When I Grow Up....

Have you ever stumbled on something in life that makes you realize what you ACTUALLY wanted to do/be when you “grew up”? I recently had this epiphany and it has completely rearranged my personal aspirations and dreams. I now know what I “should have” done in my early twenties instead of pursuing music. Don’t get me wrong, playing tuba with the Boston Symphony for a summer was fantastic and the instrument has granted me numerous opportunities and a blossoming military career. Growing up in Utah at the foot of the Wasatch Mountains was like having the world’s coolest and biggest playground right in your back yard. Combine that with the fact that I was a very straight-laced kid all the way through High School who loved to ski, hike, backpack, snowshoe, mountain/road bike and you get a recipe that could have prepared me to pursue a dream……..to be an athlete. I think I could have competed in downhill skiing and who knows….maybe the Olympic Games would have been something I was working towards. Ski in the Olympic Games???? That would have been amazing!

This “athlete” thing is always something I have had in the back of my mind. Hell, one of the main reasons I enlisted in the Army was to get the “fat graduate student” beaten out of me and get back to a healthier lifestyle. The journey that brought me to what has rocked me to my core started last summer with a $300 craigslist purchase……a road bike. Nothing fancy by any means but I started to ride with the local club and every time I went out (most of these folks have been racing for YEARS) I would get dropped like a bad habit but I would push myself and I wasn’t getting discouraged. Rather I found myself looking forward to the challenge and the two hours between getting off of work and the start of the ride seemed like eons (still does). What has surprised me so much is that this excitement to get on the bike and go pound out 35 miles or more isn’t going away and I am gladly putting up with increasingly nasty weather conditions to get my “fix”. I day dream about it and every time I come home from a ride I feel totally exhilarated despite the burning thighs, stinging eyes and a numb crotch (otherwise known as “EWD”….extreme wiener discomfort). Thank goodness training helps that last part; otherwise I wouldn’t understand why any guy would like the sport.

It will be a year in March since I really started riding consistently and the gains I have made have been huge. Besides building a solid “base” mileage and old pants fitting me again I have found something way more important….. a purpose. At age 35 I definitely don’t have any delusions of becoming a pro-athlete but I think I could set out with a goal to be a darnn-good amateur, hell going from band-geek to athlete is a strange mind twist….you really can’t “win” anything playing tubaJ The comments and support from the local riders has been amazing, great group of folks that are truly inclusive and willing to share knowledge. Just last night a guy that has been racing for 40+ years and dominates the local Cyclocross scene gave me props on how much I have improved, it meant a lot.

Now comes the tough part……how do you take the ever increasing responsibilities that are indicative of our age group and then toss in a time and money-intensive “hobby”? I haven’t the foggiest idea right now how to fit this in, the demands of daily life are taxing as it is. All I can think of is to just do all the other things “better”. I already need to be a better husband and to tell you the truth…this bicycling fetish isn’t helping. I don’t have the meters or gauges to determine what I should or can do…… how far do you push to pursue a newly found dream? Is it worth it? Is it exceedingly selfish? What’s in it for my family? Would I “live” without it, definitely. Would my happy –go-lucky nature change, nope. So why should I try? TOUGH question. Would it be horrible of me to want the question to be: “why should I let a dream pass me by a second time”? This may be my last chance to do something like this in my life and I kinda don’t want to look back and not have tried. I am not a person that regrets things but as a person with a nauseatingly positive outlook on life I obviously feel that I can give meaning to that kid still inside of me that has a dream of doing something when he “grows up”. Like I said, this “thing” has really gotten down deep inside me and won’t let go and I can’t help but think that my wife is looking at me and thinking “who is this guy”? And I don’t blame her; she hasn’t seen this side of me because it has been buried for fifteen years. How in the hell am I supposed to fix that?

I have a long way to go (not just training) if I want to pay the $140 to get the local racing team’s “kit” (bibs and jersey). As soon as you put something on that says “racing” on it….you damn well better be sure you can hold your own. The first race of the season is in March, if I want to do this I will have to dedicate myself to at least 6 hrs (80-120 miles) on the bike or more a week just to even get close to having the “legs” and “lungs” to compete….after all, I wouldn’t want to go out and give a bad-rap to my newly joined team. That’s when you become “that guy”, you know, the guy that can’t see the truth through his own ego? If the stars align correctly and I am able to figure out how to balance this “epiphany” with the things that are most important in life (marriage, family) I might have a shot at this…………………………………thanks for listening.