Good Times Had

Good Times Had

Day Four:

THIS ABSOLUTELY BLOWS. 

The virus has reached my chest. I cough continuously with a headache that feels like dehydration squared. Leaving at 0600 this morning we drove 150 miles, honored a commitment, ate a greasy late-breakfast and returned back covering the same 150 miles. Once home I tried to nap but the cough and phlegm wanted no part of a peace accord. I am off in ten to the PB to meet a client for a spin and then thankfully, this day will be done.

Moral of the story is simply this: Do not get sick. Do everything you can to avoid it. Think positive thoughts and be grateful for the good times had and the ones yet to come. 

See you tomorrow. 

Feel Like Dancin

Day three of the imbalance. There is good news and bad. I’ll start with the good.

After our rather rollicking spin session this morning, details of which I might include later, and once out of the glorious shower, I stood naked on the scale. It is an old weighted slide-scale that requires the user to move a counterweight along the top horizontal bars to dial in the ounces after the pounds have been set by the larger weight on the lower bars. In my case the bottom wight has always been set at 150. The top weight then slides, sometimes painfully, to the actual current weight of whatever mass is standing upon its platform wishing only brutal honesty and accurate data. I was thinking as I gently persuaded the weight left, lower, what two days and three workouts had done to my mass, and in what proportions. This ritual is kinda like insanity. One definition of it being that doing the same things over and over while expecting different results is tantamount to bona fide crazy behavior. Still we cross our fingers hoping for some blind justice from the universe. This year, full of ups, downs and question marks, has seen my fluctuation balance out  between a low of 165 and a high of 171. It has been in this range for several years, but as any athlete, of any merit, will tell you, there is a ‘good’ weight and a ‘not-so-good’ weight. I feel like my best racing weight is 160. I know that if I can show up on race day, having earned entry through successful training and a solid nutrition plan that keeps my body-fat and my power-to-weight ratio in this rage, I have successfully paid for the right to compete. Anything else would be disrespectful. After that, win, lose or drop out, I will have instilled in myself the confidence required to push the parameters a little once the gun has sounded.  THAT to me, is what racing is all about, and why I race. To answer the question that asks me who I am, and what exactly I have done to deserve to be here with all these other talented, dedicated and motivated athletes. 

Then of course there is the issue of health. It has been stated many times that there exists a chasm of difference between being healthy and being fit. There is a weight connection here, almost a hand in glove comparison. Especially if we are discussing Ironman distances. One can be exceptionally fit and race ready and borderline unhealthy. We can get to the point of obsession, where results are everything, and sacrifice both longevity and overall health in the process of training for the big race. In a nutshell, this means that the ten (or more) pounds we think will ease our burden over 140 miles, can actually be a vital component to our overall stasis and quality of health, what professionals call our optimal weight. 

With all this swirling around my brain, the effectiveness of my training coupled with today being day three of the virus, and race day in ten days, I tenderly persuade the tiny weight left with an attempt at objective nonchalance. It is what it is right?

160.

That is the good news. I never suspected that a 72 hour runny nose would cause such results. That is down five pounds in a week, a gigantic number upon analysis, one I will gladly accept and hope that the percentage is skewed in the favor of fat over muscle and that light means right. 

And the bad news? 

I still don’t feel like dancing. 

Second Verse

Continuing the trendy opening by cherry-picking rock lyrics (although we are not limited by the genera) we again shoot for the metaphorical stars.

‘Second verse, same as the first.” 

Seeking total transparency, I will reveal that the first and only time I played a Herman’s Hermits tune in spin class, the ebullient Ms. Brown You’ve Got a Lovely Daughter, actually penned by British actor Trevor Peacock, it wasn’t met with the response I was hoping for, and actually caused one of the gals up from to advise me never to play that song again. Ouch. You don’t appreciate bubbly-gum adolescent puppy love ditties with a definitive dose of cockney-speak? No? 

Anyway, the reason for the reference is not so much as a critique of the song, the era, the band or the author, but as a way to say that my condition, the illness, the virus, and its adjacent sore throat, headache, sinus infection and general malaise, is a repeat of yesterday. Although I do feel a little better physically. I did not sleep well, up all night with that persistent and irritating cough, and coupled with the runny nose that seemed destined to last till Hell freezes. 

