Post 29

Hello, my darlings!

Welcome to another week. I will be deeply, profoundly grateful when this week is over. What is it about work that causes a constant hum of anxiety through everything you do? It’s most distracting. Given my newfound emotional responsibilities, I find myself moderately stressed all the time. I’ve turned to running and cycling to ease some of the mental pressure that being responsible for another person’s feelings causes. And, it’s kind of awesome. I’m putting up some great miles. My hydraulic systems in my legs had been damaged a few years ago to the point that I didn’t think I would be able to run again without converting to an entirely new frame.

But frames are expensive. And I’m awfully attached to this one. Upgrades, yes. Replacement? No, thank you. My structural components have helped define my software and vice versa at this point. I do NOT want to go through a full system transfer and reboot again. God no. The last time was a BITCH.

Anyway, so I did some repairs on my hydraulic systems with a small tweak for oxygen consumption increases and now I can run again. Outstanding. I put up seven miles yesterday and I’m shooting for eight today. My lover (bleh I hate that word - unless it’s between the words ‘meat’ and ‘pizza’, to steal from Liz Lemon) reads to me on these runs and it’s fantastic. Big fan. And the more I sweat, the purer I feel inside. Like I’m scraping out all the gunk in my soul. I’ll be helping an organic start running some ultra races as her crew chief and pacer. I’m terribly excited about this. I watch YouTube videos of some of the best runners out there, devour documentaries, and have read most of the definitive books on the subject.

She’s signed up for the Old Pueblo 25 miler and a couple marathons. I’ll probably only have to run 50 miles or so at a time to pace her once she gets up to full strength, but it’s still fun. Enjoying it very much.

My hero, Lael Wilcox, also has a whole bunch of documentaries out about ultra cycling. If this whole responsible adult thing doesn’t work out, I plan to just take my bike and disappear on a world adventure bike-packing extravaganza. She can ride 200 mi a day. I’m sure it can’t hurt that badly, right? If I had my choice, I would just write romances and ride my bike all day every day. It’s the best. Just the best.

There’s something so meditative and peaceful about being on the bike for mile after mile. Just cleans out all the bullshit and harmonizes all the discontinuous bits inside until everything hums. I love my bike. It’s name is Izzy (one of them, anyway) and I’m thinking about building a gravel-grinder from scratch, so that I can be just like Lael.

There’s a couple nice carbon-fiber frames and the SRAM Eagle 1x12 drivetrain that looks massively studly. To borrow another phrase from Liz Lemmon - I want to go to there.

God, work is boring. Thank baby Jesus I don’t have to do it for a couple days!