Does it matter?

 

An early morning at the recently finished Bluff Point - Pine View

Training Updates

A lot of things are challenging the ride schedule this year. Some of it predictable, while others....not as much. Splitting time between the dirt and road, with road rides mainly during the early morning hours and dirt later in the evening. Keeping close stats with the Garmin tells me I have a lot of work to do and not much time to do it. I haven't developed the confidence to try and push long, extended climbs. Rather, I'm back to climbing intervals, where I am struggling to get my heart rate into the mid 160's anymore. I'm told that with my resting heart rate in the low 40's, given my age, I'm actually doing okay - but that's someone else's opinion. I need to hit it harder.

An early morning over looking Causey

Blown Opportunities

One of my longest ambitions has been to ride and complete Leadville. If you don't know what that's all about, I'll spare you the details. Lets just say I have been given the opportunity and am not able to meet the challenge. Like so many things in life, sometimes sacrifices have to be made - generally at my expense. Thinking about it makes me sick. Writing about it.........we'll, it makes me want to puke! I'm likely to never have that opportunity again and knowing that only makes it worse. Still, a couple buddies were able to get in and they are gonna ride it in two weeks. These guys are machines - studs by every sense of the word. I know they'll both finish and suspect they'll finish under the coveted 9-hour mark.

What Truly matters - after all?

I, no doubt, spend more time stewing about things that don't really matter. And believe me, I have stowed my fair share of baggage. There is a fine line between what matters and what one should simply let go into the past. After all, you are where you are now - not that you can go back and change it. Still, turning pages and closing books are not the same thing. This is the difference between experience, wisdom and knowledge. Don't confuse them with each other, but recognize their relationships. Experience is what we get along the way - whatever that way may be. Knowledge is knowing how hot something may be. Wisdom.....having felt the burn of that thing first hand. Still, living in the past gets you nowhere. Living without learning will get you burned. But when is it time to close a book versus look back and when to simply turn pages?

Atop the overlook at Mules Ear - evening ride.

Unfinished Business...that will never be resolved

 Point of Inflection

I woke up this past Monday morning, before my alarm - as usual. This time I had a very distinct recollection of exactly 40 years ago. In my mind was literally the phrase "point of inflection" - the point at which a mathematical function changes direction. The last week of July, the first week of August, 1983 was such a point. Trouble is, I didn't realize it for another two years. At that, it was more questions than answers - still largely unanswered to this very day. There is a part of me that longs for the answers, but I know I need to let it go. I mean, it truly haunts me and I don't know why. To say it was a point of inflection is an understatement. Turns out, it affected more lives than mine alone. That Monday morning last week, I set out on a ride with that on my mind. The thinking that goes on during these rides is rather deep at times - and this was certainly no exception.

What I thought only the elephants may have known

The details are still somewhat clear to me, but those over the course of about that next ten days are kind of out of sorts. The Def Leppard /Uriah Heap concert - so load my teeth hurt for a week. My brothers wedding the end of the next week was a blur, due to the pain meds I had to take. What I didn't know was the pain I had experienced was something that started a week earlier, and unknowingly was burning at my very soul. Little did I know and only to find out two years later, what I thought was known only to a couple wooden elephants, would become knowledge to total strangers. Right, it sounds cryptic and it is for good reason. The point is, sometimes in the quietest of places, these things come back to haunt me. And when I'm on a long ride, the craziest thing can bring those thoughts into my head - but only the details of which I am aware. The rest remains a qualified mystery.

Recently I have began to doubt much of my own self. Be it the events of a few years ago, last Autumn, or forty-years ago, I have more than enough to sort through.........or so it may seem. Sounds like a very long ride is in order.

Great Minds Think Alike...or so they say.

"I woke last night to the sound of thunder. How far off I sat an wondered. Started hummin' a song from 1962. Ain't it funny how the night moves?" The things that wake me at nights is rarely thunder. Matter of fact, I sleep better in the worst of weather. But those metaphorical thunder claps.....they can really get my attention. Bob said it best; "....when you haven't much to lose."  All of our Autumns are closing in. No time to wait. No time for waste. No time for haste.  It's time to move on.............

Click here for Bob Seger - Night Moves

Ride Hard!