Die to Live

Yesterday evening I cleaned one of my two bicycles. The endeavor was painful because one of my arms is both weak and injured. I live in an apartment and use Muc-Off products to make the bike shine and glisten. I then topped off the tires with sealant (I ride tubeless) and oiled the chain with dry lube.

I am preparing myself mentally to ride the bike again, though I am still far from fully healing after my collarbone break.

I woke early this morning and ran for about an hour and fifteen minutes at an easy pace. I then did an hour of strength training with resistance bands (mostly lower body excercises such as banded squats) and foam rolled to promote mobility.

By the end of all these activities I found myself pretty languished, and my work day hadn’t started. Dawn barely broke. I find myself pushing forward regardless. I am preparing for a marathon.

Why do we endurance athlete types push ourselves to such long distances, day in and day out? Well, I have a theory: over the course of our lives, we accumulate a hefty weight of baggage, which we have to carry around with us in our daily affairs. The added weight worsens the already-debilitating effects of gravity. Some of us have accumulated so much baggage that we barely know what resides beneath the layers.

So we find a challenging activity like running or cycling, and in the back of our mind we want to see “just how far we can go.” Fatigue accumulates, mile by mile, and the layers of baggage seem to fall off, chunk by chunk. And maybe what’s left on the long run is who we truly are. Or maybe what lies beneath is the answer to a question we didn’t realize needed asking.

The question is, “What do I need to do?”

And the answer is, “Live.”

And in a nutshell, it’s our way of dying a little to live a little.

Full Circle

The Stephen King argument that life, like the universe, moves in a circular and repetitive motion seems to be holding true for me right now.

I boasted that unlike 2022, in which I spent the final part of the year struggling to walk around my apartment neighborhood, I would finish 2023 with the ability to run farther and faster than I ever had.

Then I broke my collarbone in a cycling crash. I now find myself in the same position I was in a year ago. Walking hurts. Standing up hurts. I cannot tie my own shoes. Walking around my apartment complex is a struggle, with every step triggering pain in my collarbone. I realize now that I may spend the remainder of 2023 rehabilitating.

I can, at least, type one-handed.

The aftermath of this crash feels different than the last one. I know my collarbone will heal, as will the hit that I took to my head and hip. Spiritually, though, I feel a little something lost. I look at my bicycle and thoughts of selling it come to mind. The idea is both heartbreaking and relieving. I doubt I will sell it, but it sucks that the mind can maneuver that direction.

Time heals all wounds, they say. It isn’t true though. Ask a motorcyclist with a broken back. The pain exacerbates with time until eventually it is insufferable and crippling. Some wounds are spider venom in the blood: once they enter, they only spread and disintegrate.

I believe this wound will heal, but I do not know what my risk tolerance will be going forward. I know that I’m anxious to run again already. You can only fall so hard on a run.

Maybe I need to revert my thoughts back to the present. Of course the future holds some dread.

For now, it’s sunny and cool in Saint Louis. One day at a time.

Slow Healing

It’s a bit challenging to sleep well with a broken collarbone. That probably goes without saying. Every little twitch and turn during the night wakes you up.

I somehow managed about 7 hours of sleep last night, which is pretty good with all things considered. I can’t say the bone feels any better or worse than it did on Sunday. It might be that way for awhile.

I am still hopeful to be running again within a few weeks time. But, we’ll see how it goes. I missed the mark by months on my foot injury last year. To an extent, a recovery timeline is out of your control, especially with something such as a bone break.

My bikes remain on their racks in my living room. Because I’m housebound right now, I see them almost every waking moment. I want to visualize myself cycling again and enjoying it. I think that I will eventually, but the experience will be different. I’ll probably be intentionally slower and more vigilant.

That’s sort of how it goes with age in general. We try to repeat the thrills of the past, the adventures that exhilarated us when we were young, and to an extent we can. Yet we don’t have the same cells in our bodies, nor do we have the same minds, to experience those adventures. So we go through the motions, and it’s mostly the same… but it’s a little different. Maybe the once-vibrant colors our eyes saw long ago are now dulled or our emotions are a little more subdued. Maybe we miss the element of surprise or the delusion of feeling invincible.

Healing is also a lonely process. Your pain is uniquely your own. The entire right side of my body remains bruised and bloodied. It has been two days of ripping bloody bandages off of my right side.

To the outside ears, it was a “bike crash.” That has little meaning without feeling. To my own nerves feeling the pain, it is constant misery. Your physical pain cannot be shared; it is monogamous, and clings to you for life. It also sucks. Still, I believe that pain is a necessity. Life and death are painful, so you might as well get used to feeling pain.

In time I will be back. How many times have I said that?

Eating Scones and Breaking Bones

I’ve read that it’s healthy to eat foods while they’re in season. This fall I interpreted that to mean that I should consume extra pumpkin flavored beverages and foods at Starbucks. Pumpkin spice lattes and pumpkin scones became regulars on Saturday morning through the months of October and November. Apparently this isn’t how you’re supposed to interpret “eat foods while they’re in season.” Oh well. I have no regrets.

On a more serious note, I had what may end up being the bike crash to end my bike crashes.

I was pedaling my road bicycle down the Riverfront Trail yesterday and turned into the Riverfront Park. Maybe because I’ve made this turn a hundred times in the last year, my eyes were focused forward for a moment, rather than on the path beneath the wheels. It turned out to be a critical moment to avert my gaze from the path.

Though the sun shone and the winds were calm that morning, a storm had hit the day before with severe winds. I didn’t take that into account. Some intense debris littered the road, included a large tree branch.

My front tire hit the tree branch and I flipped forward, sideways, and upside-down. I felt my head slam against the road first. I was wearing a helmet, but the force was enough to whip my head and nearly knock me out.

Then my shoulder hit and I immediately felt my collarbone break. I also heard something that you never want to hear come from your own body: “snap!”

Finally my hip landed with a loud thud. The pain was intense, and I knew that I was in very bad shape.

