Musings on the Ride

I’m really nervous about riding this year.

Not because of the cause–I can think of few organizations more worthy of support than the San Francisco AIDS Foundation. They’ve done an enormous amount of good with almost no public funding–for one thing, their needle exchange program has practically eliminated pediatric AIDS in San Francisco. And they need money; public funds for AIDS have been drying up for years, and the dot-com bust hit them hard. I’m very big on raising money for the Foundation.

But this is going to be a tough year for me. I have a job with a 1+ hour commute, so most of my waking hours are spent at work or commuting. I’m going to be moving in April, which is the height of training season. The two projects I run at work are both releasing in mid-May, just before the ride. And I’m writing a book. I just don’t see how I’m going to manage all of them at once, but if I want to ride, I’m going to have to.

It’s difficult. At the moment, I get up at 5:30 am so I can get to the gym by 6:30 so I can make it to the train station by 8, which gets me to work by 9. I get home around 6:30pm, and have three precious hours of free time before I go to bed at 9:30. Most of that time I spend transcribing interviews, although I do go out for the odd dinner with friends, etc. I write my book while commuting to work.

If I’m going to do the ride, by April or May I’ll be riding four or five days a week. Long rides on the weekends–as in, leave at 8am, come back exhausted at 5pm. More rides on weekdays, so I’ll have to ride before and after work to get my hours in. And both my projects come to a head in May, so in addition to training 14-16 hours a week, I’ll probably have to put in overtime at work…! I think I’m going to lose my mind.

Added to that is the fact that I’ll have to move in April…all my stuff in boxes, which I’ll have to unpack in between training and work…well, you can see why I have mixed feelings about the ride. But I very much want to ride this year!! so I’m going to go forward with it, and see what happens. Truly, the Ride is magical. It’s worth every bit of effort.

I’m just worried about going insane. There’s going to be a lot to do.