Hours.

I'm in the hotel room in the first tidepool of calm today has afforded. The window is open, traffic on the 101 whizzes by at a distance, the tree branches move just enough to vibrate the light dappling the edge of the room, a chain clanks on a flagpole a couple times a minute. There are still a couple bags to pack, though I have left my run things at transition, and my bike waits in a hotel conference room until someone who is not me will load it onto a truck, and reunite us tomorrow morning, while it is still dark. I am not with anyone, though Rizzi will be back soon, and I am trying to sink as deeply into this momentarily calm as I can. I do feel calm, and accepting, while I understand that there are hard times to come. I am just not stuck in them yet.

My brain is tight sort of behind my right eye. I have almost gotten my pee clear, but not quite. My body feels tense - less like a coiled spring, more like when you have to stand on a crowded train at the end of a long work day - being jostled and moved about, but still needing to stay centered and and ready for tempo shifts; knowing you are getting closer to where you are headed, but tired in the interim. Calm. I feel calm, and almost content, in this moment. There is just the slightest breeze.

I had a one-on-one talk with my coaches Paul and Rad and the thing they said that has stuck is - Stay steady. Steady will get hard. That will be tomorrow, and it has been today. I suppose its been all ten months...riding in aero position is probably what I've come to love most, and I suspect because it feels symbolic of the whole effort. It's not an entirely natural position to find myself in, and I've never considered myself...I should say, if I were to make a list of adjectives describing myself, I doubt "athletic" would make the top 20. This experience, however, has settled itself into myself, and I look up now to find myself quite comfortable, and steady, keeping up a healthy cadence as my legs go around and around, feeling my body sway so slightly side to side as the ground travels backwards under the bike. There are long stretches of straight, flat road where my hands don't even hold the bars, but sort of flop between them and over onto each other, my back is low and flat, I bend down my head for seconds at a time to watch my knees as pistons or the shadow of the gears against the asphalt, feel how physically close all the parts of my body are in that compact, dynamic position, and feel how connected I feel to all of myself, all of me hurtling towards a new achievement. Even feeling sweat trickling down my face and collecting at the tip of my nose is joyful - wiping it away is one of those small, intensely visceral pleasures where the seconds from when you realize you are going to do this small thing until the time you do it are filled with deep, rich excitement - all the senses centered on effort and its results.

Early on I had a mantra for myself that I'd forgotten until today - I'm not as weak as when I stop, I'm as strong as when I keep going. I forgot about this, and hadn't even realized it had melted away without notice until I was thinking about the new mantra, which came to me unwilled in the most acutely frustrated part of some long ride - I will because I can. I can because I will. It's simple and true. It works.
Steady. Can. Will.

I have some packing to do. And some pee to get clear.