Signs of Intelligent Life

I can be a bone-headed person in regular life but throw one of my many obsessions into the picture, reason flees the room screaming and I am absolutely idiotic. Examples abound: when I sit on my bike and my wrist goes out, putting me in excruciating pain, but I decide to ride anyway even though I need both hands to ride that bike and it is a pretty bumpy trail and I rest my wrist on the handlebar and intend to stick with the planned 50-mile day. It takes me until Mile 5, when I have been in tears for 5 miles, and I hit an extremely rough patch, that I realize riding away from the car is a pretty bone-headed move. I could fill the endless space of the disinformation highway with similar examples, but really you don't care about them. My point is this: I did several smart things this week when it comes to biking. I turned back on Mile 5 of a road ride with Lou out in Ligonier and let him do the other 36 miles while I slinked back to the car, got out the easy ramble route directions from the book, and had myself a fine 27-mile ride that was actually fun and pleasant. Astounding. I did it because of Rational Reasons -- we started Way Too Late in the day, it was Very Hilly and it is starting to get Scary Dark earlier than before. Then, five days later, I decided to do only the 44-mile Tour the Montour ride even though we signed up for and intended to do the 62-miler. That was difficult to give up -- it only comes once a year and I really want to challenge myself and only wimps don't do the hardest possible choice available. But I had worked too many late nights in recent weeks with too little sleep and was headed to work right after the ride. And we got on the trail more than an hour later than I wanted. And Lou had already decided to do the veggie route. And really I suppose there is not an absolute need for life to be as difficult as I can make it when there are more pleasant and rewarding options. But I can't let myself think that way -- the only way I keep myself on the straight and narrow is to push myself. It's why I rarely take a day off biking; once I take one day off, it gets easier and easier to take more off. The excuses start to feel like valid reasons and suddenly I turn around and hear myself saying, "It was a little too cold today" or "Yeah, I was just too tired." But actually I am going to pull back from biking a bit and start throwing in more different forms of exercise that don't take every minute of spare time every day -- last week, I swam two days instead of biking. Two days, I hiked with Bandit instead of getting on the Rocket. I am trying to concentrate on making sure I mix in enough weight-bearing activities that I ward off osteoporosis instead of inviting it in the front door with flowers and a hug. But I did give the Rocket a bath today and her gears stopped squeaking. Tomorrow, I fix the bike computer and aim for a good 35 before work.