Lately, my cranium feels like a velodrome where cyclists (my thoughts) jockey for position, while Sanity pedals away on an indoor, Peloton stationary bike.
Tires squealing on a sharply banked track, factional riders with thighs as big as Christmas hams elbow each other to gain advantage — bicycles in velodromes have one speed, no brakes and go round-and-round … just sayin’.
Team Depression, riding hard and using play-book stratagems such as “Aging Parents’ Health Issues,” “Empty Nest Foregone Conclusion,” “Your Timeline Inversion” and “The Doughnut That Won’t Go Away” seems poised to wrest the advantage. Team Depression sometimes dominates for two reasons: a comparatively huge investment (time) spent on top riders Fear and Anxiety, and a ruthless discipline to sticking with the tried-and-true tactic Worry.
Intermittently, Serenity looks far off, but Team Equilibrium is gaining ground with defending champ Gratitude.
Gratitude, using the famed Breathing gambit, seeks to muscle into the ranks of top-performing teammates Grace and Mercy.
Crashes, hunger-knocks and the sneaky Unknown threaten Team Equilibrium — as do other rivals, specifically the signature, high-cadence performance of Habit — underhanded and sly.
Grace and Mercy faltered earlier in the season with weak performances, but practice gets riders back on top. You don’t defeat Doom by waiting for the perfect moment (I’ve tried, it ain’t happening) — you create it, seek it, seize it, use it.
Vashon’s Passport to Pain (P2P) bike ride (not race) offers Team Equilibrium (me, in case you missed it) the chance to take on a grueling challenge, as a handy metaphor, and as a cleats-in-pedals plan to make room for less experienced teammates Peace and Quiet, to give Team Equilibrium an edge.
In 2011, hard-charging, competitive rowers from the Vashon Island Rowing Club (VIRC) started the P2P to train in the off-season. Based on a flash of brilliant-lunacy they strung all the hills on Vashon together into one epic circuit — amounting to the vertical-feet climbing of mountaintop finishes. As Stevie Wonder sang, “Everybody’s got a thing.”
Buoyed by über-volunteers, participants will:
1. Take on one of the most challenging rides (not a race) in the Northwest and ironically, have a really good time. (Described by one rider as “one long slog of self-doubt and pain,” they added, “So yeah I’ll be back next year.”)
2. Choose from three ride levels of increasing arduousness.
3. Savor food and refreshments at check-points — a little like “Eat, Pray, Love,” but more like “Cycle, Climb, Eat.”
4. Get one stamp per checkpoint in specially provided passports to prove the rider earned the elevated status of Weenie (30 miles; 3,400 feet of elevation), honored title of Weasel (50 miles; 5,600 feet of elevation) or has risen to the exalted rank of Idiot (80 miles;10,000 feet of elevation).
5. Crank through the final kilometers toward a smoky barbecue.
6. Eat barbecue.
7. Enjoy an endorphin-soaked stupor while sitting beside the deep, marine blue waters of Quartermaster Harbor.
8. Master the hypnotized, 10-mile stare. Hilarity may ensue.
9. Take in Vashon’s bucolic landscape, a 20-minute ferry ride from the city, leaving Seattle’s glittering, sky-scraping metropolis behind.
The monstrous climbs of the P2P will give Team Equilibrium the opportunity to deploy the powerful Hippocampus Aeration Ploy to gain the advantage. Sustained aerobic exercise may increase neuron reserves of the hippocampus by promoting neurogenesis.
Using even more science, Team Equilibrium will rely on a Stanford study that found that neural activity in the subgenual prefrontal cortex (a brain-region active during rumination) decreased among participants who walked in nature versus those who walked in a high-traffic urban environment. This may explain, in part, why nature simply makes us feel good.
Doom stands to lose ground to a strong showing of reliable rhythms of beauty on Vashon. One participant commented: “I had no idea Vashon Island was such a stunning island.”
Team Equilibrium respects its adversaries, and admits that Team Depression is a powerful opponent that sometimes requires additional muscle added to an aggressive sporting plan; mechanics are standing by.
Team Equilibrium plans to deploy a depth-and-breadth approach to domination, including: Challenging personal limits, setting goals and making meaningful contributions (the P2P raises funds to support the VIRC and its programs).
This winning combination of strategies makes Team Equilibrium smarter, happier and better looking.
— Marie Koltchak is an islander who rides to-and-fro, as well as round-and-round. Like Jonathan Goldstein, she is optimistic about her pessimism.
Passport to Pain
The Vashon Island Rowing Club’s annual bike ride fundraiser will take place Saturday, Sept. 9. Registration for any of the three courses — 30-mile Weenie, 50-mile Weasel or 80-mile Idiot — is $100. Proceeds benefit VIRC.
For information on the P2P and to register, visit passport2pain.org
