The Good.

I was conversing with my ole college friend Mike Friedman last night -- who I must say is one heck of a cyclist. We were talking about "good" people, and I mentioned that in college I seemed to be around so many of them. Very good friends, very kind, go out of their way for you, very awesome people. I miss that. Don't get me wrong ... I LOVE my friends here in Omaha, but sometimes I expose myself to people who aren't good for ME. They aren't bad people by any means ... just not good for me. I'm probably not making any sense because I'm being so vague, but it's like person #1 can be an awesome person FOR person #2 but not necessarily FOR person #3. Doesn't make them a bad person and for the record I'm talking in very general terms.

Our conversation just made me ponder for a bit about who we expose our lives to and why we do it. Which jumped my mind to something completely different (which is how my mind normally processes) to the idea that some people will share their whole life story to someone just for the sake of telling it but not having any meaning to it. While others might tell their story because they are secretively begging for advice, and still others because they know a friend might need to hear something about their life that may make the friend's life make more sense -- advice you might say ... or confiding.

My mind is usually all over the place. Most likely because I like to over analyze things, but that's just me. Over analyzing has kept me out of trouble for most of my life so I can't complain too much about it.

So anyway, after talking to Mike it just made me miss cycling -- mainly Penn State cycling road trips and best of all... competing in the Eastern Collegiate Cycling Conference (ECCC). It's hard to understand how the things you do now will affect you later in life, but I can definitely say the ECCC helped me in ways I still don't even realize.

It gave me a PASSION for something that made me believe in myself. Made me want to wake up each morning and strive to deliver that passion. Spring of 2004 especially gave me so much self-confidence that made my life so much better. I miss that. It's not that I can't have that now ... I just have to pick out something. I'm never gonna get back the 8 hour long road trips to Boston for a 3 race weekend or the commoradorie (sp?) from teammates that will be there for you no matter what. I guess those are the "good" people I was sort of describing before. People who you want to have around you all of the time because there's a 50/50 shared life bond between ya.

Often times I'll have the urge to really get back into cycling and get my pro license back but then I realize there are big road blocks preventing me to do so -- biggest of all is my failing hip. What a bugger that thing has been for the past 2 years!! Then there's also the dedication that takes place. It's hard to dedicate yourself to something when you feel like you need to dedicate yourself to a couple other things as well.

On that note, though, I feel like I've been getting super strong going to the YMCA's spin classes twice a week + a couple other easy trainer rides. I'm excited to see how it pays off in a couple of months. I'm pretty sure there's a cycling race around here in Nebraska at the end of April. I wanna get back to kicking butt. :) -- which would be much easier if there were some mountains around here... dang how I miss climbing!

Anyways ... that's my ramble for the day.
Hug,
Sarah