Going Visceral

Feeling everything at the 2010 Arrowhead 135

Arrowhead 135 is about two weeks away.  I love these two weeks.  I've done the event a couple times so i'm slacking on preparations but know i can pull it together quickly.  The fun part is the anticipation. The realization of impending suffering.  The worst case scenario waking dreams that begin creeping into my consciousness as i attempt to fall asleep at night.

It's exciting.  It makes me feel vibrant and alive and scared.  It's a challenge that will require immediacy but that will involve it by default - no need for me to cultivate an awareness of the moment in order to be fully present.  Instead, the moment(s) will impress themselves on me full force, demanding to be witnessed.  I will experience my entire body - my skin, by bowels, my muscles.  I will feel connective tissue and be aware of damage on a cellular level as the cold bites my fingertips when dexterity demands that i remove my gloves.  I will communicate sympathetically with my alveoli when the 250 micron diameter tubes are stretched to their breaking point - air molecules waking from their lethargic midwinter slumber   to ricochet energetically off their thin walls. I will respond to minute changes in force and acceleration automatically - without thinking about coefficients of friction - thousands of times as i careen down down and struggle up miles of snow covered trails.

I will listen to my heart, my lungs.  I will have long conversations with my central governor and alternate between sweet talking and bullying her into letting me have my way.  And after everything is said, I will - at least for a couple of hours in the middle of the night - let go of it all and just pedal mindlessly with little conscious awareness of anything, or memory recorded.  It's going to be awesome.