F#@% you, headwind.

Today I rode about 35 miles on my bike. The first half was glorious...sunshine, birds singing, beautiful scenery, average speed well over 20mph (great for me). The only thing I could wish for was to be able to share such an amazing activity.

When I turned around to head home, I knew I would have a little wind. I don't think it is actually possible to ride Lake Mary without being in the wind. Since this is the same course as my race in August, I tell myself that I like the wind, because it is preparing me for race day. I will be more prepared than half the people out there, I tell myself, because they didn't know EVERY day is a windy day. This is similar to what I tell myself whenever I am running up a hill ... this is great! I say. This is exactly what training runs are for! This is making me stronger! That internal cheerleader is lucky I can't actually punch her in the face during those times.

So, today I headed home into the wind. Sometimes gusty, sometimes steady, but always relentless. Every mile my GPS announced my average pace, and every mile it was a little slower. I kept grinding on, slowly losing my gears, slowly running out of water, steadily creeping up every hill only to be greeted at the top by another blast of wind. The last 30 minutes or so I had so much burning in my quads, calves and glutes I was blinking tears into the wind. Every sideways blast of wind made me want to yell "motherf#@%er!" ... which I would have done except I didn't feel like wasting the energy. At some point I fell into the zen state I reach in workouts sometimes where I am totally checked out. There is pain coming from somewhere, but I am disregarding that information and only thinking about speed and cadence.

Even before I was done with the workout, I started to think about how great headwind is. Not great as in, "Oh, good, more wind!" but great as a teacher. Headwind is invisible. It's not like a hill, which you can see, practice on, prepare for, visualize, and time. Hills are friendly training partners...there when you want them, gone when you don't. You can always choose a route with no hills. Headwind is like a giant hand that pushes you back when all you want is to move forward. But nobody else can see the hand...cars passing by just see another cyclist, slowly moving along, eyes focused, head down.

Life is full of headwind, if you let it creep in. Invisible barriers you start to fear. All the "what ifs" and unknowns about the future are headwind. It's easy to spend a lot of time fighting against the invisible force of things you can't control, or to spend a lot of time feeling unhappy about how much easier everything would be if only ________. Headwind does give you options though...they just don't seem as good as the options hills give you. You can give up. Call for a ride. Hitch-hike. Walk.

Or, you can hear what headwind is really trying to tell you...

Headwind is giving you a chance to stop wondering about the past. To stop worrying about the future. Headwind will only let you do what you should be doing anyway - focusing on what you can do RIGHT NOW to keep moving forward. Headwind can teach you not to be a wimp, to do what needs to be done, and to look forward to unexpected challenges.

Headwind, I love you. Sorry about what I said to you earlier.