Motivation Fail

So I was in Chicago, and then I had a nasty cold, and now ... well, now I'm just lazy.

Sometimes, it is surprisingly hard to get back into the routine when you've taken essentially a solid week off.

It's not that I don't want to ride.  I do.  I'm just having a hard time getting out of the house.  Once out, I'm fine.

DD has been concerned about air quality issues, and I have been just plain old tired.  Not as tired as I was last week, during my beastly-but-brief summer cold, but still tired.  Last night, I slept for eleven hours; the night before, nine.  I think the two extra hours last night might have resulted from taking some 'night time' cold medicine to ward off both a scratchy throat and the effects of way too many Diet Cokes at dinner (once again, oops). 

Sedatives (including first-generation antihistamines) tend to hit me like a ton of bricks.  I apparently have an unusually poor blood-brain barrier or something :)  Anyway, this morning, while struggling against what felt like an avalanche of sleep, I dreamed again and again about waking up and being frustrated that I had slept so late.  I also dreamed my house was totally different, and awesome, but that's neither here nor there.

It's also possible that I simply scheduled too many hours on the bike in the same week that I went to Chicago, thus overdoing it by a significant margin.  I did meet my goal of 3.5 hours after a fashion, much of which was spent climbing.  Perhaps this week I'll focus on riding a little more gently, and set my goal at perhaps 4 hours (which will be easily attainable, assuming I actually succeed in completing those errands I need to complete this week).

I once discussed the challenge of getting your bike started on a steep climb: that's kind of how I'm feeling right now, except I'm not sure how to get sideways across this imaginary incline in such a way as to regain my motivation and my momentum.  Right now, gravity is winning a bit.  I am actually not particularly looking forward to a forty-mile trek (to school and back) that I have planned for this week, which strikes me as a bit unusual: the ride to school is a nice one, and since when do I not relish the thought of riding forty miles?

I suppose caffeine might do the trick. 

That said, I have been making use of some of this period of not wanting to leave the house -- I've straightened up a bit around here, and I've been experimenting in the kitchen (last week, I made a vegan chocolate cake -- not because it was vegan, but because it was the only recipe I had for the requested 'small cake' -- and it was good!).  Of course, indulging my 'foodie' side during a period of not riding might not be ideal (though I'm maintaining my trim, and keeping an eye on calorie intake).

On Saturday, I worked at Fourth Street.  During a slow period in the morning, I removed and degreased Hg's chain, scrubbed it out, popped it back on and lubed it, tweaked my gearing a little bit (finally fixed the front derailleur issue, so now when I ask for the big ring I get the big ring, and not a bike chain around my ankle), and removed and flipped my stem.  It appears to be about plum level right now, though I haven't yet taken a spirit level to it. 

This means the bars are now a bit lower relative to the saddle, which -- I think -- improves Hg's fit and handling a bit.  The rear derailleur, which I forgot to address, still needs a minor adjustment, and I still need to replace my seatpost -- but once those bits are done, Hg will be in prime shape.

And now, having said all that, I really need to go to the bank -- so I'm going to drag the bike out of the house and hit the bank, and with any luck that will snap me out of my stupor and get the blood flowing again.

Hurray for Small Goals

I am still feeling a little overwhelmed.  I may have mentioned that my therapist observed that I've taken on an awful lot of late, and haven't left myself much room for the activities that I find refreshing.

I've realized that I'm a person who needs open spaces in my life -- probably more than most people.  I enjoy company, but I'm very much an introvert: I recharge by being alone.

It really helps to have unstructured time to ride my bike, take naps, read, sit in the bath for an hour (and read), do housework (I find housework enjoyable, when I'm not trying to cram it in to an already-overfull schedule), play music, or whatever.  Right now, those open spaces are too few and far between: I'm struggling with the same problem I had when I worked for the bank.  I don't see any gaps in my calendar for a long time.  There are people who thrive under those conditions (I respect their endurance; my Mom is one of them, and continues to amaze me) and people who wither.  I'm a witherer :)

So what, you may be asking, does this have to do with goals?

Well, I realized I'm going to have to revise my approach to achieving my 2011 goals if I want to actually do so without imploding by mid-April.

First, I've decided that my weight-loss goal (which isn't in that list) -- while I do intend to pursue it in earnest -- needs to be broken down to a bare minimum.  I mean to whittle off 30 pounds by the start of 'cross season: a goal I could, at this point, achieve even at a rate of just over one pound lost per week, since 'cross season starts in September.  One pound a week seems doable (though somehow I magically gained four pounds last week, meaning my net weight change for February was +1 lb -- oy vey).

