I promised myself that I wouldn't go off topic, but I feel like this is linked enough to go ahead and include.
How, you ask, since it involves running 0%?
It involves a concrete step towards a shift in lifestyle and priorities that deals with the integration of a great cross training/social expansion tool:
A road bike.
Some of you skeptics may remember my rails against biking, and the recent sale of my piece-O-crap Schwinn granny comfort bike that was supposed to tootle me to and from school each day.
Ok, that's all the time for remembering I'm going to give you.
Fast Forward to today! As soon as I became injured (when am I going to exhaust that theme?), all of my friends, who are avid bikers, espoused the benefits of riding. You can do it when injured from running, it's a wonderful way to cross train in general, it doesn't prevent you from running but adds to your fitness, it's a fantastic way to meet new people and have a fun time, etc.
Unfortunately, the month of January had a lot of little expenses that added up, not the least of which was the ankle itself. Thus, I am left with low flow for a bike start-up project.
Except that I have about 3000$ worth of horse equipment in my attic (ok, before anyone starts casing my attic, most of it is in custom leather goods that will fit nobody but me. Small niche market to say the least). Due to the last sentence's facts, most of it is unsell-able. Not that I would want to anyways. My half chaps/chaps/boots will always fit me, and I love them, and they are gorgeous.
But my saddle?
It's lovely, to be sure. And it's been with me for a long time, at a lot of different places. For a while, this is what my "office" looked like:
It was nice to carry around your stuff with you, freelance, like a carpet bagger, show up to a job knowing you have everything you need to get said job done.
That being said, selling the saddle doesn't mean I can't ever freelance again. If you want to get right down to it, I wound up riding in my boss's saddles most of the time anyways. It's purely a symbolic gesture.
Still, it's a huge symbol.
Selling my saddle means that I'm really letting go of my dream of being a hot shot professional rider. It's a dream born out of a time when I was more in love with the idea than the reality. Now, even if someone literally handed it to me and said, "Here! Your own barn! Your own millionaire clients! Your own bevy of warmbloods straight from Europe! And btw, you will never miss a distance ever again!" I would still say no thanks.
That doesn't mean I wouldn't wish I would say yes. There are some days I wish with all my heart that I could be a horse person and be happy doing it, that I could be one of those people in that world and be 100% ok with it, as many of my friends do and are. But I just can't. I need some stability in my life that horses just can't afford.
Greensboro and running, and hopefully biking, are all a part of that stability. Losing the saddle to gain a bike will be another shift in that direction. A wonderful shift.
But still, any shift makes you shake a little.
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