Beyond Tired

There’s a moment, I’ve been told, when running a marathon, that your body says “STOP” and only your will can overcome it and keep going onto the finish line. They call it The Wall.

I am not sure that bicycling has something similar, but if it does, it feels like I am hitting it and it is made of something unforgiving and very hard.

The rides are just about to cross the 50-mile mark, which takes about four hours to finish, depending on how many hills they throw at us. With such a distance, there’s no room for cutting corners, so I am forcing myself up earlier in the morning to get to the gym. No training during the week is no longer an option. Even with the training, the tiredness clings to you like wet paper, difficult to shake off.

Riding that many miles wears down a lot more than your legs. You use your shoulders, arms and back to help pull you up a hill. And your hands become clumsy and useless appendages, making it difficult to hold a pen the next day.

Besides all these aches, I have the headache of fundraising. I only have two events set up, with another three or four in the works and all that takes a lot of work and time to put together. And time is against me.

Seven weeks and counting - that’s all I’ve got. Seven weeks to get ready to ride 100 miles, and seven weeks to raise about $5,000.

So, now’s the time for me to get to the gym in the morning, and to get those fundraisers together. Now is the time.

I apologize that this isn’t funny like my other updates, but I don’t have a lot of steam in my engine right now, and there are some big hills ahead.