I haven’t had a lot of things to be happy about lately, or maybe it just seems that way. First I sprained my ankle, which–while a comparatively mild sprain, took almost three weeks to fully heal. This derailed both my summer half-marathon as well as Operation: Ride My Bike to Work, in addition to making me insanely grumpy and high-strung. Shortly after I’d recovered from that, work turned into a seething, sucking cesspit of hell (note: maybe a slight exaggeration) that left A. and all my favorite coworkers and I perpetually crabby and spatting with each other. It’s only now that things are beginning to calm down and I’ve gotten back on the trails, back on the bike, back to the gym. It only took those five weeks off to make me forget how good it feels to work out–how it’s pretty much the only thing that makes me feel that great. I remember having to memorize Sidney’s “Come Sleep! O Sleep” for a lit class in high school, and all those things it says about sleep are how I feel about a good workout. The certain knot of peace, the balm of woe.
A couple weeks ago, I asked Carson how long it would take to bike to California.
“We could do it in a couple months, easy,” he said. “I have some friends who did it.”(Note: Of course he does. C. worked in a bike shop for a while and has all these bike-crazy friends who ride their bikes to Timbuktu and Siberia and things like that.)
“Let’s ride our bikes to California,” I said.
“Okay,” he said.
“What do you think, two years of training and I’ll be ready? Let’s do it in 2012.”
“Okay,” he says, and then: “I’m not kidding.”
“Okay,” I said. “I guess I’m not either.”
So for the past two weeks it’s sort of lingered there, one of those half-plans, half-jokes that neither of you really thinks will ever happen even though you both want it to. The thing is, in my head, I have committed to it. When I go to the gym, instead of hopping on the elliptical or the treadmill like I usually do, I get on the bike and ride ten or twenty miles. I figure that by the time I can do two 25-mile sessions a day, I’ll be ready to go. I haven’t told Carson this yet.
When I have a Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day at work, I console myself by saying, “Hey, I only have to make it through a few more shifts, and then I can quit and ride my bike to California.” And then I go home, drink half a bottle of wine, and, around 11 P.M., I text Carson, “Let’s get pancakes!” and he comes to pick me up and makes fun of my grape-stained tongue.
