2013 Discover Hartford Bike Tour Ride Report

Posted on September 23, 2013 by Joe Johnson

The Discover Hartford Bike Tour has changed focus this year for the better. I was surprised to see new routes and a new focus on the entire city as opposed to just the parks as in years past. I was prepared to write a fairly negative review based on absolutely nothing other than a fear of change. This ride is my one constant in my cycling calendar. It is a tradition for my father in law and I to ride it together and I really didn’t want anything to change that might take away from the ride. I really needn’t have worried.

Registration area

Registration area


If I were being honest some things about the ride did need to change. The Discover Hartford Bicycle Tour is a fundraiser for Bike Walk CT, a cycling advocacy group. It is a great idea but the ride was never promoted enough. It always seemed that volunteers’ hearts were in the right place but there was an idea that the ride was good enough. The course would change direction each year, but there wasn’t much variety due to the focus on the parks of the city. Last year was a low water mark with rough weather and almost more volunteers than riders. It was the first year that the ride was partnering with the Envisionfest event and the connection was tenuous.
Riders getting ready to head out.

Riders getting ready to head out.


Everything changed this year. The volunteers were always enthusiastic but this year it seemed as if there was a new spring in their step. You could tell that everything seemed much more organized and well thought out. Registration had been a little rough in some years past but this year they had a lovely tent set up with multiple lines for check in. Most importantly the walk in registration line was always doing brisk business. Nothing was a greater testament to the efforts at promotion than so many people registering the day of the ride. I always feel like the Tour has a certain population that will always ride. My father in law and I always see familiar faces each year. At the same time I almost never see fliers in my local bike shops which is a shame. I did see a ton of promotion for The Hartford Bicycle Festival that was the following day and loosely related but I always wish I would see more for the Discover Hartford Tour. I did see that one of the local news stations covered the Tour live which was great. They even did live shots early in the morning to get the word out. All in all the rider count had to be up as it seemed like there were more riders than in recent years.

The new routes were a huge success as well. The 25 mile route still passed through many parks as well as Trinity College and new the University of Hartford but the order and streets were new. The organizers also added a new feature this year, the pedestrian bridge over Interstate 91. This is a crossing that I would have never taken if the Tour didn’t include it. A ramp winds up about ten stories around a staircase allowing people to ride up instead of walking up the stairs. Once at the top you ride directly over the eight lane highway and then down an identical ramp. It was the signature feature of the ride and something I might add to some of my personal rides.

Ennvisionfest was also integrated much better this year. Last year it was a separate event that happened to be planned for the same day in the city. This year you could see that there was a huge effort to connect the two events, right down to the wonderful idea of offering free showers to riders so they could enjoy the rest of the day at the festival in comfort. There were also some great events timed to take place as riders were returning to the start finish area pulling them into the rest of the festival. It was very well done this year.

First rest stop at Trinity College

First rest stop at Trinity College


There were only a few negatives to this year’s ride. The largest one was the lack of rest stops along the way. At my first Tour it seemed like there was a stop in every park. It was great and each water stop was needed especially by me as I could barely complete the course back then. This year there were only two stops and they were placed about two miles in and then about five miles from the finish. That left almost 18 miles between stops. That would be a long stretch for riders that were pushing themselves to complete the 25 miles. This might be due to lack of volunteers or new permitting rules, but it was still difficult for some riders. Knox had a volunteer stand set up that many rides had mistaken for a rest stop and the Knox employees and volunteers gave everyone who stopped water. The other negative was a section of the course that traveled along Main Street in Hartford. There was some pretty heavy traffic and riders were clumped together at lights causing some concern for any skittish motorists that were not used to cyclists on the street. Everyone managed and I think that it was a positive because it pulled some riders out of their comfort zone and showed them that riding in traffic was survivable, but there might have been a better alternative. There is a beautiful paved path that runs along the river front that the Tour had used in the past that keeps cyclists off the city streets for a little while and offers some great views of the Connecticut River as it travels through Hartford. It would have been a great alternative; however it might not have been available. Envisionfest might have been using the space and it might have made it unusable for the Tour.
All in all I am thoroughly impressed with the gains that were made at this year’s Discover Hartford Bicycle Tour. The positives greatly outweighed the negatives and I think that the whole Tour has turned a corner to start a period of growth. I can’t wait to get back there next year.
Second rest stop, well, the generous people at Knox made it one!

Second rest stop, well, the generous people at Knox made it one!


There was a bonus in my weekend, the Hartford Bicycle Festival. It was a day of closed course crit races as well as a citizen’s ride which I rode in. The citizen’s ride was a chance for non-racing cyclists to ride on the course for 45 minutes with a donation to benefit CCAP, Connecticut Cycling Advancement Program. The course was laid out in a figure 8 like design with a narrow corridor for spectators instead of a cross over. It was a great way to lay out a course with the chance to see the pack twice a lap.

I rode in the citizen’s ride with about 40 other cyclists. It was a pretty great turnout for the first year and as an added bonus a good number of pros were using the citizen’s ride as a chance to do a few laps of the course before their events later in the day. It was a great chance to ride the course and gain a new appreciation for how fast the pros really ride. You could watch the top tier amateurs race, ride the course to set your own time, then watch the pros tear around to show what speed really is. It was a great way to end an amazing cycling weekend.
IMG_2132
Take a few minutes and check out the Bike Walk CT page as well as the CCAP page to learn more about what these great organizations are doing to forward cycling in Connecticut.

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Unintentional Rest

Posted on September 16, 2013 by Joe Johnson

Training for a race or a long ride follows certain cycles. You don’t always train hard; sometimes you take it a little easy so your body has time to rebuild. There are times when the training calendar says “rest time” and you really don’t feel the need for it. There are other times that you are counting the days or workouts until you hit a rest cycle. There are occasional times where your body tells the calendar that it doesn’t matter what it says, it’s time for a rest cycle. That is pretty much what happened to me this last week.

