A post in 2008?

Insert here the groaning sound Krusty the Clown makes each time he realizes what an incompetent entertainer he is... As I myself realize what an incompetent blogger I am. "You're supposed to write in the thing!" they tell me. I see.

Well, it's just that I've been too busy trying to recover the cycling conditioning I had a month ago. I spent the last week figuring out which way is up after taking the previous two weeks to go sailing in Maine. By "sailing" I actually mean "motoring through the rain with the sails up", but that's neither here nor there. The week prior to the aforementioned trip, I was packing and preparing. Mostly I was not riding.

I had been doing a fair bit of mountain biking and was feeling pretty solid about my conditioning and my meager skills. I rode Lincoln Woods a couple times and not only didn't break myself, I even discovered a couple of new trails to mix up my typical route. I also spent an afternoon getting semi-lost in the dust of Big River. I rode fast and I rode well. Back in early July I had a ride in Arcadia that was borderline epic. Started with brutal suffering on the Mt. Tom trail, then amazing riding on the Arcadia trail and some others I don't know by name, then finished with a log (not a stick, a full-on log) going through my rear derailleur on the Breakheart Trail. How appropriate... Truly satisfying adventures, all.

Then, along comes a wonderful vacation and mucks it all up. In life we take two steps forward and then sometimes one step back. So, to recover from my vacation I've been trying to ride more frequently and I've even started running on the days I don't ride. We'll see how long this lasts but it's fun to say. "Yes, I've started running. I figure if I actually train for the Mews 5k in November I'll kick everybody's ass..."

The real reason has nothing to do with the Mews 5k, the Blackstone River Greenway Challenge, or any other vaguely competitive mess of an adventure. Instead it's because I have discovered a new friend. I call him Luther and he lives around my waist. He sprang into existence sometime recently but I'm not sure exactly when. He feeds mostly on beer and cheese and inactivity. Other people tend not to notice Luther, but I always see him. Perhaps it's because of the angle I'm viewing him from. Luther is literally weighing me down, but he's also now fueling my bicycling. And my running. It's crazy. I have a new appreciation for how easy it must be for women to develop body image issues. I weigh myself once, discover that I've bulked up to 181 pounds, and all of a sudden I'm trying to be Mr. Fitness. Crazy. All I want is to be able to jump on a bike and ride it with some competence and not feel like I'm going to puke while it's happening.

It's not that bad, but there's work to do...