Christmas

Yes, Christmas. It's snowing outside, the NFL is on TV today, and I ate entirely too much food for breakfast. It's just like Christmas.

The training week is going well, and I feel as though my body is starting to catch up to the demands I'm imposing on it. 25 hours a week is a lot for a body to get used too. I'm loving the new bike more and more every day, and it seems as though this investment has fueled my desire to succeed on the bike more so then ever. My view of the wonderful two-wheeled machine is changing slowly, from just a way to get around to that and so much more - a fitness tool, a weapon in competition, a benchmark to measure one's self with. You can spend all the time working on the vanity of physical appearance, but I know how true it is that you're only as fit as your heart and lungs.

My days have been consisting of a lot of training, a lot of resting, a lot of reading books (I'm in the middle of Timothy Findley's "Famous Last Words", a riveting novel about an eccentric author's life and demise in the madness of WW2), and a lot of chocolate milk and peanut butter. Admit it, you wish you could copiously imbibe chocolate milk by the gallon as a part of your fitness protocol. Bike more, and you probably can (gratuitous plug for takeyourbike.org).

Touching on the TYB front, things are progressing. We're refining our website daily, building our support base, jumping through all of the legal hoops that are involved with setting up a NPO (trust me, there are many), and fine tuning our promotions efforts as they pertain to our Border2Border tour this fall. Realizing that most of the population can't drop their job and other obligations for 5-6 weeks and bike down the Pacific coast, we're going to be marketing and organizing "minitours" such as Seattle-Portland, San Francisco-LA, and LA-San Diego. The main benefits of this move include appeal to local/regional sponsors (local bike shops, bike clubs, and other startup advocacy groups) and accessibility to our target market (the real commuters, for a whom a 2-3 day bike trip is within reach amidst their life priorities). This is most definitely a growing process, and one that I'm rather enjoying at that. The options of the world never cease to humble me by shedding light on that which I don't know.

It's astounding how a simple snowfall and the right song can define a mood for a day... my optimism and enthusiasm today is proof of that. Do yourself a favor and take a listen to Nada Surf's "Inside of Love". It's worth making the time.