Day 152: Feeling Exposed

I need to say that I’m feeling quite a bit exposed through my writings. Don’t get me wrong, I want to share my story, and my return to being healthy, but it’s not easy to lay my life out there for everyone on the planet. My idea to share my journey in this way was by design. I felt, and still feel, that it will benefit me, and many others, and I know that it already has. That said, it still doesn’t make my discomfort with being so open about my life just disappear. I will of course continue to be completely transparent, at least as best that I can, but I want to let you know that I don’t necessarily enjoy writing about the crap that I’ve endured, and that I continue to endure. I want and need to put all of this down in writing, and I definitely want to continue to have it impact the lives of others in a positive way, but I also want to be clear that this process makes me very uncomfortable in my own skin. I've used the word “exposed,” because that’s what I’m doing. I’m exposing my daily journey back to health, and along the way I’m sharing incredibly personal information. If my mother were alive she’d want to kill me for doing this. ;-) Family secrets? Not anymore. Sorry Mom. So I’m just putting this out there to you, so that you understand just how difficult this is for me. The riding is the easy part, if you can imagine that as being the easy part, but that’s the fact. Sitting here writing about my past, present, and future, is the difficult part of Riding to Recovery. According to Yoda, I’m healing incredibly quickly, but I still see many hurdles for me as I move my life forward. I’m not a betting man, but I’d bet that I have at least another year of work in order to get my life back in check from confronting the past. I’ve asked this before, and here it is again, “Please wish me luck.”

Today I broke away midday with my good friend “F.” We were in sync today in terms of timing and such, so we got onto our road bikes and pedaled towards the Paradise Loop. I was nursing my broken ribs during today’s ride, and that was good for me. It was a fairly smooth route without a lot of out of the saddle climbing. “F” and I work together daily, and it’s pretty amazing that we can actually get a lot of business done while we’re rolling along at 17 or 18 mph, but we do. It’s funny how real dyed-in-the-wool cyclists can actually communicate better while pedaling. ;-) We did a quick “lap,” and then made our way back to headquarters where we went right back to business. I guess that when one loves cycling as we do, you adapt to your environment so that you can continue to do what feels right for you. Thanks for the ride today, “F,” it was a good catch up ride.

Distance: 21.54 miles Calories burned: 1,350 Time: 1:25:17 Elevation gain: 832 Garmin Connect ride details: http://connect.garmin.com/activity/19061094