I had a great week the week before and I was looking forward to finishing my bike fit. I had gone to Tolland Bicycle to get a professional bike fit done and I highly recommend one if you have never gone through it. I was always skeptical of paying money for someone to tell me if my seat was too high, but I was really impressed. The shop took almost every imaginable measurement of my body, my bike, and how they fit together. They changed almost every aspect of my bike and it truly fit better when I left. My only lingering issue is my seat. As any cyclist knows, especially male ones, the saddle is the most frustratingly difficult bicycle part to deal with. I know some cyclists who are still searching for their perfect saddle years after finding their perfect bike. On Saturday I went and grabbed a test saddle confident that I would be narrowing my search down and rode strong despite a tickle in the back of my throat.
By Monday I could barely climb out of bed to go to work let alone ride my bike. I felt like someone wrapped my head in a pillow. I was stuffy and totally disconnected from anything. Tuesday was barely any better. Wednesday I tried to ride, thinking the worst had passed. I couldn’t have been more wrong. It’s Sunday now and I am finally feeling better. I am going to get back on the bike tomorrow and see what happens. Hopefully I will be able to get back to some training, although the timing is going to be a little rough.
Last week was supposed to be one of the more intense weeks of training for me. It was the last full week before three straight weeks of events. This weekend I have the Hartford Parks Tour ride. It is only 25 miles, but there is a second ride on Sunday that I am thinking about doing as well. The following weekend I have committed (or should be committed for trying) to running the Rugged Maniac New England. It is only a 5 K race, but there are eighteen or so obstacles throughout the muddy race course that I have to negotiate. The very next weekend is 60 plus miles of cycling on Martha’s Vineyard. Due to some travel complications that trip will be done in one day. One very long day. This week was supposed to be my “rest” week where all I did was some gentle spinning to keep the legs limber and used to working. Now I am not sure what to do.
This all happened because my son started preschool. I am sure that anyone reading with kids will instantly understand now. Those without children, let me warn you what will happen if you ever have kids and let them spend time with a bunch of other kids. All kids carry some germs, but everyone else’s kids carry superbugs. Your poor child will go to school for the first time and within a week contract some form of toddler black plague and pass it directly on to you, the unsuspecting parent. You will be so wrapped up in being proud of your child for going to school that you will never suspect you are about to contract the super flu directly from patient zero. A week after they start school your eyes will be running, your nose will be running, and you will feel like you should really call the CDC to let them know where the outbreak started. It ends quickly, but you still feel like someone should have warned you about this during the school’s open house or in some type of pamphlet from the school nurse or something.
Now that I feel better I realize that I managed to put myself in a little bit of a hole and I am not sure how to get out of it. Should I attempt to train my way out of it? I am no professional athlete, but my first weekend of events is not much more than a normal training weekend. Maybe the best thing to do is to treat this week and weekend as my final run up to the real test, the Rugged Maniac. I could take a rest week or at least a light training week before I run that and then start the cycle back up again so I am ready for a longer training ride when it is time to tackle the 100 kilometer Martha’s Vineyard ride. That sounds great except that I have never ridden that distance before. At the same time, I have done 45 miles and this isn’t that much further. Yeah, I don’t believe that either, but I am trying to stay positive.
I could also just take this week as a light training week and go into the weekend rested and ready. That would be basically admitting that I am not going to be ready for the Rugged Maniac, and that is probably true no matter what I do, so why fake it? The real goal there is to not get injured so I can still ride on Martha’s Vineyard the following weekend.
What would you do? Have you ever been behind the eight ball when it comes to getting ready for events? What have you done in the past? Let me know and I’ll include some of the best answers in the follow up post in a month when I know how everything shook out!

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Balance, Nahhh

Posted on September 9, 2013 by Joe Johnson

I was struggling with a topic this week when I turned to Facebook and got a great one. Balance. Specifically a friend suggested that I write about how I balance riding, work, family, fatherhood, and life in general. Where exactly is the time to fit everything in?
Short answer, I don’t. I am not good at balance at all. My wife laughs at me because she says that you always know what has my focus because it is the only thing that has my focus. I tend to become myopic to a fault when I am working on a project or working towards a goal. It takes a while before I am fully committed sometimes, but once I am I tend to focus on something at times to the exclusion of other things. I like to think that if something is worth doing, it’s worth doing right. My wife would counter that if I think something is worth doing, it’s worth overdoing. Deep down, I think that she is probably right.
The blog is a great example of my lack of balance. I started writing as an outlet for some unused creativity and as a way to focus my mind while I was unemployed. I had tried to write off and on for most of my life but it wasn’t something that was important to me until I was out of work and looking for a new way to define myself. I had always used my profession as a large part of my personal definition. “Hi, I’m Joe, I work as an environmental technician” or some such variation. Without a profession I needed something else, so Joe the writer came into focus. There were some fits and starts before I figured out exactly how I wanted to work the site. Once I did, it didn’t take too long until I decided that it would be a great idea to post once a week for a year. It didn’t matter that I typically was writing once or twice a month, it was time to commit. Of course, if I was going to put time and effort into writing, I decided to put the same into promoting the site. I converted my Twitter account from strictly personal to more of an author account that could promote my site and I created a Facebook fan page for the blog. I tried to expand followers and likes and convert them into readers. I wrote for other cycling sites in an effort to find new audiences. It all sounds great, except sometimes I worked all day on writing and promoting and totally forgot about looking for work. I never let it get too out of hand as I felt like I owed it to my family to treat my job search as a full time job, but there were days that I neglected that in order to finish a post or promote a new article. My hobby to keep my brain engaged and to feel like I was contributing something turned into an obsession. I have been writing for a year now and I don’t see stopping any time soon even though I have been back at work for six months.
The same can be said for riding my bike. It started out as something to do to relieve a little stress and to fill my days up during a lay off when I was a contractor. I also struggled to start cycling seriously, going for long rides and then not riding for weeks or a month at a time. I did start to enjoy feeling like I was becoming part of a new culture. There were times I felt like I was part of the cycling tribe and I enjoyed that distinction even if I wasn’t a constant rider at that point. After the first summer I sort of let myself go and struggled to pick it back up. Once I fell into the groove I didn’t want to stop. I started riding three times a week and then added in week-end rides. I would get up at five in the morning to get a long ride in before my family woke up. My wife would often just be getting up when I would ride into the driveway after a twenty mile ride. I was acting like an addict, finding time when no one would notice I was gone to sneak in another ride. If evening plans cancelled I would jump on my bike and head out because no one expected me home anyway. This season has been my best, and subsequently my worst cycling season yet. I have ridden well over 2300 miles this year. Last year I only managed 1315 and I still have three and a half months left with some decent group rides in September and October. I think I can top 3000 miles for the year. In April I participated in the 30 day challenge, riding every day that month. There wasn’t a lot of balance in that at all, just a little bit of obsessive compulsive disorder.
Thankfully my family supports me in most of what I struggle to find balance with. They don’t mind that I took a job that routinely calls me in for off hours emergency response work. I volunteer for extra on call duty to help make ends meet and my family supports that even though I spend way too much on web hosting fees and cycling gear to really say that I am only doing it for the family’s budget. They also support me by encouraging me to go participate in crazy bike rides in New York and staying up late to write posts for the blog. My wife even carves time out of her crazy schedule to make sure she reads each post and tries to promote it on her Facebook page. She also helps me by taking care of our son and making sure that I quit playing with him and I go write Monday’s post like she did tonight. There is also the small matter of entertaining him so he doesn’t run into the office every 5 minutes asking if I am done yet or what am I doing or why am I doing it. She also reminds me to not take everything too seriously, something which I often have trouble remembering though I do enjoy making fun of myself for failing to remember it.
Really I am not the one that manages to balance anything when it comes to writing, riding, working, and being there for my family. It is really my wife who makes sure that everything continues to carry on and that nothing falls apart. She is the one that keeps the family organized and moving in the right direction so I can go off and ride my bike and write about it once a week. Thank goodness she is so good at balancing everything because I know that I’m certainly not! I don’t know what we would do without her but I am certain that nothing would go as well or run as smoothly as it does now. Maybe that is the best answer to my friend’s topic suggestion. I don’t balance anything well, but my wife Katie keeps everything from falling apart anyway.

