Blogs by Professional Cyclists - Professional Cycling Unplugged™

Last Friday, I was instructed to do the following:

(Play along!)

1. Think of the thing in your life that you are most grateful for in THIS SECOND.  This is THE FIRST thing that comes to mind—it is not your most significant life blessing, just whatever in this second that you feel first.

2. Then, think SO HARD about that one thing that you can physically feel your happiness and gratitude for this small element throughout your whole body.  You are able to sit–or stand or walk–thinking only about how grateful you are for something, anything, in your life.

Way cool.

When I did this exercise, honestly, the first thing that came to mind was the Colorado winter waiting for me outside.  The December air right now is delicious.  It tastes like snow and holidays and family and it is so fresh.  It is my mental lucidity (in a gaseous state of matter, ha ha!)—because when I breathe it in, everything seems clearer and more perfect. 

In Heidi, by Johanna Spyri, Clara (an invalid who cannot walk) is brought to live with Heidi and her grandfather on the side of a mountain in the Alps.  Because Clara cannot climb higher on the mountain there to see it for herself, Heidi gives a description of the even greater natural splendor at higher altitudes for her friend, because (and oh my gosh, actually read this, because it is BEAUTIFUL):

only higher up could the full glory of the colors be rightly seen; and more particularly did she dwell on the beauty of the spot on the higher slope of the mountain, where the bright golden rock- roses grew in masses, and the blue flowers were in such numbers that the very grass seemed to have turned blue, while near these were whole bushes of the brown blossoms, with their delicious scent, so that you never wanted to move again when you once sat down among them.

The mountain air and lifestyle, ultimately, physically strengthens Clara, and she is so inspired by Heidi’s passion that she is able to walk to see the sunset in the high goat pasture herself.  The vitality in mountain air is real and it is more present in the winter, I think… maybe because even the air itself has a physical form this time of year.  Really–when it snows it is precipitating tangible magic!  No! Seriously! Think of it this way… I am shoveling magic… I just got magic in my boots… I am going to go scrape the magic off of my car… I would go make a MAGIC ANGEL in my driveway, as I am feeling inspired, but my snow pants are somewhere in my parents’ basement.  And I like my pajama pants dry and fuzzy.  I am grateful for that too.

I shall now relate this to bicycles.  In two ways.  To begin with, a picture is worth a thousand words…  so, this is what I saw on my ride Thursday:

and also

And a thousand words (actually a bit less), presenting my most super-duper awesome training and racing tip of ALL TIME:

When I was little, they had this funny book in Sunday School called “The Great Me and the Little Me”.  Basically, the idea is that you breathe out all of your air, and when you do that, you intentionally breathe out all of the negativity and staleness in you.  Then you breathe in and you breathe in fresh air and positive thoughts and your best health.  Plus, there are sweet Great Me Little Me floating heads illustrations:

My yoga instructor reminded me of this exercise last week as she urged us to breathe in joy and lightness and breathe out worry and self doubt.  Just in and out over and over and over.

I kid you not… I do this when the bicycling gets hard.  I breathe in the fresh air around me and breathe out fear, stress, pain…whatever.  Not only does this clear one’s head, but it simply redirects focus—you get more oxygen, which cant hurt, and instead of thinking of whatever the problem was, you are thinking only about breathing—and breath is something each person controls for him or herself.  That is my secret tip.

Time to go shovel magic… the couple across the street already cleared their sidewalk while I typed this… and if little old lady with Sunday morning hair and a fur edged coat can get out there, I suppose I can as well.  

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I think I will go on a ride soon.  It is morning.  It is sunny outside.  Tuesday it was 78 degrees Fahrenheit, Thursday it was 32, and I think today it is 54.  Goodness, I love the Colorado weather—though as a result of its predictable variability there is a large variety of cycling clothes on the floor of my room, ranging from short sleeve to thermal. 

  I am happy because I see THIS every DAY!!

