Obvious

Today's post is going to be one of those to file under "obvious." I had a massive meltdown Sunday night and stretching through most of the day yesterday. Coming out of one of those always leaves me a little philosophical. So now I've mostly snapped out of it and I want to share some of the perspective I've gained.

I was reading about Fat Cyclist's dilemma this morning and it made me think about the bicycling community in general. In a nutshell, his problem is this. He has so much going on what with nursing a wife with horrible cancer, working full-time, taking care of four kids, writing his blog and putting together four teams for the LiveStrong Challenge that he felt like he had to ask for help. So, now he has 350 e-mails sitting in his inbox from people offering him assistance. It's a problem, but it's an encouraging one.

Although I have certainly never faced the kind of challenges Elden has, I sometimes find myself overwhelmed by the support of the cycling community. I suppose it's probably like this with other bloggers or other groups of people, but I've noticed it a lot with cyclists lately.

On Sunday, when I went to the Kisscross race, I noticed for the first time how many people know my name. It's weird, but encouraging, to hear spectators shouting out encouraging things to you, personally, when you didn't even know they knew who you were.

There were people there at the finish line, serious racers even, (like this one) cheering for me as I once again finished DFL. And then there's this extremely hardcore and awesome racer who has always been so encouraging to me. That really takes some of the sting out of the whole being way behind everyone else thing.

Then there are the people who visit my blog and leave comments. Some of them I've met while riding, racing or at bike events (Jake, Laurie, Marty) and some I've never met, but they stumbled across my blog somehow and offered words of encouragement (Ali, Di). Still others are people who never visit my blog but inspire me when I read theirs (Jill, Fat Cyclist, Chocolate Girl). I guess the point of this whole thing is that there are some great people out there in the cycling world and I'm glad to be a part of it.