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Balance, nahhhhh

Posted on September 9, 2013 by Joe Johnson

I was struggling with a topic this week when I turned to Facebook and got a great one. Balance. Specifically a friend suggested that I write about how I balance riding, work, family, fatherhood, and life in general. Where exactly is the time to fit everything in?
Short answer, I don’t. I am not good at balance at all. My wife laughs at me because she says that you always know what has my focus because it is the only thing that has my focus. I tend to become myopic to a fault when I am working on a project or working towards a goal. It takes a while before I am fully committed sometimes, but once I am I tend to focus on something at times to the exclusion of other things. I like to think that if something is worth doing, it’s worth doing right. My wife would counter that if I think something is worth doing, it’s worth overdoing. Deep down, I think that she is probably right.
The blog is a great example of my lack of balance. I started writing as an outlet for some unused creativity and as a way to focus my mind while I was unemployed. I had tried to write off and on for most of my life but it wasn’t something that was important to me until I was out of work and looking for a new way to define myself. I had always used my profession as a large part of my personal definition. “Hi, I’m Joe, I work as an environmental technician” or some such variation. Without a profession I needed something else, so Joe the writer came into focus. There were some fits and starts before I figured out exactly how I wanted to work the site. Once I did, it didn’t take too long until I decided that it would be a great idea to post once a week for a year. It didn’t matter that I typically was writing once or twice a month, it was time to commit. Of course, if I was going to put time and effort into writing, I decided to put the same into promoting the site. I converted my Twitter account from strictly personal to more of an author account that could promote my site and I created a Facebook fan page for the blog. I tried to expand followers and likes and convert them into readers. I wrote for other cycling sites in an effort to find new audiences. It all sounds great, except sometimes I worked all day on writing and promoting and totally forgot about looking for work. I never let it get too out of hand as I felt like I owed it to my family to treat my job search as a full time job, but there were days that I neglected that in order to finish a post or promote a new article. My hobby to keep my brain engaged and to feel like I was contributing something turned into an obsession. I have been writing for a year now and I don’t see stopping any time soon even though I have been back at work for six months.
The same can be said for riding my bike. It started out as something to do to relieve a little stress and to fill my days up during a lay off when I was a contractor. I also struggled to start cycling seriously, going for long rides and then not riding for weeks or a month at a time. I did start to enjoy feeling like I was becoming part of a new culture. There were times I felt like I was part of the cycling tribe and I enjoyed that distinction even if I wasn’t a constant rider at that point. After the first summer I sort of let myself go and struggled to pick it back up. Once I fell into the groove I didn’t want to stop. I started riding three times a week and then added in week-end rides. I would get up at five in the morning to get a long ride in before my family woke up. My wife would often just be getting up when I would ride into the driveway after a twenty mile ride. I was acting like an addict, finding time when no one would notice I was gone to sneak in another ride. If evening plans cancelled I would jump on my bike and head out because no one expected me home anyway. This season has been my best, and subsequently my worst cycling season yet. I have ridden well over 2300 miles this year. Last year I only managed 1315 and I still have three and a half months left with some decent group rides in September and October. I think I can top 3000 miles for the year. In April I participated in the 30 day challenge, riding every day that month. There wasn’t a lot of balance in that at all, just a little bit of obsessive compulsive disorder.
Thankfully my family supports me in most of what I struggle to find balance with. They don’t mind that I took a job that routinely calls me in for off hours emergency response work. I volunteer for extra on call duty to help make ends meet and my family supports that even though I spend way too much on web hosting fees and cycling gear to really say that I am only doing it for the family’s budget. They also support me by encouraging me to go participate in crazy bike rides in New York and staying up late to write posts for the blog. My wife even carves time out of her crazy schedule to make sure she reads each post and tries to promote it on her Facebook page. She also helps me by taking care of our son and making sure that I quit playing with him and I go write Monday’s post like she did tonight. There is also the small matter of entertaining him so he doesn’t run into the office every 5 minutes asking if I am done yet or what am I doing or why am I doing it. She also reminds me to not take everything too seriously, something which I often have trouble remembering though I do enjoy making fun of myself for failing to remember it.
Really I am not the one that manages to balance anything when it comes to writing, riding, working, and being there for my family. It is really my wife who makes sure that everything continues to carry on and that nothing falls apart. She is the one that keeps the family organized and moving in the right direction so I can go off and ride my bike and write about it once a week. Thank goodness she is so good at balancing everything because I know that I’m certainly not! I don’t know what we would do without her but I am certain that nothing would go as well or run as smoothly as it does now. Maybe that is the best answer to my friend’s topic suggestion. I don’t balance anything well, but my wife Katie keeps everything from falling apart anyway.

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Sometimes a Ride is Just a Ride

