Sister Spring, Brother Wind

On March 11, I rode my mountain bike in the half version (54 miles) of the ABQ Mixed Media Big Friggin' Loop, a New Mexico Endurance Series race.

My mountain biking skills are sketchy, and I typically avoid riding paved roads with their fast-moving physical objects capable of obliterating me, but I signed up anyway, eager to be on my bike, in the good vibe mix, enjoying ABQ's great cycling scene. Gravel rides, my sweet spot, will come later.

As we left the parking lot at 8am, riding north through the Bosque, the forecast for mid-morning was ominous: high wind warning. The riders doing the full loop, most faster and much stronger riders, would be somewhere out by Rio Rancho and Bernalillo by then, fighting nobly to keep bikes upright while riding north and then back south with winds t-boning them from the west. I, on the other hand, was barely leaving the singletrack portion of the Sandia foothills as the wind picked up. Alas, every cyclist's dread, a heinous headwind.

Sister Spring is here in New Mexico with her traveling companion, Brother Wind.

With twenty-eight miles completed and fatigue gripping my winter legs, the wind elevated the experience to a Type 2 Suffering event: voluntarily leaving the couch and other comforts, throwing myself into some physical endeavor that's anything but comfortable, and suffering for my folly. Nothing really terrible happens in this sort of suffering (no one dies, no bones are broken (usually) but the body is going through some grim shit, especially mentally. The more absurd the obstacles, the funnier I find the situation, like a slow descent into delirium. But then, once the adventure is complete, food and a cold beer and maybe even a night of sleep secured, a type 2 suffering experience yields to revision. The physical pain is forgotten, the whole thing becomes epic (enlarged in the retelling), and plans are hatched for the next adventure.

I guess I seek experiences like this. Sure, no wind or rain or hills or bugs can be nice, but give me the experiences, especially the voluntary kind (I'm less enamored of other kinds of suffering, for sure), that build fortitude, perseverance, and resilience. This year I jumped aboard the cold plunge train, setting up a 100-gallon Rubbermaid stock tank in the garage and doing four plunges of three minutes each week. Pure heinousness. I don't like them at all and they aren't getting any easier to do. But every time, after I've forced myself to do the very thing I most don't want to do, I feel exaltation, some strange superpower I can perhaps tap in other areas of my life.

So, thank you, Brother Wind, for serving up another helping of heinous headwinds. You create much beauty, even if I don't always appreciate your bluster.