The Longing

My dear readers (all 3 of you), I am feeling dispirited. I have been to the hospital this morning to see how my bones are healing and while they are healing extremely well it will be 6 MORE WEEKS before I can ride a bike outside. This is terrible news.
Riding on a wind trainer when it is hot is awful and to be honest I really can’t be bothered with it. I get little or no enjoyment from it, more a grim sense of satisfaction that I’ve done my duty. I miss the pleasure of being out in the countryside, up on the hills, in the fresh air and sunshine. I miss hanging out with my mates talking for hours about how great our bikes are, what a great ride that was, I can’t believe I finally nailed that section. I miss shuttling, flowing down the hill, being really scared and excited, pushing my boundaries. I miss cleaning my bike after a long dusty ride. I miss whizzing through trees and doing little hucks. I miss riding with my lovely husband and pushing hard to keep up. I miss the solitude that isn’t lonely cause you’re with your bike and that’s all you need. I miss adrenaline and endorphins. I miss being muddy and dusty and sweaty. I miss the speed.
I miss the intangibles as well. I long to be on my bikes, I feel like I’m missing out. Like I’m that kid that doesn’t get picked to play and watches from the sidelines while everyone else is laughing and having fun. Every day its sunny I know people are out riding their bikes and I’m not. I’ve endured a winter of riding on the road, in the rain, against the wind, in the dark. This summer was meant to be my reward.
I’ve been trying to get my head around 6 more weeks of feeling like this and I just can’t. It Is Not Possible To NOT Ride For Six More Weeks. Unfortunately I don’t know what to do to overcome this. More Calcium tablets (I have been a bit slack in taking them)? More Panadol and more exercises? More wind trainer rides (I don’t know if I can). Right now I’d just like cake, lots and lots of cake. Fortunately I don’t have any cake (or cake like treats) available and I can’t bake to save my life so at least I shouldn’t end up the size of a whale. Well at least not a Blue Whale. Maybe a Minke Whale, or a Narwhal. That’d be cool, kind of like the unicorn of the sea….
Oops I digress. I’ve just checked my calendar and if the doc’s say I can ride on the 23rd of March I’ve still got a good 3 weeks to train for the Mt Somers race. For that to be a realistic goal I really need to get motivated about my bloody trainer again. So how do I do this? I’ve tried TV and I’ve tried training DVD’s. I’ve got a fan set up, but when it’s above 30 it doesn’t seem to help. Gah!
Anyway, thank you all for indulging my self-piteous whine (oh, my favourite shoe shop has also closed so that’s made me really grumpy also). I promise that it will be the last one for a while. I’m off to look at the biscuits in the tearoom.