No Training

I've had to hold myself back today. I woke up with a dull headache that hung around for most of the morning. The plan for today was to kind of chill out anyway, so it's not a total loss if I spent most of the time I've had free today napping and reading.

The weather here sucks. It's cold and rainy and had the smell of snow in the morning. Two years ago I was laying on the beach at this time of year, enjoying some of the last pieces of a hot summer. This year I'm already laying out my winter clothes and looking for warm clothes to wear to work.

With that, I've been looking on Ebay for an old beat up cyclocross bike to use as a commutor. Bikes are one of my loves in life and I tend to get very connected with what I have. A year ago I bought my Speciallized Tarmac road bike to use for training. I took it apart earlier this summer to build up another tri bike (a spare frameset I got online for a great deal) in order to have two working race bikes. I always have this worry that right before a big race my bike is going to break and I'll not be able to race. Buying the extra tri bike was basically an insurance policy.

Anyway, I've rebuilt the road bike and fallen in love with it all over again. I've used it in the rain and snow, but hate the idea of putting "junk miles" on it riding to and from work. Now I'm sure that it won't incur any damage riding in this way, and I'm probably being a bit picky, but I really do want a bike that I can truly not worry about. Something that can take a beating and continue to be reliable. I just don't feel right putting a sweet carbon road bike through the vigors of snow and rain just to get to work. Call me a headcase, but whatever.

Hopefully I'll be able to find something that'll work. I don't want to spend a ton of money on something new, but I do want something decent. I'll really have to get lucky!

Otherwise I've just been thinking a lot about triathlon, catching up on work, and resting up for the season ahead. I'm trying not to let my head get too full of useless triathlon crap as I've learned just to keep it simple after this year. I often get all wrapped up in what sneakers I'm gonna use, what bike is the best, and what goggles I need to buy. I suppose everyone thinks about these things to a certain extent, but I allow myself to become obsessed with it. The fact of the matter is I have a very nice bike (a few actually), more than enough sneakers, and everything I need to swim. The most important thing is that I'm healthy, injury free, and able to train my ass off to get to where I want to go. These last three things are the most important and I don't want to forget that.

You can't buy motivation and I'm glad that I've got a real wealth of it right now. Ok, back to napping and reading. By the way, I just finished the new Dan Brown book and was less than excited about it. I've read all of his books. This one held my interest and told a page turning story, but the intrigue wasn't there for me. It wasn't controversal enough! Right now I've moved onto The Associate by John Grisham. I'm about 100 pages in and so far so good. Nothing profound, but like Brown's book, it's just junkfood for the brain. Books like these are a great way to turn my brain off now that I'm not training much.