Posted on September 2, 2013 by Joe Johnson

Sometimes a ride is just a ride. I start a good weekend day with a ride. I get up, get dressed in my kit, get everything sorted and hit the road. It’s become enough of a routine now that I rarely forget too much and one ride blends into another. I don’t always go the same route and each ride brings something new, but I honestly couldn’t tell you which ride I saw the red fox near the trail. He was the first fox I have seen on a ride and he ran along the trail with me until he headed into the woods. I don’t think I will ever forget thinking “That’s a fox. I thought I knew what one looked like, and I know I have thought that some dogs looked like a fox, but I was wrong”. I couldn’t tell you what ride I saw him though. It was one this summer, but they really do blend together to a point. I might realize that I kept good pace on one or that another was a huge struggle, but sometimes a ride is just a ride.
Sometimes a ride is so much more than just a ride. I have a friend that tore his rotator cuff. He had surgery over the winter to fix the damage. He put it off for a while, but he finally gave in and had it done. Everything went well and he began his recovery and met with his doctor for instructions. He heard news that he wasn’t prepared for: no running, cycling, or any physical activity other than what he did in physical therapy. The doctors would re-evaluate him later, but at the first meeting they told him six months until he could be active again. This was a huge blow. My friend ran a few times a week and was one of a few people that I rode with on a regular basis. He routinely runs local races and we normally have a pretty full schedule of charity rides throughout the summer season, but not this year. The timing of the surgery and recovery precluded any of these events.
My friend knew why his doctor imposed the limitations. Any pressure on the joint had the potential to damage it further or to effect the healing. Worse, if he fell he could actually cause more damage and be back in surgery again, restarting the whole process. He went to physical therapy throughout the spring, being as dedicated as he could, working toward the next step of his recovery; being allowed to go to the gym. Once there he was allowed to walk on the treadmill and ride the stationary bike. It was a far cry from being outside, but it was activity. He knew that each step brought him closer to getting back to the things he loved to do.
My friend still had a couple of goals for the fall season. He knew that if he kept working hard and if he continued to heal the doctors would clear him to resume full activity in the late summer. If he could slowly increase his conditioning he could still participate in the end of season rides. Each year we ride together in the Hartford Park Tour. We have also made Cycle Martha’s Vineyard a new tradition. Both rides were well within his conditioning level in past years. He normally had to slow himself down so he didn’t lose me as I tried to get into shape. This year his goal was just to make it to the rides. He also wanted to run his leg of the Hartford Marathon Relay Charity Run and be ready for the Manchester Road Race. He has run the five mile Thanksgiving day race ten years in a row, he didn’t want to miss this year. All throughout the spring and early summer he went to the gym and the doctor’s office with those goals in the back of his mind.
Finally the doctor said he could resume outdoor activity as long as he took it easy and protected the shoulder as much as he could. My friend jumped on his bike and rode eight miles. I think he was upset that was all he could accomplish, but I also know he was excited to be back out on a bike. He knew that the exercise bike in the gym wasn’t the same as riding a real bike and he was prepared to struggle, but I don’t think he really knew how different it would be. His first eight miles reminded me of my first bike ride when I started getting into shape. I never knew how long a mile was until I had to cover it on a bike gasping for breath. No matter what, the most important part of a first ride is completing it and making sure that it is a first ride, not an only ride. He worked and rode and continued his therapy until the doctor finally told him to go ahead and start training. He signed up for the two rides and started to push his mileage up. He went ten miles and then twelve. This weekend I asked him to go for a ride with me.
My friend was concerned about riding with me. Our roles were reversed from the time that I started riding. Without him having to say anything I knew what he was thinking and what his fears were. They were the same ones I had when he asked me to ride with him two years ago. He was concerned that he wouldn’t be fast enough or that I would push too hard for him. He was worried that I wouldn’t get enough out of the ride. He didn’t want to look weak or to be a pain as we rode. He was annoyed with himself for having to think about any of these things. I can remember how worried I was when I started riding with him. I assured him it would be fine and that we should make his first ride back an occasion by trying a new trail. That way we would be exploring and not pushing hard at all. It was a holiday weekend and it was the perfect excuse to take our time somewhere new.
We got to the trail and set off slowly. It was a perfect day to take our time. It was the type of day that you would never want to ride unless you were a cyclist. It was 80 degrees and humid. Our clothes were already sticking to us at the car. Once we were rolling the wind helped. Being on the trail helped. We started looking at the surrounding scenery and the other people using the trail. We talked about past rides when I was struggling to keep up. We reminisced about the time that we were on an unpaved rail trail and a college cross country team ran up a gradual 4 mile hill as fast as I could ride up it. We just rode and enjoyed the day. I could see my friend slowly lose his worry and find a little peace in the ride. The trail didn’t have any real hills so he didn’t have to struggle much. It was just a nice way to ease back into distance training.
We decided to turn around after 7.5 miles but we overshot that by riding to the next trailside bench. Wed brought protein bars for a quick trailside snack and we wanted to sit and look at the Farmington River while we ate. We had an unexpected visitor as well; a hummingbird decided to sample some flowers a few feet off of the trail as we watched. No matter how many times I see one I am constantly amazed at how fast their wings beat to hover in the air. I am also amazed that such a little bird can expend so much energy just to hover at a flower for such a little benefit. We got back on our bikes and rode the almost eight miles back to the car. I could see the relief on my friends face when we got back, not that the ride was over but that he handled it as well as he did. There was finally light at the end of the tunnel for him, he could see that all of his hard work was paying off. He was able to ride almost sixteen miles and enjoy the ride. Sometimes a ride is more than the mileage, the elapsed time, the route or the suffering of training. Sometimes a ride is just a ride, but this ride was a signpost on his road back to being the athlete he was before the surgery.

Posted in challenge, Epic Rides, fitness, life skills | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