I was wearing a helmet, luckily, but I was still dazed. I was not sure what city I was living in or where I was going, and suddenly the trail seemed foreign to me. I was not sure what I did the past few days either. I just felt that I had to turn around and get home, wherever that was.

Due to the adrenaline and lack of logical thought, I hopped back on the bicycle and rode back. It was not for twenty minutes that I knew where I was or where I was riding, but somehow I still rode the correct direction.

It was an hour later, after X-Rays and a CT scan, that I learned that I somehow managed to ride the bike home with a broken collarbone and a mild concussion.

The adrenaline wore off the moment I stepped back in my apartment, and it was then that my right arm lost mobility. It was my right collarbone that broke. The pain surged quickly thereafter.

Later, at a nearby Total Access Urgent Care, I learned the full impact of the injuries quickly.

“Yep, that’s broken,” the X-ray technician said as he glanced at the first photo of my shoulder and collarbones. “It’ll be for the doctor to say, but the good news is, it looks like it’s the good kind of break.”

“There’s a good kind of break?” I said. I assumed all breaks were bad kinds.

“Yeah,” he said, “The kind that doesn’t need surgery.”

It turned out he was correct. The bone was broken but not displaced, meaning the bone would heal after two months in a sling and some physical therapy.

I regained my mental senses quickly and all of my memories returned. For that I’m also thankful.

I’ve had some nasty crashes over the past year. This was the worst one; it was enough, I think, to break me mentally. It raised a conundrum: how do I keep doing something I enjoy, when I seem to have a penchant for serious injuries while doing it? I’ve never been injured while running, after all.

Are my cycling days over? It’s difficult to say. I should be honest here though: they might be over. I have no interest in breaking the clavicle again. Certainly my cycling days are over for the remainder of the year. With bone breaks, the best thing you can do is nothing.

I guess it’s inevitable that these sorts of doubts flood my mind after such a crash. Maybe I’m just not meant to be a cyclist. Maybe I just have to commit to slow and leisurely rides from now on. What will I do?

I may feel young, but I know this bone will not heal as quickly as it would have twenty years ago.

Hopefully I am back on a bicycle eventually. To what capacity I’ll ride again, I’m not sure. Some cyclists bounce back quickly after bone breaks. They heal, and then they pedal with extra fervor. They love the activity. All pain is worth it. Suffering is hardly a reason to quit. Neither is a broken collarbone.

But I am not those cyclists. A part of me feels I’ve had enough bone breaks and ligament sprains to last a lifetime.

Every injury I’ve ever had has arrive via bicycle. You can only fall so hard when you’re on a run. You can only break so badly. On a bicycle, though, it doesn’t seem to be a matter of if your collarbone breaks in a crash, but how badly it breaks.

I guess time will tell what’s in store for me next. Though I feel down, I don’t feel “out.” I’ll focus on eating well, sleeping, and healing. There’s still life to enjoy.

I guess time will tell whether I hope on the bike again.

Conversion to Machine

I enter age 37 with a desire to take a trip and get lost on a random adventure. In a banal daily work routine, which can feel like a constant slideshow of indistinguishable and bland virtual meetings, interactions seem progressively colder and more detached. Work hours pass in purgatorial fashion. All smiling is off-camera. All laughter is on mute. There is an agenda and we must tackle it. We must perform. There is no time for small talk. No time for warmth.

The conversion to machine is gradual and is predicated on the need for comfort.

I try to counter these dark feelings, which I write about freely here, with cycling. Cycling is purely for me, the most selfish of hobbies. Adults generally don’t give a damn that I can ride a bike really far. There’s no one to impress. It’s not like my old days as a swimmer, when I won to gain the adulation of everyone around me. I just find cycling fun. Adults are often too consumed with their own consumption to be concerned with activities involving movement. Cycling is my antidote to the soul sucking virus that is careerism.

Is there still a ghost in the adults of today, or has the spirit left the shell?

Virtual work means that jokes are followed by silence and emails are followed by a false sense of urgency.

“This is the new trend!” I’m told, but I note that the general population has gained misery, weight, and anxiety since the pandemic. There is always a trade-off for convenience. Faust doesn’t grant wishes without taking something in return.

Years ago, I was lost somewhere in Russia. It was a random trip I took while living in China. It’s a coastal city with a relatively friendly atmosphere.

Getting lost is actually pretty fun; cycling reminds me of that when I take a wrong turn. Trips remind me of that when I meander aimlessly through the foreign city streets. Adults hate being lost, but kids generally love it. Adults prefer predictability and assurance. A destination is the ultimate form of salvation for the worker. They want a linear path without bumps. Point A to Point B, and not a minute to waste.

Yet the white rabbit is always a slave to the queen, as Alice in Wonderland showed. But the modern adults wants pavement, an air conditioned environment, and a to-do list that forever grows, forever demanding haste. I cannot relate: I find solace in the rocky terrain of a faraway trail, where haste is revealed to be arbitrary.

I remember hiking Eagle’s Nest Hill in Vladivostok and quickly getting lost, somewhere off the trail due to a lack of focus, and not really caring. Time ceases to matter when there is no agenda. Can adults abandon agendas for awhile? Who cares if the paved route is far away? I remember being somewhere high, on a bluff, overlooking the city. So I still arrived at some interesting destination. It’s the randomness and unpredictability that I prefer. I was on the opposite side of the world, which is both thrilling and terrifying.

The computer, and its primary appendage the phone, is placed at the altar of the modern posh careerist. It demands of its flock a new form of faith and a false set of promises. Mortality can be avoided, it says, with the swipe of a credit card, the pop of a pill bottle, or the adherence to a politician. Swiping requires money, which requires work, which requires sitting and staring and hurrying.

May we all be lost somewhere, in a strange city we’ve never been to, and wander aimlessly, without an agenda, in search of new adventures. Maybe somewhere, in the midst of that wandering, we’ll reencounter our long lost inner child.

The Last Day

My last day spent as a 36-year-old was a stark contrast from my last day as a 35-year-old.

