Sitting in my favorite coffee shop in Boulder, Amante Coffee (www.amantecoffee.com) watching the Tour and thinking that it would be pretty damn amazing to get out there and do that sort of thing, even for a day.
But...we have that opportunity, we being anyone who owns a bicycle. We have the ability to ride just like to Euro pros and now we can even go to the local bike shop, sign for a second mortgage, and walk out with essentially the same bike that the pros ride. So what's your excuse?
I have a broken foot and my ortho doc has released me to go back to work. Unfortunately the city docs that I work for don't agree, so I guess I'm off work, and getting paid, at least until some time in August. I'll spare you the details, but I'm scrapping my way forward with that whole thing and in the mean time I've been back on my bike since last Thursday.
With my proposal to ride solo in next year's RAAM I've been put into an odd spot mentally and I suppose physically. The thought and idea of racing my bicycle across America all by my "lonesome" seems wildly outrageous, but not really impossible, per se. Honestly I find myself reflecting on this year's race and how I was feeling along the way. Perhaps I find myself in a position where if the body is put into a taxing situation with no expectation of "let-up" outside of abandoning the race or crossing the finish line in Atlantic City, then the body will pay the price and will follow the will of the participant, i.e. me.
Team Strong Heart was formed with only the expectation that we finish. Perhaps that is where I will start for next year and then work forward from there. When I tell the story of Team Strong Heart to people who weren't somehow involved in the effort it always strikes me that a word that comes up is "heroic." Maybe David Bowie is right.
And so...I get up each morning with the expectation that the wheels will turn and the arms and legs will burn.
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