It's pretty rare in life that you actually have something concrete, something tangible, and something finite to measure yourself against.  I know we all have our Masters, and we are all accountable in different ways for results at work and in our personal lives... yet nothing much anymore is really black and white.  Most of us grew up recieving "participation trophies" and knew that we were all really wonderful and capable of achieving our dreams because Elmo told us so.

But have you ever truly set out to do something -- then achieved it, and then gone above and beyond your original expectations?  Maybe you have.  Perhaps you've lived a life of epic goal-setting and achieving.  I think we'd all like to think we live like that -- grabbing life by the horns, and so on.  For me, the reality is, just do the best you can with the situation you're in, and hope to Goodness that it leads to something else that will continue to be challenging and rewarding. 

So what does any of this blather have to do with cycling?  Ok, ok, I'm getting there.  When I first started bike commuting, (14 miles-a-day) it was August.  It was 75 degrees, it was dry, and it was a novelty.  It wasn't hard to find motivation -- it was a pleasure to get out there, and be in the fresh air, and get a nice tan, etc. 

But that was then.  This is now. 

I have now become intimately aquainted with the need for cycling glasses to be vented on top.  Why?  Because when it's 40 degrees, and you're wearing a Balaclava so your nose doesn't fall off... you need the venting or your breath will fog up the lens and you'll be riding blind at 20 mph (and you can't take off your sunglasses by the way, because the cold air causes tears to stream down your face - which will also be peppered by disgusting pieces of mysterious debris flying up from the roadway).  I now struggle at least one day a week to find the reason why I am getting on the bike, and not utilizing the newly-subsidized CTA.  Cycling to work is no longer exciting -- it's just one more routine.

Yet lately I have discovered something about myself and my ride:  I have actually improved as a cyclist, and in a way that is measurable and definite.  I have cut my commute nearly in half.  Not by devising a short-cut-- but simply by pedaling stronger and faster.  I didn't even notice this was happening, until, after a 35-minute commute (the same route that took me 55-minutes a month earlier) my husband looked shocked when I arrived home -- like he was opening the door expecting to see one of the solicitors that love our bleeding-heart neighborhood -- but it was just me -- his sweaty, hungry, life-partner.

And the weird part was -- I hadn't even tried to jam on the pedals -- it was a totally normal pace, or what's normal to me now.  To be able to have this type of evidence that you -- and only you -- made an improvement on a particular skill is intensely satisfying.  I don't do anything else in my life that allows me this type of feedback.  I don't have sales numbers to hit -- I don't bench press -- but I bike to work.  And for now, that's good enough.