I am going to have some more coffee.  With Ovaltine in it.  Embarrassed confession: it is half-caff.  And I just typed half-caff.  But it’s my third cup, so I think I will probably come out about even.  And I am eating peanut butter, but it isn’t just peanut butter out of the jar, it is peanut butter out of a plastic bulk container—the grocery store up the street from my house just remodeled and they added a new natural foods section and it has a bulk grinder.  It is my HOME grocery store.  It’s the same King Soopers that I went to when I was little and my dad would entertain me by sending me on “secret missions” to find products on the other side of the store. 

Or else maybe I will go to yoga.  The yoga studio is only a 5 minute bike ride from my house…though you have to ride past a large swath of open space to get to the studio and my friend mentioned the other day how every time he rides past that area he thinks about a mountain lion jumping out of the bushes.  He grew up with me in Boulder too, so he knows.  Mountain lions are my number one fear in the world—in both legitimate and ridiculous situations—but this one actually makes sense, because it backs up to the mountains.  I think that was a mean thing of him to say.  And mountain lions are aren’t the only danger on the Broadway Bike Path, because, as I rode down that section last Friday night (without a bike light), a fellow cyclist snuck up behind me in the dark, and yelled at me, saying that not using a light puts us all at risk… yeah, maybe, but THEN I noticed that he wasn’t wearing a helmet.  So I told him helmets were good for safety too.  And he showed me one particular finger and sped off.  I don’t know which is worse for my bike path safety—the other commuters or the mountain lions.  Luckily, for my 23^rd birthday last week my mom gave me bike lights, so I am a little better off now.  Maybe I just need a noisemaker to scare off the lions… like a bicycle bell.  Or else just a maraca.  Or a kazoo.

 Here is what I am terrified of

I also need a haircut.  I have been going to the same woman, Tina Garcia, ever since I was in kindergarten.  But Tina is quite popular—one of those appointments-in-advance kinds of ladies—and I need a haircut now.  As in today.  My in-a-pinch alternative is the Zing Hair Salon on Pearl Street, which I selected mostly because there was this article in our newspaper the Daily Camera about how she dyed her poodle pink for breast cancer awareness and then got cited for animal abuse.  To digress: I LOVE the Daily Camera.  Another confession: Reading it is my favorite part of the day.  Maybe that is how I end up getting up at 6:30 in the morning and retrieving my paper at the same time as the elderly couple across the road.  Or maybe that is just because I am secretly 80 years old on the inside—currently disguised as a college student, or a bike racer, or whatever I am these days.

Other things to do: 

Bake turkey shaped cookies I saw in the Pillsbury Thanksgiving ad this morning.

 You cannot deny their coolness!

Work on a paper for school, on environmental sustainability in developing countries.  My brain has been bored, and I am SO excited to work on this. 

Or else just take advantage of my most recent acquisition—a Martha Stewart holiday craft catalogue…a thought which segues into daydreaming about when my Real Simple subscription will start coming (it was my present to myself for not driving my car for two weeks).

I could also play with my now-sleeping-kitten. 

Watch Christmas specials on TV, and delight in the fact that I get to spend the WHOLE holiday season with my family, in my beautiful state, by my beautiful mountains. 

Or else go rent Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants II. 

Potentially clean up all of the cycling clothes on my floor?  No. 

See my dad sing in church choir. 

Remember to water my orchid.

Use my Lululemon birthday gift card (!!!!!!!). 

Fix the double flat on my commuter bike that I got from a patch of bull-thorns, and while doing so, think about where those might have been so as to avoid them next time.  Consider the impending purchase of winter flannel sheets, and whether I want grown-up plain blue ones or the neat ones with snowmen and penguins. 

So I throw little balls of newspaper at the kitten.  Drink a bit more half-caff.  Pull the hood up on my sweatshirt.  Get up, get moving.

My dear Chinook, light of my life

Much to accomplish.  It is Sunday morning.  I am home, in Boulder, Colorado… and whatever I do with my day, to me that is the best news in the world

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