Spring is Here — 2022 Edition

So I wrote late last fall about the impending darkness of winter, and my ability to get my workouts completed in the dark and the cold.

Now we are on the other side: it is April and spring, and the sun is out for longer. Driving by the tennis courts last night and they were packed at seven pm. It was not like this in late December, to put it mildly. Creatures large and small – human and otherwise – were in semi-hibernation. Not any more.

I am excited. The hardest part of this academic school year (my 28th) is behind me. Spring Break is next week. The Ojai Tennis Tournament takes place the week of April 19th, and I am excited to be back at that great event after it was canceled for two straight years because of COVID. I am so much looking forward to this! Then I have my tennis sectionals in San Diego in the middle of May. Then my and my father’s birthday weekend and the end of the school year. The upcoming USTA season guarantees me one solid match of tennis per weekend until the middle of June. Then I will visit Costa Rica in July and the Bahamas in August.

All good!

These upcoming months appear more auspicious than the past few which were so full of COVID-drama at work and heavy-lifting in terms of teaching and parenting. That took almost all the oxygen in the room; I did not have much left for my own pursuits. But now as the seasons change it will be different.

Then I am back to work with the new school year in late-August and coaching, too. I will be incredibly busy. August through November will be a blur. Then it will be 2023.

I see one place where I very much need to focus for the next few months.

I need to get back on my bike.

During the long COVID lockdowns of 2020-2021, I spent hours and hours on my bike covering mile after mile. The government urged us to “stay home and stay safe!” and I pretty much ignored that. I would ride to Carpinteria and back. I rode my bike all over the place. I must have ridden thousands of miles. But I have hardly been on my bike at all since this latest school year began.

I heard a lady ask the other day, “How can anyone not have gained ten pounds during the pandemic?” She spent her indoor time during COVID baking and stress-eating, she explained. I said nothing in response, but my experience was entirely the opposite. I got in some of the best shape of my life during the pandemic. I had not been so lean-and-mean since like forever. I’m still in good shape but it is not like before; now that I am back working full-time, it is just different. Having a job really gets in the way of being in your best possible shape! I enjoyed pretending to live the life of a professional athlete, with two workouts a day and lengthy stretching sessions, etc. It takes so much time to workout like that. And energy, too. I don’t have the time or energy anymore, alas.

But I will have more time now that the sun shines longer into the evening. And I should have more energy as the school year begins to wind down. This has always been my problem with road bike workouts: they just take a long time. This is why I basically stopped biking for over a decade when my wife and I started our family. With babies and young kids, I just did not have the time.

But those pressures are easing now somewhat.

I need to put about $400 into my fifteen-year old bike to get it into better condition. I am loath to spend the money and deal with bike shops and so have put it off. It is now time to get it done. Just bite the bullet and do it already, Richard.

What do I need?

I need to be out along the beach sweating on my bike. Outside time. In nature. The California sun and miles and miles of ground covered. My muscles and my lungs; I put in the work, I am the power source. I can bike up around Ojai and back. Or up to Santa Barabara and back. Three and four hour crushing sweaty bike rides which leave me exhausted and cleansed. Others go hiking in the mountains overnight or surfing all morning long to get the same effect. They fish or hunt. I have my road bike.

Time to get back on it.

Happy spring everyone.

Get outside and get ‘er done.