A while back, Brady and I agreed to a pact. Blog once a week. Brady set the due date based on something
related to Bryan Redemske’s deadline for something, I don’t really know. It was set at 4:59 A.M. Central time (I guess
daylight or standard, depending) on Friday Morning.
I believe Brady’s first post
of the new pact was some sort of friendly taunt about how I just wasn’t the
type to stick to this pact. His point
was that to slog away day in and day out takes a certain kind of boring, non
spontaneous, structured, uninspired approach like Bryan Redemske employs, and
that since my writing is highly superior to Bryan’s and obviously comes from
true inspiration, to just dole out the same boring crap week in and week out
like Bryan does, just didn’t suit me.
Brady detailed how Bryan has some daily thing he does and
that there is a topic each day of the week or something. I don’t recall exactly how it went and it
would be much too difficult to go back and reread that post. But it was something like: On Monday, Bryan
writes about the color and texture of his bowel movements and how it compares
with the typical bowel movements of the members of the peleton. On Tuesday, it’s MOD’s Korner, Where guest
writer Mark Savery explains how a
good pump can really make those calves pop, et c.
Over the past 8 months or so since the pact began, I’ve
tried to take this challenge and run with it.
I’ve tried to be true to myself, ignoring Brady’s taunt and eschewing
any idea of form, template or design pattern.
Eventually, I came to understand that Brady was right. I usually don’t get started on the post until
late Thursday when I’m forced to come up with something. By that time, I’m scrambling. I now feel the weekly dread of Thursday
approaching. It’s in the back of my mind
as early as Sunday afternoon. I’ll be
sitting there thinking I don’t have much going on. Maybe I should fire off a
few stanzas. Get a jump. But no.
I procrastinate until Thursday,
kicking myself all week. That’s no way
to live. Every day should be a fucking
celebration. That last “fucking” was at
no charge to you, by the way*.
Well last week was the first time I missed the blog deadline
completely. I’ve been late before. But
this time, I just said “huhhhhnh.” I
didn’t even attempt to write a thing.
Not even after I had heroically survived the manflu.
Last week, in the grips of a soul shattering sickness that
would have killed most people, I hopelessly tossed and turned upon what many at first considered to be my deathbed. I’m told I
was mumbling something about “Blogging to fredcube”. Of course, none of the medical team
understood this. A few days later, when
I woke up alone. Shivering. Leather straps holding my arms and legs
still. I had vague recollection of the
events of the previous 80 hours or so. I
didn’t know what day it was. I yelled
for somebody, anybody to come and free me from my bonds, but there was no
answer. I struggled against the
restraints, but in my weakened state, it was useless. All I could do was wait and hope I hadn’t
been forgotten in this little room. I didn’t even know where I was. It didn’t look like a hospital. I continued to yell and cough as my parched
throat begged for me to stop.
Eventually, sure that I’d been abandoned, I began to look
around for a possible way to escape my chains (leather restraints). Then I saw it. A slim chance. Was it possible that my captors had made such
an error or was I still in some delusional state? It was worth a try anyway …
What had been previously overlooked in initial panic was
that the big thick leather straps that held me hostage were actually a series
of twisted sheets and blankets. The room
I was in became clear as dawn approached.
I recognized it as the basement bedroom in our house. With a little planning and luck, I figured I may be
able to free myself from this entrapment and then go use the restroom. It was obviously too late to make the blog
post deadline, but I was alive. There was that.
A close call like that can induce no small amount of
soul-searching. Where had I gone wrong
in the blog world? At the end of it, as
the dulling effect of the narcotic, known on the street by the name : “NyQuil”
faded, I realized the truth of my failure.
I’ve not known such clarity before or since. One phrase kept coming back. “Breakfast Serials”
I didn’t yet know what it meant, but found its familiar
sound comforting. It’s a simple phrase,
but one that got me through some of the more difficult stretches of freeing
myself from the sheets. More than a few
times, I’d find myself exhausted and sweaty from the struggle to liberate a
limb from some tangled mess of linen.
I’d begin to panic, feeling hopeless.
Even if I did get free, what then?
The phrase “Breakfast Serials” would return like a spirit guide to slow
my pulse and give me the courage to continue.
Once I had freed myself and brushed my teeth, I stumbled to
my computer. The last of the evil green
elixir still slightly in control of my mind and body. I went straight to Google to see if there was
any known phrase as the one that had been my constant companion as I worked toward my emancipation from the prison
known simply as “The Guest bed”.