I spent my last week at age 35 bedridden due to a bicycle injury that prevented me from running for the remainder of 2021. On my last day at age 35, I dreamt of running, but struggled to leave my apartment.

In contrast, I spent my last week at age 36 running longer distances than I ever had in my life. With each run my right foot feels better, not worse. I often imagine myself running like a Kenyan, gliding over the Iten hills and along the top edges of the terrain’s escarpments. In my dream I possess the seemingly effortless fluidity of a Kenyan athlete. I snap from this vision and reality reminds me that I don’t have their running ability, but then again, arguably no one else does either.

Because I ran throughout my last week at age 36, I slept for as long as possible through my last day at age 36. I ate donuts and drank a brown sugar shaken espresso from Starbucks. In short, I indulged, and I don’t regret it in the slightest. I hadn’t indulged in awhile. I might as well be gluttonous on the last day.

I visited a doctor for a final evaluation of an elbow injury that I suffered from a bike crash about a month ago. The X-rays were negative. The elbow sprained, but it did not tear. No surgery is needed. Time will heal the elbow. It might be weeks, and it might be months, but it’ll heal. That news was a very nice birthday present.

I continue to heal the pinched nerves in both of my hands, remnants of overuse during a bike packing trip I embarked on two weeks ago. I’m still reflecting on that trip and will post more about it.

I think of these injuries and realize that even when I’m healing my foot, I seem to be injuring other body parts.

I am about to finish repairing my gravel bike. In that aforementioned crash last month, the bike’s front wheel bent and its derailleur, cassette, and hanger broke. Yet somehow I didn’t break. The doctor I visited told me I have strong bones. I think that’s true, but these crashes also add up over time. I don’t know if I have another crash in me.

“How are you feeling?” The bike shop manager asked me when I took my damaged bike in for a repair. He noted my scrapes, bruises, and swollen elbow. It was a question I don’t often get from anyone besides my immediate loved ones.

We always ask, “How are you doing?” This beckons the default answer, “Good.” I was surprised that someone would ask how I’m feeling.

“I guess I’m good today,” I said.

“I mean, how are you feeling mentally, after the crash? Are you okay? Because after my last crash, I was never the same again. I wasn’t the same cyclist.”

I was touched that someone cared to ask that. It had been awhile since a relative stranger showed care for my wellbeing. I absorbed it for a moment. Was I really okay? Am I?

“I think it might be time for me to only bike on trails and greenways,” I said. I took a deep breath. There was a sense of finality in my words.

“I reached the same conclusion after my last crash,” he replied. “I hope you feel better though and keep cycling.”

“I’ll definitely keep cycling,” I said. “Maybe not on roads though.”

I left the shop and looked out at the clusters of brick and mortar buildings, the gaunt sky, and the constantly flowing currents of traffic that carried with them the acrid scent of car exhaust.

36 is over. There’s no getting it back. I was flawed for that period of time and I’m flawed now, but hopefully I learned a few things through the passage of time. It was quite a journey.

I’m on to 37. I’ll wake up and go for a run. Mentally, I won’t be running through a concrete cluster before work. I’ll be in Kenya, gliding through a valley, or along an escarpment, as the sun crests over the horizon. Away from the screens and keyboard warriors of the sedentary west, and away from the common materialistic ambitions and plastic goals that inundate the office.

Miles from me, a lion will stalk its prey. I will steadily accelerate my pace; the village has long-been out of sight.

Implicit Connections, Necessary Journeys

Dawn shows signs of an eventual takeover by rendering the streets and adjacent buildings in a gaunt gray. I pedal out of my apartment at 6:00 am with my sunglasses hanging from my long sleeve tee. Both my front and rear bike lights blink. I hear the occasional motor in the distance as I maneuver west, where the horizon is darkest, where a few remaining stars still wink. For the most part I am the only person on the road.

Another cyclist pedals furiously the opposite direction. Like me, he wears a backpack and tee. We give each other a faint wave. There is an unspoken and implicit connection between us, one that many cyclists have, and because of this connection, a simple wave speaks a thousand words.

He’s also bike commuting. Our directions have a 180 degree difference and yet the endpoint is the same.

Two days before, I biked along Gravois Greenway. A cyclist behind me pedaled up and rode beside me, directly to my left.

“Where are you commuting from?” He asked. I told him where I was biking from and where I was heading toward. We chatted for a bit as we rode. We talked about our commutes to work, the exhilaration of arriving at an office with beads of sweat hanging from one’s brow, of pedaling up to the front entrance of the office building, of moving a distance through exercise that everyone else would rather sit for.

We road a few more miles and then parted ways. We didn’t need to say what specifically our connection was. It was implicit. The hobby of cycling can run much deeper than simple exercise.

I’m packing my belongings and preparing myself mentally for my most intense bikepacking trip yet. It will take days. My sleeping bag, food, and tent are ready. I’ll pick up my rented bike in Virginia and head north, towards Pittsburgh.

More than 300 miles of cycling and camping is not everyone’s idea of a good time, especially in the summer. But it’s my idea of a good time.

What if you get lost?

All the better.

Away from offices and screens: that’s where I need to be.

On a gravel road, one mile at a time, northbound.

Chasing the Personal Best

I had a pretty nasty bike crash last week. I was zipping through downtown and encountered a construction zone near the Convention Center Plaza. I made a left turn for a detour, thinking the detour road would be mostly smooth pavement, only to have my front tire hit a jagged crevice in the tarmac. My bike went over sideways and I crashed on my right side.

Lesson learned: never assume the road ahead will provide a smooth ride.

I slid over the pavement and felt the road peel away the skin on my right leg. My elbow and hip collided against the street with a thud. I knew immediately it wasn’t a light crash. I wished that I had been watching the road more carefully.

I looked around and realized that I was alone on that street. It was the cusp of dawn and the sun’s climb toward the horizon had rendered the streets in shades of lavender and indigo. I levered myself up and attempted to limp back home while carrying my bike. My apartment was only three blocks away. The bike derailleur broke, as did the hanger and chain. The handlebar tape tore up. The bike and I broke together.