How I Spent My High School Reunion

Posted on August 26, 2013 by Joe Johnson

Sometimes inspiration can strike out of the blue. Sometimes you have a great idea that needs work. Sometimes you worry an idea in your mind until it is finally smooth and shiny and ready to be put on display. Sometimes an idea will just arrive fully formed and ready to be acted upon. Mostly importantly, you never know which type you will receive or when they will show up. There are weeks I am writing the blog in my mind on Tuesday and there are weeks where I am staring at a blank page on Sunday evening. This week falls somewhere in the middle.
I used my blog’s Facebook page to help me decide if I should go to my 20th High School reunion. I could probably write a post about letting the internet decide life choices for you and the possible results another week. I did end up following the internet’s advice and I went to my reunion. It was fascinating in many ways and it was much like high school itself.
Katie and I arrived early and met up with a great friend from my childhood. Chris is actually one of those people that I really wish I kept in touch with. We had known each other since sixth grade. We rode bikes together as kids. When I ended up at my high school late in my senior year we reconnected, but we weren’t as close as we had been. Most of that was my fault as I was hanging out with a different crowd than he did, though we did share some friends. How I ended up changing schools in my senior year is also a story for another day. Perhaps we could have a couple of weeks dedicated to poor life choices. That might give me time to tell the stories. The important thing is that I was able to reconnect with Chris at the reunion. Whatever had come between us was long lost to the past. The other important part of that story is that Chris has a great website (www.thefirstrun.com). It is an amazing entertainment site and podcast. Chris was always into movies and entertainment and he does an outstanding job on the website and podcast. It’s completely worth ten minutes, or ten hours, of your time. You will be sucked in if you like music, movies, and a bunch of pop culture.
We didn’t stay too long at the reunion. I realized that when you show up late and don’t spend too much time at a school it is amazingly difficult to remember too many people twenty years later. There were a few people that it was great to see again, but much like Chris, I knew then from other parts of my life. Bowling, college, work, or some other activity that existed outside of school jogged the memories. Katie and I did end up having a great night out and dinner.
What does all of this have to do with inspiration? Well, after the internet told me to go to the reunion I felt like I owed the reunion wrap up story. While I was at the reunion and catching up with Chris he asked me about writing for The First Run. He had asked me previously but I had trouble coming up with any good ideas about what to write about. I tend to stick to writing about cycling or weight loss or pseudo philosophical navel gazing. I was incredibly honored to be asked to contribute but I was drawing a blank. On the way to the reunion that changed. I was telling Katie about the site and how there are movie and music reviews and commentary as well as some classic reviews. We also talked about the type of people Chris and I were in high school and classes in general. I complained about something that always bothered me, reading lists. I was always in AP English Lit and I had the worst reading lists imaginable. I am sure that all of the books were classics, but I hardly remember any of them. They were classics in the worst sense of the term, old, dusty and slightly irrelevant in the modern era. I was always jealous of lower level reading lists because they got to swap out The Scarlet Letter with Huckleberry Finn or Of Mice and Men. I remember reading my friends English books in Math classes, which explains a lot about me and my math grades.
Once I got to the reunion and saw Chris I instantly had the thought of what I could write for his site. Books you should have read. I can read and review source material for movies as well as writing about books that you should have read in school instead of the ones you were probably forced to read. I can even throw in a few modern favorites for fun and a blatant attempt to find more readers for favorite authors. It was a great feeling to have a fully formed idea pop into my head ready for use. I can even think of a few books to start with, among them T.H. White’s classic The Once and Future King. It’s a little sad that I decided the best thing I could do was write book reports on my way to my high school reunion.
The other inspiration that stuck was what do to with my blog after the 52 Posts in 52 Weeks Challenge is finally over. It turns out that I love writing a weekly piece. I want to keep that going but I am struggling for topics. I am sure that all writers go through this phase. I think we all write until we find the thing that we should write about. I think I want to tell mostly true stories about my life. I realized that even my wife doesn’t know a lot of my stories and I want to preserve them on the web. Maybe if it all comes together and is interesting to people I can self-publish a book. Either way I find myself wanting to tell some of the stories to capture them before I can’t really remember them anymore. I think I might want to change a few names and dates to respect other people’s privacy as well, but I do want to get them mostly right. I would like them to still be around for my son so he can learn from my mistakes or just laugh with me. A lot. This idea still needs work. I am still going to be playing with the execution for a while and trying to see how it fits in short story form. It’s one of those ideas that needs a lot of refinement.
Inspiration is a funny thing. I’m going to go for a walk and think about these ideas but will probably get distracted and hopefully come up with next week’s blog instead.

Posted in life skills | Tagged , , , , | 1 Comment

A Change in Perspective

Posted on August 19, 2013 by Joe Johnson

I do something most riders find dangerous. I think it’s a holdover from when I used to ride rail trails on my hybrid bike, safe from any traffic. I tend to listen to music when I ride. I keep one earbud in on my right ear playing softly. I know it’s not the best idea, but I keep the volume low enough to hear traffic coming up behind me and I can always hear phones ringing or people talking as I ride by. Most of the time I can’t hear the whole song, but the music in the background helps distract my mind when I hit a particularly rough hill or if I am getting tired. It’s not loud enough to hear all the time, but it floats along just beneath my conscious level of hearing. It’s probably more of a mental crutch as I have forgotten to start the music but have put in the earbud and not noticed for miles at a time.

A disclaimer is in order, if you do not ride with earbuds or earphones do not start. If you do, stop now. The music can mask the noise of oncoming traffic and you might think that it’s safe to move towards the center of the road for a turn when it isn’t. You might also miss the sound of an engine whose driver hasn’t seen you yet. It’s not safe. Don’t do it. Do as I say, not as I do or at least don’t do as I do and claim that I didn’t tell you not to do it.

Friday’s ride was going to be good no matter what actually happened on the ride. I had a long couple of weeks with a coworker on vacation and still trying to learn my new job. There were lots of people with questions and I hoped that I answered most of them correctly. It’s like that at any new job, and when your primary source of information is away you tend to stress out a little more. I was riding to a campground not that far from work to meet up with family for a relaxing weekend. I had a couple of different routes planed based on the time they thought they would arrive. I didn’t want to get there too early so I had a few roads I could explore to lengthen the ride.

After my wife texted me to let me know that they were running late and I headed out from my office towards the local rail trail. The first thing that I ran into was a sign telling me that it was closed. The state is repaving it and had pulled up a good amount of blacktop. I found a road that ran parallel and took off through a farmer’s field. The road bisected the field and I could see cows on each side of me. I was barely off the main road but it felt like I was riding through the deep country, or so I thought. After exploring awhile, I turned back and jumped on the open section of the trail, thankfully it was open all the way to the end in the direction of the camp site.

The trail is beautiful. If you are ever in Western Massachusetts you really should ride some of the rail trails. They cut through the little town centers and the cycling culture is strong enough there that local businesses open next to the trail for the increased traffic. Ice cream shops, bars, and coffee shops front the 11 miles of trail that I rode. It also passed through the center of Northampton, a nice little college town full of eccentric shops that encouraged bicyclist to browse with convenient bike racks outside of the shops. Where the trails cross streets, and in truth all of the roads I rode, motorists seem to be well aware that they are likely to encounter cyclists and actively look out for them. It’s a nice change from riding around my house.

Eventually I entered the Berkshires and the trail ended leaving me 14 miles of roads to explore on my way to the campsite. My wife had sent me a text letting me know that the family was making good time so I chose the most direct route. I had asked friends at work what they best way to ride to the site would be and they all seemed to agree that staying on the back roads would make for the easiest ride. I never thought about the fact that they never ride, just that they knew the area so much better than I did. Everyone told me to stay off route 66 as it would make for a tougher ride. I took off down the prescribed route and immediately hit a hill. A large hill. A very large hill. A hill that made me wish I hadn’t spent so much energy exploring farm roads and trails.

The roads headed deep into the forests of western Massachusetts. Bright sun faded to dark shadows. I had broken a decent sweat on the trails and the tree cover was so thick that I actually felt a little chilled when I wasn’t climbing steep ascents. Despite the pain of the climbs and the temptation to walk I was actually pretty happy. I was stuck in the same type of terrain that caused me to turn back on my previous ride in Tolland. I was managing these hills no matter how slow I was going. I was content in the pain of the climb because I was climbing. Slow, very slow, but climbing none the less.

