Dreaming of a Life Less Ordinary

  Nothing new on Race Day!   I have a saying engraved on my brain from years of doing Team in Training Events.  The coaches were really quite wonderful, and I will remember the stuff they taught me for the rest of my life.  Team in Training not only gave me great coaching but gave me a new family but kept me in California for an additional 20 years or so.  Anyway, before I get sidetracked in that lets focus on what is engraved in my brain.  You finish marathons on your arms not on your legs.  Add sports drink after one hour after starting.  Perhaps more importantly than anything else is nothing new on race day.  It is something that I tried to live by.  I use the same sports drink, never drink what they have at a race.  I eat the same thing on each ride.  I have the same breakfast.  So on and so forth.  Most importantly, though, I make sure whatever I wear on the day of the event has been worn before.  So, when I was going out last Friday for what I thought was the last 60 miler before

  Four Weeks Out Now…   Last weekend was the last LONG training ride before the century ride on October 14.  From a weather perspective we could not have asked for better weather.  It was cool most of the day.  Best riding weather we have had in a long time.  The weather topped out at 75 degrees.  It was not too windy, and the sun hide itself until very late in the day.  Overall great riding conditions for the last long ride before the event.   I think last Saturday showed me just how stupid people can be and how they don’t pay much attention.  This goes for both people riding bikes and behind the wheel of cars.  Maybe I am just losing my faith in humanity because, so any people don’t call out when they are passing on the bike. More likely than not that I really do believe had I not been out riding the bike on Saturday a man would have been killed.    To get out to Manning you must ride out North Livermore to a dead man’s curve.  This curve recommends that you take it at no more than 1

  IV The Times They Are a Changing: What’s Next?   For the first time in a long time, I have no idea of what is next for me once I settle in Bloomington.  Will I find another remote finance job?  Will I take the time to write the great American novel?  Will I do temp work and try to round out my other accounting skills?  Will I do something else like a podcast for overweight people trying to find ways to find long-term health at any size ?  Will I try and find a bike store and buy it?  Will I open my own Doggy Day Care?  The sky is the limit.  I have so much talent that I could do just about anything or who knows perhaps I will do it all.   I don’t have everything figured out and I am ok with that.  If I have learned anything during my 24 years in California it is that I will find my way.  I always do.  I am resilient and driven, and when I put my mind to something, I can accomplish it. I don’t have to have all the I’s dotted and T’s crossed, that is the great thing about how hard I ha

III The Times They Are a Changing: When? I am leaving California on a high note or at least a long one.  The plan and timing are for me to leave California around October 20 th .    This is approximately 6 days after my Century Ride in Sacramento.  I can’t think of a better way to spend my last couple of months in California than finishing up the training for my 100-mile bike ride and I can’t think of a higher note to leave on than finishing such an awesome event.    Anyone who has been reader of this blog knows that I have dedicated much of this year to cycling.  I am on the bike usually 4 days a week.  Usually, it is three days indoors on the TACX with Justified or Futurama on in front of me.  Then on weekends, a long ride with the Beav.  So, I see a lot of the California countryside each weekend, it is amazing.  For me it is the best way to say good-bye.     Things are already in motion.  I have pretty much sold my home, hoping to finalize the paperwork on that today.  I have moving

 Kirkwood Ave looking towards Downtown II The Times They Are a Changing: Btown   I looked all over the US trying to find a place to move.  Look, as much as I love California, it is expensive.  I feel like the only way I can comfortably stay in California is if I keep working high stress jobs.  That way I can make the income needed to afford my mortgage. Since time is precious, I am not so sure I want to spend all my time working high stress jobs. So, during the pandemic, I started looking around at other places to live.    I covered the map.  I promise you I did. For a long time, I was going to Boise, Idaho.  They say Boise has perfect climate, even though they get snow.  Then, for a time, I was going to go to Reno, Nevada.  For a period, I was going to Vegas.  Then I was convinced I was going to go to my initial destination out west of Denver.  Even looked up a lot of houses in the Denver area.  I even thought about going to Austin and opening a doggy daycare with my buddy Mike.  Then

I The Times They Are a Changing: This is Not Failure   I’ve made a decision. The first thing you must know is that this decision is not based on failure.  I know this because I have failed before.  Have I ever told you that?  I don’t know.  I failed in 1997 in Maastricht.  I know what you are thinking, losing your mind isn’t failure, but it was to me.     I was a small-town kid if you consider Terre Haute small.   I always did.  It is not Clay City small, or Vandalia small, but when you grow up there you constantly feel like the walls are closing in on you.  At 18, I moved to Bloomington for college.  During that move, there were signs I was carrying burdens with me.  I didn’t really understand them then.  There was the insomnia.  The constant fear of heart attacks.  Thinking I wasn’t breathing.  I was an anxious 18-year-old.   Too  stressed out for the years that I have lived.    Fast forward three years and four thousand miles across the Atlantic Ocean.  I still remember the first pa

  76.6     9/9/2023    Hard riding on the 9th.  It wasn’t so much the 76.6 miles but a combination of not being as well rested as I would have liked, being a little hotter than I like, and only having one ride last week due to travel.     I was excited to try out my new big feet jersey and socks!  I finally found a pair of Bigfoot socks worthy, and I found it at the same time I bought my second big foot jersey.     I took Kona to doggy daycare on Saturday.  That was a first.  The taking her on Saturday, not the day care.  My Angel is spoiled rotten and goes to daycare pretty much every weekday.  I love that they make such a fuss over her at camp.  They raced up front to see which one could take her back and ended up keeping her upfront with them for a while. I knew Saturday was going to be a long ride, and I was nervous about having her be alone for 8 hours so, I decided daycare was her best option and one that put my mind at ease.     David and I left for the ride around 9 and we woul

  Make it shorter but hillier, make it hard!   “Make it shorter but hillier, I want it to be challenging, Billy, Make it hard!”  I am misquoting Coach Jenn here but that was the jest of what she said to me last Thursday about my Friday long ride.  I had mapped out 75 miles.  She wanted me to keep it to 58, but she also wanted me to make it hard.  So, I went back to the drawing board and changed things up.  I mean my elation at the statement make it shorter was very short lived and completely offset by the statement make it hillier and make it hard.  Again, paraphrasing here.  I can’t recall the exact words.  Shorter, hillier, and hard, was what I took away from it, and that is what I went to map my ride and did.    Of course, I made another mistake, and I asked her how hilly she wanted it, and she said 2,800 feet, since I had struggled at around the 2,400 mark a few weeks earlier.  I worked on mapping rides for hours and I couldn’t come up with a ride that met the 58-mile threshold and