I limped home and showered off the blood, then bandaged myself up. I had no anger or regret: the crash already happened and there’s no rewind button on time.

As the hours ticked by, my right elbow went numb and I realized that it was sprained. The sprain was not as severe as the foot injury I suffered a year ago, but I also knew that it would take several weeks to heal. By nightfall, there was almost no mobility in the elbow.

I joked that because the higher powers couldn’t injure my feet while I ran, they decided to hand me the occasional bike crash. We all need setbacks, after all.

Because of the elbow injury, I was unable to bike the rest of the week. So, I ran while maintaining my right arm in a position that was awkward yet comfortable. Each day, a little mobility returned to the arm.

This week was supposed to be my “season ending” running week. I had scheduled a 1600 meter timed run and a 10k run. I wanted to see what progress I had made over the last year, since healing my ankle injury from 2021. It was not ideal to be nursing a bunch of scrapes and bruises, as well as a sprained elbow, this week.

I believe that the body and mind treat all stresses the same: as a gravitational push downward on performance. Whether these stresses are from injury, emotions, or heavy exercise, stresses are essentially quicksand. Stresses are what age us.

My 1600 meter run was Wednesday night and when I showed up at the track to warm up, I felt surprisingly light. I still felt elbow pain but also accepted it as a part of life. Shit happens. Things break and sprain. Sometimes you fully heal, sometimes you mostly heal, and unfortunately, sometimes you just don’t heal at all.

I decided to look for someone in the race that seemed fast and just try to hang with them. I noted a young college-aged male in my group and overheard him saying that he was aiming for some fast times. So, I decided to try and run behind him for as long as I could.

I crossed the first 1600 meters (about a mile) and saw that I ran it in 5 minutes and 20 seconds. That was faster than the fastest 1600 meter run of my life, and I still had another half of the run to go! By my own standards I was flying. I felt fresh and limber. The college guy was just one stride ahead of me. I was keeping up. Everyone else was far behind us.

It wasn’t until the final lap of the 3200 meter run that the college guy pulled ahead by a few seconds. However, I finished the run in 10 minutes and 50 seconds. It was by far the fastest run of my life. A “personal best.”

I shook the college guy’s hand (he went for a fist bump and I awkwardly went for a handshake, being the old fart that I am). I was thankful because it is competition that brings out the best in us. I never would have broken 11 minutes had he not set a good pace for me.

I’m nearing age 37 and appreciate now, more than ever, any sort of personal best time in an athletic event.

The elbow is healing. Maybe when I was 21 I’d feel anger and resentment about my crash. That is the advantage of the late 30’s. Whereas earlier in life there might be a certain paranoia over outcome and control, I’ve finally gotten to a point where I can say, “to hell with it, let’s just roll with the punches.”

My 10k is tomorrow and I think it’ll be fun. I did a 10k in college and my time was 56 minutes. I know I’ll be significantly faster than that. I’ll hit a personal best time, smile, and celebrate with some coffee.

And that’s life. You hit some crashes, you do your best to recover, and you gear up for the next race.

Let’s hope there’s a next race tomorrow.

The Need for a “What If”

I find myself needing a hypothetical “what if” in order to look forward to the future. That “what if” scenario is simple:

“What if my important accomplishment or action, which I was placed on this planet to fulfill, has not yet occurred?”

I find the need to posit this scenario because as a former elite athlete, it was easy to assume for the better part of a decade that my greatest accomplishment already transpired. This is a debilitating state of mind that ensnares many athletes because their athletic careers typically end well before the halfway marker of life.

I freed myself of this mental prison with a hypothetical question, and whether or not it’s true is inconsequential: “What if there is still a greater adventure ahead?”

I think of Bilbo Baggins and his reluctance to leave the safety of the Shire. After all, Gandalf reminds him, there is no guarantee of a safe return, or a return at all.

Yet something catalyzes Bilbo to embark on his greatest adventure and to eventually slay a dragon. He is about 50 years old when he leaves the Shire, which in theory would mark him well past his physical prime.

I am turning 37 soon. I spent the first quarter of age 36 learning to walk, and then run, again. As I embark on longer runs and longer bike rides I have no delusions of winning any sort of championships, nor do I care to.

There is, though, a unique excitement in knowing that I just ran or biked farther than I ever had in my life.

About a week ago I managed a long Sunday run of 15 miles (24 km). That was the longest run of my life, and I finished it feeling fresh. Today I biked a little more than 50 miles (80 km) without stopping. My “injured” foot remains in good health and I find myself feeling physically “lighter” than I have in the past.

Why do I feel lighter? Maybe the burden of expectations has finally been lifted from my spirit. Without it I’m free to experiment and fail.

I suspect that I have a lot of miles to run, and plenty of engine to run them. That’s why I signed up for my first full marathon, which will take place in April 2023. There’s plenty of time to build to it. I have a dream of running several. I’m in it for the long haul.

I don’t obsess over any sort of victory anymore, but I do feel a compulsion in my soul to finish my first marathon without stopping. Maybe it’s yet another form of my battle with my own mortality. Maybe I finally found the metaphorical dragon to slay, as Bilbo did. Or maybe the marathon is simply my “Gandalf”, my catalyst to introduce me to even better adventures ahead.

After all, why run roads when mountains are an option?

What if the best is yet to come?

The Bicycle and My Health

I sat in a plush chair that stood in the center of a sterile and immaculate patient room at my company’s wellness center. I faced a television but did not register what was playing on its screen. I waited for the results of my recent health examination.

It had been three years since my last health check at our wellness center. That last check was in 2019, just two months after I returned from China and less than one year before COVID became a thing. I thought about the peaks and valley’s I’d been through in that timespan. What did that journey mean for my health?

The practitioner walked in with a clipboard and greeted me.

