This hasn’t been the easiest year for me, as readers of the blog well know. Death, illness, and surgery have all taken time and emotional energy.
That’s been followed by a spring of catching up on missed work travel (rescheduled after all the bad things mentioned above.) So much work travel. California twice. Chicago. Austria. Next up: Sweden, Scotland, Calgary. (One of these things is not like the other, I know.)
But all this work travel combined with horrible weather means I haven’t had as much time as I like on my bike. I’ve missed my bike. As denizens of northeast North America know the weather hasn’t been great. So when I don’t have time flexibility and there’s one good day out of four, odds are it hasn’t been a day I can ride.
I didn’t go away on a winter cycling holiday (first world cyclist problem, I know) and I missed our spring training camp. I’m starting out the year slower than I was last year at this time with about a thousand fewer kilometers in the bank. That makes me grumpy and sad. Then there’s the bike rally coming up. I’m not worried about the distances or even about having fun but some of my riding has been sweeping training rides at a much slower pace than I usually ride. In my good training days I’m happy to ride at lots of different speeds. But this spring it feels like it’s been mostly recovery riding with little to recover from. Sweeping and helping out with training rides is a worthwhile task. I’m glad I’m doing it. I’m going to write an uplifting post about that soon. But let me continue to sulk about lost fitness a little longer. Indulge me please.
Oh, if you are feeling sorry for me and want to cheer me up. Please help with fundraising. Go sponsor me here. It’ll cheer me up.
So often when I travel for work and can’t ride, I run. But my knee has been bugging me, especially after long flights.
Then there’s Aikido. Needless to say I haven’t been the most regular attender. There’s a few professors there and we all struggle with how much we travel and the dojo testing rhythm. Today was the day that all the people who’d been training to test (not me) got their new belts. Usually I’m capable of being super happy for good things to happen to people I like. That’s especially true when they’ve worked hard and deserved it. Today though wasn’t one of those times. I know there is nothing I can do about this, other than making Aikido more of a priority in my life. I wish we were better at allowing people room to stay at the same belt level and just train but testing and training to test seems to take up a lot of our time and energy. Given my rolling difficulties and my work schedule, I might be a green belt forever. That’s okay but today I was sad and reminded of this song.
On the bright side, because really I am that kind of person, I’ve done some new things, like boxing and axe throwing. I’ve also kept up with weightlifting thanks to a constant reminder in the form of my athletic weightlifting kid.
But tomorrow and Monday, I ride.
I stopped at green belt for many reasons, and self-forgiveness is necessary for the times when we feel that we are failing our multiple selves. At those times, I find it helpful to tell myself that I may not be doing “my best,” a phrase which inevitably refers to a temporary period in life that we try to make a solid thing, and instead I think I am doing better. Better than I might otherwise do, better than I did at the worst of times, better than I might do in future.
There are goods and bads, and The Best is not always what’s good for our current selves. Thinking of you. Thanks for this post.