Bipolar Climate Disorder

Morning Workout
BIKE
1 hour 30 minutes
Heart Rate Zone: Aerobic (Zone 1) + Recovery (Zone 0)

Evening Workout
LIFT WEIGHTS
1 hour

Random Comments: Nothin' like a nice 90 minute spin on the bike in the dark of morning, well before the sun rises, after 5 1/2 hours of quality sleep. That sounds nice, huh? That's how us brain-washed triathletes learn to speak. It's not normal. A normal person would most likely utter that sentence in quite a different way. Perhaps for them it would come out something like this: "Lord, give me the strength to not pummel the first person that dares speak a word to me. I only got 5 1/2 hours of miserable, continually interrupted sleep last night and now, for reasons I can't even remember, I'm pedaling on my bike at some ungodly hour that barely even qualifies as morning. This is ridiculous. I hate this shit. I quit."

Do you see the difference?
So anyway, I had a wonderful, peaceful ride this morning.
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Holy shit it is beautiful today. I've been out here in Paradise for just short of 17 years now and, beat me with a billy club if I'm uttering a lie, but I still don't take this weather for granted. Just about every single day is sunny and gorgeous. And I'll tell ya, it doesn't suck.

There's another world out there, though, where life isn't always as wonderful. It's an ugly, evil world; a world plagued by Bipolar Climate Disorder. I'm sure you're familiar with BCD. You may wake up one day to a biting, miserable ten degree storm that has somehow managed to rain, sleet and snow all over your parade all at once. Then magically the next day turns out to be sunny and sixties. But, oh, that's only there to taunt you, because twelve hours later it's going to drop to freezing again and you're inevitably going to end up with the flu that you've been working so hard to avoid for the past ten months anyway.

But, still, when you get those random warm sunny days, it is like God has granted you new life. The only thing you can think of is to be outside. You will do anything in your power to get as much time as you can outdoors and soak up as much of that sun before it disappears. Because you know that sun is, in fact, going to disappear and heaven knows you may never see it again in your lifetime.

Those sunny days are special. And I don't mean special like short bus special. I mean special like happy-go-lucky special. There's an energy that envelopes the city on those days. Everybody is happy and everybody is loving life. That's the type of special I'm talking about. Even the special people feel special on those sunny days.

Picture that feeling, if you will. That feeling of surviving the endless dread of winter and emerging happily on the other side. Imagine the joy of those random sunny days that light up your life like a million Christmas lights (or Chanukah menorahs, for my Jewish brethren). Cause that's what its like every day out here in Paradise. Everyday is a multi-menorah fest. And everyday I wake up and look out the window and I am so excited for it to be sunny. I want to do everything I can to spend my entire day outside. For seventeen years I've experienced the daily sun and I'm still nervous it may go away.

So when I wake up to days like today, where the ocean is so calm, flat and inviting, the mountains so lush and endless, and the sky a cloudless infinite blue, well, I can't help but be happy. I can't help but find joy in going for an early morning bike ride to watch the sun rise and set fire to the world. It makes me smile in a special way - and not the short bus type.


BTW, you've gotta check out the article at Ironman Live about Latin. It's hysterical. Click here to read it.