Burnout: Now With More Crispy Bits!

Turning myself into a flaming heap of char is what I do best.

Let's face it, I'm a type-A through and through. No, I'm not talking about blood type, that's O negative. What I'm talking about is something far more sinister... my personality type. You've got your average type-B person: laid-back, easy going, like water off a duck's back. Then you've got me: kryptonite to the aforementioned carefree individual.

I trained my butt off to qualify for RAAM in five (!) months, and succeeded. Then I trained through what was probably the worst winter ever in the history of Maryland sucky-ass winters (2009-10). Because there was sixty feet of snow outside and Maryland DOT was unable to remove enough snow from the roads to make them passable to bike traffic, I did 20-hour weeks on the trainer. Yes, you read that right. TWENTY HOUR WEEKS ON THE FREAKING TRAINER! I watched a lot of movies. Netflix was my friend. I set up a system with a wooden shelf on my handlebars and a pillow on top to set myself up in a TT position for reading books. Oh boy, did I read books. (Have you figured out yet that this is an average of a little less than three hours a day... ON THE TRAINER?)

So when Spring rolled around, I wanted my bike to take a flying leap off the nearest cliff without me on it.

I basically didn't ride for a really long time.

Now I'm back to riding (finally), hoping to maybe race later in the season (June, maybe), and looking forward to cyclocross season in the fall. While I was busy not riding, I went back to school. After two semesters of two classes, work, trying to fit in riding, running, once in a while cleaning up the cat hair and dirty dishes that have accumulated, and maybe (oh, I don't know) having a life... I'm finding myself rather well-done again. I signed up for two classes this summer and I'm really, really not looking forward to them. Not because they don't sound interesting (they do) or I don't like the professors (I do), but just because I need a freaking BREAK. I'm tempted to drop a class, but that would involve making a decision about which one to drop.

Sometimes I work better under pressure, anyway.

Burnout: It's what's for dinner.