Putting it together

I always think of these things I want to write about but draw a total blank when I sit down to the computer. It's like going to the grocery store sans list - all you needed was a half gallon of milk but you come home with everything but. In the case of the blog it's more like I think of these great, meaningful (to me, anyway) things worth sharing and sit down and just bitch about the weather and talk about how maybe some day I'll get to race my bike again. It probably makes it sound like I regret moving here and I hate it, but that's not the case at all.

I'm actually . . . happy. It's impossible to overstate the effect having a job I love has on my state of mind, and is, if I were to draw a metaphor, the border of the puzzle. I can't start putting together the picture until I have the border in place to support my other endeavors, both financially and emotionally. And as almost anyone who would read this knows, it takes huge financial and emotional support to race bikes seriously.

On the employment front, too, it's looking like Cody has a great new job, too! Working as a field hydrogeologist for an environmental consulting firm in Boston. That's just what he wanted - field work, no report writing or desk time. The thought of us both having good jobs that we like at the same time is almost unfathomably radical.

The other pieces are falling into place, too. I have a partner who totally supports my endeavors, and a family who continues to support them from afar. We have a great network of friends here who, though none want to go ride road bikes with me when it's below 70 degrees out, make for some great company. We finally have our house set up to have some pretty basic amenities that it heretofore lacked, such as running water when it's freezing out (the hose that had formerly run from the main house to the barn freezes solid in the winter, as you can imagine) and a toilet. If you've ever had the chance to live without running water in your house or plumbing you'll understand what a relief it is to not have to run outside to pee in the middle of the cold dark night. It makes you appreciate how totally freaking awesome it is that we live in an era and a country where we have running water, and how precious it is. I tend to go off on people who I think are wasting water, and maybe you can understand why.

Anyway.

But what about the brutal winter weather, you ask? It is tough. I love riding my bike more than almost anything, and it's tough to be unable to do so. Sure I could ride the trainer, but I always thought of the trainer as only acceptable for maintaining fitness. I'm not going to try to build base on it. No freaking way. If that means I don't have good fitness until June, well, that's just fine. I'm also lucky because I like to do lots of things that don't involve 2 wheels. I'll always come back to the bike, but if I'm running a lot in the winter, maybe getting in a couple days XC skiing or snowboarding, lifting the weights that I didn't lift in the fall when I usually do, doing push-ups on a freezing beach on Superbowl Sunday while dog walkers give me a wide berth because I'm obviously insane, well, that's OK too. If I end up not racing as much road, which I love more than chocolate (for reals, and I love chocolate a lot), and racing a ton of cyclocross, maybe a MTB race here and there, maybe a 10 K run, maybe (oh dear god) a triathlon, I think that's a fine compromise for having everything else in life otherwise pretty well sorted. I get all antsy seeing how everyone's racing out west, but my time will come, I just need a bit of patience.