Notes Along the Way - Week 19

 

Four weeks out from Unbound, and I find myself thinking about cleaning out my bedroom closet.

Not about the race, exactly — about decluttering. About going room by room and getting out all the junk. It's what keeps surfacing when I journal, when my mind goes quiet enough to say something honest. I'll start intending to write about Unbound, but I end up picturing myself starting to clean my bedroom closet. I'm not sure why — it's not exactly where all my cycling gear is. Maybe because it's small and manageable. 

My bike corner in the garage tells a different story. It looks like anxiety made physical: bags I might need, tools for problems I haven't had, spare parts for contingencies I've been rehearsing in my head. Gear decisions have sent me into something close to a panic this week — kicking myself over a frame bag I didn't order, a fueling protocol I should have practiced more, light configurations I haven't fully thought through.

There were a few moments where I felt genuinely sick to my stomach.

And then something shifted. I made a decision about one thing — just one — and moved on. That was it. That was the whole fix.

I keep coming back to a question I can't quite shake loose: what if I just went there and did the ride? Not the version of the ride where I've thought through every possible what-if. The version where I show up with what I have, trust the training, and see what happens. Can I declutter my mind for this race so that I can be truly present?

I need this to mean something to me. I've turned it over enough times to know that it does — it's about agency, about proving to myself that I can see something through, that the resilience I've been quietly building is real. But meaning doesn't come from adding more. It doesn't come from the right frame bag or the perfectly dialed nutrition protocol. Those things matter at the margins, and I'll be reasonable about them. I just won't be crazy about them.

In all these weeks of blog posts, I have been trying to figure out how Unbound, and endurance training as a whole, inform what I'm trying to learn about life. Reflect on the insights that might otherwise slip by.

The closer Unbound gets, the harder it is to write about it. I think it's because I'm starting to understand that some part of why I'm doing this will stay a little mysterious to me, and I'm making peace with that. You can't pack certainty. You can't plan your way into meaning. 

But you can declutter and find the value in subtraction.