Working it out

Way back in the day in 2003, I got into exercise because of a break-up. Back then my eating was like something out of a Lifetime Original movie, and I still thought that being depressed and “tortured” made me interesting and deep. I was seeing an older girl who treated me like crap, and I was absolutely head-over-heals for her, partly because I liked being treated like crap back then. She dumped me and I literally thought I’d explode with grief, so I decided to go to the gym and kick the shit out of myself until I felt like I could sit still again. It worked for a few hours, so I went back the next day, and the next. I forbade myself to diet or let myself get down until I had reached a point where I didn’t feel like I was going to hurl myself in front of a train. Between the working out and hours spent drinking and journaling every night, somehow I managed to come out of that year that we spent breaking up and not getting back together with a positive outlook on life.. and a drinking problem.

My next break-up was resolved with working out as well. This relationship was even more dysfunctional than the last, mostly because the girlfriend in question was a certifiable psychopath. I was on one of my sober kicks when I met her, and she purposely got me drinking again, then she systematically went through and shit on everything that I liked about myself. By the time I left, I was at the point where my organs were beginning to show signs of damage, along with my self-worth. I had to leave the country (Spain) and start life over again to get away from her and my drinking problem, but again it was exercise that got me through it. Figuring out how to live sober was the hardest thing I've ever done. When I didn’t know how to make a decision, I made the decision that would make me least likely to drink. So this meant racing on weekends rather than going to bars, and making new friends who valued that kind of behavior. So what if half of them were 20 years older than me?! At least they didn't see anything wrong with going to bed at 9:00.

So this time around, when from one moment to the next my life came down around me, I thought I knew what to do. I sent an SOS to my coach and said we needed to do a crash week, now, or else I was going to crawl into a bottle and die. (A crash week is where you do tons of volume and tear yourself to shreds to try to take your training to the next level.) He responded by giving me about 24 hours of training for the week, with no workout being shorter than 3 hours. (I have come to adore him now that we’re focusing on cycling, and he’s been great with all my requests and inquiries).

But for once, the more I ride, the worse I feel. My first 4-hour ride was a trainer affair, and by the time I got to the end of it I was spitting mad. Literally, I had gotten myself so angry by the time that I got off the bike that I actually spit on the ground (on my sweat towel). I mean really, who even spits to show disdain??? It's so 1920. My next ride was a 4-hour outdoor romp with about 15 seconds of maximum force intervals every five minutes. I was despondent the whole ride, and hardly cared to put any effort into the pedals. By the time I reached the 7-mile stretch back home I had gotten so desperately crushed again that although I time trialed like the wind the whole way home, there was no joy in it and my heaving breath sounded more like sobbing than gasping.

The third day was the worst of all. They’d been forecasting snow almost every day for the past week, but it had yet to actually snow. So even though they were forecasting flurries, I decided to do my three-hour ride outdoors anyway. Big mistake. The flurries that began as soon as I walked out the door quickly turned to squalls of big fat flakes that melted into big fat drops when they landed on me. The squalls gave way to sleet and freezing rain. I couldn’t feel my fingers to shift. I couldn’t make my legs push into the pedals because they were so cold. It was near freezing, and I was soaked to the bone. And there was an icy wind. I don’t know if I’d ever been so miserable in my life. Normally such conditions would have made me feel at least a little hard core, but right now I just felt like a total loser. I didn’t even give myself the indulgence of telling myself I deserved it. I tore through red lights half hoping that someone would hit me. The next couple of rides were trainer deals. I used up all my Netflix DVD’s on Thursday’s workout, so Friday I was stuck with only music and a white wall to get me through the 2 hours I could fit in before work. But my headphones weren’t working… It turned out not to be a problem. I had so much thinking to do, and each thought exploded into a thousand other reasons to be angry or depressed that the two hours passed quickly, even though all I was doing was staring at a blank wall.

I keep thinking that this can’t really be it, because there’s no way that people who love each other can willingly cause so much pain to each other. But as I always do when my heart is broken, I find my way back to sad break-up songs, and the fact that so many sad, sad songs resonate with me right now means that people who love each other DO do this to each other, or else how could they write such poignant songs about it? And the worst part is that since none of the singers I’ve been listening to are dead, I’m going to have to survive this.

But it hasn’t been all bad. Surprisingly, the times when I feel best are when I’m at the house (OUR house: the house she tried to kick me out of). I haven’t rented a room/house since December of 2006, I’ve just been living in someone else’s space. So when Grease Monkey tried to tell me that I had to go, even though I was crushed and would have done anything to make her change her mind, I had to draw the line there. This was MY house, and goddammit, she had no right to kick me out of it. So I've been busying myself with carving out my own space.

I am not an organized person (not with physical space anyway). I could live in a cave, and as long as it had internet and cable I wouldn’t really notice the bat guano. My ability to survive in filth has been a point of contention in this whole situation, so as I build myself a new bat cave, I’ve been making it a point to pick up after myself. Once I had a bed, I started making it every morning. I’ve started doing laundry before wayward socks get so flattened into the carpet that they look like part of the pattern. I’ve been wiping down counters and emptying the dishwasher. I’ve been hanging up jackets rather than throwing them in a puddle on the floor wherever they happen to come off. And of all things, tidying up is what is making me feel most human again.

Friday when I came home from work, it was in the high-40’s and still sunny. I still had an hour left of my three-hour assignment for the day, but I knew I would miss the sunlight if I had to drag my bike out. Instead I dug out my Nike Frees (which were buried under a giant pile of laundry in my pig sty at my parents’ house), commandeered Grease Monkey’s dog (who had been cooped up in the house all day), and hit the road. We live a block from a lovely little pond with footpaths and trails around it. It’s been one of my favorite running routes since high school, and it’s best run at sunset. Dragging the dog behind me, I ran one loop of the lake. It was nice not to be chained to a machine and just putting one foot in front of the other. There was no pressure to run fast or to hurry the dog along when she took the world’s longest pee. It was just like last summer when Grease Monkey still loved me and I used to take the dog on all my shorter runs. When I got back to within a block of the house, I did something I never do and kept running for another loop. For the first time in a week (or more), I actually felt like I’d done something right.

I've finally made it through my seven day crash week, and tomorrow I get a much-deserved day off. Maybe someday the hurt will be mild enough that I can eradicate it with a ride, but for the time being, maybe solitary arduous activities aren't just what the doctor ordered...