“We hadn’t seen you in a long time,” she said. “And to make a long story short… your health is perfect, and it improved considerably. That’s pretty rare for someone over the past few years.”

She then listed off my metrics and how much they improved since 2019.

“Your LDL cholesterol, which is your bad cholesterol, improved from 110 mg/dL, which is not terrible but not great, to 52 mg/dL, which is outstanding.”

“Your blood pressure went from 130/87, a little higher than what we prefer, to 118/73, which is in perfect range.”

“You dropped 15 pounds, though you were not overweight by any standards.”

“I have to ask because I encounter so many patients going through struggles right now: what did you change?”

I told her that I basically only changed one thing: I bought a bicycle and found myself enjoying it. It was supposed to be a new hobby to “get me through the boredom of work from home.” I bought it because I was frustrated by my inertia, frustrated by the new normal of virtual meetings, and frustrated that I wasn’t enjoying life. I told her that I felt my stress increasing over those first few months of the pandemic, and I wondered if a new way of moving could be a cure. Hatred can accumulate with a snowball effect, and I didn’t want to die a hateful person. I knew almost nothing about bicycles or cycling at the time.

And as it turned out, the bicycle cured me. My metabolic age is now 13 years younger than my actual age. By each measure, I am the healthiest I’ve been in my life. My health problems vanquished. I smashed them with my bicycle tires, one by one.

That’s not to say that my health was poor when I returned from China, but that it wasn’t nearly as good as I had assumed at the time. It’s to say that it could have been so much better, and cycling helped me understand just how good health can be.

In a sense, the bicycle gave me a second life. It’s a meditation, an exercise, a hobby, and a thrill ride all in one. And in a sense I do feel reborn. I don’t feel as angry as I used. I feel content to just “have a good time,” which is all I really want. Cycling is my time to just be me and enjoy the day.

So for me, it seems, a lot of it was about the bike.

Donations

I donated my single-speed State Bicycle yesterday. Ridding the bike was probably overdue; it was essentially my starter bike. At the time of purchase I figured it was a bike that could get me anywhere, and in a sense it did. I logged hundreds of miles on it, maybe thousands. That’s some serious pedaling on a single-speed bike.

It was a poorly fitting bike. The store employees warned me so when I purchased it. I bought it anyways out of desperation for a bicycle; bikes my size were rare in the pandemic era.

“This isn’t your ideal fit. If we give the fit a letter grade, it would be a B minus or C.”

As my mileage increased over the last year, a nascent lower back pain also spread and worsened. The pain increased to a point last week in which I was barely able to ride after a few minutes of pedaling. And that was in spite of rarely using it (my primary bike is my gravel bike). I found myself constantly having to “stand” on the bike and “stop for stretches.” The pain would linger after the ride. Last week it was severe enough that even sitting upright caused severe pain.

In a nutshell, the bike had to go. Cycling isn’t supposed to be about fighting a crippling back pain. I’ve had enough injuries this year already and spent my share of time in physical therapy!

I decided to donate the bike because it wasn’t that costly in the first place (it’s a State Bicycle 4130 that had already been through a crash, which caused some damage). Plus, someone might need it… who knows. And hopefully it fits that person better than it fit me. I figured I’d find more meaning from giving the bike to someone in need than than I would from selling the bike. So I dropped it off at a donation center and said goodbye.

I can’t say I’ll miss the bicycle, though I’ll remember it was the bike that “started my new journey.” The back pain was too severe for me to miss the bicycle. The crash was too traumatic.

It was the bicycle, after all, that I was riding when I was hit by a car last summer. I’d still get flashbacks when I rode it. I prefer not to think about that moment.

I have a new bicycle, and I had it professionally fitted at the bike shop this time. I do believe now that having a professional give a “thumbs up” on a bike fit and make some detailed adjustments is worth the time and cost. Having a quality bicycle is also worth the cost for someone who is becoming increasingly obsessed with cycling!

The new bike is a Giant Defy Advanced. It seems ready to handle thousands upon thousands of miles in the upcoming years. More details in the future…

Degreaser

I had a flat tire in the exact middle a long bike commute last Friday. There was a mix of sleet and freezing rain pattering down on me. I found myself especially fidgety due to being forced to change the tire in a dangerous location.

Changing the tire was a messy affair. My bibs were covered in bike grease by the end of it. Due to my shakiness I severely cut my left thumb and it continued bleeding for more than 24 hours afterwards. When I returned home, the inside of my left glove was wet and syrupy due to all the bleeding through the remainder of the ride.

I washed the bibs several times but it wasn’t enough to remove 100% of the grease. I have to live with the rest.

My thumb will scar; it’s quite a hot mess.

Still, there was a confidence boost from having managed to change the tire in what most would consider miserable conditions. I managed to bike to my destination. After arrival someone remarked, “In this weather? How in the hell!?” Maybe I just like pain too much.

I also have an unhealthy perfectionist in me that I need to eradicate. This side of me finds living with stained bibs, or stained anything for that matter, difficult. At the same time, that’s life, and my own journey at the moment requires that I learn to live with imperfection. I have enough scars that you’d think I’d be over this by now. Our clothes stain. Our skin scars. Everything new degrades with time. Life moves on. Fighting degradation is a losing battle, so you might as well embrace it.

We are perfectly imperfect, as the saying goes. A grease stain is a reminder of where I was, a memory of a unique struggle. Maybe a little grease and a little scar tissue deserve to follow me after the act.

The Cost of Energy

I pedal up a steep incline five miles north of the Gateway Arch. A wild flock of turkey loiters ahead in a grassy patch. A harsh wind rocks me from the side and I feel my bike teeter in response. Winter seems to have extended its shadow far beyond its form.

The relevant debate these days is over the most efficient form of energy. Energy affects a lot of costs, but most conversation focuses on the cost of a motor vehicle. Gas prices are soaring, after all. People need energy for transportation, and the need for energy renders them powerless to the price at the gas pump. And in the debate, said energy must be nuclear or green.