I do think I will need to make careful food choices and track calories until I start meeting my riding goals, but that shouldn't be a big problem, since I'm planning to do so anyway.  Instead of 'giving something up' for Lent, I've decided to use this period of reflection and renewal to focus on eating more sustainably (I eat less meat, for example, than a lot of people, but more than I really need) and making better food choices (shouldn't be too hard, as I have been craving leafy things and fruits like mad of late). 

Because of problems with vitamin B12 absorption, I don't think I'm going to try going vegetarian, but I do think I will try eating a mostly-lacto-ovo-vegetarian diet and limiting meat or fish to once or twice a week.  As I step up the mileage later in the spring, I will probably have to revise a bit, but I'm okay with that.  I'm not anti-meat, just anti-mindlessness.

My goals for this particular project are to eat more mindfully, reduce my environmental footprint, eat more locally (we're looking into a CSA share, but we might just do it the lazy way and hit the farmer's market instead), save money (we eat out too much; we could take the money we save and buy more bike stuff help fight hunger here in Kentucky ... okay, and buy more bike stuff ^.^') and improve my own health.  Part of this process, for me, will be keeping track of what I'm eating.

I'm also setting my March distance goal at 300 miles, with long ride goals of no more than 40 miles.  This is lower than my initial goal of 100 miles per week -- I've been discouraged by routinely missing my goals, but didn't want to pare back and admit 'failure.'  Instead of walking around mad at myself for failing to meet my distance goals, I decided to sit down and try to parse out why I'm not meeting them.

Once I got to thinking about it, I realized that I set them without accounting for my schedule and some of the other stuff I'm dealing with at the moment.  Right now, my schedule makes it hard to get to group rides; as for commuting, for a while, I was struggling to sleep at night, and thus not reliably waking up early enough in the morning.  The former I can't do much about 'til the LBC ride schedule picks up a little towards the end of the month, but the latter is a goal I can absolutely meet now that I'm reliably waking up around 6:30 almost every day (I've even been making breakfast!!!).  I have to admit I've been being less than flahute-esque of late: in the morning, it's been easier to crawl into the warmth of DD's truck, since he's going that way anyway, and tote my bike along for afternoon commutes only.  I bet Jens Voigt doesn't fear chilly mornings.  Longer days should also help.

A 300-mile goal should be easy to meet once I get back to commuting both ways by bike most of the time, in addition to riding to my Thursday therapy appointment (which I'm doing anyway), then throw in some extra rides for fun.  Now that Denis has his very own cycling jersey:

From MyLife

...I'm hoping we'll be riding together more.  He's even been (GASP!) looking at road bikes!  (Flat-bar road bikes, granted, but road bikes nonetheless!).  That will be good, too.

So I mean to ride the bike to work tomorrow, then continue with the two-way commute from there (though I'm not going to be too much of a stickler about it; I might take the bus part way or ride with Denis once in a while).

Anyway, now that I've hammered out the kinks in my brain a little, I think I'm going to go ride the bike.  It's a beautiful day, and the laundry will definitely still be here when I get home.

Difficult Days

My post from earlier this morning was written last night, at school, and finished today.  Sometimes I rant about something that seems significant at the time, only to later be swamped in my own stuff, which then later seems insignificant again when I think about Real Problems In The World, like starvation and war and what-have-you.

Though I don't know that the world outside my front door knows it, the past few weeks have been pretty difficult for me, emotionally.  I am not someone who shows or talks about emotions all that readily -- which is, by the way, not all it's cracked up to be, and is something I'm trying to change -- so even when I'm in the depths of despair, the world usually sees me as a sunny little optimist who won't shut up about bicycles (this makes it shocking to said world when I apparently-randomly experience a period of intense depression and fall off the map for a whiel).  It's not that I'm particularly strong or resilient, either -- I think I do pretty well, btu that's not what it's about.  It's more that I'm terrifically afraid of A) showing the world my vulnerabilities, B) running off the people who don't yet know me well, but who might become friends, and C) leaning too much on the love and goodwill of the people who have become my friends.

I'm not sure, in fact, why I'm writing about this *now,* or *here.*  Or, rather ... part of the now factor has to do with the fact that I'm feeling a bit better -- but not entirely, which means motivation is still tough.  Which means I don't even really want to eat, or drink, or ride my bike.  That's the thing that freaks me out a little.

It's strange to be in this position.  Wanting to want to ride my bike.  Prodding myself to go get a glass of water, for the love of God,before my lips dry up and blow away.  Staring into the fridge -- I, who normally embrace such culinary delights as the world offers with the unbridled glee that comes of being able to eat 3,000 calories a day -- and seeing nothing of interest (except yogurt, oranges, and salad -- perhaps what's really wrong with me is some bizarre flavor of dietary problem?).  Wanting to want to practice my keyboarding skills, but having trouble getting together the get-up-and-go to actually pick up 25 pounds of keyboard and play.

