Another day….another day!  Trying to get back into the rhythm of riding has taken more than a few days.  I really thought I was ready for March for Babies, but as it turns out, I wasn’t.  I decided to take some time off from riding my bike, thinking that it would give me an opportunity to chi-lax, cool the engines, etc, etc….  Truth of the matter, I was hoping a day would turn into a week, a week a month and BOOM! winter is here and all of my grand ideas would go by the wayside, eaten by a small village of termites. 

I had some very good excuses…my bike sucks, can’t get enough calories, I got too many calories, I’m tired, I haven’t eaten, I just ate…yes, awful…but, everything was meant to simply stay off the bike.  My attitude was really blown for a few days.  Some of my insanity comes from doubt.  The training rides have been going slow, and quite honestly, I’m tired of being dropped.  A buddy has suggested my bike is too heavy, someone else said it’s probably because I’m too heavy, and another opinion chimed in that the engine (me) needs a tune-up (code for higher level of fitness).  The real reason is probably squeezed somewhere in between.  But true to being on a stay-cation, I didn’t think about any of these things while sitting on my backside sipping lemonade and chi-laxing.  I tried not to think, again, hoping that everything would drift away.

I was like this for a week.  No training, eating crap, and lounging.  Even before my self-imposed break, I was struggling to move everything forward.  What’s everything…training, fund-raising, and writing.  In my world of thinking…I need to be on my bike 4 days a week, I’ve been mustering 2-3 days; I need to get flyers on cars or in hands every weekend, I made it out 2 weekends in April, I need to write daily, I’m penning something every 3 days or so.  I didn’t think about any of this while on my mini-sabbatical.  I try to stay away from patting myself on the head and saying ”it’ll be alright”, but I did begin to think “what’s the point, I’ll never get more people to care”.  How do you convince 1 person to tell another, and another…. 

I know I was ready to give up and stop trying.  Accept failure and ride my bike when I had time, eat clean, but not too clean, relax and spend more time with the family.  I was ready to take this step until I watched this E60 special on ESPN that featured Seun Adebiyi, a young man who wanted to represent his country in the Olympics.  After failing to make it in his primary sport, he decided to try his hand at Skeleton.  He was diagnosed with a rare form of cancer before he could compete.  Dude went through a lot, so much that he thought he would die.  The story ended without tears, which is good, but the thing that resonated with me was his take on why he was trying to make it to the Olympics.  A big part of it was pride for country, but the other part…significant part, was that it was important to him.  He went through several surgeries and chemo just to have the opportunity.  That night, I pulled out my bike, set it up on the trainer and got back to work. 

I made a promise to Shiloh and I’m certain he’s not concerned with meeting a fund-raising goal, time-limit goal, or any other goal.  I’m hoping that he would expect his father to keep his promise and simply ride for him.  Everyday ends in failure or success, but you can’t have one without the other.  The only think you can control is your effort.  Negative  or positive, it’s the effort that produces the result.  I have this saying….”you have to move your B.S. to the side to get to where you’re going”.  Timely quote to remember.