Jingle Cross and lessons learned.

Photo by bahumut  - instagram.com/bahumut/

Quietly ensconced in my loft. I am back from the biggest cyclocross race on my schedule, Jingle Cross. Steel cut oats with cinnamon, cherries and walnuts are bubbling on the stove top, my sustenance before I head out for a ride on this uncharacteristically warm December day. I have a few hours to reflect before I hit the ground running in search of work.
In the past, athletic achievement has been the gauge of how I was doing on the grand scale. It was the one area of my life that I felt that I could shape and as long as I had that by the tail, the rest was gravy.

But the reality was that the balance was off. Way off.

During race #1 on Friday night at Jingle Cross, I achieved my very first dfl… Dead Fucking Last. The starkness of it came flooding in as I stood at the foot of the monster known as Mt. Krumpit. Unable to walk for a minute as the mud had turned my feet into heavy birds nests. While children heckled me from the side of that long muddy climb, I stood there looking up, feeling defeated and wondering if this was how it was all going to end. Did I somehow miss my cue to bow out gracefully?

I was not having fun. I was not in peak condition. Mentally, I had been checked out for the entire season no matter how hard I kept trying to kick-start it. And there in that mud hole, I finally gave myself permission to stop the self-flogging.

Sometimes all the hard work and preparation in the world won't stop things from happening and the harder you hold on and fight, the further away you find yourself from the goal. It’s the end of the season and I know that a serious reframing of this entire experience is necessary.

Perspective.

This was the year that everything ground down to a halt. Nothing, absolutely nothing has come easy to me. As the silver in my hair increased, I turned my attention from all the usual avenues of escape and finally stopped running, or at least running as fast, from the work I knew I was going to have to do. The inner work.

Yeah… that work.

So, athletics, my buffer and anesthetizer, for the first time ever… has had to take a back seat while I am figuring out a new way of thinking, and being, with myself and others.

A year and a half ago, the beginning of the relinquishment of the demons that have driven me, felt like death. This year, I have been learning how to think for myself apart from my activities, or a job or my relationships. That isn’t to say I can’t return and enjoy sport. It just needs to be better balanced when I do come back. And, I will be back, after the reasons I do this in the first place get a serious retooling. That goes for the other areas of my life as well.

This is a good place… the correct place for me to be right now.

And Then the Devil Comes out of Nowhere.

 "The sharp edge of a razor is difficult to pass over; thus the wise say the path to salvation is hard,"

So, I participated in a local ride, a fundraiser for Aids. A very good cause, put on by incredibly motivated and gifted people. It was a great ride, a wonderful day and a lot of money was raised. It was also a day where I was surrounded by alcohol at every turn. Normally, not a problem. After a couple of hours I found myself increasingly on guard... the vibrant colors and the hard-to-define smoke and lime scent of the iced margaritas mixed with that of lemon, orange and sultry aroma of the cheap pinot used to make the sangria were beginning to take a toll.

Sometimes a relapse is that simple. The mine fields present themselves when I am at my most relaxed and unaware.

I could see the noose out of the corner of my eye. A line from the 1984 movie "The Razors Edge" came to me. When, Sophie, faced with the bottle of absinthe, as her old but jealous friend, Isabel, was savoring the amber colored drink before her, extolling its virtues. "It's like listening to music by moonlight" she said.

And I know that is all it would take, just that one. And the truth of the matter is, I don't know if I would come back.

One Simple Word

You have just one word to describe yourself. If you could describe yourself all encompassed, really quickly, sum yourself up, in one simple word. What would that word be? For me? That's easy. 

At this time in my life the word would be: Wanderer. 

My city

The weather is glorious and the beauty of being a freelancer is that I can slide out and get in it anytime I want. Somehow, the mail always gets through and the boss is not going to miss me for an hour or two.

Cyclocross practice started a few days ago and my legs are feeling the deep ache from running for the first time in months... so I took it easy and made some time to look at the sites that surround me on my daily rides. One of my favorite parts of a ride is heading back east on Woodsweather road, past the River Bend Antique Flea Market and up the decrepit old bridge that takes me under the Broadway and up to my pad.

It gives me the warm fuzzy's... being surrounded by all these structures that hail back to the industrial revolution, random art and chunks of old carnivals along the side of the road, street people and vendors who I recognize from months of riding here. The sounds of rail cars coming through and the smell of fall settling in has different connotations for me now than it did at this time last year. It feels like anything is possible and that my turn is coming.