I am actually a bit surprised that I feel OK, thinking that the condition would surely worsen as the virus spread and gained strength. But here we are, dealing with the reality of the second verse and anticipating the bridge towards the third, and then hopefully, the final chorus. Girls as fine as her are something rare, after all. 

Additionally, it this was a rock opera and taking a twist for the dramatic, I was, and remain, particularly pleased (borderline proud) of my completion of all the tasks on my to-do list yesterday. Sure, there were the obligatory moments where I second-guessed my motivation (finish what you start), tactics (perpetual motion) and technique (one step at a time) during the process, but each time a decision needed to be made (continue on or rest up?) I managed to find something somewhere to keep the ball rolling, the modern equivalent of Sysiphus and his infamous rock. By the time we finished our 2x20 set I was caught, cleaned, baked and devoured. Done for the day. 

Today is round two. A fairly light schedule that I will respond to by using it as a taper into Wednesday’s 0530 start and our ever challenging high-intensity spin set. I don’t know exactly at this point just how high my intensity will be, but I do know that it will be appropriate for the day, time and condition that I bring to the club with me in the morning. Maybe even better. Endorphins and the British Invasion can do that. 

“If she finds that I’ve been round to see her,

tell her that I’m well and feeling fine.”

A Ton of Bricks

Warren Zevon put it this way:

Hit me like a ton of bricks,

had to have my outlook fixed. 

(With my back turned looking down the path.) 

I am officially sick. About as far under the weather as one can be and still have use of heart and lung. Everything else is either sore, aching, inactive or, in the case of my head, throbbing. This should come as no surprise as everyone else in our circle-of-friends has had their dance. I am the last. And I am here to report to you today that it sucks. 

The morning's two 55 minute drives sandwiched around my spin class notwithstanding, there remains a painfully long distance separating now and quitting time. I have been entrusted with the care of two dogs, one suffering from a tumor and on the watch list, and the other a black lab, where feeding is a 24/7 consideration. I have a clients landscaping to tend to and then one more session in the PowerBarn at 1730. I have already blown through three handkerchiefs, 1,500 Mg's of Vitamin C and two quarts of water. I feel like I can make it as long as it says off my lungs, which, according to those that have gone bravely before me, say is next. Oh dear. 

That is the current situation. I attempt no pity, it is simply fact. I will try my best to plow through my remaining responsibilities and not further compromise the mission. The goal is to make it to 1900 on my feet. After that, with any luck at all, I will sleep until well after the sun has come up tomorrow, tomorrow being a light day. 

My ‘A’ race of the season is in twelve days. I have no idea how this will play out and into that hand. Most likely I should cancel everything and rest. But as somebody said a long time ago, (and obviously not the Z-Man about his getting leveled by 2,200 pounds of brick): The Show Must Go On. 

See The Light

The rambling (a recurring theme) diatribe was tiresome even for its author. By the time I had invested an hour of Sunday morning time into it, I was suffering the familiar fatigue of beating the dead horse. I was off on the chase to make sense of nonsense. The subject matter was riffing on a quote from Virginal Woolf, where she eloquently states that, ‘a self that goes on changing goes on living.’ By the time the riffing was wrapping up we had ridden rough-shod over the current administration, corruption, polarities of energy, quantum mechanics, chaos theory and the fine line separating technology from ecology. The US Women’s Soccer Team even made a glorious appearance.

But I was having a hard time with the third act. I didn’t have a clear idea of where it was going to end, could end or should end.  Sometimes this works and other times, most times, I, lacking the creative skill necessary to write stand-up comedy or deeply inspire with insight or wisdom, dangle a participle or toss a non-sequitur at the wall hoping for adhesion. This ending on most occasions with nothing other than a mess to clean up and an empty stomach. So I started over by the rather ruthless use of the delete tool. You want change? You can’t handle change. 

As Vonnegut used to say…and so it goes. 

The gist of what I wanted to say was simply this: Our response to change changes us. We can refuse to change, dig in, hide, pretend, deny or numb our inability to merge awareness with reality. We can neutralize change by doing nothing, hoping that our more powerful, more capable more aware neighbors act on our behalf, or we can accept the things we cannot change and meet those we can change (the remaining 99%) head-on with bravado, gumption, courage, resolve and compassion. 