The navigation (thanks Google Maps and iPhone) had me take a left turn and the road continued to climb. Big surprise. Gradually I noticed I had picked up speed. The climb was leveling off. I could finally breathe again. I looked down at my cycle computer and smiled. I only had six miles left to go. I noticed that I had accidently paused my iPod, hitting the button with my arm as I went to shift my hydration pack. I decided to leave it off for awhile. The road leveled off and the forest gave way to cleared farmland. I passed a horse grazing in a field. There were more houses as I rode along. I could hear the chain clicking through the chainring and cassette every time I freewheeled. It dawned on me that I don’t think I had ever ridden through an area so quiet. My normal routes are through urban and suburban areas where there is always some type of noise in the background. Riding through the country I could hear the chain sing. I could hear the crunch of the wheels as they flowed over the rough old pavement. More than that, I realized I could discern more with my other senses as well. There is normally a “city stench” that causes you to not be able to smell much, even in the suburbs. You smell the engines, the stores, the people. There is so much going on that all of the individual smells merge into one stench that we hardly notice anymore. Where I was riding in the country there was none of that. I could smell exactly what was happening around me. As I rode past a white farm house I could smell what the family was cooking for dinner. They were barbequing chicken. It made my mouth water.

Cycling through an area will always teach you more about the land than driving through it will. I know each hill and valley on my training rides even though you might barely notice them in a car. I know which are easily ascended and which will cause me to suffer. I know which descents are joyous with speed and which are terrifying due to bad pavement. This ride took the idea to new heights. I could smell what was going on around me. I could taste what was on the wind. The silence became a story as birds grew quiet as I rode by. I could hear them from further away but not right near me. They would start again after I rode by, calling ahead to warn others of my approach. There was serenity in the ride that I had never anticipated. I can tell why I see so many cyclists in the area as I travel for work. There is something about riding in Western Massachusetts that is unlike anything else.

I headed out on this ride looking for some stress relief. I wanted to lose myself in the effort of the ride. I didn’t plan on finding inspiration or serenity, but some of the best things in life are like that. They are the unexpected pleasures and little lessons that you learn while you think you are on your way to something else. What have you found like that?

Posted in Cycling, Epic Rides | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

Dentist Blues

Posted on August 12, 2013 by Joe Johnson

I have had an interesting week when it comes to dentistry and it overwhelmed whatever else I was going to write about for this week’s update. Anyone who follows along at my Facebook or Twitter pages will already know that I had some emergency oral surgery. Everything seems to have worked out for the best as it is Sunday and I am writing my Monday update, but it was a little rough from Tuesday on through Saturday.

Monday and Tuesday I had some pretty intense pain in the left side of my mouth. I have been putting off a couple of root canals so I assumed that my time had come. I went to my dentist after work on Tuesday finally conceding to the pain. My dentist took one look at me and said “well, those bad boys need to come out” and sent me right back to the waiting room. I was more than a little concerned at this point. I was brought back in to Vince’s office and was given the news. Four teeth needed to be pulled. Tomorrow morning. Call out of work, do not make plans, bring your checkbook. I was told I needed a ride to the office and a ride home as I was being knocked out for the operation. I was also told that it would take all of my insurance plus an extra $500, payable in the morning. After I went as white as a sheet Vince told me not to worry, maybe I could do half down and we worked out an easy monthly payment schedule. Vince was also kind enough to let me know other problems he saw in my x-rays and told me not to worry, we could work something out there as well. He gave me my finance sheet and I asked a few questions such as when to show up and what would happen as we missed those points. I also asked if there was anything else I needed to know and he said nope, good luck.

I went home and scrambled to find some money and to break it to my wife. Thankfully she had time to drop me off in the morning and her mom could pick me up. My work was extremely understanding. I really couldn’t ask to work for a better company. I spent the night slathering on toothache cream from CVS and tossing and turning. I finally gave up and got out of bed at 2:00 deciding to let my wife sleep. I went downstairs and watched some late night TV and drank some coffee. I really couldn’t stomach food but the coffee helped calm my nerves. Around 6:00 I got ready to go and started pacing back and forth until it was time to leave. Things then took a turn for the worse.

Vince is a finance guy. He is great at what he does which is get patients to pay their bills and sent up payment plans. He isn’t so good at giving instructions. He failed to mention that someone had to stay the whole time I was at the dentists’ office. I was being sedated and they needed someone there with me. It made sense in retrospect, but not telling me the night before was an oversight. I was emotional and nervous and I wasn’t thinking things through. Thankfully my wife could juggle her schedule and make things work. She was in a very busy time at work, but her coworkers were amazing and understanding. Vince also failed to mention that I wasn’t supposed to have anything to eat or drink after midnight. This wasn’t that big of a deal in some ways, I was far too nervous to eat anyway, but that calming coffee was going to have a very adverse effect after all. I was asked repeatedly why I drank and didn’t I read the directions. No one believed me at first that I was never given directions, just a bill. I finally showed them the packet I received from Vince. Then the office staff started to rail against Vince. At first I felt bad until someone finally told me why it was so important not to eat or drink. I would not be able to be sedated. I would be awake the whole time.

At this point the oral surgeon started to examine me. He immediately had questions about the prognosis from the other doctor, asking me who saw me and why the decided what they did. I remembered my dentist’s name (it’s a huge practice where you see different doctors every time) but I really didn’t know why he decided anything, I assumed it was just what needed to be done. Nextt came extra x-rays and more consultation between doctors and a new plan was decided. Only one, maybe two teeth would come out. That made me feel better as it was less for me to deal with, but also a little nervous as all I really wanted was to fix the pain.

We finally got underway and I had my first dose of nitrous oxide. Wow, what a weird sensation. I still felt everything and was awake, but it was like I was drunk the whole time. It still hurt like hell. A quick trip to the pharmacy and a day and a half of recovery and I made it back to work on Friday looking like I got punched in the side of the face but able to function. All in all, a great result as long as nothing else goes wrong. It’s Sunday night and I am feeling better and almost eating solid food.

I try not to get political, but I think that my trip through my dentist’s office might shed some light on what’s really wrong with healthcare these days. Don’t get me wrong, I am extremely lucky that this was dental work and not life threatening and I am even luckier that I have insurance. At the same time, it was interesting to me that the finance person was the one most involved in deciding my level of care. He expertly used all of my available insurance plus some money out of pocket. I say this because I found out later that it was my option to be sedated. I could have chosen nitrous oxide and local anesthesia from the beginning for a substantial discount. He never asked me. I ended up not paying anything out of pocket because of that change and the amount of teeth being removed but I would have still managed to not pay if they took four teeth instead of two without the sedation included. Vince decided the level of care and never told me there was a cheaper way; just that he could set me up on monthly payments. Even when the office staff and surgeon were angry with him my first thought was that I hoped he didn’t get into trouble over me because I needed to be on a payment plan.

