My Inner Hypochondriac

So I can bike in comfort AND lose weight huh? I'll TAKE IT! 
Bill (babe magnet, center) checks out the 2010 Fiasco Systems Spring Fashion Biking Line

It started out full of hope and innocence and ended like Michael Rasmussen at the penultimate 2005 Tour de France time trial. The concept of the book, Bike for Life was intriguing: ride when you're 100. I got it for Christmas from, um, someone who cares deeply about me. I'm sure about that, well pretty sure on the whole 'cares deeply' thing - my wife I think. I know she cares deeply about me when I'm not endlessly trying to recruit her to go on my century and that was the point of the book I'll have you know! To help prepare me to actually ride 100 miles on a bike.

Steely Resolve - that's what I need. How do I get me some of that huh?! I'll bet this book is just chock full of steely resolve!

I tear into the book looking for wisdom. It's a good book full of knowledge and things that you intuitively know but tune out like a Peanuts teacher, your mom or your manager (eat right, train more and harder, lose weight, blah blah blah) and then I noticed that there were entire chapters devoted to problems and spinning (for the off season), problems like erectile dysfunction from the stupid hard as a rock (which you soon wont be apparently) bike saddle since you stupidly turned the nose up past level, and getting your bike sized so that you don't get chondromalacia because it's all over once that happens, a life sentence of horrifying pain. Let's not gloss over the back pain either since you probably have your handlebars set too low so that you at least look like you're a road racer as you whip by at twelve miles per hour. Osteoporosis? Why not? I'm certain to crack a collarbone the first time (and it will happen, oh yes indeedy!) I can't unclip from the pedals because I forgot that I was clipped in due to oxygen deprivation.

Why there's just a smorgasbord of worry here!

I lock in on chondromalacia first, since it appears to be the most tragic of the disabling pains and can lead to a lifetime of arthritis. They say in the book that your knee will sound like Rice Krispies when climbing or descending stairs. My knees sound like that! I was already sadden that my dream of being a Ninja assassin evaporated at the first appearance of Snap, Crackle and Pop but this chondo thing? My mind immediately fast forwards one month and I'm in the gym.

goodMood is whispering to IronMan, "Why is Bill over by the StairClimber sobbing, eating a box of Ho-Hos, injecting heroin and chain smoking? It seems counter intuitive to the whole athletic ideal."

Saddened, IronMan replies, "He's got the CMP!"

Face hardening and picking up a large dumbbell goodMood heads towards Ahab Bill who's gamely trying to limp away in a vain effort to avoid his fate with Moby Dumbbell.

And why not? I should probably be put down for a condition I haven't even developed yet before I infect the rest of the gym with my debauched Ho-Ho eating ways. Why shouldn't I just return to my couch potato lifestyle?

HUH?! Yeah, I'm looking at youuuuuuuu!

Returning to a life of turpitude might be just the ticket here. I recall those days fondly, particularly when I'm in some hellish HEAT class or doing the dreaded intervals. I could lay on the couch with a bag of Doritos happily munching away with nary a thought in my pretty little pinhead only subconsciously feeling my life

just

slipping

away

laying on my deathbed with a broken spirit filled with what ifs and might have beens if I

had

only

tried

::glares at the 'Big Help' reader::

So I pondered the bad knees, destroyed backs, limp penises (I didn't dwell on this one, honest!), broken collar bones and evaporating skeletal mass weighing them against The Tao of the Couch Potato and have decided to press on with this biking madness.

Color me weird but I enjoy it. I prefer it to doing nothing. My son is right, I have lost my ever loving mind. So I tear into the book again noticing or paying attention to their strategies. Their number one thing appears to be:

Getting a 'proper fit' for your bike.

So I'll be setting a meeting with the Trek store (where they have bike fitters, something of an arcane art apparently) to get my bike fit to my body. Those poor fools have no idea how crazed I'll be about this since I plan to spend a fair amount of time on the goofy thing.

Then they have various 'steps' for whatever is troubling you at the time. There aren't enough hours in the day to get through all the steps in my opinion (I haven't tried it but just on a glance...) so I'll probably have to address the osteoporosis problem when my arm breaks after picking up a pencil, although I am now drinking more milk. Little things ya know.

I'm googling the vast knowledge of THE INTERNET looking for the proper way to train for this century and I'm kinda digging having a goal more specific than ride more miles for this upcoming spring/summer. Yes, like the great minds of our past I'm starting to scheme and...

form a plan, God save our souls!