Batting 333

Dear Blog Reader

I hope that this finds you doing well. Winter has arrived in Hoosier land. The temperature is supposed to dip its toe below the zero mark tonight. I suppose that I will not be riding my bike outside tomorrow morning. Zero with a 17 mph head wind would make for some pretty frosty toes and fingers. Every time the temperature dips towards the nether regions of below zero, I teleport back in time to 1990. My father had passed the summer before and I had come back to the farm for a weekend to help with the milking of the cows; giving others who had thrown themselves into the breech for the Sharritt's a break.

On Saturday morning at 5:00 a.m., the temperature had fallen to 15 degrees below zero. Walking through the barn, the harsh incandescent light bulbs cutting through the steam rising from the cow's breath to the low roof of the barn; on its way to adding to the frosting of spider webs from the prior summer. The animals were chuffing as I extolled the virtues of getting at it for another day. As they would stand, they would take their morning constitutional; releasing a semi solid cow flop that would soon turn into a frozen solid ankle twister in the freezing barn at it too released its steamy breath to rise and cling to the strands of blown spider webs. The morning was without wind or clouds. The stars shining like jewels with no competition from the moon which must have decided to vacate the hemisphere for warmer a climate to the south. Outside the barn the ground was covered with snow, that would creak as you walked through it with feet layered in insulated socks, and muck boots that were not up to the task of retaining warmth in such frozen conditions.

As I am transported through that scene once again, I remember thinking two things. First, this is a dangerous kind of cold. Cold that desires to enter your nose and throat deep into your lungs with the desire to freeze your lungs in its cold embrace. These temperatures could kill a person. If I weren't careful or at least cognizant of my surroundings and what I was doing, the forces of nature would kill me. Second, I thought, "it is 47 degrees below freezing. I have always felt that freezing is the point where it is officially cold. I can run to the mailbox in a sweatshirt and sock feet above 32 degrees, but at that point, I take the time to put on a coat and real shoes. But 47 degrees below freezing is COLD. If the temperature was 47 degrees above freezing, I would be close to sweating at a balmy 79 degrees. My oh my, 79 degrees on a sun soaked beach with the deep blue ocean waves gently breaking against the shore.

So I won't be riding on a bright sunny blue sky'ed Monday morning. It will be a morning off on a 5000 mile 2016 road trip. As you may have recalled from a late 2015 entry and the Sharritt Christmas letter, I managed to ride 5001 miles in the year of our Lord 2015. A cold day in January is a fine time to sit beside an electric space heater and reflect on the attained resolutions of 2015 and those unsuccessfully chased. 5001 miles is a long way for me. Although there is a man from Florida who wanted to break the record of riding 75,065 miles in a year. Yes, that is correct 75,065 in 365 days. That is more than 205 miles a day. Which means in order to pay for my resting in a comfy chair by this sunny window, I would have to ride 410 miles tomorrow. It is mind boggling.

The story written up in Bicycling Magazine tells of the rider's dog days in July when he and his wife were suffering the doubts of assailing such a lofty pursuit. There were days when he could only ride 160 miles. That's right on his worst days he was riding as many miles as I can ride on my best day. I know because I once road 160 miles across Indiana in one day a couple of summers ago. It nearly killed me. I remember it with such fondness that I have convinced the lovely Miss Grace to ride the same ride this summer on a tandem bike.

No my goals were much more sedate. Last January, I wanted to ride 5000 miles in one year. I had an ace up my sleeve. I knew that in July I would be riding 480 miles across the great state of Iowa in one week. That would jump the distance curve. 10% of the total goal in one week. That makes it easy peasy. And so I road. Everyday making a most careful count of my rides; doing my best to come close to the 100 mile a week average that I needed to maintain. As the calendar turned from October to November, I knew that I had to pick up the pace. A blistering 150 miles during Thanksgiving week, with the extra days off from work, put me over the top and let me coast home with 360 miles in December.

However, as the daylight grew shorter and the weather worse there were some doubts on the horizon. I was telling the lovely and supportive Miss Beverly of those doubts about halfway through December. She graciously mentioned that it would be okay. 5000 miles was just a number. I had been dedicated through out the year. No one could accuse me of being lazy and unmotivated. "Take it easy on yourself. There is next year and you can go for 5000 miles then." She was right. I could ride 4900 miles and be proud of my accomplishment. It would be 250 more miles than my previous best year. It would be a great improvement.

I would have been okay with it except for the mental exercise of realizing that on December 26 I was only 100 miles from my goal and on January 1 I would be 5000 miles from by goal. I was never going to be closer. So I put my head down, got up on my seat and started pedaling the 101 miles that I needed that last week of December.

Sure there were a lot of goals that I did not make during 2015. I did not learn Spanish 10 minutes a day using duolingo while at lunch sitting in my car enjoying a very inexpensive lunch of leftovers and a can of soup. I did learn about el hombre and una mujer for about a week and quickly learned to take a 20 minute power nap on a consistent and daily basis. Would I have been better off expanding my knowledge of other languages, languages that care way too much about the gender of the noun when choosing your articles? Argh. Maybe. However, those naps were very refreshing and provided the extra energy that I need to make up for the lack of caffeine since I swore off Diet Coke 2 years ago.

I also had wanted to write one blog entry a week for the year 2016. I know that consistency in posting is very important in building readership. You have your rhythms too. You need to be able to expect the next blog to be posted on Sunday afternoon like clock work. That allows you to plan your week. Get home from church, do the cross word, procrastinate doing the laundry by reading Roger's blog. These are important rituals, and if maintained will increase the readership of these ramblings. It didn't happen. The Sharritt life became complicated by opening our home to helping a family through Safe Families as described in the Christmas letter, and poof, that schedule was thrown off by practices, games, and homework and a sapping of energy that was much easier to marshal in my 30's. So posts slipped to one every other week.

That's it. I had wanted to do 3 things in 2015. I managed 1 of them. True, hitting 333 would get me into the hall of fame if I were an overpaid man child playing baseball. But I am not. Life is full of choices. Riding 5000 miles, taking a daily nap, and doing the best that we could for a family in need were very important to Bev and I. So that is what got done.

That's it. Life is full of choices. Do your best, and don't let the cold weather kill you. Pretty good advice while sitting in a warm spot by a sunny window on a cold morning in January taking stock of 2015 goals and wondering what I will accomplish in 2016.

Take care

Roger