EvOLuTiOn

What's Happening to me?

I feel a change.

I always said if I want to become the kind of person who can handle riding 100 plus miles a day I needed to become Hard. I needed to become Callous. I needed to be the type of person that saw sleep as something I did while in between my Hundred Mile plus rides vs. something I have to do every night or I am a little grumpy in the morning. And I feel it.
I feel the Evolution. Last Friday I went to bed at 1230 am, was up at 430 am to go ride. Not cause I had too. Not cause I paid an entry fee. Not cause I had come up with another Singletrack Samurai production. NO, just to ride for fun, just to put in 5 to 6 hours on the bike. First I had to drive 1.5 hours. But it didn't matter that I called myself an Idiot as I awoke in the a.m. I did what I WANTED to do and that was get up pack up and roll to go do some miles on the bike.
After 11 years of riding you think me and this BITCH right here would want to break up. BUT NAH, I think I feel her now more than ever, NEED her now more than ever, WANT her now more than ever. At first it almost felt like an obligation to find "SPEED".

"I got to ride, this many days a week".

"I got to do this, I need to work on that, I want to try this."

NOW, I NEED to just go do a couple of miles to feel right. I have become dependent for my pedaling needs. I need to go and ride, maybe ride fast, maybe ride slow, maybe stop here, maybe stop there. 8 miles feels like a second in my mentality, 20, an inconsequential distance to cover, 31, something I do before I even eat breakfast some mornings.

Those numbers used to represent a paradoxical puzzle in my mind. WE GOT 8 MILES LEFT, OMG. Now I think we got 8 miles left, what time is it? O we will be there in so and so minutes if we maintain this pace. My sense of trail miles to real miles has not blurred, I can predict my distance for my route, My estimations have focused in, its weird what is evolving in me.

And I realize. When the evolution is complete, I may become so hardened that I will lose this baby face. No longer "look" so youthful, I may burn my matches and progress into looking more like a leather bag instead of what I look now. Sleep ignoration is not a good thing is it? Cant be good for me in the long run? But this is what I wanted right? This is where I needed to go, needed to evolve too, if I want to transcend to the next level. A level, where even in the midst of difficult terrain, arduous challenge, insurmountable miles, I can look up and still have the soulful mind frame to admire the beauty in that little flower growing out of that hard stone.

Take care,

Laters,

The NaKeD InDiaN