But one form of change or another, our response to it is what type of energy we change the change into. That is the power we all share. To decide. 

If we want positive change, we act positively.

If we seek neutral change, we allow the current to flow unimpeded.

If we desire to change negative change into positive change we must use the opposite energy form to accomplish the power shift. 

Otherwise we are divided and the bad guys win. If we fight fire with fire the result is a scorched pile of rubble. If we take an eye for an eye, all that remains is a village of the blind ruled by the one-eyed King. 

Love is the change. Love is the positive energy required to turn the negative into its productive and compassionate counterpart. If you want to hate, to fear, to oppress and to exploit you are doomed. Sooner or later, your charade will end and you will be exposed as a fraud. You will then face a jury of the people you have judged to be unworthy and inhumanly sentenced to lives of suffering and hardship. If you put kids in cages you will one day rot in hell. 

Defend this truth. Stand up and speak of the positive energy we need. This is urgent. Let’s turn this thing around folks. We need hard love. We must see the light and it is almost midnight.  

I will never tire of this theme. 

I Always Know

I always know. When I feel that there is something that I’d rather not do, I know that is the very thing I must do. That place where fear lives. THAT is the place I must go. Today I would really prefer not to talk about it. All that being said, the only thing that will save me is to talk about it. Maybe we can work it out. Here is what happened. And my response. Right now I feel horrible, so the sooner we get started the sooner I might learn the lesson, and move alone. 

We are in spin class, our regular Saturday morning high-intensity session where no prisoners are taken. We are almost done with a particularly gnarly set of sustained hill climbs finishing with a short sprint and with altogether too little recovery time. I am tired from the relentless demands and off on some tangential diatribe designed primarily to motivate the assembled riders to continue to work towards the goals they have established for themselves. This is not the time to second-guess your motivation, I say in a weak attempt to eek another minute of hard effort from their tired legs. The mixture of music, dopamine and the symptoms of fatigue seem to have created an opportunity for some e-minor magic. The search for dynamic flow seems to be successful. Madame Pele might even approve. 

Until one of the gals in the back row blurts out a question. She asks ‘what is the groove zone?’ 

I am floored. I have defined this, I say, 17,644 times and then I do the thing, say the thing, that I now regret, and now attempt to find atonement for and find satisfactory closure through, this verbal confessional. I have barked, bitten and belittled. In the heat of battle I crumbled, dumbing-down instead of picking-up. I asked her, incriminatingly, how many classes she has previously attended, knowing the answer to be close to 40, and that she should, by now, be close to an expert on the subject. 

Perhaps to cover my insensitivity, or simply to try to walk it back I launch into the 17,645th attempt. 

The groove zone is everything good mixed together in this time and place. it combines your personal and unique level of power, its output, the speed with which you turn the pedals, your heart-rate, your aerobic base, you musculature and integrity of bone, ligament, tendon and pancreas function, the ability of your central governor in the supervision of the focused effort, the dynamic flow you create, your hydration, your fuel system, your elegance and fluidity of motion, your attitude, your fears, your regrets of the past and your anxieties of the future. It includes all things intrinsic and your ability to limit those that extrinsically distract, annoy or infuriate. It includes music, rhythm and the percussive melody in your soul. It is a synergy of mind, body and spirit with the specific goal of finding your blissful and powerful place in the perfect universe. It is a moving target and subject to continual change. You must be totally present to receive its myriad benefits, humble in the acquisition and hungry for more. Emotion is important as gratitude and forgiveness are key components. All goodness is here. You can accept or reject. Love lives here side-by-side with joy, harmony and mirth. That is the freedom offered and your responsibility once begun. We begin by taking ownership of this, all this and everything. That is the groove zone.

We finish. I already knew by that point that I had - again - failed. The correct response to her innocent (I suspect) question should have been - that is a very good question (even though everyone else in the room had already heard the prior 16,644 attempts many times). But I barked in a bullying knee-jerk response. I made the assumption that she had understood the esoteric definition of a complex theorem. My bad. I knew the right thing to do, the professional thing, but allowed an overloaded, endorphin soaked sense of rigor to escape before being properly buffered. I had failed to adequately vet the response prior to delivery. Guilty as charged without a trial and off goes your head. 