I searched for hours among the results finding nothing of
interest. Perhaps I truly was delirious. There was no rhyme to any of it. The nonsensical phrase that I’d believed held
some significance and encouraged me to free myself was just that. Nonsense.
As I reached to the on/off switch of my computer to give up my hunt,
something familiar caught my eye. On
about the 50th page or so of results, was a link that was underlined
in purple, indicating that it was a site I’d visited in the past. Surely this is a mistake, I thought as I
clicked the link. Then I understood.
“Breakfast Serials” was not some mystical phrase from the
gods. It was the title of that first
post of Brady’s. Only now, it looked not
like a taunt, but a how-to. It has been
there all along. How to write a weekly
blog. It doesn’t have to be entertaining
in the least, it just has to be there.
This realization has breathed new life into my blogging. New monotonous, boring life. For nearly 8 months the answer to my blogging
struggle has been right there. It is not
the cheeky sounding challenge I once saw it as.
I now see that Brady was trying to help.
Had I taken his words to heart initially, I could have saved myself so
much time and walking through pig shit (I really did not like Dean at all, by
the way).
I mention all of that to introduce my brand new, totally
different blog approach. This is how it’s
going to be from now on. Each day of the
week, I will have a different topic. I
will write something about the events of my life each day. Unfortunately for you, it will be really
boring. Boringer than normal. Also, I will only be publishing Friday’s
version. “Weekly Recap.”
So um here:
Saturday, I was goofing around on Strava. If you don’t know what Strava is, then you’re
not reading this, so it’s cool. I
noticed that there was a “Lance Armstrong” on there. Actually, there were several, but one of them
seemed like it could actually be him. So
I decided to follow him. He’s from
Austin, Tx. and runs a lot. After he
runs for about 5 miles or so, he puts it on Strava. Then about 100 people comment and 200 people
give him Kudos.
This is really weird to me.
The comments are along the lines of “Still my hero buddy. Nice run!”
which I think is so totally dorky, I’m immensely entertained by it. Others say, “Hey Lance, let’s go for a run
some time. It would be a blast!”
Again. Dork!
Then there are those who think LA has maybe taken PEDs and
are upset and think Strava is the place to tell Lance what’s up: “Loser, Cheat. You suck!”
(throat clearing): Dork.
But the best part is - sometimes, the man himself comments
to his commenters:
hey matt fritsch - ask alex zulle, jan ulrich, joseba beloki, ivan basso, and andreas kloden how many tours i have... and if that doesnt please you then ask the 200 guys in those "7" pelotons.
Settle the F down folks. Let's all move on and enjoy ridin', runnin', swimmin', sufferin', whatever. Let it go. Or I'm calling Gianni Palla.
Lance’s photo is a little cannon with a star over it that
says “COME AND TAKE IT”. I don’t really
know what that means, but it sounds real Texasy, doesn’t it?
Anyway, Lance comments.
People rush to his defense. Other
people say he’s a bad man and so on.
Personally, I don’t get emotionally involved other than I do find it to
be just fun to watch. Hey, it’s my form
of reality TV. So what?
Over the weekend, there was another really interesting
thing. I was looking at the gps route of
one of his runs, trying to decide if I thought it was the real Lance Armstrong,
and I zoomed into the start/finish.
Nice Place. This is what I imagine Shim's house looking like. Then the next day, I was reading an article
about how AP reporters caught up with him on his morning run to ask him about the upcoming Oprah interview:
Wearing a red jersey and black shorts,
sunglasses and a white baseball cap pulled down to his eyes, he was training by
himself and about a mile from his home when he talked to the AP. Armstrong ran
for about an hour as his team of lawyers and advisors began arriving one-by-one
at his house.
Leaning into a reporter’s car on the shoulder of
a busy Austin road, he also seemed unfazed by the international news crews
gathering at the gates of his home. He cracked a few jokes about all the
attention the interview with Winfrey had already drawn, then added, “But now I
want to finish my run” and took off down the road.
Yeah this is mildly interesting. What’s really cool, is you can see where it
probably happened on Strava.
So yeah. Zooming in
on Lance Armstrong’s morning run and doing the detective work to guess where
the AP interview about the Oprah interview happened is my idea of a good time,
but I still maintain that the people who get involved in comment wars are dorks
while I’m just normal. See how that
works?
* gra·tu·i·tous
/grəˈt(y)o͞oitəs/
Adjective
| |
Synonyms
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1 comment:
Still my hero, buddy, and you didn't have to walk through pig shit (or blog about) to earn that status.
Hey Cube, let’s go for a run some time. We could meet/start at Shim's house and post it on Lance's Strava comments feed. It would be a blast.
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