i made it

[Deloused in the Comatorium The Mars Volta]

I have the hiccups. What a bitch of a bodily function. At least burps and farts are fun. I can even deal with sneezes as long as I'm not eating. But hiccups are never welcome.

Another birthday has come and gone. Don't even talk to me about it because it's likely to get you a punch in the mouth. Well, actually since I'm a pretty passive guy, you'll actually just get a roll-of-the-eyes and a shrug-of-the-shoulders. But my birthday day was fun thanks to Beer Club and family time. My parents didn't have my bdad written on their calendar (which has EVERYTHING written on it), and when I brought it up, my dad said that he was in charge of the cake (which was excellent, thanks Dad) and that my mom was in charge of the calendar. Way to not take the blame.

Lately I've been feeling pretty slobby and worthless. I haven't been climbing at all since summer, I *puff* *wheeze* whenever I'm riding my bike up to school (a whole mile away. lame), and my gut is...well it's a gut, enough said. It's finally kind of hit boiling point this last week. You know when you can actually see a jet breaking the sound barrier and that cone of condensation gathers around the shock wave?

That's what happened to me last night. I finally got fed up with my inactivity levels. Thanks to the motivation from Sean Door and Run Fatboy Run, I've decided that I need to get out there and get into shape.

This morning I got up early and decided to start running. Then I realized that I hate running. I've never been able to find shoes that don't hurt my feet, I get winded within the first 3 minutes and want to quit, and my knees and hips can't take the high impact (I'm such an old man. damn birthdays). So instead of running, I decided to take a bike ride. It's low impact, your legs will hurt no matter what shoes you wear, and it's practical. Since I ride to school so frequently, it'd be nice if it were an easy ride, not some marathon from hell, especially when it's windy.

So I took a nice, long bike ride from my neighborhood (east of campus) to South Boulder where I grew up. The nice part of doing this is it's all uphill on the way there, so when I get tired, I can just turn around and coast all the way home. I think that this might be an appropriate time to tell you that I've always wanted to ride up to NCAR. I think that Nick and I tried once in high school but gave up half way up. Don't get me wrong, it's not the most strenuous of bike rides, but it's about a mile and a half of pretty highly inclined road which is killer for a non-biker like myself. Since I was already at the base of the climb, I decided to go for it. After the initial quarter mile, I mentally checked out and decided that it was stupid to even try. My speedometer said that I had already gone ~7.5 miles so far, so to push myself I made a goal to get to at least 8 miles before I gave up. I pushed and I pushed and my heart was beating so fast that it almost felt like it had stopped and my legs were on fire. That was the hardest .5 miles I've ever endured on a bike. But a funny thing happened when I got the end of it. My legs had numbed and no longer hurt, and I gained control of my breathing. I began to think that this might actually be possible even though the longest and steepest incline was yet to come. As I kept riding, NCAR began to peek its ugly head (actually it's really pretty thanks to I.M. Pei [see third one down]) over the hillside, and it only motivated me more. The building looks so small and distant from East Boulder, so when it looks huge as you're coming upon it, you really get reminded of the accomplishment you've made.

For the last 200 yards, I think I started to get a "runner's high" sort of feeling. I don't know if it was adrenaline or serotonin or what, but I got a surge of energy and was able to shift into higher gears and sprint to the finish line. After a quick victory lap around the parking lot, I began my descent. The gravely road really didn't look too stable for sustained high speeds, and god knows my near-decade-old bike can't handle much more than me just sitting on it. If I went off a curb, I'm sure it'd turn to dust. So I decided to coast the whole way down, take it easy, relax after my hard ride up. After the first 100 yards of coasting, I looked down at my speedometer only to see that I was already going ≥ 30 mi hr-1. I though, you only live once so I might as well go with this. I pulled my arms in tight and lowered my helmeted head, and began to fly. I doubt that I've ever gone more than 30 on a bike before in my life, so staying above that for over a mile felt pretty awesome. I could barely see because the wind was making my eyes water so badly that tears were streaking backward across my face. My mouth stayed wide open in a smile for the whole thing.

Speedometer stats:

• distance: 13.352 mi
• time: 1:11:58 hr
• max speed: 35.7 mi hr-1
• average speed: 11.2 mi hr-1

The quick version of the Sean Door Story:
He's been a smoker for about 13 years (he's now 26 years old), he quit in January, has since started to run, and has entered into at least one 5k race so far. I occasionally see him running past our house (he lives more than a mile away) and think to myself "If Sean Door can get into shape, I can get into shape." Thanks Sean.