Rearranging the slices of the time pie

As I age I realize just how exponentially faster time passes, as the daily and weekly routine accelerates the sensation of the years slipping away. Looking back, the last twenty years seem like flashes of events that I only make sense of in the context of touchstones. Birthdays, holidays, births, deaths--these are constant and spontaneous reference points that compile and seem to compress the passage of days. Counter this with the years between college and when my shift into a life routine began, and these days seemed interminable. I guess the uncertainty of where I was going actually created a decelerating feeling.

I say this because my weekend with my cousins was a great way to look back. They live in New York, and we see them infrequently. But when we do, like all good relationships, we pick up where we left off and it's as if we live in the same neighborhood. The only evidence of time passing are our physical changes.

While I love having family visit, it really does wreak havoc on my precious routine. As I am on a quest for being the best bike racer in our house, this interruption of my Eastern European (read "the latest training fad") regimen is quite a quandary. It brings to mind the 24 hour pie that is our day, and the various ways we slice it. Usually I save the largest slice for myself on Saturday and Sunday mornings, where I galavant off with others who either take this racing thing seriously or just like to ride in a big group. The rest of the pie slices are allotted to the various commitments we make, which, in the end, are often more important. Like eating.

So on a weekend that I commit to my family and extended family, when do I ride? Especially this weekend, which was pretty awesome for a usually drab February. By ferrying people around and depositing them in various places, I am able to execute my nefarious plan to carve a different slice of the same pie for some "me and Eddy (the bike)" time. Only one problem. I have to make sure that I get back in time to pick these various people up and deposit them in their various new locales and/or arrange for dinner etc.

Let's just say I'm not so good at the latter. I'd like to call it "a work in progress".

Despite my clumsiness I was somehow able to make it all work out this weekend and got in two solid rides with my friend Kemal, the second of which I did some power testing that corroborates my previous findings that I am still not where I want to be. Unlike my known and unknown blogging/cycling aficionados who train with power I will not be publishing these numbers, as no one wants to see such small things.

I can empirically state, however, that I can crush anyone in my house (even the cats).