BigBlueBOTTLE

It will be here before you know it.  The event that team B3C will be training for all summer, the Pan-Massachusetts Challenge.  This is the event that when people ask me what “big thing” are you doing this year on a bike? – I am able to proudly say the PMC.  But when I look at the calendar, I begin to have a slight pang of guilt and worry.  I haven’t really been riding much – sometimes only 2 or 3 times a week of indoor torture, which to some heavy duty riders, just doesn’t count.  Actually, I have recently stumbled into some health issues lately – trying to sift out the “just getting older” tiredness vs. true effects of a thyroid gland that works on occasion.

By this time in past years, I would have been riding outdoors for a few weeks, braving the cold weather and getting a charge out of the bragging rights that come with seeing your bike tracks in the snow.  But just last week, I managed to pry my rear end off the couch to ride my cyclocross bike on the Airline trail from Willimantic into Columbia, CT.  At first, I was a bit nervous that I had forgotten a tool or a spare tube since I hadn’t been on a ride outdoors since October.  Something that came as natural to me as breathing (packing the car and bike for a ride) now took an exerted effort to coordinate.  This was a sign to me that I needed to ride more than I had originally thought.  It was a cold and cloudy afternoon and after being lectured by my daughter to NOT come into her dance studio with my bike clothes on when I dropped her off, I was quickly riding down the road with not a care in the world.

I had never ridden this part of the Airline Trail before, but after a quick internet search for a map of the area, I was confident that I wouldn’t get lost and could get back within my 2 hour allowance.  I am sure that I rode slowly, but I didn’t care.  I didn’t track my mileage – it just didn’t matter.  It felt great to feel wind in my face or to bunny hop logs in the trail.  These simple distractions are what lack with indoor training and I quickly realized how much I had been missing them. I did manage to get a little lost at one point but that instinctive radar to find another way around a blocked pathway, allowed me to re-join the trial and head further south.  It started to snow/sleet on my return trip and I loved the fact that I was out there to experience it.  It was fairly dark when I emerged from the trail head and rode back to my car through traffic.  I felt like a rider again.  I shivered all over as I changed in the car before I walked in to pick up my daughter.  Calm had come over me – a calm that I hadn’t experienced in a long time.  Cycling is a life-line to me – one that keeps me in check.  I am thankful to have it in my life and even more thankful to be able to use it to help others.  PMC…here I come!

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