t for a long time, but I still compete with myself all the time.  I have certain expectations for myself and, when I don’t meet them, I tend to really beat myself up over it.

One thing that I have noticed about cycling since I started is that I take that a step further.  If I am riding with others who are better than me, faster than me, and more capable than me, I forget all about ‘punching my weight’ and go all in.  My body refuses to let them pull away from me even when my body is getting ready to kill me for what I’m doing to it.

I wrote yesterday about the planned ride I had for today.  The plan was to do between 15 and 20 miles on the trails this morning, take a break, and then regroup for a 15 to 20 mile road ride.  For people who have been riding for years, this distance would present no difficulty and probably doesn’t even sound like that big of a deal.  For someone like me, this would be a major accomplishment.

I spent all week long looking forward to today.  I couldn’t wait to get out there and really push myself to see how far I had come and to see what I was really capable of.

As I have sat here today in the aftermath of what I keep telling myself was a complete and utter disaster, I have had the lyrics of a particular song running through my head.  Back in the mid-90’s, I stumbled across a band named Caedmon’s Call.  For whatever reason, they are one of those groups that I can really relate to and their songs tend to have a pretty signficant impact on me and certain situations in my life.  One of their songs, called Lead of Love, has been oddly appropriate for me many times and today was definately no exception.

The ride started off great.  The guys I was riding with set off at what for me was a blistering pace, but I was keeping up without much trouble.  The further we went, the more my grin split into the toothy smile of a complete idiot.  I couldn’t help but laugh at the feeling of accomplishment and exhilaration that swept over me.  I felt better on the bike than I ever had before and I knew this was going to be a great day.

It hit without warning.  We had been cooking along and I continued to feel wonderful and like I could ride forever.  We weren’t even doing anything difficult at the moment… just cruising along flat ground heading towards a series of drops and climbs when my body just quit on me.

It wasn’t a bonk.  I largely felt fine.  I wasn’t breathing heavily and I didn’t feel winded or even tired.  My legs were burning a bit, but nothing out of the ordinary.  The pain started in my lower back and quickly turned into a blinding pain that kept my legs from pushing down on the pedals.  Every time I tried to move the bike, stabs of pain hit my back and my legs refused to cooperate.

I stopped and waved my riding companions on.  One, my co-worker who I ride often with, stopped and came back.  I got off the bike and couldn’t even stand straight.  The longer I kept my feet, the more my legs started shaking uncontrollably and walking turned into something I couldn’t seem to manage either.  I ended up leaning heavily on the bike resting one hand on the handlebars and the other on the seat.  I sort of shuffled my feet in a forward motion and I was able to move, but if I hadn’t had the bike to lean on, I wasn’t going anywhere.

Eventually, the pain abated somewhat and I was able to get back on the bike and ride back to my truck, but it was at a snail’s pace.  No matter how I tried, I couldn’t get the bike above 5 mph.

At just slightly over 3 miles, I was done.  I managed (just barely) to lift my bike into the back of my truck and drove home.  Not long after returning home, my body completely shut down.  I laid in the middle of my floor for hours.  I wasn’t sleeping.  I was just lying there.  I couldn’t move.  I couldn’t even roll over.

After what seemed an impossibly long time, all that had gone wrong vanished as quickly as it had come.  I got to my feet and realized that I was sore all over.  My arms, legs, chest, back, shoulders… everything feels like I did some suicidal marathon session at the gym.  I feel completely and utterly beat up.

Of course, if all the thoughts I had running through my head as I lay there helplessly on the floor could have taken physical form, I would have been far worse than beat up.  I berated myself for being weak, for not trying hard enough, for being fat, for giving up, for not pushing harder… if you can imagine it, I cursed myself for it.

Right in the middle of my pityfest, the song I mentioned started running through my head.  If you want to hear it, you can find it here.

The lyrics are:

Looking back at the road so far, the journey has left its share of scars
Mostly from leaving the ‘narrow and straight.’
Looking back it is clear to me that a man is more than the sum of his deeds
How you make good of this mess I’ve made is a profound mystery.

Looking back you know you had to bring me through.
All that I was so afraid of.
Though I questioned the sky, now I see why
Had to walk the rocks to see the mountain view
Looking back I see the lead of love.

Looking back I can finally see how failures bring humility
Brings me to my knees.  Helps me see my need for thee.

Looking back you know you had to bring me through
All that I was so afraid of
Though I questioned the sky now I see why
Had to walk the rocks to see the mountain view
Looking back I see the lead of love.

After I picked myself up off the floor, I spent some time relaxing and trying to gain a little perspective.  There are things I am doing that do, in fact, hurt my riding.  It is foolish of me to think I can continue doing these things and think that I am going to get better at any significant rate.

I also reminded myself something that I know already… something that I spent years drilling into the heads of my clients when I was working as a personal trainer, swim instructor, martial arts instructor, and all the various other fitness things I used to do… everyone will occasionally have a bad day.  All you can do when that happens is dust yourself off and get ready mentally for the next time.

Tomorrow was supposed to be a very relaxing ride where my friend and I went with someone just starting out the journey of biking.  We would take it very easy and ride at a comfortable pace while we showed him some tips.  I’m still going to do that (although it is uncertain right now if my friend will be there as he pushed himself a bit too hard after babysitting me and made himself sick), but I am going to go a little early and put in a few miles on my own working a harder pace than I will later one, but not as hard as I would normally push.

I just need to go get my confidence back.

This weekend is going to be a true test of how far I’ve come (or haven’t) since I started riding a few months back.

On my first ever ride on the single track, I barely managed to scratch out about 3 miles… and I was suffering by the end.  I hadn’t been that exhausted since my first day doing 2-a-days back in high school.  On my last semi-serious ride on the trails, I made 10 miles and could have gone further, but I was out of water and was starting to feel seriously dehydrated.

Two weeks ago, on my first road ride, we did a little over 7 miles.  I felt fine and could have gone further, but light was failing and it was getting cold fast.  Last weekend, on my second road ride, we went to a canyon and did a lot of climbing with some long riding afterward.  The total length of that ride was just under 20 miles.

Tomorrow, my bike buddy wants to do both.  In the morning, I’m going to meet him out at the trails for a good ride out there.  We’re hoping that most of the snow and mud is gone so that we can get a serious ride in.  Later in the afternoon, we’re going to regroup with the skinnies and go hit the canyon roads again.  We’re hoping to get in close to 40 miles between the two trips.

On Sunday, we’re going to roll out to the trails again, but for a more leisurely ride.  We have another co-worker who has just started riding and is in about the place I was back in September so we figure a nice, relaxed pace for us will be a pretty decent workout for him.

Forecasts are calling for nearly spring-like weather for most of next week, so I should be able to get in some decent riding during the week at night.  Hopefully my days of only riding on weekends due to freezing streets are about to come to an end.