Should a finance person be the last arbiter of the level of care you receive when you go to a doctor or dentist? I would hope not, but this isn’t the first time it has happened to me or my family. It seems that your credit score determines your level of care as much as your insurance or actually health needs. That seems counterproductive to anyone but the finance person that is trying to drive business. Incomplete care will cause you to return for more work which will cause more monthly payments which will drive up the margin of profit per patient.

If we are reforming healthcare, perhaps we should talk about this idea. I would think that one of the ways to drive down cost is to solve as many problems as possible in a few visits as possible, even if the initial visit costs more. I know that there are many sides to this issue, and I am not a political blogger. I try very hard to stay out of that arena and I don’t pretend to have enough knowledge to speak to most topics, this is just one thought. What would you fix with the healthcare system if you were king for a day?

Posted in life skills | Tagged , , , , , , , | 5 Comments

One Year In

Posted on August 5, 2013 by Joe Johnson

I just received the email informing me that it is time to renew my domain registration for my blog’s web site. It’s hard to believe that it’s been a full year of writing and trying to lose weight, and even harder to believe how far I’ve gotten. It’s never easy to talk about a journey and only have good things to say. There are always unexpected detours and confusing sections where you might lose your way and have to figure out how to get back on track. I have been seriously committed to trying to lose weight and get in shape for almost one year now. It has been an interesting year and so much has changed. There have definitely been some highs and lows over the last year and a few extremely frustrating periods. I am stuck in one of those right now so it might be good that we are approaching the one year anniversary. It is a good time frame to be able to gain some perspective.

One year ago I weighed 365 pounds. I was always eating junk. I knew it was bad for me, but I did it anyway. I had quit smoking a couple of years before after 21 years of multiple packs a day, and like many other ex-smokers I replaced the cigarettes with food. I was constantly snacking on something. Sometimes I would eat healthier, but still eat constantly. I was far less physically active than I had ever been as well, which only compounded the issue. I had gone from doing physical work in my mid-twenties to working at a desk by my mid-thirties. One year ago it was even worse as I started a 30 day layoff that would become permanent. So, on top of always eating, I wasn’t burning off any of the food I was consuming.

One year ago I was sure that I was going to be fat forever. I had started riding my bike a year before and I had hoped for some life changing event that seemed to happen to everyone that started riding, at least according to what I had read. It seemed to me that all you had to do was jump on a bike and ride and the weight would fall off. To be fair, it did start to come off but I managed to out eat the weight loss. I would ride 20 miles and use that as an excuse to eat even more. This reinforced the mindset that some people would just always be fat, and I was one of them. I would get angry at myself every time I went clothes shopping because I was stuck looking for clothes with more Xs in them than a red light district but then I would go home and eat even more food. I don’t know if I was comfort eating, or just eating out of habit. Much like smoking, eating became something to do when I was bored not when I was hungry. I distinctly remember not being hungry at all. I never had the chance. That was one of the first things I relearned when I started to lose weight, what hungry actually felt like.

One year ago I didn’t like where I was, and I didn’t like where I was heading. I was looking for inspiration and I found it in a book by Mike Magnuson. Heft on Wheels came to me at exactly the right time in my life. While we didn’t share every problem, Magnuson and I shared the issue of always weighing more than we wanted to but always thinking that we would fix it tomorrow. His tomorrow finally came and his story inspired me to find mine. Heft on Wheels was written in the exact language that I needed to get through to me. It was sarcastic, funny, and self-deprecating. At some point I began to think of it as a conversation with a great friend who was sharing his story of transformation and showing me that I could get there too if I worked hard enough. I also loved that Magnuson kept stressing that how he changed his life wasn’t vetted by doctors or his suggestion on how anyone else do it, it was just what worked for him.

I decided that it was worth another shot. This time I wanted to accomplish my goal instead of just hanging onto the idea that I was going to lose weight eventually. Eventually never has a timeline. It just hangs out in the future comfortably distant and never holding you accountable. This time I was going to create some accountability. I was going to put all of this on line for people to see. I started my blog as a way to report back to the interwebs on what progress I was making. There are other goals to the blog, but knowing that I have to let people know how I am doing in good times and bad kept me focused. I also decided that it was time to set some challenges as another way to force accountability. I signed up for group rides and this September I am going to run my first Rugged Maniac. I am also going to do my first metric century charity ride, the very next weekend. The fear is a great motivator.

So, after a year, where am I? Well, I am a little better. I lost the first 88 pounds. In the first six months of the year I have doubled my total cycling mileage from the previous full year. I am eating healthier and sticking to my exercise program. I failed to complete the hilliest 60 mile ride that I attempted, but I learned from that experience and I am training harder to make sure that I succeed when I ride my metric century on Martha’s Vineyard later this year. I have also learned the pain of a plateau. That’s a big part of the reason why I am still down 88 pounds instead of the 100 I want to lose by the end of the cycling season. I have also learned that old habits die hard and that you can quickly fall back into bad habits. I have lost some of the headway I gained when I fell back into poor eating habits. A small dinner is fine, a small desert if fine as well. A large dinner and two deserts is not fine. It’s particularly not fine if you don’t exercise that day, or the next day.

The most important part of this last year is coming to the realization that falling back is okay. It’s not a good thing, but it’s not the worst that could happen either because I know that I am still working on this lifestyle change. I started a year ago thinking that I would give it six months to see how everything went. I fully expected to fail, or lose some weight and then gain it back as soon as I stopped. Four months in things were going so well that I decided to keep the blog going and to up the ante on the writing end and started the 52 Posts in 52 Weeks Challenge. Now I am coming up on the one year anniversary of the blog and I realize that I don’t want to stop moving forward. I will fall back from time to time, but I don’t want to stop and I don’t want to lose ground. I feel better than I ever have even when I hit a plateau or fall back into bad habits. I still want to lose the 100 pounds and cross that goal off of the list, but I really don’t want to stop there. I want to add goals of my first century ride, my first challenge century, my next 50 pounds lost, and so much more. I want my son to think that dad was always fit and active and I want him to grow up thinking that is the way normal people act.

So, who’s up for another year?