The funny thing is, it's all really a crisis of impetus.  Once I get the bike moving, I'm fine.  Once I start eating something, I generally finish it.  Once I have a glass of water, I drink it.  Etc.  In fact, once I'm doing something, it generally helps profoundly.  Yesterday, I had to work, so I had to drag myself out of bed and put clothes on and so forth.  That turned the inertia down a little.  Then I had to go to school, where I had a great organ lesson.  Then I had a little time to kill, so I found myself taking sweeping, banking turns and bounding up little hills on Quicksilver for the sheer joy that comes of riding a really good bike reasonably well.  After I got home, I heated up some buffalo chicken strips to make a wrap for DD, and found the wherewithal to make a salad for myself as well, and to eat it. 

Today, it's like God has turned the 'inertia' dial all the way up.

I experienced a period of serious emotional illness in the beginning of high school.  It was very much situational -- in many ways, a typical response to a serious and ongoing trauma, PTSD taken to its logical extreme.  At times, I experienced anxiety so severe that I found myself in full-on fight-or-flight mode; during those times, I could not stop moving.  At other times, the profound depression became like an anchor.  It was hard to move, to think.  It wasn't that nothing seemed worth doing -- at least, not most of the time -- just that the force it would take to overcome inertia was far, far beyond me.  I was, in a word, overwhelmed.

It's not that bad, now, by a long shot.  In reality, it's not really that bad at all.  At its worst, this depression did start to worry me.  It was worst during the period when I couldn't ride my bike: even speaking was kind of beyond me a lot of the time.  It just took too much effort to organize my own thoughts, to apprehend others'.  Listening was hard, because I had to keep refocusing my mind, which seemed to require Herculean effort.

I wanted -- quite desperately, in fact -- to talk to DD, to my friends Robert and Martha, to anyone.  Yet until someone else reached across the gap, I couldn't find words.  (This, by the way, is one of the things I love about the blog-o-sphere: I read other bloggers' writings, and they act like spark plugs, igniting my mental fuel and getting me past my own inertia.)  I could take about bikes because talking about bikes is kind of like breathing.  I can do it without thinking.  The inertia consumed me.  Last Tuesday, I slept until 11:00 in the morning, simply because I couldn't overcome inertia and wake up (I was also simply tired beyond words, having not slept well for a while).

This morning, at least, I was up with DD before seven, and I managed to get out of bed and put most of the laundry away (this shouldn't really be a feat, I know, but it's progress).  I am washing the linens as we speak (which is to say, they are in the washing machine and the dryer, which are respectively keeping me from having to do any actual work).  That said, the house still looks like Times Square on New Year's morning.  I know this.  And I'm still trying to overcome inertia and go ride my bike.  I have an appointment with my therapist at 2:00ish, so I will soon force myself to do so -- but some part of me is really quite sad that I'm not leaping with joy at the notion that I have an excuse to hop in the saddle.

I don't know whether it's 'normal,' for whatever that means, to have days like this.  Weeks like this.  My own experiences during childhood and adolescence were unusual enough that I don't expect to be 'typical' as an adult (quasi-adult, anyway) -- but I do want t be ... I don't know.  Well, I guess.

Anyway, though the inertia dial still seems to be turned way up, my mood, at least, is a bit better.  Last week, my days off were bleak.  Today, I feel something a little more like myself.

Occasionally, I consider pharmacological support.  This has been one of those times.  I'm not opposed to anti-depressants and the like on principle, though I do think they're overused in cases of situational depression (which is to say, if a depression is truly situational, and can be alleviated through a change of circumstance, using medication as more than a short-term prop is very much like using tylenol as the sole treatment for a broken arm).  I'm just not sure I want to go down that road.  I didn't have a lot of success with them earlier in life, and I did experience a lot -- a whole lot -- of unpleasant side-effects.  Sometimes I fall back on caffeine, on days like this, precisely because it lifts my mood and helps me over these inertia-hurdles without requiring a prescription or a long-term commitment.

Like I said, I'm not sure why I'm writing about this.  I am a lucky guy; I have a wonderful partner who has very nearly mastered the art of rendering me willing to lean on him in difficult times, I have friends, I have a usually-snarky cat snoring in my arms as I write this.  It's not like I have nobody to talk to.  Heck, I even have a really good therapist.  Yet, still, here I am, pouring my own troubles out into the world's common cup.

There's something in human nature, I think, that makes us want to put the things we don't understand on the table in hopes that someone else will explain them.  Who knows.  Maybe I'll be lucky, here.  I don't think my blog draws a lot of readers, but it does seem that the readers who come by are some pretty thoughtful people.

Well, that's it for now.  It's time to go ride my bike.