There is that. I have done this before. It is my modus operandi. I will try to find the balance necessary to be that leader whose tact, diplomacy and style appeals to every type of rider in every circumstance and on every occasion. 

This is something I have been working on for several years. Maybe I am a slow learner. It is more important for me to be happy than right. And since this morning’s class, while high in benefit, has caused this unhappiness, that must mean I was wrong. 

Yes. That is it. I always know. I always know when I’ve been wrong. 

Glad It's Over

I am glad it’s over. As you may have deduced from yesterday’s stream of consciousness update, it was a rough day. I am not a fan of the way that we (and by saying we I mean us) have spun the Forth of July in a similar agitprop way we have with Christmas, Memorial Day, Labor Day and OMG President’s Day. And let’s not even breech the idea of Dads and Grads. Unabashed, unfettered, unimaginative runaway capitalism with a seamy undercurrent of power, control, profit, white supremacy and fear. Let’s be put it as clear as I can. America is sick. Our mosaic of freedom is in tatters, dying of neglect and vandalism. 

I struggled all day trying to see past the bullying, fear-mongering, distraction and shallowness of our current so-called leadership. They are all paid actors, backed by the big-business interests (profit) of multi-national corporations who seek further control and further domination in markets they already exploit, manipulate and spoil. This is a democracy? We (the US again) have such a sordid and shameful history that no amount of money could ever hope to repair. Knowing this, the current tactic is to cover up, lie, distract and use all the tried and true fascist methods of mind control in a relentless barrage of propaganda and political might. Strategies not becoming of a nation once considered leaders of the free world. Today we are no better than even the most brutal third-world dictatorships. We just have more money and a bigger army. 

I am deeply ashamed and embarrassed of my government. Worse yet is that fact that 40% or so of my fellow Americans consider the country to be on the right path and actually approve of the president and his cabal of clowns in charge. There are only two reasons why, one is obvious, the rich, that invisible 1% towards whom all legislation is directed, and two, being overtly racist has been normalized and inhumane tactics, violence and humanitarian crimes legitimized. By the fucking president and his staff of republican frauds. Divide and conquer, or in this case divide and stay in power. This makes me sick. Right, and since I already suffer from this pre-existing condition it would be an excellent time, being distracted by corruption and stupidity, to reduce my health-care benefits and social security and limit my Medicare. 

How does this assist in making America even one iota greater? I do not feel any better as a person if in anger for the harassment and oppression of my government I go out and kick a poodle in the teeth. Are we really destroying our environment for the sake of enhanced margins for big oil? Is it truly, on any level, morally conscionable to put immigrant kids, seeking asylum to better their lives (lives ruined by US foreign polity in Central America) in cages and deny them basic care as they wait for a miracle of bi-partisan legislation? Warning: Do NOT hold breath. 

To say I am conflicted would be a gross understatement. This has to change. We (US) must act in the present to atone for the past and move to the future as role models. We must lead by action. Role models for the things we love to say are the backbone of our democracy, the constitution and our model of government based upon it. We are doing exactly the opposite of that right now. We are an embarrassment to anyone with the common sense to see past the bright and shiny hollowness of our put-on character. We cheat, we lie, we steal, we bully and we promote the single most morally incorrect slogan ever concocted, that we, we of pale faces, are the chosen race, somehow superior and created to manifest this destiny.

BULLSHIT. 

We are noting more than sheep being herded towards slaughter. The image of the POTUS giving a speech on the greatness of America through bulletproof, rain-soaked Plexiglas yesterday perfectly portrayed the tears I shed for the Naive Americans, veterans, kids of color, gays, Latinas, artists, students, the homeless, those disabled, seniors, the disenfranchised and disillusioned and every person from Maine to the Mexican border who’s life and pursuit of happiness is now compromised as a result of the policies and relentless propaganda puked forth by the crime family currently calling the shots. 

This, as a Caucasian American with a conscience, bothers the hell out of me. 

Happy Fifth of July.