Posted in challenge, fitness, life skills, Weight Loss | Tagged , , , , , | 8 Comments

Music and Lyrics

Posted on July 29, 2013 by Joe Johnson

I think there are two types of people, those who believe that you can group everyone into two types of people and those who don’t. Sorry, but I had to make that joke early in this post. I do think there are two types of people when it comes to music, those who listen for the lyrics and those who don’t. Some people listen to the beat of a song or the melody and enjoy it. They know there are lyrics, but they don’t use the lyrics to identify with the song. My wife is one of these people. She will love a song and be able to hum along with it, but mostly the melody, not the lyrics. Even if she hums the lyrics she might not know the actual words. I should also mention that she is a musician that can still play the piano without practicing since childhood. She just happens to identify with the melody of songs more than the lyrics.

I am just the opposite. I might not even like a song’s melody but if I like the lyrics I will connect with it. I will end up thinking of lines or verses and trying to decide what the artist means or was thinking when they wrote it. Unlike my wife, I will know there is a melody but I will often struggle to remember it without the lyrics that go with it. I love music and have played many instruments but I always preferred the lyrics. I often know every word to songs I like and can remember them even if I haven’t heard the song in years. I will laugh when this happens because imagine what I could remember if I didn’t dedicate so much space in my memory for words of long forgotten songs!

Even so, I end up being caught off guard from time to time by lyrics of songs that I have sung along with in my car for years. The other day I was listening to Jimmy Buffet sing “Far Side of the World” when he sang this: I believe in song lines, Obvious and not. I’ve ridden them like camels to the most peculiar spots. They run across the oceans, through mountains and saloons. And tonight out to the dessert, where I sit atop this dune. I know that these lines mean something to Jimmy Buffet and me, but I have a sneaking suspicion that it’s two different things. I am sure that Jimmy Buffet has ridden camels and traveled the world singing his songs. Me, not so much, but I have traveled the worlds in his and others’ songs and they have also become the soundtrack of my life. A random trip through this song and I found myself thinking about those lines like I had never had before.

That is part of the beauty and truth of music to me. It’s amazing that two completely different people can share similar emotions through words and melody. The artist feels an emotion and tries to capture it. That attempt is heard by each member of the audience slightly differently. My experiences can cause me to hear one message while your experiences can shape the message into something different. I think that is why one song can mean so much too so many different people who all derive something slightly different from it. I think it’s also why some people may not like a song when others love it. I always think of Billy Joel’s song “Scenes from an Italian Restaurant” when I think about this. People love to play this song at weddings, always enjoying the classic movement where Billy Joel sings “A bottle of red, a bottle of white, it all depends on your mood tonight.” I think people forget the other movement of the song. Mr. Joel sings about Brenda and Eddie and how they progressed from falling in love right through their eventual divorce. Not my choice for a song to hear right after getting married, but I have heard it at almost every reception I have ever gone to.

These days another song I keep hearing and keep thinking about is the fun. song “Some Nights” I listen and each line seems to cut right to the center of the different topics on my mind, mostly my writing and how others feel about it. I hear the lyrics and I just can’t help thinking that some nights I hope that people read this blog and enjoy it, identify with the posts and look forward to new ones. Some nights I hope that people tell their friends about this and that more and more people read and enjoy the posts. Some nights I hope that this all fails, that no one pays attention and that I don’t have to write anymore. There is a certain leap of faith in throwing yourself out into the internet and there are times where I hope I fail because then I can stop. At the same time, I don’t want to stop if people are listening and enjoying what I have to say. I want to entertain people and I want to deliver some type of positive message. Some nights I want to build a castle, some nights I just want to quit.

Then there are the lines about someone’s ghost. There are so many ghosts in everyone’s past. I know there are people that I would love to read some of my posts, to be able to explain long ago times to. To let them know that I still see them sometimes, and that they are still a part of what and who I am, whoever that is on any given day. They’re gone, and that is the way it is, so there are also times where I think that I am glad they never listened and I am thankful for the distance.

My favorite part of the song is the defiant tone; you know this isn’t over for the singer. There are nights he wants to stop, and there are nights he wants back, but he will go on. He’ll sing again tomorrow. I know it has to be the same for me. I’ll try again tomorrow. I’ll write again tomorrow. I’ll post again next week because even though it’s a little scary to write about yourself someone might be listening and need to hear whatever it is that I have to say. They might not, but I still feel like I should say it anyway, even if it’s just for me.

Here are the lyrics to the song “Some Nights” by fun.

“Some Nights”
Some nights I stay up cashing in my bad luck
Some nights I call it a draw
Some nights I wish that my lips could build a castle
Some nights I wish they’d just fall off

But I still wake up, I still see your ghost
Oh, Lord, I’m still not sure what I stand for oh
Whoa oh oh (What do I stand for?)
Whoa oh oh (What do I stand for?)
Most nights I don’t know anymore…
Oh, whoa, oh, whoa, oh, whoa, oh, oh,
Oh, whoa, oh, whoa, oh, whoa, oh, oh

This is it, boys, this is war – what are we waiting for?
Why don’t we break the rules already?
I was never one to believe the hype
Save that for the black and white
I try twice as hard and I’m half as liked,
But here they come again to jack my style

That’s alright (that’s alright)
I found a martyr in my bed tonight
She stops my bones from wondering just who I am, who I am, who I am
Oh, who am I? Mmm… Mmm…

Well, some nights I wish that this all would end
‘Cause I could use some friends for a change.
And some nights I’m scared you’ll forget me again
Some nights I always win, I always win…

But I still wake up, I still see your ghost
Oh, Lord, I’m still not sure what I stand for, oh
Whoa oh oh (What do I stand for?)
Whoa oh oh (What do I stand for?)
Most nights I don’t know… (oh, come on)

So this is it. I sold my soul for this?
Washed my hands of that for this?
I miss my mom and dad for this?

(Come on)

No. When I see stars, when I see, when I see stars, that’s all they are
When I hear songs, they sound like this one, so come on.
Oh, come on. Oh, come on. Oh, come on!

Well, that is it guys, that is all – five minutes in and I’m bored again
Ten years of this, I’m not sure if anybody understands
This one is not for the folks at home;
Sorry to leave, mom, I had to go
Who the fuck wants to die alone all dried up in the desert sun?

My heart is breaking for my sister and the con that she call “love”
When I look into my nephew’s eyes…
Man, you wouldn’t believe the most amazing things that can come from…
Some terrible nights… ah… [“nights” is confirmed by the band’s Twitter page]

Oh, whoa, oh, whoa, oh, whoa, oh, oh,
Oh, whoa, oh, whoa, oh, whoa, oh, oh

The other night you wouldn’t believe the dream I just had about you and me
I called you up but we’d both agree

It’s for the best you didn’t listen
It’s for the best we get our distance… Oh…
It’s for the best you didn’t listen
It’s for the best we get our distance… Oh…

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