The Lantern Bearers

Morning weigh-in: 185#, 13% BF

Happy Birthday, Charles Darwin! I think it's time once again for one of my all-time favorite quotes, from the birthday boy himself:

It is interesting to contemplate a tangled bank, clothed with many plants
of many kinds, with birds singing on the bushes, with various insects flitting
about, and with worms crawling through the damp earth, and to reflect that these
elaborately constructed forms, so different from each other, and dependent upon
each other in so complex a manner, have all been produced by laws acting around
us. These laws, taken in the largest sense, being Growth with Reproduction;
Inheritance which is almost implied by reproduction; Variability from the
indirect and direct action of the conditions of life and from use and disuse: a
Ratio of Increase so high as to lead to a Struggle for Life, and as a
consequence to Natural Selection, entailing Divergence of Character and the
Extinction of less-improved forms.

Anyway: Stayed in Friday night, ate healthy -- and was 186# on Saturday morning. But I went to yoga and had a good time, had breakfast at Coffee Exchange, then went to the gym and had more fun, ran some errands and had lunch at the Quadrant, more chores (prepped Bavarian Pork chops in the crock pot for Sunday), and finally went out to WB. Reasonably early night, but even that left me feeling guilty.

Enough with the wake-up calls: Rode Sunday at Sals, pretty fast crew and soon enough I was blowing up. Lungs were torched & chest ached, head felt like it was ready to explode; on every uphill I was composing my last words in case I didn't make it... Cardio is pretty much gone, but that's next on the training agenda anyway. It was good to see I was able to ride technical stuff OK, which I think had something to do with the recent strength workouts for the legs. Amazing though, how programmed in it is: I ride at my own pace and I'm fine, then I see someone going fast and I chase, like a dog after a stick (or maybe like a salivating dog hearing a bell), and I go too fast and end up toasted.

Dinner was the porkchops w/ sauerkraut; it turned out perfect this time and the house smelled awesome when I got home. More of that tonight and maybe tomorrow, then I'll probably make chili for the weekend.

Reading: Still into Against the Day, which seems to be changing its focus. It's funny how he seems to be summing up so many of his other novels, tying up loose ends... At the Quadrant the other day I happened to see an old book, "Adventure Boys and the Lake of Pearls" or whatever, the genre that was the basis for much of the first part of AtD. For some reason it reminded me of the old essay "The Lantern Bearers."

"And anyone who's ever played a part,

They wouldn't turn around and hate it."

-- Lou Reed