What do you do when you see a person in a crosswalk trying to cross in the middle of a busy street, even if you have the green? a) drive past and try not to hit them, b) drive past, honk and flip them off, c) stop and let them clear the intersection.

We'll get back to that in a second. So today I was crossing Lake, which is a pretty busy street, on my bike. I've checked, I have time to make a left turn so I get in the left lane. As I approach the intersection my rear wheel suddenly wedges itself against the lower drop and stops rolling. Now cars are coming and my left turn is foiled. I jump off my bike and pick it up,  I'm standing in the crosswalk in the middle of the street. People are honking, yelling and flipping me off, but despite all the attention they fail to notice I am at that point, a pedestrian in the crosswalk attempting to clear said crosswalk. ( Read more )

I gotta share this I guess. Some of you know I've been training for Ironman WI. It's a pretty solitary affair. I get up in the evening and call my girlfriend who usually encourages me to get my butt out of bed and do my workout. I have been putting in between 10-15 hours a week the last few weeks and I'm tired, but feeling pretty good. Something happened the other day to shake me out of this solitary mind funk that cycling, swimming and running long hours alone and working overnights had me in. This happened on my bike ride and I was still about 10 mile from home. Instead of going up to Summit Ave in St. Paul the hard way (up Grand which I swear is pitched close to a 45 degree angle) I decided to loop around the easy way and find out where this other 'bike route' lead. Sure enough it was a loop, it lead me right back to the base of Grand. "Fuck it," I said to myself and started to climb.

Climbing a hill like that on a bike is an interesting and slightly painful affair because of the angles involved. You have to have both feet on the pedals and simultaneously have both hands on the handlebars. This causes your body to be bent around the midsection leading to smooshing effect on your diaphragm (breathing muscle) and stomach, among other things. Basically if you do it long enough at a steep enough pitch you will be both sucking for air through any available orifice and nauseous at the same time.

This is the feeling I was dwelling upon aproximately 3/4 up the hill. Cars were passing me and I was resenting them for polluting my precious air, my right foot hurt and I found I was unconsciously pulling on the shifter even though I had reached the limit of assistance the gears could give me. Straining to pull those pedals around each stroke I caught something out of the corner of my eye. A mother and her children lined up like little ducklings had paused in the middle of the street to let me pass. They watched as I eked past, red faced, blowing and sucking at the atmos, probably a little snot across my cheek that I was unable to wipe. Just as I spotted the crest I heard a little girl's voice pipe up behind me in wonder, "How is she DOING that?"

I wanted to answer, but had I any air left in my lungs, I truthfully could not figure out how I was actually doing that. Mentally everything suddenly had gone away. I was ignoring the fact that I had higher cognitive function and simply settled into the rhythm of the old parts of my brain - breath flex breath flex repeat. How physically my muscles kept going without my telling them to.

Then I crested the hill and ran the stop sign at the top that cars usually let me do after seeing me pound those last few pedals down from below. As I swung on to Summit and hit the gentle downhill, and I got my breathing back under control, I realized that I had amazed that little girl simply by being myself at my best. By trying something and going my hardest. I don't win races, I don't make a lot of money, I don't do a lot of those things that our culture uses as measures of success or worthy of admiration, but maybe I had just inspired a little girl to get on her bike. Trophies just collect dust, trying your best and doing what you enjoy though, with or without accolade, those will make you a better person. An Amazing person, an inspiring person, that will maybe help someone else do something amazing too.