My legs renew themselves constantly on this 30-mile Saturday ride. I summit another hill and I catch my breath as I pedal lightly. I sprint for a brief stretch, just for the heck of it, maybe seeking my long-lost inner child, and I coast afterwards. I fatigue and then recover. Rinse and repeat. Endorphins flood me at the finish. I feel a rush of excitement as I arrive at the Chain of Rocks bridge. Adventure is always optional.

My body’s energy moves me forward. Thanks to being a homosapien I can scale long distances (we have some of the most efficient cardiovascular systems on the planet).

That is not to say that cars don’t have a place in the world. Not everyone can ride a bicycle; it is fortunate to have the opportunity and shouldn’t be taken for granted. Yet car ownership is brutally abused by culture, which has led to some unnecessary obsession over gas prices.

Still, I don’t ride a bike to “save money on gas.” It’s just what I prefer; it’s more fun.

I finish my bike ride and in my fatigue there is a sense of strengthening, of knowing that muscles first need to tear in order to strengthen.

San Francisco and Mission Workshop

I followed my Sonoma County visit with two days in San Francisco. I stayed at Union Square downtown, which is considered one of the must-see areas of the city.

I started the morning with breakfast at Honey Honey Cafe & Crepery, where I had some excellent breakfast crepes and coffee. I then took a two-mile walk through the city en route to visit my favorite company, Mission Workshop. They’re based in San Francisco, but I had been ordering products online from them for a long time.

Mission Workshop specializes in bags and technical apparel. I find their craftsmanship to be top-notch and it’s an added bonus that their weatherproof bags are made in America. That’s a pretty rare thing these days. Their technical apparel tailors toward an active lifestyle, with a strong emphasis on cycling.

I had the pleasure of meeting Darius, who is managing the shop. We had an awesome conversation in which we talked about how cycling can be a way of life and a means to connect people. One of the several things that drew me to San Francisco, after all, is its strong cycling community. I also enjoyed hearing about how the Mission Workshop crew vigorously tested a lot of their cycling apparel through a wide array of weather conditions.

While I was at the store I picked up the Mission Workshop long sleeve cycling jersey. It has a cool and soft next-to-skin feel and seems capable of handling a wide range of temperatures. The jersey’s aesthetic and materials are both of the highest quality. I’m stoked to see Mission Workshop putting out some fun new colors as well.

Hopefully I can return to the Mission Workshop store before too long; it’s awesome to see a small company that’s willing to put so much emphasize on quality with their products, especially in an Amazon-driven world.

After visiting the Mission Workshop store I ate lunch at Tacolicious on Valencia street. Their housemade chorizo tacos were especially awesome.

If you ever visit San Francisco I highly recommend checking out the Mission Workshop store. There’s truly nothing comparable in the apparel industry that I’ve found!

Thoughts on the Trail

Early morning. A smattering of snow drifts down and coats the landscape with a thin white crust. The river isn’t frozen but I certainly wouldn’t want to swim in it. I feel like I’m gliding as I pedal north, mile after mile, with relative ease. I imagine myself continuing beyond my usual distance, crossing the Missouri border and the Chain of Rocks Bridge, then heading directly east towards whatever lies beyond the Mississippi. That bridge feels like the demarcation between the living and the dead. Across it is the unknown. I pedal over the bridge and I imagine myself pedaling forever. What is my limit?

I eventually turn around and suddenly the wind lashes me (the wind raced north with me, but counters me directly as I return south). The icy precipitation smacks my eyes. I am fully aware in this moment, cognizant of my environs, of the crevices in the trail, of the whitening underbrush to my left, of the glossy Mississippi River beyond that. The river looks like glass at this hour.

I think of my phone. I left it behind. If I were to crash out here, I’d have a long and lonely journey home. If I’m injured, I’ll be fending for myself.

A random thought hits me: I am lucky because still, for the majority of my life, I didn’t own a smartphone. I’m 36 and I acquired one at 22. I imagine my life before smartphones. Life was slower. I had time to create. I had time to invent my own games rather than succumb to someone else’s.

People say I need a smartphone. Do I? Did we need smartphones for the previous 250,000 years or so of human existence?

I read of the rising rates of depression and anxiety, and their parabolic rise upon the advent of the smartphone.

I lack a phone out here, in the cold, under the snowy sky. And I feel pretty good.

Can I toss my phone away?

Maps

The temp is 5 F (-15 C). I’m on mile 20 of a morning bike ride (32 km). My fingers have been numb for the past 30 minutes and my toes are in the process of joining them in their transformation from body extremities to icicles. My nose runs like an ever-flowing fountain. The tendrils of snot cling to my merino wool gaiter and then freeze, hindering my breathing. I have to lower the gaiter and when I do the biting winter wind absolutely punishes my face.

About ten miles ago I passed a flock of geese. There was an albino goose amidst the flock that stood our like a lone star in a night sky. I find a part of me wondering if the other geese can detect its genetic difference. Birds can pair bond, so can they also judge?

Five miles ago, the sun broke to my left. It slants down and brushes my left cheek but offers little comfort. Above me there is a stark demarcation of clear sky and clouds ahead.

I am alone on the trail again and I find myself also thinking that I’m on a bike ride this morning to escape the artificiality of the city. In this pain I cannot delude myself into thinking that nature is something offering constant peace and solace. If I were to sleep out here the elements might take me, as they’ve taken many of those not gifted with air conditioning.

Death is harsh in nature. Some of the geese may be slowly devoured over many minutes by a predator. Others, if they reach old age, may slowly starve to death due to their slowed reflexes. Or the elements may slowly overtake them as their weakening bones fail to fend off the cold.

Nature is harsh, but through it we may find a part of us, and the darker elements, the harsher elements, give us a realer view of our role in the universe. In the city we do not think of death. We delude ourselves into thinking it doesn’t exist, and therefore ironically find ourselves dissatisfied with our actions in the present moment. We refuse to believe that it can be a moment away.

