The Dirt Field

I am coming down with a cold. This is a minor inconvenience, really, but as a cyclist in the throes of winter training, it is also derailing and frustrating. I wanted to (okay, that’s a lie, perhaps ‘felt the need to’ is more fitting) go to the gym today to stay on schedule, but as the day progressed and my symptoms worsened, I settled for having an ice cream bar, two lattes, and a large serving of pumpkin seeds.

[Side story: At my parents’ house last night, my father was eating home-roasted pumpkin seeds out of a bag of more pumpkin seeds than I have ever seen. He explained that he collected the neighbors’ old pumpkins and gutted them to get the seeds. The pumpkins, not the neighbors. He boasted that he still had several more pumpkins to carve so we could have even more seeds. Other subjects we covered over the course of the evening included Reasons That Shirt You’re Wearing Would Be Less Terrible In Any Other Color and Now That I’m An Adult, I Can Use As Much Whipped Cream On My Dessert As I Want And You Can’t Stop Me (Although This Imminent Nausea Might). Being a grown-up only child is a joy.]

So I missed the scheduled training today, which is mostly irritating because it throws off my schedule for the rest of the week and then there’s the small matter of The Sick. I’m not sure what this illness is, since it’s not following my usual pattern of cold symptoms. All I know is that I feel like shit and it’s the kind of shit that says stay off your bike and explore the depths of Netflix. So I explore and snack and obsess over the miles my competitors are surely riding while I’m busy trying to join the ranks of people who become obese and never leave their couch and eventually have to be carried to the hospital via crane and flatbed truck. Oh, and I wait to feel better.

But this will pass. It always does, as did the back injury that had me in the hospital for several days a year ago and the multiple bouts of bronchitis over the last 18 months and that time I got the flu so violently I ended up in the ER (although I’m permanently unwilling to get another mango smoothie from the mall). And so will the unfortunate injury that befell one of my strongest competitors this past weekend. She broke her ankle rather epically while racing and will likely be out for some time. It’s awful news – awful because she’d had a great year and was poised for another one, because she makes the women around her ride harder and smarter any time she’s in their race, and because she’s just a very cool person – but it’s also something she’ll get past. As racers, we take the bumps in the road as they come and wait impatiently until the time to ride is here again.