The Post-Mountain Hangover

Since returning from my mountain trip in Bozeman, Montana, I’ve resumed my normal “adult” routine.

I try to run a little farther farther each week. This morning I completed nearly 12 miles (19 km) at a steady and moderate pace. I have specific running goals in mind, but they’re for only me to know. I want to test my limits. I was an elite swimmer, but never a competitive runner. Maybe I’m in a battle with my age and refuse to accept that a gradual decline looms nearer. It’s true that I refuse to believe that decay will eventually win. I’ll deny it to the end, fists clenched.

I have wondered when my running will stall. When will I hit a plateau? At what point will I have overtrained and need an extended rest? I’m having fun because I’m improving, but I won’t improve forever. What then?

I try to counterbalance my quest for a specific running speed with fun. Some days, I remind myself, it’s just better to skip “run day” and ride a skateboard, or ride a bike at a slow pace along a greenway. I don’t want my training to define my life; I want to define my training.

To be completely consumed by athletic pursuits is to submit oneself to something akin to a permanent state of war. Life’s too short to keep that mindset forever. Fun is a preferred alternative. I think one can “commit” without being “consumed.” There is a line between the two.

I continue to ride my bicycle to and from work. For each trip to the office, that’s 38 miles (61 km). There is no “winning” in this commute because I engage in a race against no one. My main reward is improved health. The car drivers make the commute faster than me and do so without breaking a sweat. However, every convenience brings a host of unintended consequences. Cars have the advantage of air conditioning, a favorite playlist, a gas or electric powered engine, and a cushioned seat. Then again, nothing destroys the body more quickly than sitting. In an ideal life, I never sit.

Instead of the car, I choose the summer heat, bugs smacking against my face as I pedal along quiet roads before the crack of dawn, a jersey soaked with sweat, the occasional thigh cramp, and the occasional storm to withstand. This gives me the pride of knowing I can do something that very few can or ever will.

Car-Free Life: Replacing the Car with a Bicycle

There are a million what-ifs and doubts that may race through your mind before saying goodbye to car ownership. You’ll never have them all covered, but that’s part of the fun. There’s also a long list of reasons why car ownership sucks. You only live once. Why not brave the unknown?

Don’t worry about the unknown: the best artists know that beautiful art will stem from getting lost or wandering off the beaten path and having a journey to find your way back home.

The Need To Get Somewhere

When I ride my bicycle, the world in my immediate peripheral vision slows down. This slowdown allows my mind to imprint the local shops, the street potholes, the road crevices, and the pedestrians waiting at bus stops.

I also notice how anxious the drivers around me are. They fidget at stoplights and tensely grip their phones as they look for excuses to check the glowing screens. They scan text messages and fumble through apps, their minds constantly expecting something.

These drivers engage in an endless stop-and-go, from traffic light to traffic light. Like pinballs in a machine, they dart from spot to spot, at the disposal of blinking lights and street signs. They hate it, and they honk and curse, though they are part of an endless stream of gas guzzlers wanting to get from point A to point B. And so their eyes dart from app to text to clock to road, waiting for what’s next. They blast music to minimize the stress. But it’s stressful, and it’s daily.

They have to get somewhere, and this need to get somewhere renders the present moment unacceptable for them.

Society tells them that a hypothetical future place will assuage their problems. There are consequences to not getting somewhere. So they honk and curse and shove breakfast quickly down their throats and rush through the Starbucks drive-through so that they can swig a latte.

Where are they going that is worth the hustle, the damning of the present and the need to escape it?

To offices, where they will sit and pour through spreadsheet metrics and a new litany of emails asking for favors.

To school, where they will dread grades and the teachers who are the judges, juries, and executioners of their future potential high paying jobs. A future that could quite possibly involve an office and a screen with spreadsheets and metrics. A future of more hustle, because even when the job is landed, there are always potential consequences just around the corner that can destroy everything.

Yet these drivers rush to meetings with colleagues they generally don’t like, over subjects they care about insofar as caring will pay the bills.

Is the present moment really worth sacrificing for such a future?

We tell ourselves we have no choice, that the need to get somewhere is imperative.

So we can buy a bigger house.

So we can get the job that impresses those that we know.

So we can pay off loans.

So we can have a higher salary.

So we can buy more presentable clothes.

So we can be more, because if we can be more we can be enough.

But what if our current state of being is already enough?

What if being in this world is enough, and being ourselves is enough?

The reason I took on cycling is because when I’m on a bicycle, I lose my sense of urgency. I’m not timing anything, or chasing anything, or trying to prove anything. I don’t give a damn about my heart rate or my calorie count or my mileage. The future be damned, the present is enough. The only thing that matters is my pedaling, my breathing, my immediate surroundings. The air feels crisp and I can appreciate it. My sweat wicks away in a breeze and it all feels more authentic.

When the impatient racers around me feel the need to roar forward, to check their myriad distractions in the mirror at stoplights, to honk, to hurry for a drive-through latte that costs them a portion of their work day…

I accept that this was once me, and sometimes still is me, and I hope they buy a bike one day.