On my final mile the verse to Ghost’s song “Pro Memoria” echoes through my mind. The Roman generals ride to war with their slaves, who whisper reminders in their ear that they will also die. This paradoxically gives them both peace and cunning.

And it isn’t just these Romans who have a more intimate relationship with death. Many Buddhist cultures also are more apt to contemplate it, and ironically measure “happier” than American culture.

It is almost uniquely in the west that we delude ourselves into thinking death can be avoided, that not everything has to end, that a future purchase may bring eternal salvation, and therefore the solution to life is a simple checklist. And this leads us to a life imbued with dissatisfaction.

“Don’t you forget about dying, don’t you forget about your friend death, don’t you forget that you will die.”

In the distance I see the silhouette of a wildcat maneuver through the underbrush. A prey animal may be on its last legs.

I cannot predict when I will be that prey animal.

Nerve-Shaken

“Nerve-shaken, over-civilized people really are beginning to find out that going to the mountains is going home; that wilderness is a necessity; and that mountain parks and reservations are useful not only as fountains of timber and irrigating rivers, but as fountains for life.” - John Muir, 1901

Morning cycling temp: 6 degrees F (-14 C). -8 F windchill (-21 C).

Just me and the wild turkey and geese that haunt the Mississippi this morning. No living homo sapien is near. The path is strewn with bird crap because only the birds dare tread over this trail at these temps. The birds dominate the cold and they show it by crapping over everything and everyone.

The cold is absolutely blistering. My hands go numb within 30 minutes and my feet follow about 30 minutes later. I keep pedaling forward. The sun’s about to break to my right, a little solace. To my left, a near-full moon’s lambent glow haunts a navy sky.

“Push through pain,” I keep thinking. “Comfort is your enemy.”

I return home and the warm shower water seems to scathe my toes. My feet are beet red, with small patches of blue and black here and there. Ouch. After about an hour that discoloration fades. It’s not frostbite at least.

Gazing out my window, I see someone chowing down on a burger in his car while waiting at a stoplight.

No one else in this city of over one million was able to bike this morning (maybe someone else was, but no one in my vicinity; I basically had the world to myself). Only a select few dare the winter. This thought gives me fuel.

In the wilderness your senses heighten. My ride got me closer to the wild, but admittedly not fully there. You feel every rise and drop of temperature. You hear the prey animals in hiding and the mating calls of the birds that nest above. Far away, as dawn hits, people are snapping photos of their corporatized lattes.

That ride was certainly a misogi.

All Candles Burn to the Ground Eventually

“All candles burn to the ground eventually.”

This was oddly my first thought upon waking this morning. Shortly after, as my dreams dissolved into a bittersweet nothing, I completed my final physical therapy session. My jumps and hops felt pretty good, as did a brief jog. I hadn’t jumped in five months. I was just happy to be jumping.

I have an at-home therapy plan to work out the last of the joint stiffness/ache/lack of mobility. But for all intents and purposes the ankle is healed. I’m ready for full activity.

Sometimes we all need a little help. I wanted to heal my foot on my own and stubbornly tried. Realizing after months of futility that it wouldn’t happen, I sought a doctor, and later a physical therapist. Healing took a lot out of me. It took time, money, and resources. I am lucky. I realize that.

I think about the potential alternative a lot. When I first felt my body hit the road and felt my ankle twist backwards and then quickly rip sideways, my first thought was that my walking days were over.

My foot doctor said the same: “When I first saw your foot, I thought it was done for, that we’d find bone fragments everywhere and ruptured tendons far out of place. I can’t believe the scans showed it stayed intact.” I’ve had a few low points in life, and the act of dragging myself and my bicycle off the road to a nearby sidewalk was certainly among the lowest. There’s a scar by my knee that gives me chills every time I glance at it.

So I lucked out. I’m back to normal, only five months later, and I don’t take that for granted.

I have mixed opinions on the act of praying. I think it’s somewhat selfish and delusional to think that one vessel is entitled to a personal relationship with a universal creator. Suffering is far too indiscriminate for that and the universe is far too vast to expect attention to a petty problem (or, sadly, even a significant problem). Selfish prayers have contributed to idiots praying for football game wins.

On the other hand there is something meditative about searching inside for what one is seeking, and connecting to a “higher self” (or higher calling) to realize one’s own need for change. That, I think, can contribute to evolution. I see use in that.

I don’t know if it’s a prayer so much as a glance up into the sky and a silent “thank you” echoing through my mind. Endings tend to be anticlimactic and often brutal, but damn that would’ve haunted me if my runnings days ended bloodied and sprawled on the side of a road by a tire store.

My candle will burn out eventually, but today is not that day.

Killing Comfort

Comfort kills.

So many people only experience the weather in brief stints. For these people, the weather is often just a nuisance during a brief 30-second jaunt to the car, which then transports them to work in an office with a chair and a desk. The day is therefore spent sitting in a car with air conditioning, followed by sitting in a chair under air conditioning, followed by sitting in a car with air conditioning again. All environs provide optimized comfort and entertainment. Maybe, at some point, the day involves easy movement in a gym, again with air conditioning, as well as rows of tv screens to combat the boredom.

Even the sun, the very thing that allowed for creation in the first place, is seen as a threat to the body (and industry provides sunscreens to lather over the body as a “fix” to the problem). The sun causes squinting, or sweat, or potential sunburns. Homo sapiens have existed for give or take 250,000 years, and only in the last 100 years has the sun been classified as “dangerous.” Since this odd diagnosis of sun as bad, an industry of “sun protective creams” has emerged.

Living life in a vacuum, the modern body feels plush cushions on the derrière and back while sleeping, cushions while eyes are glued to the television, cushions while eyes are glued to the phone, and cushions while engorging the stomach in a never-ending paroxysm of gluttony (true hunger is rare in the Western world).

The modern brain isn’t bored while browsing the phone for “stimulation”. Boredom should not exist in the modern world because boredom is another potential discomfort. Silence should not exist because silence runs risk or boredom. So kids and adults sit on their asses and TikTok or whatever the hell is the trend of the year.

