and cassette and tires and a thorough cleaning to make you feel like you’re riding a new bike. Apparently my bike (or the drive train) was in such bad shape that now that its fixed, it feels soooo much better to ride. Additionally, the crappy puncture resistant tires (which I’m positive were recommended to me by some bike shop lackey) were pretty piss poor for regular riding or racing. I rode for 45 min this morning on my trainer and could feel the difference right away. I hate to take it all apart to pack it up to ship to SF on Friday but its necessary. I’m trying not to get too worked up about the water temp in the Bay, the unfamiliar terrain and the general out of sorts feeling I get when I travel without racing. I hope to be able to just relax and enjoy the experience. We’ve made plans to see friends who live in Oakland on Saturday, the race is Sunday (track us here if you’d like) and I’m planning to meet a former colleague on Sunday evening. I made reservations in Sausalito for Monday afternoon at Sushi Ran, a recommendation from a friend’s dad who is a foodie and used to live in San Francisco. Then we take off on Tuesday…one day at home and then back out on the road to Boston to conquer the Brewery to Brewery ride to Vermont. We couldn’t convince anyone to come up to hang out so we didn’t have to endure the 2 hr ride back to Boston on the bus. However, I did score a sweet deal at the Radisson Hotel on Priceline thanks to the coaching advice from BiddingforTravel.
Besides doing all the race worry, tying up lose ends at work, and preparing to travel, I also just submitted an application for a project manager at The Aspen Institute. I managed to scrounge up past writing samples from the magazine and submitted my application via email but now want to follow that up with a hard copy but find myself without any resume paper. What a poor planner I can be at times. Its a shame too since I have a friend of a friend who looked at my resume and gave me a few pointers. She also offered to walk my resume down to the right folks and put in a good word. How do you not take advantage of an offer like that? Finding a new job and making a change frankly scares me since I’ve gotten too comfortable where I am. I know people, they know me, but the hard fact is that I’m not doing myself any favors staying here; I have no advancement opportunity and I’m not at all inspired to work harder, or put any effort into my job. I’m much more focused on non-work activities (as you can see from all my writings here). Am I justifying staying in a go-nowhere-job to allow my current lifestyle to continue? I have every other Friday off from work, enjoy a transit subsidy, and annual salary increases and generally call my own shots. Changing jobs (or at least moving to non-profit) would mean taking a pay cut and learning new ropes. Its only an application and I don’t even know if I’ll get a phone call for an interview. Just making the step to submit the application was immense for me. We’ll see how all the challenges of the week pan out.
