This one snuck up on me. Normally, I have a sense of downward spiral, or darkening mood, maybe a persistent frustration over things that are not worth the bother. But on Saturday, I found myself lying in bed, the shades down, trying to convince myself to get up and do something. Depressed.
I knew I desperately needed some exercise, that getting outside would be key to finding the way out of this hopelessness I seemed to have fallen into. The day was cold and gray, with intermittent drizzle, and that didn’t help. So, it took a while, but I dragged myself up out of bed, got dressed, and headed out the door on foot. I just wasn’t up to the rigamarole of kit and shoes and getting a bike under me.
There’s a patch of woods not half-a-mile downhill from my house, so I went there and imagined myself riding. Everything feels possible when you’re not actually on the bike. Steep drops don’t look so steep. You can visualize yourself pulling off moves you may never have managed in real life. A little fantasy distraction didn’t hurt my mood. I stopped and watched the Hooded Mergansers ducking and diving at the edge of the frozen pond ice. They always cheer me up. The wind and the trees and even the needly rain against my cheeks cheered me up and confirmed that this was a good idea, if not an instant cure.
I resolved to ride the next day.
The next morning was colder and rainier, but I forced myself out, because at some point you have to have faith that the cure will be less painful than the alternative. I met up with some friends for a short, crisp lap of our local bike path.
I told them where I was at, in my head, and they responded with that good banter only good friends have, the kind that makes you laugh without ignoring that you’re in a bad place. We took turns sprinting off the front, like a bunch of a$$holes. Burying the needle just for a minute felt enormously cathartic.
As we rolled back into town, I pointed out how ironic it felt that, in order to feel a little better between the ears, what I needed most was to hurt a little in the legs and lungs, to take the rain directly in my face, to come back with a bit of mud splattered up my shins. Physical suffering, as it turns out, is much preferable to mental suffering.
For all that, this is not a problem solved. I’m still mired in it, and it may take a while to get out entirely, but after feeling hopeless on Saturday, I was glad to be reminded that the bike is good medicine, and even in winter, it’s magic works.
Coffee and bikes may not fix ones problems, but they always will be mood elevators.
Good for you for pushing through, Robot. It’s the only way. I just did the same this week. Pushed through on the road bike and did 3,200 ft of climbing and 2,500 ft. of climbing in two consecutive days. It was nothing but will, as I noted in my Strava post about that first ride. Gotta drag one’s dead ass out of bed, and, as Jim Morrison said, “Break on through to the other side.” (Though he may have been talking about a different kind of breaking through.”)