“But the modern lifespan is longer,” I’m told as a counterpoint. And to that I say, how many of those extra years are actually spent living? Heart disease kills by the millions annually. By 2028 the long-term US nursing home care industry is expected to reach 1.7 trillion US dollars, provided an annual growth of 7.1% (Grand View Research, Inc.).

1/3 of Americans are either diabetic of pre-diabetic. Almost half of Americans struggle to climb a single flight of stairs (studyfinds.org). Even our conveniences become more difficult: the stairs were once invented to make climbing easier. Now the body needs something more automated than stairs to transport it vertically. The modern concept of being alive seems eerily close to the undead version of life in any zombie film.

There is a universal law that nothing is created without having both intended and unintended consequences. The unintended consequences of industry and the drive for growth are simple: an overly-medicated and largely miserable population that cannot process or experience discomfort.

The modern Western human, often addicted to these comforts and the obsession with the elimination of all danger, cannot accept pain, cannot accept suffering, and often cannot accept danger as a necessary component to a meaningful life. Every sickness must have a cure that can be paid for. Erasing all threats is a matter of a savvy Google search.

I imagine myself living thousands of years ago, a persistence hunter, preparing for a hunt via a long run. My body evolved with the capacity to run and breathe with stunning efficiency. My tribe can hunt a deer (or its predecessor) not with speed, but with endurance. There are risks involved with the hunt. We don’t need trendy shoes with arch support or technical gym shorts: we just run. We compete with other predators, and other predators decide whether we humans would also make a decent meal. There are real threats, not the modern vain “what if my car gets a dent or my sweater gets a stain” type threats. My belly is often hungry. My legs are often tired. But ironically, I do not feel any form of depression, not in the modern sense. I focus on my feet hitting rock and sand as the heat pummels me and my thirst for water increases. The deer will collapse soon and hunger will be sated.

This morning I thought about comfort, my biggest existential threat, as I embarked on a bike ride. The temperature was 19 F (minus 7 C). With the wind chill it was 5 F (minus 15 C). The wind lashed me with its ice-coated whips of air as I pedaled toward Grant Farm. The Gravois Greenway was mottled with ice patches that my gravel bike often slid over. One bad fall and my right foot, I knew, would be done for. I slowed a little as I crossed each ice patch. The trail took me over icy bridges, through white-sheeted forest, and alongside bleak highways. Sunlight filtered through the dead tree branches and brushed my cheeks. I pedaled as my heartbeat raced, mile after mile, hour after hour, and I felt life in pain. Time slowed. Two hours on the bike felt infinitely longer. Silence enveloped me, though there was certainly plenty of ambient sound.

I live in the same weather as more than one million other people in the city, but many of them do not understand the full magnificence of the weather. That to me is a great tragedy.

I am finding that as my foot heals, my competitive tenacity is also returning. It is ruthless, the sort that punished competitors as severely as possible years ago and has long-since hibernated, but still lurks within. My inner “Terry Silver”. The type that, as a swimmer, grabbed ankles and twisted them when lapping people at practice. This inner warrior knows that a successful hunt requires ruthlessness and resolve.

I feel cynicism when I think of how the quest for comfort can lead so many into a black hole of materialism that sucks the essence out of the soul. Give me the dragon. Give me the struggle. I have one fear, my greatest fear: an end in a nursing home. Let me be devoured by the dragon instead of a devourer of comfort.

Better to fight the dragon and lose convincingly.

Images and Words

Cycling north and I’m edging the west side of the Mississippi River. The first 20 minutes are near-absolute darkness and I might as well be riding through space, through an ever-expanding universe in which invisible clouds have drowned out the stars. It’s cold enough to freeze the water in my water bottle and I can’t squeeze a drop out of it. My front light provides some trail visibility directly in front of me, just enough to dodge the occasional cluster of broken glass.

To my right, moments later, morning breaks and a thin strip of orange glows on the eastern horizon, across the Mississippi. Above this tangerine line the sky becomes a purple sea. Behind me I hear the steady rumble of construction vehicles moaning that “progress is important”.

A flock of wild turkeys loiters ahead. There’s one perched on the cement wall that edges the trail on my left, and another turkey pecking at something, maybe a rat, in the grass to my right. They don’t mind me.

Memories of things I’ve heard over the past week clutter my mind.

At work, a corporate head: “My car broke down and I was sooooo stressed. Like, it’s as if life as you know it ends. You can’t do anything. Sooooo glad to have my car back.”

Another corporate head: “I felt a little sick but like, I got the vaccine, so no wayyyy it’s coronavirus. Like, I got the shot already. I should be safe.”

Suddenly I wonder if I can actually be of the same species as these corporate talking heads.

Thoughts of an older man telling me his life story: “I’ve been divorced for three years. I was married for 23 years. I think constantly about what I’ve lost. We were really in love once. Someone reminded me that I’m lucky, because who gets a good marriage for more than 20 years? And that reframes my mind, even though I may never have that feeling again, and maybe I’m not meant to, but maybe it’s enough that I had it once.”

Words from another person follow these: “The high and low for me are the same thing. I quit my job. I have no plans. I have no security blanket. I don’t care. I felt like it was time. It was time to venture into the unknown. I was tired of waiting. I was tired of the security blanket. It’s both exhilarating and terrifying. I’m ready for the darkness.”

The trail ahead of me is still dark, but it suddenly concerns me less.

Thinking about those words reminds me that people can also inspire me.

I don’t want my bike ride to end because while I’m pedaling I’m absorbed in deeper thoughts and at times entranced by the present moment.

Everything, I think, is a series of expansions and contractions. While pedaling my heart expands and contracts. Trillions of light years away the universe expands, and I wonder if it is inevitable that it will eventually contract and smother us with the nothingness from which we all began, and render all of these thoughts and worries obsolete as I, my being, blends with the planets and stars that at present seem so foreign. And if so, was the security blanket really worth it?

Sunlight brushes my left cheek on the ride back to the apartment.