It's been an absolutely hectic week, and I'm thoroughly enjoying elevating my legs for a bit as I write this. It's 10:42 on Friday morning, and I gave myself the day off today. I've spent my morning resting my legs, learning how to swim (in theory - I'll try it in the pool tomorrow), enjoying some jazz music, and making dents on my to-do lists (yes, I have several, and yes, they are "comprehensive"). I feel like I'm starting to catch back up after imposing an easy day on myself yesterday (both with work and with training) and forcing a rest day (no work and no training) on myself today. This may sound a little feeble, but I might have to admit that I ran myself into the ground. Last week I "enjoyed" 24 hours of training, worked 36 hours, and only squeezed in 37 hours of sleep - when that's the case you know you've got issues. I know that my body can take a lot (and I even know that my body can take a week like that), but add those up and you hit a wall pretty quickly. I feel as though I need to be a bit more aware of how my ambition and "I'm 24 and my body can handle it" mentality interact.
All things considered, though. I couldn't be happier. I'm healthy, and comfortable, I have great things on my calendar for the next 12 months (well, 10 - I have no idea what I'm doing next July), and I have better friends and family supporting me than I could ever dream of. All of the hectic and exhausting aspects of my life are reflective only of my own ambitions and doings, and I can live with that.
Fortunately (maybe not the right word), my leaving the Gold's Gym Washington family at the end of the month has leaned down my client load considerably, and I have a fairly relaxed week ahead of me. The down time should allow my mind to refresh itself, allow my body to recover, and allow me to really put some time into the TYB support outreach program. We leave in just over a month, and there's still loads of work to do with regard to sponsorships, equipment support, ride food support, brand marketing, local bike shop networking... ugh. I should stop blogging and get to work.
Our TYB t-shirts are in, and so are our wristbands (check them all out in the photos above). We're selling both items as a way to help support the Border2Border tour - all money raised goes to support the ride and its riders along the way. We're a not-for-profit organization, so if you dig what we're doing and want a cool t-shirt/wristband email me at chris@takeyourbike.org with what you want and your address. Your purchase will help make all of this possible. Tell your friends!
In other personal cycling exploit news, I entered a charity event tomorrow called the Cougar Mountain Hill Climb - a 2 mile time trial up Cougar Mountain at a 7.8% average gradient. My kind of ride. Coupled with the early AM ride there (26 miles including my favorite jaunt around Mercer Island) and the ride home, it should make for a good morning (wasn't I just talking about how I'm overworking myself?). Next weekend is RSVP (the Ride from Seattle to Vancouver... and Party!). I'm doing it with a bunch of friends, and making plenty of new ones. I hope to document it well, since it's sort of a 2-day goofball ride with lots of hydrating with beer, camping, etc. I'll be brining about 400 TYB.org wristbands as well, and hope to spread the word like wildfire.
The next weekend (every weekend I must do something ridiculous, of course) is my first-ever triathlon. I feel overly confident about the bike, good about the run, decent about transitions. I am absolutely wrecked over the swim. I tried swimming two days ago in Green Lake here in sunny Seattle, WA (over 4 weeks straight of no rain to speak of!), and struggled mightily. It's not that I can't swim, it's that I can't swim efficiently (read: well). I need to spend some serious time learning about stroke and breathing in the next 2 weeks if I'm going to do respectably in my first attempt at triathlon. And I'm definitely going to have to spend a lot of time this winter learning how to be efficient in the water if I'm going to achieve my goals at next year's CDA Ironman in June (yes, it's very weird to write about how I'm going to do an Ironman triathlon..).
The notice has been put in at Gold's and Rain in Seattle, and it's time for me to add "find work in Tahoe" to the ad-infinitum to-do lists. Here's to finding work in the fitness industry this winter.
More info to come on the TYB ride, the impending triathlon humbling, and all things life in the next week or so. Say hello sometime, I'm on the Facebook machine.
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