Ambivalent

Ambivalent is one of my favorite words – I always think of electrons orbiting nuclei (nerdy – check!): each of the orbits is called a valence, ambi-valent means moving between two orbits. Of course, it also means having more than one emotion at a time. And who-boy, am I having them.

I’m excited about this ride – I’ve been planning it for more than a year. But I don’t think I’ve ever been as anxious and nervous before a big trip as this.

There’s been soooo much planning. Counting every gram, planning for every contingency, optimizing for all the scenarios. For example, there’s still a To Do for me to get a warm hat.

And… I know there are things I haven’t planned for. The temp in Hachita on Thursday is supposed to be 105 degrees. HOLY COW! I don’t need a warm hat, I need a time machine to go back and start heat acclimatizing as of 2 weeks ago! All of a sudden I have to plan to ride at night much more, since that’s the only time it will be even remotely cool! And my super fancy tent is basically a hot house – what am I going to do with myself during the day? So why the hell is there still a ‘Warm Hat’ on my to do list?

I am also thinking about the Barkley marathons – we watched this great documentary about it. All of these amazing trail runners show up, plus the ‘sacrificial lamb’. One guy everybody knows is I. waaaayyy over his head. That could easily be me. And coming home after a few days would feel really bad (from where I’m sitting on my wonderful sofa in my amazing beautiful house).

So am I excited? Yes. And also really worried.

It’ll be better when I have my bike back from the airplane in Tx. G’nite