Old Kansas City, at its best.

The genuine article

Serious Mother F*ckers. 

When we see them, we know it. They don’t come around often. They are like the wild second cousins that my mother would not allow in the house because she was afraid of them and their effect on me while all I could do was stare in slack-jawed admiration. I think she knew the battle was already lost. If you are very lucky, you might have one who exists on the periphery.

I’m not too proud to say that I still aspire to this level of badassery in my own life. Every day.

Writing myself alive: The year I said "F*ck it."

 

This is what I have been doing, since August 1, 2014. Daily. Without fail. Even if it is just a sentence or two. 

 

I gave myself the permission to let it come. Sometimes tightly edited. Sometimes in messy little uncensored piles that weren’t much to look at and made me wonder just what the hell I was thinking.
I’d look, close the door on it and move to the next day, and the next one after that, until I had a pretty big pile of thoughts, poems, story’s and mixed up balls of words that I didn’t know what to do with.

But there it was. My year.

I was able to go back through all of it, pick up the thread and see where it was leading to. The struggle, all the sentences, words and ideas were leading me back... to a version of me that I wasn’t quite sure of yet.

Stronger, more sure, able to be still and listen.
Iron, reshaped and fresh out of the forge.
Smoke, still rolling off of my shoulders.

Sometimes you have to travel to places that are unfamiliar and far away in order to do the work that has got to be done. Nobody needs to understand or approve. It’s just you, giving yourself time and attention.

I’m not finished with this chapter yet, but I am coming to the end and knocking the final edges off.

Why do you ride?

I am putting in crazy, long bike miles this week as I head into the final two days of the Mariposa Challenge, a 31 day, online women's cycling event put on by Sram. I have 250 miles in for the week, going for another 75-100 miles today and more tomorrow. Currently for Kansas, I'm tied for third place. This is just the background noise though. The river that runs through my life necessitates it. My pound of flesh.

Been doing a lot of thinking on these rides... about the nature of competition. And beyond that, why I push so hard, when is enough, enough... what that means and why I do it.  I'll be sharing those thoughts at a future date.
 
It's always about feeding the right wolf, isn't it?


https://www.sram.com/stories/mariposa-challenge

Top O' the Mornin' to ya

 

Everybody's got to start the day with a ritual and this is mine. Not even sure the stuff works on this old bod anymore but sure do love it. The velo boys, (Max and Dustin) at City Market Coffee Roasters take care of me and know to call when they roast this "micro lot". It's so much like real Kona that the only difference is the price. Bike people stick together and they spoil me rotten

I freaking love my life down here by the river. The West and East Bottoms have a soul. Started to realize I was home a few weeks back. It's a good feeling, to belong somewhere. People look at my rides on Strava and wonder how I come out of them alive. I don't know if it's the Boulevard kit, my skin color or the fact that I can look as mean as a bag of hornets, but I have come to relish my inner city explorations. I think it is as simple as treating people right. Always tip your hat and have respect for the turf that you are on... and also, deep in my bones, I know I am on ancestral land and that makes it my territory too.

The rain is starting to come down in the old KCMO... I believe I just may go out and ride in it.

The past does not equal the future.

Don't ask me how I know this. Maybe it is from being around for a long while. When I decide to let the things I don't need (anger, aggression or old pain in any form that makes me do shit that sets me back.) to burn away - I move forward with this new feeling where I know in my gut that what happened to me, no longer defines tomorrow.

We all get the short end of the stick. We all do. That's just life.
Understand it. Honor it. Then let it go.
Let. It. Go.  

This morning was all about things not going as planned.

Never smart to count chickens before they hatch. Expectations are like wayward bullets… and pointing the gun at your foot. You can work your ever-living ass off into the ground and it is still no guarantee that you will get the job, the relationship will be saved, the brass ring snatched off of the pole.
One thing I can do is approach all things with the common sense I have been given and see that i am entitled to absolutely nothing. Zip. Nada.
The chicken count is low but it’s ok.

Realizing this is an opportunity to see how good I actually do have it… and that I am the original comeback kid.

"White line's in the middle of the road,

... that's the worst place to drive."

Feed the right Wolf.